Last week, IBM announced LotusLive Notes, the cloud (hosted) version of IBM Notes & Domino. I didn't have time to blog about it last week, so here is a reply of what took place. First, Ed announced LotusLive Notes. You can also read the IBM press release for IBM LotusLive Notes and IBM Lotus Notes & Domino 8.5.2. Both are coming August 24th, 2010. Then, reporting from a blogger conference call, Tom, Peter, John Roling, and Nathan wrote their thoughts and impressions - and some questions - about the announcements. Nathan wrote about how this really is just the Lotus Domino we all know and love - and why tha tis a good thing. So I can share now, I have been participating in the LotusLive Notes beta. But to highlight how 'real Domino' this really is - I just added a new location to 8.5.2 CD5 and created a connection document to the LotusLive Notes servers. Everything else worked just like Notes. I added the LotusLive community to Sametime - and that was up and running immediate

In honor of Yellow Day, I am going to post a new version of the OpenNTF.org Contacts Experience. Here is what is new: - Support for Microsoft Office 2010 - Updates to Microsoft Office Label and Envelope Functionality - Started work on adding Label functionality - The beginnings of custom field functionality: The goal is to have custom templates that the user can select, but first we need custom fields. The first release just defines the basic fields and a way to customize them. More to come. I have also been working on the first release to support Symphony 3.X when it is embedded in Notes 8.5.2. While not coming on August 24th when Notes 8.5.2 ships, Symphony 3 will have an update toolkit for Notes. This will give us a bunch more functionality, including presentations and labels and envelopes. Enjoy Yellow Day!

As Nathan blogs, Yellow Day is coming in just two short days! Yellow Day is a celebration of the Lotus community - how are you going to celebrate? Some folks like Nathan will release new projects. Others make product or services announcements. Lots of folks post tips & tricks to their blogs. Others make updates to projects on OpenNTF.org. And many just wear something Lotus branded; t-shirt, hat, etc. So how are you celebrating Yellow Day? Whatever you do, you should do something and share that! Blogs, Facebook, Twitter should be a buzz on Wednesday. Get involved and have fun!

User Group season is upon us and I am pleased to be speaking at the second installment of IamLUG. I have two sessions. The first is an hour version of the two hour Lotusphere 2010 jumpstart entitled “Kum Bah Yah” Meets “Let's Kick Butt”: The Integration of IBM Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino with Microsoft Office, .NET, and IBM Lotus Symphony: Welcome to 2010, where Lotus Notes and Domino are just part of your corporate toolset. This session will introduce you to integration of Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1 with Microsoft Office, .NET technologies, OpenOffice.org, & Lotus Symphony. We'll start with the basics and build up to mail merge, exporting to a spreadsheet, charting, presentations, and integration on the Web. Advanced topics such as Visual Studio Tools for Office, advanced development with C#, and integration with Lotus Domino Web Services are included. Integration with Xpages, Google Docs, Sharepoint, ODF, OOXML, and Windows Explorer will highlight the options available. Ev

With all the chatter about an 'App Store' for Lotus Notes, I am really starting to get a bit testy when I hear IBMer's call the Lotus Solutions Catalog anything along the lines of 'app store like' - and here is why. It's on Greenhouse. Until it has a url of www.lotus.com/apps or www.ibm.com/notesapps or even www.ibm.com/lotusapps its just part of a R&D website. Get it off Greenhouse - RIGHT FREAKING NOW! Until I can purchase a product with a credit card and have it install directly into my notes client (or download the .ntf directly) it is not an app store. It is a website that lists first and third party applications. Since this would be an App Store from IBM, no reason the IBM cert couldn't be used to bypass the client policy lock down of plug-ins. We all trusted the "Lotus Notes Template Development/Lotus Notes" for our Notes/Domino templates for years. Do the same for the store so end users can actually install stuff. Until it is available from within the Notes client itself

So just about 3 weeks ago I wrote about how fast the Notes 8.5.2 client was on my new Dell desktop. The numbers got a lot of attention, but there was a bunch of chatter from folks that the machine was not standard. I agree, it's not a standard desktop in the business world. I am lucky enough to have gotten a second new machine in the same time frame, this time replacing my laptop. I got the Lenovo Thinkpad T410s. Here are the specs: Lenovo Thinkpad T410s i5 540 @ 2.53 Ghz 4 Gigs of Ram 128 Gig SSD Hard Drive nVidia NVS 3100M and lots more that don't have any effect on the Notes client (WiMAX, Verizon WAN, eSata, DisplayPort, BluRay Drive, Touch Screen, etc) I installed the Notes client 8.5.2 CD 4 / M2 release. Here are the times: Cold Boot (I restarted the computer, made sure Symphony wasn't preloaded, and started Notes from the Start Bar) 1.65 seconds to the login prompt 2.39 seconds from clicking OK on the login prompt to the Workspace - meaning I could click on a database icon

