balfes.net http://blog.balfes.net Software and nothing but, ok maybe not Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:17:23 +0000 en hourly 1 balfes.net /wp-content/uploads/2011/03/b.png http://blog.balfes.net Software and nothing but, ok maybe not FourSquare check-ins versus native applications http://blog.balfes.net/2012/01/27/foursquare-check-ins-versus-native-applications/ http://blog.balfes.net/2012/01/27/foursquare-check-ins-versus-native-applications/#comments Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:17:23 +0000 Bob Balfe http://blog.balfes.net/?p=3199 I have been playing with FourSquare for about four weeks now as many of my friends have probably seen the check-ins on Facebook and Twitter. I have even gone to the extent to checking out the API behind the scenes and it looks very clean and easy. The basis of the API is REST (REpresentational State Transfer). So integrating other commerce based products, tools, and sites should be a snap.

Not many people in my area are using FourSquare but on a positive note there seem to be more and more people using it even in the past month. I am already a mayor in two places; not sure what that buys me but it felt good.

I used FourSquare to check into a store called Justified; my wife and I were shopping for a birthday present. There were signs all over the store for 40% off. When I checked into FourSquare I received a coupon code “500″ and received an additional 40% off! I was thinking, there is no way its 40% off then another 40% off, but that is exactly how it rang up at the register after presenting the coupon from my iPhone. We saved tons of money that day. So much in fact, we got the girl double the amount of gifts because we felt bad it was so inexpensive – she really made out…

Now, on to my point. I really like the concept of check-ins using an application like this. It allows me to use the application to find many kinds of places and see what those places have for specials. For instance, I might be at a Best Buy with a Staples next door, I see on FourSquare that Staples has a coupon or a special by seeing the special indicator in the “Stores nearby”. This immediately lets me know what stores in my physical area have specials and which stores do not. In my mind, this is a huge benefit over stores with specific applications on my iPhone. Stores with their own applications make me go into their application, check-in, and look for specials – once again, very different than seeing a list of stores with specials. So it makes me ask, why go through the trouble of having a native iPhone(mobile) application when services like “check-in” and “coupons” are available on products like GoWalla, FourSquare, Facebook, etc? With HTML 5 you could get a lot accomplished on these devices without having a special native application for your store. Leave check-ins to applications that offer a community, badges, rewards, and a social aspect to the check-in action.

 

]]> http://blog.balfes.net/2012/01/27/foursquare-check-ins-versus-native-applications/feed/ 2 Blog and video stats for 2011 http://blog.balfes.net/2012/01/03/blog-and-video-stats-for-2011/ http://blog.balfes.net/2012/01/03/blog-and-video-stats-for-2011/#comments Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:10:54 +0000 Bob Balfe http://blog.balfes.net/?p=3197 I started keeping stats in 2010 and it looks like 2010 was a “better” year for hits and posts, most likely because I blogged a lot about Lotus and Eclipse stuff more (about twice as many posts) that year than 2011. This site generated 88,815 hits for the year in 2011 and 68,443 in 2010 (minus three months of logging statistics).

The home page is by far the most active hit, probably because of my blog URL on all of my social site profiles (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc).

Title Views
Home page 12,951
Window Builder for Eclipse – for SWT, RCP and SWING UI’s 1,628
Is GWT the future of web development? 1,561
Finding the XPath in Internet Explorer 1,344
plugin_customization.ini and Eclipse preferences 1,253
How does Facebook serve millions so fast? BigPipe 988
Flash, HTML5, Java, Silverlight – which one would you use? 864
Which Java sort is faster – MergeSort, QuickSort or Arrays.sort? 850
Eclipse announces move to .NET and away from Java 815
Kick ass Group Calendar for Lotus Notes 800
New Lotus Notes Attachment Viewer 2.0.1 posted 789
Eclipse 3.7 is available for download! 711
Java tops the list of “in-demand” and highest paid skills! 684
Will Java 8 bring in OSGI? 615
Where are all of these Eclipse preferences stored? 613
HTML5, CSS and Dojo it is 571
Quick tip: Using Sametime Emoticons for quick text 558
A great Lotus Notes Composite Application tutorial 539
Expensify CEO: Why We Don’t Hire .NET Programmers 535
Free charting in Lotus Notes 530
Dojo.query and forEach loop, a powerful combination 530
QuickTip Video: Using Eclipse’s Auto-Complete feature 520
Learning the Eclipse RCP by Lars Vogel 509
Extending Notes Mail – Mail Rule utility update for Notes 8.5 504

I did have a fairly good year of video viewers on YouTube with 6765 views of for the year. I am glad to see some WebSphere Commerce videos in that top 10 list but it looks like the Lotus and Eclipse ones still reign.

