One thing my buddy Joanne Kolasa at Data Planners always reminds me of is how IBM offers free training for many of its products.  This training is offered through the Virtual Information Center, or VIC for short.  This training is free for all members of PartnerWorld.

Not long after I started with Aktion Associates, my manger and I sat down and came up with a few items I can do to help grow the IBM / Lotus side of the business.  We've been getting leads for customers interested in Lotus Forms, and I said that I'd be happy to get up to speed on the technical aspects of this product.

Previously, all I've known about this product was from a presentation Lisa Sarkady gave to the Detroit Notes Professionals back in December '06.  This was back when the product used to be known as Lotus Workplace Forms.  Funny how IBM dropped the "Workplace" name almost as quickly as Windows dropped "Vista", and for essentially the same reasons!

But I digress.  Once I got my existing PartnerWorld profile associated with Aktion Associates, I was able to get into the Lotus Forms v3.0.1 course.  Its delivered via the IBM Lotus Learning Management System, which I can't remember the last time I heard anything about.

ILLMS is an okay delivery vehicle for the course.  The user interface is kinda clunky, and when my login times out it incorrectly marks the unit I was in as having been completed.  It would be great if this and other courses could be delivered via TLCC, by the way...

Besides the technical issues, the content of the course is pretty good.  While I'm positive that the course itself doesn't match what Data Planners offers, the material does serve as a decent introduction to the product.  Once I get through all of the static content, I plan on requesting a virtual server so that I can complete the lab exercizes.  I've always learned better by doing stuff, so this may be where I get the most out of the course.

As I get through the material, I'll share my thoughts on this product. So far, I'm intrigued by what Lotus Forms can do, and slightly overwhelmed by the number of moving parts involved. Of course, any other solution looks complicated compared to the simplicity that is Lotus Notes! ; + )

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I got to page 435 last night of this book, which is approximately halfway through the material (not counting appendices).

I've bought many big books on various computing languages over the years, but I usually only end up reading the first three or four chapters in order. I typically skip to the "good parts" and never actually read the entire thing cover-to-cover.

I wonder though, how many professional programmers--besides Duffbert--actually read any of those supersized tomes from start to finish? Should publishing companies give out medals (or frequent reader points) for those who can prove they've read the "the whole thing"?

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