So it was time to get a new desktop. My old one was 5 years old and was having power issues. Plus, with Starcraft 2, Rage, and a few other games coming out, it was time :-) So here is what I got: Dell Dimension XPS 9000 i7 9.2 @ 2.67 Ghz 9 Gigs Ram 128 Gig SSD Boot Drive 1 TB 7200 Data Drive BluRay Drive DVRW Drive Dual ATI Radeon HD 5870 (cough) 28" Widescreen TouchScreen Monitor I also have Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit on this. A gaming machine for sure, but I will use it work when at home. TweetDeck screams on this as does Chrome. But Notes is the real winner. Why? I installed Notes 8.5.2 CD4 Standard Client. No plug-ins besides anything in the core installer. I set the Notes program directory on the SSD and the data folder on the regular drive. Sametime and Activities are turned on. I set Notes to use Workspace as the home page. I then reboot and launch Notes. With Sametime auto-launching into 3 communities (PSC, Bleedyellow, LotusLive). Times: Cold boot: 15 seconds Warm boo

So after I showed the amazing HTML 5 Presentation to Nathan Freeman, he said the following to me: 6:34:02 PM hrmm 6:34:08 PM I wonder... 6:34:15 PM the JS SQL API... 6:34:25 PM can you write a driver for the SQL backend? 6:34:36 PM John D Head im not sure 6:34:49 PM wouldn't that be interesting? 6:34:53 PM John D Head of course 6:35:00 PM cause then you could use SQL as a declarative syntax 6:35:06 PM would be a reason to revive NotesSQL Nathan of course was talking about Slide 8 - JS APIs : Web SQL Database. Go play with that slide. And then, assuming you are using Chrome, go look at what it did. Here is a screen shot: So we now have a local database in the browser that takes SQL commands. It seems to be installed by default with Google Chrome (not sure of other browsers, will need to check). What if we had a modern day Notes SQL driver that allowed a web app to talk to Domino via SQL. What if IBM Project Vulcan's web client could merge data in an NSF and data in a local

So with 8.5.2 Code Drop 4, IBM removed the limitation of not being able to talk about what is coming in the release. There are a lot of great new changes coming, but the one will make most people smile is the changes to Database Icons. When you select the Icon resource in 8.5.2, you will get this dialog: You can select a full color icon of type BMP, JPG, GIF, and yes folks, PNG. Where do they apply? Well, how about the bookmark bar, database tab, search icon, in Designer, and on the Workspace. I have not found a place they don't show up. You can still create an old style Icon if you want ... there is not image editor built into Designer. Hard to not ask for more than we are getting, but over time, I would love a Save dialog so we can save the source image to the hard drive. But beggars can't be choosers. :-) So thanks to Maureen and her team for getting this one finally taken care of. It's funny, besides DXL and the LSX Toolkit, Database Icons were the item most asked about at "As

Here is a great tip for anyone working with mail merge in Lotus Symphony Documents 1.3 using the LotusScript API. One of the first things people want to do with automating mail merge is to automate just enough so the user can write a form letter without having to automate the whole process. Just get the selected documents, map the fields, and open the mail merge wizard/process. We do this pretty easily with Microsoft Word Mail Merge and the Mail Merge Wizard. Until now, this was not possible with Lotus Symphony Documents. The key is the ShowMailMergeSideBar function on the Mail Merge object. We (PSC) was using the document text as stated, and it was causing issues. The Sidebar would come up in strange ways and the completed merge would not have the field data. Totally strange. So before I reveal the solution, let's look at the documentation for the method: Method ShowMailMergeSideBar This method opens mail merge sidebar in Lotus Symphony. Be sure that the document is visible, othe

