This blog has been migrated to http://www.collaborationblueprint.com.au  with a brand new design!
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Just found this (http://www.crn.com.au/News/167834,lotuslive-free-for-partners.aspx) article on CRN with a nice mention for ISW.

ISW is creating a service offering around migrating users to LotusLive from competitive offerings. I think one of the biggest challenges for LotusLive is how do we get there and that is what ISW's offering will solve. We are also offering hosting services for Notes/Domino applications to go hand in hand with LotusLive Notes.

Pretty good article but I have to say it is funny how journalists catch onto a couple of points. ISW is an Australian based business partner with offices in NSW, VIC, and Tas (not just a Tasmanian based). I also said that LotusLive fits with both SMB and large enterprises that want to offer services to users (eg factory floor workers) that they otherwise havn't been able to. I guess they need to focus on a couple of key points.

Regardless great to get a mention.
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Check out the latest Taking Notes Podcast. Bruce and Julian interviewed myself, Mat Newman, and lead developer Andrew Welch.

http://planetlotus.org/64cea4

Keep a close eye on OpenNTF as well for release 1.3 coming later today.

I will try and put out a new video this weekend as well.
Technorati: Wildfire, Lotus
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I am working with a client implementing Lotus Connections 2.5 and they want to look at ways of pre-populating some tags for the user profiles. After digging around the database structure you can see there is a table called PEOPLE_TAG. This is the table that stores all of the tags.



The columns are PROF_TAG_ID (This is simply a UUID randomly generated), PROF_SOURCE_KEY (This is the user that created the tag), PROF_TARGET_ID (This is the user that the tag is assigned to), and lastly the PROF_TAG (which is the actual tag itself).

So as a test I used the DB2 Control Centre to create a new row in this table. For the PROF_TAG_ID i used http://www.famkruithof.net/uuid/uuidgen which will generate a random UUID for you (Version 4 is needed for Connections). I then looked up a user in the EMPLOYEE table that will be the source (our Admin user) and used another user for the target. You simply copy their PROF_ID and add it to the appropriate column for the new tag record. And then just enter your tag in lowercase in the PROF_TAG column.

And that is it! Go to your connections, open the target user in Profiles, and they will have the tag.

The next step will be to automatically populate this table using TDI!
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Every now and then I like to set myself and ISW a short term target around specific offerings. In November last year I set a personal target of ISW working with 4 clients to review and decide to implement Connections before Xmas. Well we nearly got there with 3 out of 4 sales completed before xmas. Pretty good but not the 4 out of 4 I was aiming for.

Well I have just found out that we just received the order for the 4th order on Friday so I am wrapped.

The customers come from a range of different industries and each have approached Connections from a different angle:
 - First is a large truck company that has a significant investment in Notes/Domino and Portal already. They want to use Connections initially internally to enhance the sharing of Profile/Expertise knowledge as well as the ability to create shared bookmarks. We will be integrating Connections fully with their Portal environment.
- Second is a small business of about 30 users however they are also the largest international racehorse transport company. They operate in offices in the UK, USA, Australia, and New Zealand and use Notes & Domino to co-ordinate the business processes required to move horses from country to country. They are very successful and Notes is a big part of how they do it but that is another story. They are going to implement Sametime and Connections to increase the awareness and collaboration between their sites. They are one team and they want to share their knowledge and make themselves "closer".
- Third is quite interesting. They are part of the Catholic Education Office in Australia and they wanted to provide an online White Pages Directory of up to 70,000 school teachers/staff etc. They have gone with a Connections Extranet server and initially will just implement Profiles however as this grows to the other features I think it is quite exciting.
- Lastly, the 4th is the Australian division of a multinational printer and copier company. They rolled out 20 users a couple of months ago and have found is has spread well. They have now increased their user count by another 50 and plan to let it spread thru out the entire business over time.

