Ed posted a blog entry about PKF dumps Lotus for Exchange last week. The comment thread went the route of 'Notes needs better sample applications, like the Nifty 50 of old.' It is a good conversation to have, even though I do not think the Nifty 50 would play the same role as before. Below is the comment I made: I think that one thing that everyone is forgetting is the difference between an application on OpenNTF and something that comes in the box. On OpenNTF, there is no statement of quality or testing. Yes, people fix bugs and all that. But people do not test a template on every version of Notes & Domino (OS, Server platform, language). IBM has to do testing on all the platforms. They also have to do the language conversion. Now, I am a huge supporter of OpenNTF and folks like Steve Castledine before he joined IBM (PSC does host OpenNTF for free), but its not apples to oranges. Would OpenNTF developers be willing to stick to the blue rinse UI guidelines that Steve had to conver

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies Allo Allo: The Complete Series #5, Part 1 Allo Allo: The Complete Series #5, Part 2 American Muscle Car: Season #3 Animaniacs: Volume One Ask The Dust (Widescreen) Assassin in Blue Benchwarmers, The (Blu-Ray) Benchwarmers Big Sleep (1946) Bill Cosby Show, The: Season #1 Bogie & Bacall: The Signature Collection Boondocks, The: Season #1 Bridezillas: Season #1 Bridezillas: Season #2 Canterbury Tale, A: Criterion Collection Chappelle's Show: Lost Episodes: Uncensored Enemy Within, The Fever (1999) Final Destination 3: Thrill Ride Edition (Widescreen) (#29 in the DVDPS Top 40) Ghost in the Shell: 2nd Season #6 (Limited Edition) Halloween 4: Return Of Michael Myers (DiviMax SE) Halloween 5: Revenge Of Michael Myers (DiviMax SE) Halloween: 25 Years Of Terror Hudson Hawk: 15th Anniversay Edition Invisible Man: The Original Series: Season #2 Jag: Season #1 Kung Fu Hustle (Blu-Ray) La Femme Nikita: Season #4 Laguna Beach: Season #2 Lara Croft: T

Last week, Brian Sullivan (Age of Empires co-creator and Iron Lore, makers of Titan Quest, co-founder) made the following statement in an interview on Gamasutra: "The game marketplace is currently undergoing a lot of change, with the success of World of Warcraft and other MMOs, the rise of console gaming and what looks like a very long transition to next-generation, the rise of handheld gaming (especially with the DS), and the huge increase in development costs," Sullivan said. "It is harder than ever to figure out how to be successful in this market." I find this to be an interesting comment. Yes, budgets for games these days dictate a 200,000 break even selling point. Yes, World of Warcraft is the biggest game out there, still #1 on the Game charts after almost 2 years. Let's face it ... when you have 6.5 million subscribers, and the next most successful MMO over time had 2 million, this is going to change the marketplace. I know my purchasing of computer games is down the past two

I know a lot of rogues and mages who should heed this cartoon :-)

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies ATL (Widescreen) Adventures Of Brisco County, Jr.: The Complete Series (#9 in the DVDPS Top 40) Amazing Stories: Season #1 Astro Boy: Greatest Astro Adventures Carnivale: Season #2 Dudesons Movie, The (Unrated) Film Noir Classics Collection #3 (#13 in the DVDPS Top 40) Incredible Hulk, The: Season #1 Jack Of All Trades: The Complete Series Masters Of Horror: Cohen & Dante Masters Of Horror: Joe Dante: Homecoming Masters Of Horror: Larry Cohen: Pick Me Up Olivier's Shakespeare: Criterion Collection Pretender: Season #4 Queer Duck: The Movie Ren & Stimpy: The Lost Episodes Road House 2 Road House: Deluxe Edition Second Chance, The (2006) She's The Man (Widescreen) She's The Man (Widescreen/SE) Shiloh (Widescreen) Shiloh 2: Shiloh Season (Widescreen) Slight Case Of Murder (1938) Some Like It Hot: Collector's Edition Sybil That's Funny: The Best of Season One That's So Raven: Raven's Makeover Madness Tsotsi Music Sacred Los Lonely Bo

Today on the Excel 2007 Blog, David Gainer mapped out the future of the Office Web Components (OWC). In short, they are discontinued. They will be supported, but they will not updated. This means applications that use the OWC will need to upgrade if they want to take advantage of any new functionality in Excel 2007 and beyond. A quote from the blog: The Office Web Components are being discontinued because Microsoft needed a more flexible technology to help customers address the following challenges they faced with OWC A server-side Excel calculation engine Greater parity with Excel when worksheets are delivered over the Web The ability to enable spreadsheets to be more scalable and stable when loaded onto a server Improved security The ability to perform more detailed analysis to improve overall business intelligence.In order to address these customer challenges the Enterprise Client Access License (CAL) version of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 will include a technol

Windows Vista using Areo Glass and Microsoft Wrod 2007 using the Silver theme = I think it looks pretty slick, but is the average user ready for such a radical UI change when writing a memo? We shall see.