So I find myself thinking back to the time when we had the Lotus Weblicator; it took web pages offline; and Domino Off-line Services (DOLS) and they were pretty active and hot technologies. The ability to take web applications off-line with no Notes client installed? I remember being very impressed - seeing as this was the R5 time frame. The DOLS Manager gave us a client-front end to manage those applications and even allowed admins to have some level of control. Click a link on an applications and it was added to my DOLS Manager list. Replication was supported too. The problem with DOLS is it basically ran a Domino Server (nserver.exe) with the HTTP task on the client machine. Hardware couldn't handle that back then. Have you tried using DOLS today? On some of the new hardware, like an i5 or i7 desktop, it screams! Yes - DOLS is still supported and ships with Domino 8.5.1 ... even if DOLS Manager seems to dislike Windows 7 64 Bit OS. With all of this talk about off-line Web 2.0 appl

You can get it here. For those curious, here is the Design Element listing of what is New and Updated from the default Contacts (pernames.ntf) template:

Peter Presnell wrote a very interesting blog post entitled Saving Notes: Why The Notes Client Must Die that has gotten some attention (via PlanetLotus.org) and a bunch of comments. What I find funny is that it has taken just under three months for this discussion to take place in the Lotus blogsphere since IBM Project Vulcan was announced. Yes, the Notes client we know today is dead. What do I mean? Well, if IBM Project Vulcan is successful, the Notes client we have today will be dead. The goal is to build a modern application platform using Web 2.0 technology. The goal is to build a new platform for the future which also keeps the existing Notes application model present. Xpages are the app model. So looking at that direction, why could the Notes client not be just a packaged, installable application that made off-line mobile applications easy to deploy and control? Why not take a complete web experience, wrapped with the off-line capabilities of HTML5, and make an EXE out of it

I swear, it's coming "Real Soon Now" ... Version 1.0 is just in final testing. And here is a preview of some of the features: Version 1.0 will be released here this week. I promise! :-) We won't be submitting this release to the catalog, we want to get some of the "Coming Soon" features done first.

Many of you who read this blog or any of the other IBM blogs that PSC hosts noticed that since Sunday evening, the blog server was very slow. Sometimes not reachable at all. Since fixing it last night, I figured I would pass along a few thoughts on how others can prevent this problem. 1. If you are using the Domino Blog template from IBM, please make sure you have the Anti Spam Check? Option turned to YES The mix-and-mash blog did not have this turned on ... and had gotten over 250,000 comments in about 36 hours. They were from different IP addresses, but this was causing the HTTP server task to pretty much die 2. I figured out that the mix-and-mash blog was the issue specifically because Luis found out that a blog entry from 2008 on that blog was open in HTTP threads a lot ... like over 10,000 active connections. This must have been how the botnet software was keeping the connection to the server and passing the information along to the different machines that were auto-generatin

So like many of the other bloggers in the Lotus Community, I was asked to check out the new "IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1" book from Packt Publishing. I got thru the book today and here are a few thoughts on it. First and foremost, the book is designed to be an overview of the product and an update on what is new. In many ways, it feels like the content you would get from a super duper "What's New in Notes" help file or something from Lotus Education to take the new certifications. I do not think that is a bad thing. If you were expecting a really detailed book on Xpages, this is not that book. I will get to the Xpages issue in a bit, but first - lets talk about what is good in the book. I found the chapters on the Domino Server, Deployment, Upgrading, and Coexistence to be very good, even if there are two chapters about Domino (Chapters 4 and 10) which should have been consolidated into one. I thought for anyone who was a beginner to mid level IT professional would learn someth

Review 2009 Notes 8.5.1 - Oct 2009 - "More than a maintenance release" - DDE w/ new LotusScript and Java editors - Xpages in the client - Traveler for the iPhone - Focus on deployability Notes 8.5.2 is a maintenance release Domino Designer was made available for free New Client Access Client License model - 11 done to 2 - removed client types in licensing - Lotus Mobile Connect Messaging Economics - DAOS - Simplified ID Management (ID Vault) - Reducing operating costs by 30% or more Forrester Research - 147% ROI for Upgrading to Notes and Domino 8.5 - Payback in only 12 months Kirk Gutmann - CSO and CTO, CM - 3000 users on Notes 8 - 93% user satisfaction - moving to 8.5.1 now - upgrading a 1k people a day - Mobility Today - Rich Client, 3% Light Client 1%, 96% at home - Mobility - Projected - Rich Client 10%, Light Client - 70%, Basic Unmanaged 20% - Traveler for iPhone use - Unified Communications - shifts the focus from the device to you - presence awareness, single phone nu

