Getting Technical

Darren Hague and I had a odd idea two years ago.

“Why not run an unconference for SAP developers and consultants in London.”

So we did. We have run what has become known as SAP Inside Track in London twice now. On 19 June 2010 we will be giving it its third outing.

This year we tried to mix it up a bit by heading up to the midlands but the venue was proving a little tricky so we have gone back to IBM Southbank. Many thanks to Zoe Slattery for all the logistical assistance with the venue.

So you know the date and the venue, but you also need to know there is a small charge to cover the lunch.

There are several SAP Mentors coming to the event from around Europe and the UK. These guys like to get their hands dirty on real SAP systems. You wont be hearing vaporware or marketing speak from them.

The list of sessions that we have already is impressive. We have James Farrar from the SAP Sustainability Team. James recently presented to the SAP Mentors at SAPPHIRENOW in Frankfurt about the SAP Sustainability report.

Ant Phillips from IBM will be presenting a session on Enterprise Patterns.

Dennis Howlett will be leading a topic on Marketing. We have people from inside SAP and consultants and it is well worth getting down to IBM to listen to a bunch of really smart people talk about SAP and Enterprise Technologies.

The other sessions planned for the day are on the SDN Wiki.

If you are into twitter then follow along with the fun at @SAPInsideTrack.

One final thing to say is that the great people at Keytree have agreed to put some money behind the bar so we can have a drink after the event at one of the local pubs.

WORLD CUP NOTE: I am aware of the England game the night before and Australia and the Netherlands are both playing on Saturday so set your recorder and come along to a great day of information and networking.

So, put your name on the wiki page, pay your tenner for lunch and we will see you there.

[Picture of SAP Inside Track 2009 courtesy of Yojibee]

Last week, while at SAPPHIRENOW, I installed a flip phone onto my computer and while this was a good thing, getting the upgrade to work was painful. I had to hit it with a figurative hammer to get the software to work properly.

One downside of that is that I my Microsoft Outlook installation got corrupted and wouldn’t open. I kept getting a error :

“Cannot start Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window.”

Well there is a simple solution. Start->Run and enter

outlook.exe /resetnavpane

And all is well.

This week I am in SAPPHIRENOW, Frankfurt. SAPPHIRE is the annual ’sales’ conference of SAP. This is the week where they have pitched their message to the market place.

A lot has changed in the last 100 days at SAP. It was 100 days ago today that Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe took the reigns from Leo Apotheker. In the language yesterday there was a lot that sounded like it was a political administration. The first 100 days has become a symbol of making change quickly and hitting the ground running.

Even just in the first half day of this conference we can see an energy and enthusiasm about SAP people not least from Co-CEO’s themselves. I think when the new Co-CEO’s were announced there was some skepticism whether this arrangement would work. I think it is working and there seems to be a new direction about the company.

Last night there was a reception for press, bloggers and mentors at a local art gallery. It was at this informal gathering that I heard someone say that ‘SAP has got its MOJO back‘. Craig Cmehil conspired with Jen Roach, Head of Global Communications, to introduce Jim Habemann Snabe to the collected SAP Mentors. He was very engaging and explained how well he and Bill are getting on as a working partnership. It was apparent that not only do they get on well but they are able to work together effectively even with a large time difference between their US and European offices.

Even though at this stage in the conference in Frankfurt there has not been too many announcements, it is clear – at least to me and some of my colleagues – that change has come to SAP, that SAP is continuing to innovate and that SAP has turned an important corner.

I am looking forward to the rest of the conference and more announcements today and tomorrow.

We all like to have wars over our text editors but when SE80 that SAP transaction that everyone loves to love opens JavaScript files from the SAP MIME library in Windows Notepad it is a bit much to take.

A colleague suggested that it was based on the Windows defaults for the program so I changed the defaults for .js to open in Notepad++ but still SE80 opens JavaScript files in Windows Notepad.

Until …

Today I noticed that when SE80 opens the JavaScript files it opens them as a .txt file for editing and on close re-imports into the MIME library as a .js file.

So …

I changed the default program for .txt files to be Notepad++ and now my .js files open in a much better editor.

This probably applies to .css and any other text based files you have in your MIME libraray.

Recently I was set up with a system without the correct SAP systems on my ‘logon pad’. This made it a little hard to access the systems I needed but here is the tip.

Use the sapgui.exe application to access the system you need.
Simply (from windows) hit the start button and then ‘Run’ and then type:

sapgui [appserver-domain] [system number]

If you add the switch /WAN it will treat it as a low speed connection.

