August 26th, 2008
Lotus Notes 8.0.2 Is Now Available
IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8.0.2 includes significant performance improvements and iPhone support
* Provides greater flexibility for accessing mail and calendar information through iNotes Ultralite technology for the Apple iPhone and Domino Access for Microsoft Outlook. iPhone users can access e-mail, calendar, and contact information on the Apple iPhone through IBM Lotus iNotes Ultralite.
* Offers significant performance improvements, starting up about twice as fast as Notes 8.0.1, while maintaining memory requirements.
* Delivers Microsoft Office 2007 Viewers letting individuals view spreadsheets, documents, and presentations created with Office 2007.
August 25th, 2008
Roger, Roger. What’s our vector, Victor?
For the most part, my life is pretty routine. That is why it is so much fun when a new experience comes along. This weekend, I flew in a four seater plane for the first time, going from Boston to Cooperstown, NY. My friend Sasha (in the middle) is a pilot for private planes, and occasionally plays ultimate with my team. Since he was playing with us this weekend, he offered to fly a few people to the tournament. Who am I at turn down an offer to skip a 4-5 hour drive!
We were only allowed to bring 20 pounds each onboard. I guess we had to make up for Adam, the giant on the left! We had gorgeous weather, and the flight was incredibly smooth. Well, expect for when we were doing 2G 60 degree turns, and zero G dives! We had to have some fun up there right!
We arrived early, so we flew over the fields we were playing at, and the brewery where we were camping. Then we landed at this little municipal air strip. I learned about preflight checklists, post-flight tasks, filling the gas, pushing the plane into the hangar, what the talk between the pilots and the tower means, and a bunch of other things.
Don't worry mom, I already have more hobbies than I have time for, I don't plan on taking up flying just yet!
August 22nd, 2008
How much do you know about Notes Full Text Search?
Have you ever noticed the word "More" on your full text search bar? If not, you're missing out on a lot of options!
When you click on more, the Search panel expands to offer several advanced features.
I bundle these into 4 categories:
1. Sort options: This controls how the results of your search are displayed, and consequently, how actions you take on the results are handled.
2. Options: Controls how matches are determined.
3. Conditions: These buttons allow you to get much more specific about what you are looking for.
4. Save/Load: Very useful if you repeat a specific search frequently.
I'll go over each of these in their own post.
Do you use these features today?
August 20th, 2008
Be Free. Work Smart.
Watch the new Lotus Symphony video.
August 19th, 2008
We Won!
This past weekend my ultimate frisbee team won our summer league finals. It was awesome! We played 8 games over 2 days. It was an incredible team effort, with everyone on the team giving everything they had. I wonder if my teammates are hurting as much as I am today. Nah, I'm old! While my game is based more on experience and consistency than speed and height, it is still nice to be able to contribute at this high of a level. There are some amazing superstars on my team, and everyone is such a pleasure to play with. I love my team! Our competition was excellent, both in skill and in spirit, which made for a hell of a fun weekend. If you've never played or watched ultimate, I suggest you look into leagues in your city.
Before anyone asks, the reason Ultimate is not currently in the Olympics, is that it is still "self-governed". That means we call all our own fouls, make our own line calls, etc. It is one of the fundamental tenants of the sport, referred to as "Spirit of the Game". So while there is no Olympic Ultimate (yet), there are national championship and world championships. August 2-9 the 2008 world championships were held in Vancouver, BC, Canada. There were 21 countries represented with games played in 6 divisions: Open - no age or gender restriction, Women - women of any age, Mixed - at least 3 players of each gender on the field at one time, Masters - men or women 33 years or older, Junior Open - men or women under the age of 20, and Junior Women - women under the age of 20.
August 18th, 2008
Broken business processes contribute to our email overload
As anyone who follows the "2.0" space knows, my manager Ross Mayfield is an amazing speaker. One of my favourite things to listen to him discuss is the difference between business process and business practice, and how we consequently spend too much time on exceptions rather than execution.
This is a topic I'm trying to help get coverage in major business magazines. In the true "2.0" spirit, Fast Company is using the power of participation to allow readers to vote on one of their upcoming articles. (they should be using IdeaJam!) I'd appreciate it if you could take a few minutes and vote for this topic at Broken business processes contribute to our email overload.
Thanks in advance for your support.
August 15th, 2008
I’ve gone skinny dipping
Made you look. You dirty people.
Thanks to Planet Lotus I found out about Gab's posting on new themes that are available for Notes 8.0.1 or later.
This is beta, and I've already crashed (on Mac) several times trying to switch into Business Card view in my Address Book, so try it at your own risk :-)
August 15th, 2008
I guess I’m done with Jing for the month
I just got this in the mail...