One of the many projects I am juggling these days is adding import and export to Microsoft Project to PSC's enTouch.project application. Besides Microsoft Visio, working with MS Project is one of the hardest applications to integrate with Notes. I find the API for MS Project to be quirky at best. Just creating a new, blank project is more work than it should be. Today, what is driving me a bit batty is making the predecessors functionality in our application and MS Project synch up. I have to do a couple passes thru the data to get it all working correctly. What this means outside of this client project is that I will finally have some great MS Project code to talk about in my Integration presentations. I will also be posting some of that on here for everyone to read. I am thinking of building an example that would export and import Tasks in a user's mail file into MS Project. That seems to be a demo that everyone could work with ... we all have a mail file. Any other ideas? T

Not sure how I missed this, but Dream Theater is releasing a new live CD and DVD in August titled "Score." Score captures the entire 20th Anniversary Concert in New York City that took place April 1st 2006. The second half of the concert was with a 30 piece orchestra! Here is the press release: DREAM THEATER concluded its lengthy 20th Anniversary World Tour earlier this year with a triumphant sold-out concert at New York City's famed Radio City Music Hall. The emotional performance included songs representing two decades of music from the acclaimed progressive hard rock quintet and featured the band backed by a 30-piece orchestra during the show's second set. Rhino Records captures every note from that special evening with CD and DVD versions of "Score: 20th Anniversary World Tour Live With The Octavarium Orchestra". Both are available from Rhino August 29 at all retail outlets and www.rhino.com for a suggested retail price of $24.98 for the three-CD collection and $24.99 for the

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies 30 Days: Season #1 Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction (Blu-Ray/R-Rated) Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction (Widescreen/Unrated) Bill Maher: New Rules Blackbeard: Terror at Sea Bridezillas: Season #1 Bridezillas: Season #2 Dennis Miller: All In Dudesons Movie, The (Unrated) Dukes Of Hazzard (HD-DVD) ER: Season #5 Edison Force Ellen Show, The: The Complete Series Enter The Dragon (HD-DVD) Friday Night Lights (HD-DVD) Grand Prix: SE I Dream Of Jeannie: Season #2 (Color) Koko: A Talking Gorilla: Criterion Collection Matador (Widescreen) (#27 in the DVDPS Top 40) My Dog Skip On A Clear Day (2005) Perry Mason: Season #1: Volume 1 Pitch Black (HD-DVD) Pooh's 80th Anniversary 3-Pack Reno 911: Season #3 River's Edge, The (1957) Road House 2 Road House: Deluxe Edition Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea: Season #1: Volume 2 (#21 in the DVDPS Top 40) Weeds: Season #1 Yi Yi: Criterion Collection Music The Eraser Thom Yorke Black Holes and Revelations Mus

Happy Birthday to me :)

Everyone welcome the newest PSC hosted blog, Adam Gartenberg. Adam lives and breathes Sametime, and with the pending release of Sametime 7.5, lots of good stuff to come over there. Welcome Adam!

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies Alice: T.V. Favorites Bad Cops: Volume 1 Charlie's Angels: The Complete Season #3 Cheech Marin and Friends Doctor Who: Season #1 Gantz: Season #2 Is It Real Supernatural Stoned (Unrated) Music American V: A Hundred Highways Johnny Cash Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest [Soundtrack] Hans Zimmer The Sufferer and the Witness Rise Against Whatever We Wanna [Import] LeAnn Rimes Who I Am Alice Peacock Never Slow Down, Never Grow Old Peter Gammons Promiscuous [CD-single] [Enhanced] [Import] Nelly Furtado Victory for the Comic Muse [Import] The Divine Comedy Summer Beach Party Various Artists Best of Miami Vice Various Artists Stars Are Blind [CD-single] [Import] Paris Hilton Single Collection 1 [Import] Hikaru Utada Classic Campbell [Import] Glen Campbell Hed Kandi: Beach House 60 [Import] Various Artists Musical Thrill Hi-Lo's Farew

One of my close friends is getting married this summer. He happens to be a physics teacher in the Chicago suburbs. He is part of a group of my friends that fall into the Computer Game/D&D/Board Games group. So, for his bachelor party, he decided to have a gamer's weekend. The party is starting out with an D&D Arena of Death (D&D with 2 teams fighting it out), followed by BattleTech, SpaceHulk, and various board games like Risk and Shogun. Add in food from the best Deli in Chicago (Augustino's) and a Mexican Fiesta of Fajiitas and Nachos, equals a great time. Not sure what time I will go to bed tonight ... Sarah gets back from her parents tomorrow, so I have to be 'normal' by then. Yes, you can call me geek :)