So Connections is a very hot product for ISW and IBM. I will be spending plenty of time at the various Connections sessions at Lotusphere to pick up some tips that might help. I wonder what target I should set for other new customers for the next few months!
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How many social networks are you a part of? Got Sametime and Connections? Maybe you have multiple of each. Got Twitter as well? Facebook? Wordpress? Bebo? Tumblr? etc etc etc. I bet you have work related networks, personal networks, Yellowverse networks even!

Well I am very pleased to announce the release of WildFire 1.0 our free Notes 8.5 sidebar plugin just in time for Lotusphere!

Most of us have many social networks that we try and keep up to date but it is getting harder every day with so many networks. Wildfire! allows you to update mulitple communities in one go! You can add all of your networks in the Wildfire application and select which ones to send an update to. You can group them, sort by type, and even view your twitter lifestream from the one interface.

WildFire is a Lotus Notes 8.5 Sidebar Application to Update Status's across a wide range of Social Networks including Bebo, Lotus Sametime Communities, Lotus Connections, Facebook, GTalk, PingFm, Plurk, Sametime, Tumblr, Twitter, Wordpress and more!



You can also have mulitple of each network type!! WildFire! can be downloaded either from OpenNTF - http://www.openntf.org/Projects/pmt.nsf/ProjectLookup/WildFire or the ISW web site - http://www.isw.com.au/wildfire . ISW has decided to contribute back to the Lotus Community so the source code is available on OpenNTF as well. We are hoping this is the first of a few sidebar plugins that we release during 2010!

Congratulations to Andrew Welch and the guys at ISW for their work on this project.
Technorati: Lotus Notes, Notes Plugin, Notes Sidebar, OpenNTF
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So that wonderful time has come, at the end of 3 years, where it is time to get a new laptop. I have stuck with IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads for the last 15 years but here I am considering a change to a Macbook Pro 17 inch. Why am I thinking about changing? To be honest I don't think I have a compelling business reason to do so. Partly it is because I am sick of Vista however I moved to Windows 7 about a month ago and have been pleasantly surprised so that really isn't a reason to move. Partly I see it as an opportunity to present to clients how Notes is supported on the Mac as well. However most of all I think it is probably more just a desire to see what people rave about.

So I am asking those that have done it/tried it should I do it? To Mac or not to Mac? that is the question:)

I have been thru a lot of points in my consideration and nearly came across a few show stoppers. The one that nearly blew the idea all together was my Telstra NextG Wireless card. This wasn't compatible so it was a definite show stopper. However I then received a new NextG 21 USB device and it supports Mac. So we are still on.

What software do I use? Well I have a cross role between business development and technology. In my business development role I use tools like Office (although this might give me the reason to move fully to symphony, MindManager, Notes 8.5.1, our finance system (Not mac compatible so hoping to use VMFusion for this), SnagIT (No mac version unfortunately but rumours of one coming), Camtasia, Adobe CS2, and a range of other bits and pieces. I think in most use cases for business development a Mac should be fine.

In my technology role I use Domino Designer, Lotus Forms Designer, WebSphere Portlet Factory, Rational App Developer, as well as frequently running up VM images with the latest Portal, Connections, etc etc. So these products are probably the most troublesome in that they don't have Mac version. Again I am assuming they would work with VMFusion. Any comments?

So I am interested in hearing your (non-fanboy) opinions. Is Mac worth the switch? Given the above do you think it would work for me?


<edit> The last thing I forgot to mention is that I have Dual external screens. This has taken some research in how I would do this with a Macbook Pro. I understand that you can have one external and the Macbook screen at the same time however I still want to have that Dual 24 Inch external screen experience. The only way I can see to do this is the Matrox DualHeadToGo devices. These don't come cheap and considering I will need one for home and one for the office I would love to hear alternate solutions. </edit>

Take my To Mac or Not To Mac Doodle Poll (Created from the Notes 8.5.1 Doodle Sidebar!)
http://www.doodle.com/ztcmn8fw6ncktn8n
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I was just working with a client to optimise their IBM software maintenance which is coming up in Dec. Amongst other things they are currently licensed with Lotus Notes Collaboration and Domino Enterprise Servers and also have 4 Domino Designer licenses which were all up for renewal.