Dear Jing participant,
Your Jing account has reached the monthly bandwidth limit of 2GB. Viewers cannot access any content in your account until your next monthly bandwidth allocation begins.
Alternatively, you may purchase additional bandwidth from Screencast.com.
TechSmith Corporation
I know Jing (the tool) is free, so I understand they have to make money somewhere. Apparently they have chosen bandwidth. Sorry, one customer gone. In a world of Youtube, Viddler, Vimeo, and even Flickr supporting video now, I can't see myself buying bandwidth from Jing. Guess my videos will have to be hosted elsewhere.
August 14th, 2008
Email and wikis can get along
I think it is wonderful that the whole "2.0" phenomenon has raised the awareness of the value of participation and using shared tools. This is something that Lotus Notes users have known for a decade, and practiced by using Document Libraries, Teamrooms, and Discussion Forums to collaborate instead of email. Unfortunately, that style of working is not as pervasive as it could be, and email is still often used in ways that many not be the most effective option available.
Now, it is important to point out that you can't expect people to simply quit their old ways, and start with the new. I think it is important for there to be a bridge. So, I created the following video to show how email and Socialtext wikis can play well together.
(you can see a larger version here)
At this point, Lotus Notes exerts will be thinking "So what, you can email into a Lotus Notes database". I agree, but the question is, how often is this used in your company? Do your admins set up mail in database documents for each database? If so, how do you communicate the email address to your employees? With Socialtext wikis this is automatic, consistent, and easy to control. I'll go into more details about the mail in options, and way I use it later.
BTW, this is the first video I've made in a while. I don't like the number of times I say the word wiki! Better scripting in the future!
August 14th, 2008
Sumo Equestrian show jumping?
I was thinking last night, once the games are done, do any of the athletes try out other sports for fun? Does Yao Ming jump on the trampoline? Does Kerri Walsh jump off the 10m diving platform? Does Michael Phelps kick a soccer ball around? If you could transpose an athlete from one sport to another, what would it be?
I was thinking Sumo Equestrian show jumping, but a) that would be just too mean to the horses, and b) sumo is not in the Olympics!
August 13th, 2008
If Lenevo can make cool commercials, why can’t IBM!
I was watching the Olympics tonight and saw this commercial. I love it! It gets your attention. It is fun. And at the end, it even shows the product! It made me go onto Twitter and start talking about it. That is what a commercial should do.
August 13th, 2008
Set my desk phone free!
I have a new Polycom IP telephone.
It has an input jack for a headset, but I was wondering if you know about a way to add a wireless headset, so I can walk around my house instead of being tethered to my desk. I'm thinking there must be some wireless or bluetooth type thing that plugs into the headset jack, and then communicates to the headset. I've found a few that look like they might work, but they have all cost more than $200.
Any ideas?
August 13th, 2008
Joi Ito’s Photography of freesouls
CEO of Creative Commons Joi Ito has blogged about his upcoming photography book showcasing people from around the world, or "freesouls". These freesouls are images that can be used in "free" projects under the CC license. Ito and his team used Socialtext as one of their tools to manage the process.
August 12th, 2008
Drop What You’re Doing
Here is a really cool tip when using Apple OSX: Dropping Text on the Dock for Fast Results.
"Lets say you're reading an article on-line, and you read a sentence that you want to email to a friend. Don't do the copy-and-paste thing. Instead, just highlight the text and drag-and-drop it right on the Mail icon in the Dock. It will open Mail and put that sentence into a new mail message."
I love this. Unfortunately, Notes does not appear to support this feature. (nor does Apple iCal, Apple Address Book, Firefox, Adium, Skype, Twhirl, etc. so please no Notes bashing!) If Notes does support this in a future release, I hope we can define which database/document is created. (mail, calendar, document library, teamroom, blog entry, etc)
August 11th, 2008
What a success Ye11owday was!
Wow, that was a fun day filled with blogs posts, tweets, IMs, and emails. What, no sky writing?
Lots of people blogged or tweeted about wearing yellow (Zoe had to be the cutest!), and there were some really original posts such as a funny list of Notes movies by Mike, a help me name our next product post by Corey, a great overview of Notes by Wild Bill, an "I love the community" post by Charles, and an Add to Calendar composite application post by Jo.
There were several giveaways such as awesome Notes 8 Carousel code from Lotus911, a yellow presentation template for Symphony form the Lotus Design Team, a Beanie Bear from Carl, t-shirts from Frank, and a Ye118wday skin for Notes from Devlin.
Thanks to Yancy for the Ye11owday work he did on the PlanetLotus site, and LotusUserGroups for helping promote the day.
I have a tie for favourite posts of the day though. The co-yellow-medal winners in my books are Glenn (no, not for the car, but for the awesome parking job!) and Julian for attempting to hypNOTESize you.
Sorry to anyone I missed, but thanks all around.