 

 

]]> http://blog.balfes.net/2012/01/03/blog-and-video-stats-for-2011/feed/ 0 2011 – A year of change http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/31/2011-a-year-of-change/ http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/31/2011-a-year-of-change/#comments Sat, 31 Dec 2011 15:28:59 +0000 Bob Balfe http://blog.balfes.net/?p=3180 2011 was an amazing year for me. Full of struggles, change, and excitement. Here are few of the highlights I had for the year (minus a few struggles):

  • First year of be married to my wonderful wife, we now collectively have five kids in the house!
  • I turned 40 this year, really starting to feel old in the mornings
  • I changed career direction – moved out of Lotus and into Industry Solutions – having a great time, love the new job!
  • Kim (my beautiful wife) got me a Harley for my 40th
  • My daughter made Varsity cheer in football and basketball and is in 10th grade.
  • My son Nathan was quarterback and line backer in tackle football.
  • My son Bobby got his first job.
  • My blog took a back seat to many things this year, family.
  • We joined the Disney Vacation club and went on our first vacation, awesome, highly recommend it.
  • Got my second tattoo, which I designed – “Devil Dog Inside me”
  • I finally switched over to Chrome as my default browser
  • I launched KidWrite.net
  • I launched PlanetWebSphere.net
  • 28 Days of Dojo was the best month for my blog, continues to get a lot of hits, thank you!
  • My cat Mindy died, she was 12 years old.
  • I upgraded to the iPhone 4GS, totally love Siri
]]> http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/31/2011-a-year-of-change/feed/ 2 12 Days of commerce: Flash Sales http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/22/12-days-of-commerce-flash-sales/ http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/22/12-days-of-commerce-flash-sales/#comments Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:41:12 +0000 Bob Balfe http://blog.balfes.net/?p=3193 In this demo I show how you can set up a flash sale in WebSphere Commerce. This mixes date and time driven promotions and web activities. The setup is a sale for a new Nike shirt will happen on Friday from noon to five where the shirt will be 20% off. The advertisement helps on the home page but you could also use remote widgets to advertise on other sites like Facebook and blogs.

]]> http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/22/12-days-of-commerce-flash-sales/feed/ 0 12 Days of commerce: Replace Logo in an extended Site http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/20/12-days-of-commerce-replace-logo-in-an-extended-site/ http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/20/12-days-of-commerce-replace-logo-in-an-extended-site/#comments Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:27:32 +0000 Bob Balfe http://blog.balfes.net/?p=3191 In this video I show how you can replace the default content for an eMarketing Spot in WebSphere Commerce. You can optionally use a web activity and change the logo based on rules but this approach shows how you can achieve a new logo by utilizing the default content field on the eSpot itself.

]]> http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/20/12-days-of-commerce-replace-logo-in-an-extended-site/feed/ 0 Solr synonym file for different segments and industries http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/19/solr-synonym-file-for-different-segments-and-industries/ http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/19/solr-synonym-file-for-different-segments-and-industries/#comments Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:00:00 +0000 Bob Balfe http://blog.balfes.net/?p=3188 I have gotten asked in previous conversations if there are standard synonym files for different product sets and industries for the Solr search engine. Interestingly enough I could not find anything out there so I decided to create an online repository on GitHub for such files. I envision files for all kinds of industries and product sets. I put some ideas out there and if anyone else has more please share with the community.  If you happen to have a large set of synonyms today also share those!

You can check out the repository here.

]]> http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/19/solr-synonym-file-for-different-segments-and-industries/feed/ 0 WebSphere Commerce welcomes iOS to its arsenal! http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/16/websphere-commerce-welcomes-ios-to-its-arsenal/ http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/16/websphere-commerce-welcomes-ios-to-its-arsenal/#comments Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:05:43 +0000 Bob Balfe http://blog.balfes.net/?p=3185 This isn’t part of the originally planned “Twelve Days of Commerce” but it fits in well!

A few weeks ago IBM announced a native application for Android based devices. Being an Apple guy myself I have been waiting to announce this. WebSphere Commerce now has a native iOS application that uses the same REST base services the Android version uses. Even better, this solution is published as Open Source – talk about a great way to learn the WebSphere Commerce API’s!

You can check out the announcement and offering on the IBM site. You can also learn about the new offering on the InfoCenter.

]]> http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/16/websphere-commerce-welcomes-ios-to-its-arsenal/feed/ 0 12 Days of commerce: Proximity Alerts http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/16/12-days-of-commerce-proximity-alerts/ http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/16/12-days-of-commerce-proximity-alerts/#comments Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:54:33 +0000 Bob Balfe http://blog.balfes.net/?p=3183 In this video I show how you can create basic proximity alerts in WebSphere Commerce. An example is, you can show an alert when the shopper is close to a promotion. Example, say you have a proximity alert set for a minimum order of $120 and a discount of $30 when the cart contents reach $200. This alert will show to the shopper if they have a total cart value between $120 and $199.99.

]]> http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/16/12-days-of-commerce-proximity-alerts/feed/ 0 Pissed off Penguins http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/16/pissed-off-penguins/ http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/16/pissed-off-penguins/#comments Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:47:51 +0000 Bob Balfe http://blog.balfes.net/?p=3178 I have been a user and fan of the Blender tool for quite some time. There is a KickStarter project looking for less than $250 to complete the bidding process for the project. If you believe in Open Source and education for the masses then help Kris complete this project. Whether you are a low level developer, artist or just someone who like doing this stuff for a hobby (like me) then this is a great project to learn from.

Donate a $1 or $5 today!

]]> http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/16/pissed-off-penguins/feed/ 0 12 Days of commerce: Generating SKU’s http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/15/12-days-of-commerce-generating-skus/ http://blog.balfes.net/2011/12/15/12-days-of-commerce-generating-skus/#comments Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:29:23 +0000 Bob Balfe http://blog.balfes.net/?p=3176 In this video I show the cool tool “Generating SKU’s” in the WebSphere Commerce Management Center. A business user can use Management Center to enter products and SKU’s very easily and in this video I show how easy it is.

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