For those of you that have attended any of the integration sessions I have given this year (and years before), I have a demo database that has very specific feature demos for integration topics. I make sure the slides and demo numbers match the demo database. Attendees have told me they love the demo database because it is organized and each demo is self contained. So while I will not stop doing this demo database, I have wanted to do something a bit more usable for a while. So in an effort to rebuild the Integration and Symphony sessions at Lotusphere that I will be giving, we are going to take a new approach. So enters the OpenNTF.org Contacts Experience project. I have always wanted to extend the Contacts application with real world, usable features. I didn't got that route as the templates were not distributable (officially), but now they are. So for the Lotusphere sessions, we are going to build functionality that an end user can use AND highlight integration functionality. Advan

Tri State Lug 2009 - Integration And Coexistence SessionView more documents from John Head. Demo database available for download here

Here is a video I recorded that showcases the PSC Insert Graphic for Lotus Symphony technology demo More videos to come!

To get started with the Lotus Symphony LotusScript API, let's write our first code sample - the ever popular "Hello World" sample. To start, create a new button in a Rich Text field in a document. Change the code selection drop-down to "LotusScript" and enter the (Options) section. To begin, every time you want to use the Lotus Symphony LotusScript API, you need to call the LSX. You do that with the following code: %INCLUDE "symphonylsx.lss" This tells LotusScript to load the Symphony LSX. It also enables LotusScript to do cool things like provide type-ahead for the custom LSX - even in buttons or in actions on a form or view. Now let's write some code. Go into the Click section of the button and enter the following: Dim application As SymphonyApplication Set application = New SymphonyApplication To begin, we are creating an application variable and setting it to the SymphonyApplication class. We then set that variable to a new instance of that c

As you might have heard, Notes 8.5.1 includes a new API for Lotus Symphony - in native LotusScript. It works with all three of the Symphony applications, but the Lotus Symphony Presentations API is very bare in this release. I will cover more about each Symphony application in individual blog entries to follow, but I wanted to give an overview of the LotusScript API first. To begin working with the Lotus Symphony LotusScript API, you need to download the file lotus_symphony851_win_CZ5SZEN.exe. You can get this from both PartnerWorld or Passport Advantage. There is also a version of the file for Linux. Once you have downloaded and unzipped the Toolkit, you will see the following: Here is a description of each folder: docs - contains two pdf's: "IBM Lotus Symphony Developer's Guide.pdf" which is all about working with the Symphony API for modifying the menu, sidebar, and menu bar and is targeted at Expeditor developers and "Symphony Developer's Guide for Notes.pdf" which is for No

One of the features of Notes 8.5.1 that is getting buried under the local XPages and other killer features is the new API that allows Notes developers to write LotusScript and Java to automate Lotus Symphony. No longer does one need to learn the UNO hacks we have been using for the past couple years with OpenOffice.org and the past 18 months with Lotus Symphony. I am queuing up a bunch of articles on the new Lotus Symphony API for this week and next. Here is a quick rundown on them: 1. Introduction to the Lotus Symphony LotusScript API 2. Lotus Symphony Documents "Hello World" in LotusScript 3. Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets "Hello World" in LotusScript 4. Lotus Symphony Presentations "Hello World" in LotusScript (and why it doesn't work) 5. Lotus Symphony Documents and Mail Merge via LotusScript 6. Using the Symphony LotusScript API in a Document Action 7. Using the Symphony LotusScript API in a View Action 8. Building Cha

Here are the slides from my session at UKLUG 2009 in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK last week. Uklug 2009 Lotus SymphonyView more documents from John Head. Demo databases can be downloaded here

The pieces you care about: Domino Designer is now FREE for anyone - and its a pleasure to use Traveler supports iPhone mail, calendar, task, and personal address book sync XPages works locally in the Client Lots of XPages and Composite Applications (CA) fixes and enhancements Symphony toolkit with LotusScript and Java support OpenNTF.org will get a bunch of the out-of-box templates donated. You can now officially use these templates as part of your projects - and have them committed to the catalog. This includes Vince's OpenNTF.org mail experience and much more. What is your favorite feature in 8.5.1?