I explained to them the recently announced changes with Lotus Notes licensing, in particular that come Feb next year their Lotus Notes Collaboration licenses will convert to Domino Enterprise CALs and that as part of this they get an entitlement for Domino Designer with each license. There instant reaction to this was to ask "So does that mean every one of our users can have Designer?" which off course the answer is yes. They were wrapped with this and said that while they certainly wouldn't give it to every user that it is great that they can enable more people to build apps and don't have to be restricted by their 4 Designer licenses.

This has to be on of the exact outcome IBM is hoping to achieve, encourage organisation to do more with Notes and Domino. Back in the early versions of Notes before Designer came along any user could build basic databases and Notes flourished. Obviously Domino Designer was a great step forward when it was introduced however the cost of the license definitely had a negative impact of preventing that grass roots development occurring from basic users.

So then off course the question is should they renew their existing Domino Designer licenses now? I have suggested probably not. They have current maintenance up until Dec 31 so they are entitled to use Domino Designer 8.5.1 and it is probably unlikely there will be another release between now and Feb when their licenses convert. The only reason they would do it I guess is to have support for Jan but this is not likely to be needed, and also the fact that the Designer licenses will also convert to CAL's which they don't really need. So I guess the short term negative of the change is a small loss in revenue for IBM for clients no longer buying/renewing Designer but this should be insignificant to the positive impact that more people building Notes Apps will have on the usage of Lotus Notes within organisations and hence the ROI they get from the product.

So I say good one IBM, Domino Designer for Free is definitely making a positive impact on our clients usage of Notes & Domino!
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Having installed Lotus Connections using WAS Network Deployment to start the Lotus Connections servers up I do the following:

restart the server (This also starts the Deployment Manager as a Windows Service)
Start the Node Agent  - D:\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\profiles\AppSrv01\bin\startNode.bat
Once the Node Agent has started I can start the Connections servers (I have server1, server2, and server3) from the Deployment Manager Integrated Solutions Console.

I want to change this process so that the Node Agent and the Connections server's all start automatically when the server is restarted.

So here's how:  

Setting up the WebSphere Node Manager as a Windows service

First, you need to set up the Node Manager on each physical server to run as a service and restart after a reboot:

   1. Open a Command Window and go to the ..\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\bin directory
   2. Type in the following command (adjusted for your install paths):

    WASService -add "IBM WebSphere Node Agent" -servername nodeagent -profilePath D:\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\profiles\AppSrv01 -wasHome D:\IBM\Websphere\Appserver -logFile D:\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\profiles\AppSrv01\logs\nodeagent\startNode.log -logRoot D:\IBM\WebSphere\AppServer\profiles\AppSrv01\logs\nodeagent -restart true -startType automatic

Setting up the member servers to automatically restart

Once the Node Manager is running as a service, you need to set the individual WebSphere servers to automatically restart using the following steps:

   1. Log in to the Integrated Solutions Console
   2. Navigate to Servers > Application servers > servername
   3. Expand Java and Process Management and click on Monitoring Policy
   4. Change the Node restart state to RUNNING
   5. Click Apply
   6. Click Save to save the master configuration
   7. Repeat for each server in the cluster

And that should do it. So when you restart your server the nodeagent should firstly start as a service and then it should monitor the servers and start them automatically.


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Ok so I am installing Lotus Connections 2.5 to add to one of our Portal sites.

Here is the list of everything you need to install Lotus Connections 2.5

Required parts To install Lotus Connections 2.5 on Windows, you need to download the following parts:

Download Number	Part Number	Description
Download 1 of 12	CZ4SHML	Lotus Connections 2.5 for Windows
Download 2 of 12	CZ4SKML	Lotus Connections 2.5 wizards for Windows
Download 3 of 12	C88SPML	IBM WebSphere Application Server V6.1 for Windows 32-bit
Download 4 of 12	C88SWML	WebSphere Application Server V6.1 Supplements for Windows 32-bit
Download 5 of 12	C92MEML	WebSphere Application Server V6.1 for Windows 64-bit
Download 6 of 12	C88TPML	WebSphere Application Server V6.1 Supplements for Windows 64-bit
Download 7 of 12	C14SLML	IBM DB2 Enterprise Server Edition V9.5 for Windows
Download 8 of 12	C9666ML	IBM Tivoli Directory Integrator V6.1.1 for Windows