One of the benefits of this is that it doesn’t start the SAP Logon application which will save you about 20M of memory. The downside is you don’t get the application in your tray that shows all the systems you are logged on to when you right click it.

More information here [SAP Service Marketplace link - credentials required]

It has been a long time coming this year, but I can now confirm that I will be attending TechEd in Vienna.

Vienna - I'll be there.

It will be a flying visit as I fly out  Thursday night so not much time to enjoy the highlights of the city.

So what will TechEd hold for me?

I have planned a few sessions to attend but there will be lots of SAP Mentor meetings , Demo Jam (SAP Entries notwithstanding), Hacker Night, catching up with virtual friends in the flesh and a keynote or two.

I note that Leo Apotheker will not be speaking. That is interesting all by itself.

The wonderful Community Network people have produced these badges and I love this one. “Come See Me Speak”. I know it is meant for people who have official sessions but you could come just to see me speak. I will be talking after all.  See you in Vienna.

Speaking at Vienna (well I am not a mute)

Earlier this year we (a couple of SAP Mentors) put on an Inside Track event in London. As the SAP TechEd series of events is coming around now I am starting to think about what we could do for next year. Here are a few questions for you:

Did you enjoy the event this year?

Would you recommend it to a friend?

What went well?

What could we improve?

Given there is an event in Bonn in the first half of next year would you come to both?

What dates work for you?

What topics would you like to see covered?

Answers in the comments please.

For more information about the SAP Inside Track series of local events follow http://twitter.com/sapinsidetrack/

Note for the lawers amoungst us: SAP Inside Track is a community run event organised by SAP Mentors in various cities around the world. It is not officially endorsed as an official education channel by SAP AG or any of its local subsiduaries. Having said that the people who come to these events know what they are doing and you 1. might learn something and 2. might meet someone. You should come.

I was up for the go live of the Wolfram|Alpha site this morning and there is a new ‘Fail Whale‘ that I am sure everyone will be talking about soon.

I love recruiters. I really do. It really comes down to different skill sets for different roles. With over  a decade in this software game now I have learnt a few skills that makes my time salable to the highest bidder. Over time I have taken some skills off my cv as it generates false hits for roles that I have no interest in doing.

Having said all that I am always happy to talk to a recruiter or read their emails. Sometimes they start with ‘ Sorry if this is not right for you… ‘ you get the idea. I would rather build the relationship with them when I don’t need them than have to try and sell myself and my skill-set to someone who has no idea who I am when I do desperately need a new client.

I have a handful of recruiters that I work with I guess, but every now and then I get a call that even makes me chuckle. The guy was running through the specification for a new role that had ‘just come in’. It was all sounding pretty good until he read out “Must have ‘Double Zero’ skills”. For a moment I thought I was going to be required to save the world from some evil dictator.

“I think you mean Oh-Oh”, I said.

“No it says ‘Double Zero’”.

“It actually says Oh-Oh. It stands for Object Oriented. They are looking for object oriented skills.” I was being patient with him.

“Well you learn something every day.” He gave a little embarressed laugh.

And while we have a little chuckle over this incident I really hope he does learn something every day because I certainly am. There is so much happening in the wonderful world of software development not to be. I am currently  working on my Flex 3, WDA, ABAP, ABAP OO, PHP, Python, Dojo and one or two other things for good measure.

Darren Hague and I had a odd idea last year.

“Why not run an unconference for SAP developers and consultants in London.”

SAP Inside Track London 2009

We had both been to SAP Community Days and thought we could pull something off. So we hustled together a venue and a wiki page to handle the signups and sessions.

It was a lot of fun. So much so that this year we are repeating the whole process.

This year we have managed to secure IBM Southbank as a venue. Thanks to a lot of help from Zoe Slattery. 

The date is April 4 and there is a small charge of £10 to cover the lunch. (Signup quickly in March for the early bird rate. In April it will rocket to £15!)

There are several SAP Mentors coming to the event from Europe so it is a great chance to hear from them and particularly the ESME team.

Ant Phillips from IBM will be presenting a session on connecting SAP up with Project Zero, the community version of Websphere sMash. The other sessions planned for the day are on the SDN Wiki.

One of the  sessions is a discussion on certification. This has been a hot topic in the SAP community lately. New Mentor Michael Koch is currently running a survey on how certification relates to contractors. You can complete this survey here and it would be great to see some good results from that survey at the unconference.

You can follow the fun in twitter at @SAPInsideTrack.

One of the great benefits of these days is the networking and conversations with people in trenches.  In credit crunched times such as today these can be even more valuable than official training sessions and (dare I say it) certification.

If you would like to come along to meet the mentors, participate in the sessions, run a session for yourself there is still time to signup.