As many of you have read, IBM officially announced Notes and Domino 8.5.1 IBM PRESS RELEASE: For Immediate Release IBM Brings Lotus Notes and Domino Software to Full Spectrum of Web Devices No Charge Option Available to Developers for Domino Designer to Extend Domino Business Applications ARMONK, NY – October 6, 2009: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a major extension of Lotus Notes and Domino collaboration software for the full spectrum of proliferating mobile and Web-connected devices such as the Apple iPhone, Nokia smartphones, thin clients, laptops and desktops used to access corporate applications and business processes. To spur broader growth of Lotus Notes and Domino applications for the increasingly diverse range of devices in corporate use, for the first time, IBM will make Lotus Domino Designer tools available at no charge. Lotus Domino 8.5.1 is the first version to natively support the iPhone via Lotus Notes Traveler software. This extends Lotus Domino automatic synchin

MMLUG 2009 Integration And Coexistence SessionView more documents from John Head. Download the Demo Database here

One of the areas that I publically speak out about my frustration (which is rare - I save that for internal methods of communication with IBM) is with the Notes calendar. My Calendar for this Friday in Notes 8.5.1 (white blocks are stuff I had to hide from all of you :-) ) I can tell you today that Notes 8.5.1 is going to solve many of those problems, and polish the work done in 8.5.0. Personally, my Notes calendar is the calendar tool I prefer to use - and I have Outlook and Google Calendar accounts in use and have used Apple iCal for years. IBM really got the calendar right. Here are some reasons why: 1. Clicking a calendar link on the web just works. We have asked this for years, but when I am on a web page and click an "Add to my Calendar" link, it should go straight to Notes. With 8.5, Notes acted as the default calendar application in Windows, but the experience in Notes was bad. Now, a single click takes you from the web page to the Meeting Notice in Notes - ready to ad

First, here are the final versions of the press releases that IBM put out today: Companies Choosing Lotus Collaboration to Work Smarter and Lower Costs & 200+ Microsoft Partners Per Month Flocking to Sell IBM Lotus Foundations Second, there was an interview conference call with Caleb Bralow and Ed Brill for the Lotus Blogger program earlier today. Here are some thoughts based on that discussion: Foundations: Caleb Barlow: "Lotus Foundations is a change in business strategy in competing with Microsoft Small Business Server." Some people in the press have asked "Can IBM build a channel for the SMB market?" most of these customers have not purchased from IBM for many years New partners that are traditionally Microsoft partners More often than not, these new clients are a competitive replacement. Microsoft has created this situation, artificial licensing and platform decisions based on number of users. Relationship of buyer and seller is changing. partners moving to a

After our very successful and sold out Notes & Domino 8.5 Upgrade Workshop last week in downtown Chicago, PSC is announcing two more of these workshops. June 24th and 25th - 1051 Perimeter Drive, 9th Floor Conference Rooom, Schaumburg, IL 61073 August 25th and 26th - Chicago IBM Innovation Center, 71 S. Wacker Dr., Chicago, IL 60606 Here is a description of the workshop: Introduction Presentations and Hands-on Lab Exercises for a 1 or 2 day Proof of Technology, with materials focusing on Notes® End User, Domino® Administration, and Domino Application Development enhancements in version 8.5. (Please indicate which day or days you will attend in the Special Instructions box when you register.) Objective The Notes & Domino 8.5 Upgrade is intended to provide the customer with an in-depth examination of the new capabilities of version 8.5 of the products. For existing customers, this exploration will help them assess the additional value and potential impact to their exi

If you really want to submerse yourself into Lotus Notes and Domino this summer, the best way to that is a stretch of four days in August, starting on the 25th. August 25th and 26th is another IBM Lotus Notes & Domino 8.5 Upgrade Seminar like the one we co-hosted last week. The Midwest Lotus Users Group (MWLUG) then has it's first Conference on August 27th and 28th. Registration opened today. PSC is a sponsor and I will be speaking at it (not sure of the topic yet - any suggestions?). So come to Chicago for a 4 deep dive of Lotus technologies. Stay the weekend and enjoy the Chicago summer :-)

PSC is hosting a Lotus Notes & Domino 8.5 Upgrade Workshop on May 27 & 28, 2009. We only have room for 30 people and it is half full as I write this, so if your interested, sign up now! If you can't attend this one, watch my blog for more info about a similar event this summer. Overview The Notes & Domino 8.5 Upgrade is intended to provide an in-depth examination of the new capabilities of version 8.5 of the products. For existing customers, this exploration will help them assess the additional value and potential impact to their existing Notes environment. For new customers, this exploration will not only give them a hands-on experience with a product new to them but it will also reinforce the Lotus Notes advantages over the competition, such as the power of its application development platform. At the conclusion of this Proof of Technology, the participant will leave with excitement and perspective about the business problems this new version can help solve. Who Shou