Optional parts You can also download the following optional parts:

Download Number	Part Number	Description
Download 9 of 12	CZ0LCML	Lotus Connections 2.5 Quick Start Guide for AIX, Linux, and Windows
Download 10 of 12	CT1HZML	Lotus Connections 2.5 License information booklet
Download 11 of 12	CZ4SGML	Lotus Connections 2.5 Pilot installation
Download 12 of 12	CZ0LGML	Lotus Connections 2.5 Pilot License information booklet

You will also need a variety of fix packs and update installers. I will list this at the appropriate steps as I progress.
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Installing WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment
Ok. So the first major step to setup Connections 2.5 is to install WebSphere Application Server. In this case I have a relatively small number of users so I plan to install on a single Windows 2003 Standard server. Now IU could just use WAS in a stand-alone deployment however this would make it difficult to later move to a more clustered approach or to have the different Connections services running on different profiles/nodes if needed. So I will go with WAS Network Deployment.

So when you install WAS choose the Network Deployment option. Note that you will need at least Windows Server 2003 SP1. On the server we have SP2 so it gave us a warning that we needed SP1 so I just ignored it and kept going. Also note that at this stage do not Enable Administrative Security. We will be enabling security later.

When you first install WASND from the download it only installs 6.1.0.0. According to the Software Requirements tell us we need 6.1.0.23. The latest fixpack is 6.1.0.27 so I am going to give that a go instead. Go to Fix Central for the fixpack. You will also need to install the Update Installer for WebSphere Software. This is a fairly straight forward process if you follow the instructions.

So now you should be able to start the server and log onto the Integrated Solution Console and see:



Setting up the Application Server for the first node
So now that we have WASND running we need to create a profile for the first node.

From the First Steps screen select Profile Management Tool:


We then choose to create an Application Server. I have chosen the Typical profile creation option. I am not enabling Administrative Security as again we will enable security later. The tool will create new application server called "server1". It is important to note that this server should not be federated with the Deployment Manager as a managed node. You can not install Lotus Connections onto a managed node.

Ok. So we now have WAS Network Deployment Installed, a Deployment Manager, and an Application Server Node (server1). Step 2 is almost complete!

Setting Up Security
For security we are going to use a Federated repository. The Info Centre is pretty good on this topic.

I have setup a Domino LDAP Server as a Federated Repository in our environment.

Now as server1 is not a managed node we need to repeat the security setup for both DMgr and server1. Just make them exactly the same.

Java Heap Size
Lastly we need to expand the Java Heap Side. This is done on the Deployment Manager in order to prevent an out of memory error while installing Lotus Connections. Instructions here.

So that is the WAS server prepared and ready for install of the databases which I will cover next.
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So I am going to use DB2 Enterprise Server that is provided as part of the Connections license. You can install this on the same server as your WAS for a small site however I am going to install onto a separate server.

Now note that the Software Requirements tell us we need either DB2 9.1 FP6 or 9.5 FP3. So once again we go to Fix Central and download the fix pack. Interestingly (as CuriousMitch points out) it seems the FP3 appears to be a full install rather than a fix so I have downloaded this and will start with this.

IBM Db2 Enterprise Server Edn V9.5 for Windows  Fix Pack 3 - Download here

Installing DB2 Enterprise Server & Registering the license
The actual install is pretty straight forward so just follow the prompts and choose the options you want for your environment.

Once installed you can either follow the instructions here to install the DB2 restricted license key or you can use the License Centre.




Using the Database Wizard to create the Lotus Connections Database
Next we create a dedicated user for Lotus Connection, lcuser - Doco Here . This user us used by the Lotus Connections database wizard to create all of the databases required.

