I had an interesting discussion with a co-worker yesterday and I wanted to bring the thoughts it generated to the blog for discussion. Background: My co-worker and I had a meeting with someone who could become a potential customer down the road. This was my first time meeting this person and second for my colleague. As we left the meeting, we talked about the follow-up. My initial reaction was to reach out in an email and send a LinkedIN invitation to create that first professional network connection. My co-workers reaction was not to make the LinkedIN connection. That was to be done later as you got to know each other better. There is a 10 year difference between us, but both of us are active in networking, both in person and on-line. I have this blog, my co-worker does not. We both use LinkedIN quite a bit. He has a Twitter account, but I am far more active. Facebook is something I also use far more heavily. We both use Slideshare quite a bit. So I started thinking about how I co

So one of the movies that came out this week on Blu-Ray was what I consider my guilty movie pleasure. It's Armageddon. I know, I know. It's cheesy. It's Michael Bay at his worst. It's over the top and from a scientific stand point, a complete train wreck. But man, how I love watching it. Typical summer blockbuster action movie with a sappy under plot and some really bad acting along the way. It has a great cast - you can't fault them for putting together an ensemble of Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thorton, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck, Will Patton, Steve Buscemi, Luke Wilson, Michael Clark Duncan, William Fitchner, and Jason Issacs. Oh, and the intro narration of Charlton Heston. When I need something mindless to get my mind off anything, and I don't want to play video games, this is one of the first things I will put in. What is your guilty movie pleasure?

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies After Dark Horrorfest 4 Avatar (from last week) Barbara Stanwyck Collection, The Descent, The: Part 2 Destination Truth: Season #1 Did You Hear About the Morgans? Fugitive Kind, The: The Criterion Collection Hills, The: Season #5: Part 2 I Love Lucy: The Movie And Other Great Rarities Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus It's Complicated It's Garry Shandling's Show: Season #1 Looney Tunes Super Stars: Bugs Bunny: Hare Extraordinaire Looney Tunes Super Stars: Daffy Duck: Frustrated Fowl Marked: Season #1 Ride With The Devil: The Criterion Collection Spectacular Spider-Man, The: Volume 8 Survivors: The Complete Original Series Swords: Life On The Line: The Complete Season Tales From The Darkside: Season #3 Computer Games Super Street Fighter IV ( Xbox 360) Record of Agarest War Limited Edition ( Xbox 360) 2010 FIFA World Cup ( Xbox 360) NIER ( Xbox 360) Super Street Fighter IV ( PLAYSTATION 3) 2010 FIFA World Cup ( PLAYSTATION 3) NIER ( PLAYST

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

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies Bright Star Coco Before Chanel Crazy Heart Deadly Impact: Unrated Drawn Together Movie, The: The Movie Emma (2009) Falcon Crest: Season #1 G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero: Season #1: Part 3 Have Gun Will Travel: Season #4: Volume 1 Lovely Bones, The Merlin: Season #1 Minority Report (Blu-Ray) Peacock Perry Mason: Season #5: Volume 1 Summer Hours: The Criterion Collection Vivre Sa Vie: The Criterion Collection Young Victoria Computer Games Sherlock Holmes Vs. Jack the Ripper ( Xbox 360) Monster Hunter Tri Classic Controller Bundle ( Nintendo Wii) Wii Classic Controller Pro - White ( Nintendo Wii) Monster Hunter Tri ( Nintendo Wii) All Star Karate ( Nintendo Wii) Thinksmart: Advanced ( Nintendo DS) Dementium II ( Nintendo DS) Thinksmart ( Nintendo DS) Beat City ( Nintendo DS) Margrave Manor 2 The Lost Ship ( Windows Vista / XP) Left Behind: Tribulation Forces ( Windows Vista / 7 / 98 / 2000 / Me / XP) 3D Hunting 2010 MBX ( Windows Vista /

So if you have not read this post Video games can never be art by Roger Ebert, please start there. So Mr. Ebert says quite a bit on why he doesn't think video games are not art, and man, I totally disagree. To me, art is what moves you. It invokes emotion. There are many things out there that I feel lack taste, but are still art. For instance, the live performance art of naked people sitting in a chair - I don't get it, I think it's dumb, but I still think it's art. Just not my taste. But Mr. Ebert specifically calls out video games. I can think of many games that provoked as strong an emotion as any movie, painting, sculpture, statue, or building I have seen on this planet. Seeing much of the stuff in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg caused me to stop and stare. So did the first time I saw the Cyber Demon in Doom ... and then two seconds later got my first rocket in my face and red screen. There are movies out there that make me emotional, such as E.T. or Shawshank Redemption. I've

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

This is a great demo of why HTML5 matters, written in HTML5. This is for the web developer looking for what is new, but it is also for the other folks who want to know why IBM Lotus is betting so big on HTML5 as one of the five key technologies for IBM Project Vulcan. Check it out here. (Thanks Don!)