So I woke up this morning with a slew of blog comments, emails, and instant messages to read. The content varies but it seems what I wrote caused people to react - some negative, some positive. I know Ed blogged in response to what I wrote - and I will get to that in a moment. First, thanks for the feedback. 99% of it has been constructive, even if you did not agree with what I wrote. I LOVE when people disagree with me, even passionately. But you have to, in the worlds of Rob McDonagh, "be constructive and polite". I am not always right and like to learn from my actions. So thanks again. Second, I want to publically separate my comments from yesterday when it comes to the technical aspect vs the marketing, sales, and competitive side of Lotus Notes & Domino teams. Brent Peters commented yesterday about the technical state of the Notes & Domino product line - and I agree 1000000% with Brent. I think the state of the core Notes & Domino products are in the best shape in ma

Domino X Pages 8.5View more presentations from John Head. Here is the presentation that I did with Philippe Riand of IBM this morning at the GRANITE (Chicago Lotus Notes User Group) on XPages. This is a near duplicate of the presentation that Phil did at Admin / Lotus Developer 2009 last week. Instead of having Phil travel to Chicago for this, it made more sense that I presented the slides and Phil ran the demos. It worked out very well and everyone in the room seemed to enjoy the presentation - based on the great comments! It covers the following: 1. What is XPages? 2. XPages Basics 3. XPages Advanced Topics 4. XPages Futures It also has links to quite a few of the XPages demos that are available around the community. One item of note: Just as the IBM legalize states in the slides, the futures stuff is not committed too. Don't plan around that functionality until you see it in the product :-)

So based on a couple of conversations that I have had the past 48 hours, I wanted to pass along a few tips that I have. I started using DDE full time on both a client project and XPages development right around the XPages Training that took place for Design Partners in Cambridge in June 2008. Tip 1: Work Locally Unless you absolutely have too, work locally. Either in a database or a template. Working locally will drastically speed things up Tip 2: Recompile your application if a version of Designer before 8.5 has done any touching of a design element If you have to mix versions of Designer when working on a database, do a Recompile of database before using DDE. It will clean up and convert all the design elements to the 8.5 version and any glitches DDE might have with older version design elements will not hurt you Tip 3: If you are doing fancy C API calls or multiple levels (like more than 5) of script library nesting with LotusScript, DDE might not behave nice. Fall back to 8.0

Check out the LinkedIn Blog: LinkedIn: Coming Soon to an Inbox near you!

I am a bit late to the blogging about these, but I had three Lotusphere 2009 session abstracts approved! First, we have the Jumpstart that Alex and I have given the past couple years Introduction to integration of Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino with Microsoft Office, .NET, and Lotus Symphony. The session has been completely revamped with all new demos and new technology demos including the integration of Google Docs with Notes and Domino applications and some intro samples around creating OOXML and ODF documents. This session has been popular in the past with a back to back repeat pre-scheduled. That is 4 hours of integration demos Sunday afternoon in Orlando to kick off the week. If we do that again this year and you see my Sunday night at the party or eating Ed's sushi at Kimono's after, you will understand why I am punchy :-) Second, I will be giving Lotus Symphony and You - A Developer's Perspective, which is a revamped version of my Irish Lotus User's Group session with less Execut

Check out the icons for Lotus Symphony Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations. We have color! Hopefully this is a precursor to Notes 8.5 getting better icons for the client, admin, and designer!

If you have not heard by now, Monday August 11th, 2008 is Yellow Day. How are you going to participate? Here are some suggestions: Post a blog entry about something cool you are doing with Lotus technologies Post a podcast Release a new app or update something on OpenNTF.org Anything else that adds value to the Lotus community If you post something, use the tag "Yell8wDay" on your blog or pictures or whatever.

There has been some chatter out there about why we are seeing a trickle instead of a flood of plug-ins that work with Notes, Sametime, or Symphony. Besides the fact that they require knowledge of Java and Eclipse.org development, what things are holding people back? I think if we could come up with a comprehensive list of suggestions and road blocks that we could communicate with IBM this is the time. I will post my issues and wish list as another post with a consolidated list from all of you. And please ... let's not make this a "Java is too hard" or "notes developers can't handle eclipse development" discussion. That issue is known but I want to offer constructive feedback on improvement not have the same discussion again.