Once that is all ready make sure the DB2 instance is running (should be set to run as a service already) and run the db wizard - dbWizard.bat  (extracted from the 2 of 12 file in downloads). This wizard will run for a while as it creates all of the databases needed for the Connections services. We are only having one DB2 server instance at this point but you can choose to install the databases on separate servers for scaling reasons if needed.

So that is the Database ready to go. Next we will install Tivoli Directory Integrator and populate the Profiles database.









Technorati: Lotus Connections
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So once the Database server is ready and the Lotus Connections databases created the next step is to populate the Profiles database with your user information. To do this we use Tivoli Directory Integrator and run a the provided TDI script that will pull the data from your ldap directory and populate the Profiles database.

Now the Lotus Connections Info Center tells us that we need at least TDI 6.1.1 with Fix Pack 6. This can again be downloaded from Fix Central. Do a search for the Fix ID "*0006" and download the fix pack.

Once you have installed TDI and the fix pack that is really all you have to do for now specifically on TDI. You can later set TDI up to run the Profiles population script periodically but for now you just need it installed.

So now you need to copy the Lotus Connections Wizards directory (extracted from file download 2 of 12) onto the TDI server and run the populationWizard.bat file. Just follow the prompts and provide the data required about your LDAP server and the location of your database server.

And that is it for this step. We now have a server with WASND (DMgr and unmanaged node server1), Security enabled, DB2 server with databases created and Profiles database populated from the LDAP database.

Finally we are ready for the actual Lotus Connections install! Coming up next....
Technorati: Lotus Connections
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Right so we should have all the pre-install steps completed. WASND installed, Dmgr running, server1 profile created (unmanaged node, not running), security setup (using LDAP federated repository in this case), DB2 installed, databases created, TDI installed, Profiles database populated.

So now we can install Lotus Connections 2.5

But before we do...one more thing. Sometimes when you install Connections we can get a SOAP time out error. In order to avoid this error we need to increate the time that the server allows for a SOAP request. We need to modify the com.ibm.SOAP.requestTimeout property in the install_root/properties/soap.client.props file. Just open this file in Wordpad, search for "soap.request", and change the value to 300 or 600 (I did 600 just to be sure). Detailed instructions are here.

So now that we are really ready we need to make sure the Deployment Manager is running and the Application Server instance we will use to install Connections (server1) is not running.

Then we run the install.bat file from the extract of file 1 of 12 from the downloads. The Info Center is pretty good for these steps so just follow the prompts as per this document. You can choose to install all the Features onto the one server however I decided to split the features across 3 servers just to spread the load. The Lotus Connections install will automatically create the additional server profiles for you if you decide to do this as well. I guess it would be wise to try and spread the estimated load across all 3 of the servers however it is really dependent on your usage plans as to how you do this.

The install takes a good while but you should be able to just let it run. Once the install is complete it will provide you with a list of the URL's to each feature. You just need to start each of the servers (as long as the nodeagent is running you can start the servers from the Dmgr Integrated Solutions Console) and off you go! Be Social, Explore, Collaborate!

There are some post install tasks (such as testing the database connections, more security, configuring IBM HTTP server etc) that are listed in the Info Center but you should have a Connections system up and running.
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I have had a few customers that have migrated to 8.5 about the fact that contacts seem to be automatically added to their Contacts database. Some people love this feature but others seem to not like it so much.

There is a new view called "Recent Contacts" as per the following screen shot. There is also a view "My Contacts".

Basically the My Contacts view should contain just those people you have actually added yourself to your contacts. The Recent Contacts View will show everyone that you have corresponded with via email/calendar invites etc. The new feature basically automatically adds every person that you email to the Recent Contacts view so that they then appear in your type ahead when sending new emails/calendar invites etc.


I personally quite like this as it means I don't have to add everyone to "My Contacts" in order to then use type ahead for their email. This saves me time in that I don't have to find their email in order to send another email back to them.