Something interesting is happening in the gaming world. In 1994, one of the best games of all time ( voted to be one of the best video games of all time by many gaming magazines and websites, including #1 on the IGN's list of Top 25 PC Games of All Time in 2007 and again in 2009, #2 on the Pelit's list of Best Video Game Since 1992 in 2007, #3 on the PC Gamers list of "Top 50 Games of All Time" in 2001, and #3 Computer Gaming Worlds list of Best Game of All Time in 2001 ) was released. It was called UFO : Enemy Unknown at the time of release, but we know it now as the first of the X-COM games (the game was renamed X-COM-UFO Defense after release). On Tuesday of this week, it was announced that X-COM was being reimaged for a new game and the development was coming from 2K Marin, the team behind the recently-released BioShock 2. But fans are in an uproar because this won't be a strategy game, but in fact, a first person shooter. The comment threads on the gaming sites are full of stuff

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

Today while on the Notes/Domino Design Partner call, I realized just how far OpenNTF.org has come since IBM got involved and the Alliance was formed. I can't talk about what specifically IBM showed, but there are two great tools coming to OpenNTF.org shortly. It's not what they are that matters, its why they are going on OpenNTF.org. Before this past year, if IBM wanted to get something into the hands of the community, it had to go on Notes.Net or LDD or devWorks. That took time and there was lots of red tape. Now, with OpenNTF.org, once an attorney approves something, it can be made available for download and use. IBM can quickly prototype and try stuff out outside of the Notes/Domino release cycle. Heck, even the Quickr and Alloy teams are using it. Then, after seeing how popular it is and gathering feedback, they can decide to invest and include it in the box in a future version. This is great for IBM and for us. It pleases me to see IBM embrace OpenNTF.org as well as they have. A

IBM did a web conference briefing for a bunch of Lotus bloggers and here are some of the highlights: 1. Integration with business services you use every day Partner Apps - General Availability - Salesforce.com CRM Sales Management - automate collaborating and recording interactions - LotusLive tab inside the product to integration LotusLive Meetings, LotusLive Files, and Activities - On a Salesforce.com Opportunity, you can Invite to LotusLive Meeting or Start LotusLive Meeting - LotusLive Meeting reports stored for reporting - SalesForce.com Enterprise Required (SF requirement) - Silanis - make the process of creating, revising, and signing documents simple and easy - e-SignDoc - end user document space - e-SignRoom - team rooms around documents for electronic document signature - Skype - easily launch into conversations with your contacts right from LotusLive

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies Adventures Of The Great Mouse Detective Apollo 13: 15th Anniversary Edition (Blu-Ray) Brothers Warner, The Dallas: Season #12 Dallas: Season #13 Day The Earth Stood Still (1951 Special) Defendor Dynasty: Season #4: Volume 2 Emergency!: Season #6 Gone With The Wind: The Scarlett Edition Haunted: The Complete Series Jim Henson's Animal Show With Stinky And Jake: Lions, Tigers And Bears Jim Henson's The Song of the Cloud Forest Lovers And Friends Show, The: Season #1 Lovers And Friends Show, The: Season #2 Official Inaugural Celebration, The Pirate Radio Sex Galaxy Slammin' Salmon, The Tom And Jerry Tales: Season #1 Ufc 109: Relentless Computer Games Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction (Xbox 360) Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction CE (Xbox 360) Xbox 360 250 GB Elite Splinter Cell Conviction Bundle (Xbox 360) Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City (PLAYSTATION 3) PlayStation 3 Wireless Controller (PLAYSTATION 3) Family Gameshow (

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

As a follow-up to the thought about Adobe and Creative Suite and Apple discussion, maybe Adobe should go out of it's way to work with Amazon to put Flash on the Kindle? I assume we will see Flash on the HP Slate and a slew of Android tablets later this year. But the Kindle the 'other' successful tablet out there. Amazon has to be working on something to answer the iPad (well, unless you are one of those that thinks Amazon will walk away from the hardware biz and just focus on the Kindle apps). The Kindle 3 could be the mobile Flash device everyone seems to want. My take - who knows. I would love to see a Kindle with some form of backlight and color ... only as long as it is still eInk and has the amazing battery life that my Kindle 2 DX has today. I know, I know .. you can't have the backlit screen and the 2 week battery life at the same time .. but they could give me a switch to turn it off, just like I can do with the wireless today. I would also prefer they keep how light the Kindl

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.