I am happy to announce that Mary Beth Raven is moving her blog to the PSC blog server! The blog on Devworks is changing as it moves, becoming a Notes based blog and growing to include the either Notes Design Team. Welcome to all of you ... it only took us a couple months :) So for everyone, reset your rss feeds to www.notesdesignblog.com.

So one of the biggest holes in the Domino server product is the fact that Webdav is missing. With webdav, we could have iPhone connectivity ourselves. With Webdav, we could build connectors like the Quickr ones ourselves. With Webdav, web services become so much more powerful. IBM, why is there no Webdav support for Domino? Webdav should be in Domino 8.5 ... and you know it. Update: So yes, Domino supports WebDav for design elements ... I am talking about for documents. Where is full support of the WebDav standard that would allow me to navigate a Notes database using Office or other Webdav clients? That is what I am looking for ... and asking why IBM never did that

I did an update to the Lotus Community slides I put together back in June. I added LotusUserGroup.org (sorry about that folks, was a complete slip) and added urls for every site when they were not obvious. | View | Upload your own You can download the actual slides in PowerPoint, PowerPoint 2007, Lotus Symphony/ODF, and KeyNote here. Again, if someone wants to create a Keynote version, please do and send to me and I will post them. Thanks to Warren Elsmore, we have a Keynote version as well.

Taking Notes Podcast Episode 83 - XPages and Yellow Water" border="0" src="listen-to-me-on-the-taking-notes-podcast-episode-83-xpages-and-yellow-water/content/M2?OpenElement" / Rob McDonagh, Bruce Elgort, Julian Robichaux and myself talk about XPages on Episode 83 of The Taking Notes Podcast. Check it out!

Everyone should remember the date of 6.17.2008. And not because the Celtics beat the snot out of the Lakers to claim the NBA title. Why should you remember that date? XPages came of age that day. I was one of the folks invited to Westford by IBM to get some XPages training. IBM thought they had something 'special' (to use Bill Hume's word) in XPages, but you could tell they were a bit scared that the Design Partners, Managed Beta, and general beta users were not noticing. I told a group of folks Monday night that I had not had my "ah ha" moment with XPages yet, and that is why I was going to the training. Talk about an 'ah ha' moment! More like a major ass kicking on why XPages are the future! So, before I give you my thoughts, let me recap what other people there thought: Andrew Pollack: So a bunch of Notes guys walk into a bar..... XPages continues to impress the heck out of me Tabs, tabs, tabs, tabs ....wonderful tabs... -- Will most XPages sites use tabbed navigation? A s

I think everyone gets that Integra and PSC are working very close together, but I have to say this shocked me. I did not write it and only had an editorial review once it was posted. I am honored and humbled by this sidebar on their web page: I started my path in the Notes world in 1993 with the integration of Notes with Ami Pro. That transitioned to SmartSuite. Then Office ... 5 versions and counting. Recently OpenOffice.org and Lotus Symphony. I look back at this journey and am very proud of the work I have done. Being called the "leading expert" and "Notes veteran" and being only 33 always makes me laugh. 2008 is all about taking this "leading expert" position and really turning that into a viable business. Integra is just the foundation that makes the integration projects and solutions easier to manage and build. This year is going to be very interesting ... To the Integra folks ... thank you very much for the kind words.

I wanted to give a shout out to my co-worker at PSC, Jimmy Minata. Jimmy was accepted to the ITSO Virtual Residency for Best Practices for Building Web Applications for Domino 8! Jimmy and I have worked together for 8 years and he is a killer Notes and Domino developer. I encouraged Jimmy to submit for this, as it will be good for him, PSC, and the wiki. I am sure he will bring great experience to the Virtual Redbook. Nice job Jimmy .. and enjoy your busy March!

Listen to myself, along with John de Gorgio talk with Bruce and Julian on the Taking Notes podcast: Taking Notes Episode 76: 2008.02.16 - Reporting and Notes integration with MS Office and Lotus Symphony with Integra and PSC February 16th, 2008 Bruce and Julian talk with John Head from The PSC Group and John de Gorgio from Integra4Notes where we talked about: * Using Integra4Notes to generaated pixel perfect reports from Notes * Integra4Notes Personal Edition - FREE * Lotus Symphony * Some predictions about Lotus Symphony * and much more This podcast was sponsored by Instant Technologies. It is 20.7mb and runs 45:08 minutes at 64kps. Thanks for chatting with us guys. Podcast sounds really great!