(Note to the reader: I am starting a new "Interesting Thought" blog type. These are mostly quick thoughts I want to get out there for discussion but feel that Twitter and Facebook make the discussion difficult. Enjoy) Interesting Thought: With what seems to be a permanent desire to not support flash on the Apple mobile (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) platform, going all the way up to Steve Jobs himself, why would Adobe not decide to cease supporting OS X Operating System for it's Creative Suite? Creative Suite is just as good on the PC (so I am told, I have not used it on either platform for about 2 years). Why focus on a platform where the company is not willing to work with you on other areas? And frankly, CS is one of the top three reasons people purchase Mac desktops these days (video editing, music recording and processing, and desktop publishing being the top three uses of the Mac desktops) - would it put pressure on Apple to work with Adobe? Yes, I know, its reactionary and negati

My co-worker Jim Vaselopulos gave this presentation at the CAMP IT Conference on "IT Architecture: Strategies for New Technology Adoption" on April 1st, 2010. It is a great presentation that covers some great thought leadership. I know Bruce Elgort enjoyed the presentation so I figured I would share it. How to be Relevant in 2010: Selecting Technologies that are Business EnablersView more presentations from Jim Vaselopulos.

As my day to day job shifts this year, one of the things I am doing more and more is talking about Collaboration more broadly. This is in the form of customer meetings and presentations. I am trying to craft a presentation I can use on a regular basis that will speak to the three pillars in the marketplace. First, there is the IBM Lotus space. I have that area down pretty well. Second, covering the Microsoft offers including Sharepoint, Office, OCS, Dynamics, and CRM. The third pillar is what I am calling 'The Web 2.0 Collaboration Wave' and this includes Google, Box.net, SalesForce, SocialText, and Jive. So a few questions for my readers (and feel free to email me instead of commenting here): 1. What are your collaboration priorities for 2010? 2. What products are you interested in but are not using today? 3. What information are you looking for on the topic of collaboration? If you would not mind, please take a moment and comment (or email). In return, I promise to share the slide

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

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies Ally McBeal: Season #2 Battlestar Galactica (2004): The Complete Series Icons Of Suspense: Hammer Films Jade Warrior Lord Of The Rings, The: Remastered Deluxe Edition Lord Of The Rings, The: The Motion Picture Trilogy (Blu-Ray) (#1 in the DVDPS Top 40) Party Down: Season #1 Sharpe's Peril Simon & Simon: Season Four Tetro UFC: The Ultimate Fighter: Season #10 Computer Games Borderlands Double Game Add-On Pack: The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned / Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot ( Xbox 360) 4-In-1 Racing Wheel Pack ( Nintendo Wii) Wii PowerV DUO Inductive Charging and Storage Dock for 2 Remote Controllers - White ( Nintendo Wii) Borderlands Game Add-On Pack The Zombie Island of Dr. Nex and mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot ( Windows Vista / XP) Music The Sticky & Sweet Tour CD/DVD ~ Madonna Women and Country ~ Jakob Dylan Slash ~ Slash Midnight Souvenirs ~ Peter Wolf I Learned The Hard Way ~ Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings More... my pic

Last week, Alex Brown wrote a pretty scathing blog entry about how Microsoft has not followed thru on implementing and supporting the OOXML ISO Standard. We have seen Ars Technica pick up the story. Even Ed blogged about it. Today, Nathan Freeman asked me this in IM: "so, I'm wondering if Alex's (Brown) blog post puts you in MSFT apologist-mode or "no-duh" mode" My answer was a resounding "no-duh" Here are some thoughts why. Microsoft said in late 2008 that there was no way ISO/IEC 29500 Strict was going to make Office 2010. I find this interesting because (I believe) Alex Brown was in the room when they said that. As far as I can tell, Office is on a 4 year development cycle. The first year is when the previous version is in testing, two years of development, and a year of testing. The specification was accepting mid way thru a development cycle. You don't add something like that midway in a product cycle like this. As much as the team I work with at Microsoft, led by Doug Mahugh