However for those that don't like this feature you can stop people being automatically added to your Recent Contacts view thru a user preference. From the Contacts database go to the More-Preferences Action Item (as per following screen shot)


Then untick the following check box:



This will prevent contacts automatically being added to the Recent Contacts view.

Hope that helps.
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I have recently had the requirement to customise a Portal Theme a couple of times and every time I do it I fall for the same gotcha's so I thought I would document the process so I can remember next time. I recently modified a Theme to remove the Signup and Edit My Profile Links. Dave Hay shows us one way of doing this using XMLAccess however sometimes modifying the theme is required for other reasons as well.

The main reference on how to do this is the Info Center (http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wpdoc/v6r1/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.wp.ent.doc_v6101/dev/dgn_crthm.html) however there are a couple of steps that arn't terribly clear so I have recorded what I did below here.

The easiest way to build a theme is to take an exiting one and modify it.

First copy an existing Theme
Copy the following directories and files contained within -
...\wp_profile\installedApps\portal1\wps.ear\wps.war\themes\dojo
...\wp_profile\installedApps\portal1\wps.ear\wps.war\themes\html\Portal
...\wp_profile\installedApps\portal1\wps.ear\wps.war\themes\html\psw

Then copy all of the tld files from the WEB-INF/tld directory in wps.war into the theme WAR's WEB-INF/tld directory in order to get support for all the custom tags used for themes and skins.

I found the description of the above a little confusing so maybe this screen shot helps to explain what the directory structure of your new theme should be.



Now to modify the Theme (to remove the Self Care links)
Now you can modify the theme quite dramatically but here I just want to remove the selfcare and signup links.

Find banner_toolbar.jspf in the html/MyThemeName directory and edit it. Now basically what we need to do is comment out the appropriate bits. Don't be mislead by the comments in the document as they arn't exactly worded well. Basically you just need to comment out the sections that refer to the selfcare and signup


Now a key step/gotcha in the process is to Edit and Save Default.jsp as well. This updates the timestamp so that Default.jsp will be recompiled with the updated jspf elements. It seems that if you don't do this then it just doesn't work.

Package & Deploy the Theme
This part wasn't so bad. Just follow the doco - http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wpdoc/v6r1/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.wp.ent.doc_v6101/dev/dgn_crthm.html

Importing a Theme
and again this part isn't too bad. http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wpdoc/v6r1/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.wp.ent.doc_v6101/dev/dgn_crthm.html

So once all that is done all you do is apply the Theme to your Portal pages. You might need to flush your cache and if you use a Proxy that cache's as well you might need to refresh that.
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It is interesting looking thru some of the voting on the Lotus Knows Ideajam. Having so many ideas come thru is just great but I find it interesting when some ideas that seem to have merit are demoted. I guess everyone has an opinion but I think when someone has made a real effort to explain their idea common decency says that if you demote it then maybe you should leave a comment as to why.

I have no problem with ideas being demoted, as that is the power of the system and how the good ideas rise to the top, but I think the whole process becomes even more valuable if people comment why they have demoted. This feeds the cycle and lets our all learn from others insights.

Now that I have written this I realise that I have probably done what I have just said we shouldn't. Time to go back and review my Demote Votes and provide some constructive comments why.
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Problem. Solution. How? - Lotus Knows So what are your examples. I would like to build a list of 40 up!
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IBM should have annual awards for customers. Official Lotus Legends! In addition to Beacon Awards for partners lets have Official Lotus Legends awards for customers that have created amazing solutions with Lotus Technologies. These Awards would promote both organisations and individuals for their success at achieving real business outcomes with Lotus software. Lets make business users proud of their achievements and help them stand out from the crowd. This should be a testimony to the excellence of the organisations and their innovation using Lotus technologies. The awards should be aimed at the business users of the software and help them to promote the success they have brought to their organisations. This is an extension of an idea that Lotus Australia had at last years Lotus Software University where they recognised and awarded industry experts that had been working with Lotus technology for 10+ years. I know that this award increased the loyalty of those people that received one.
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Well unfortunately I couldn't make Lotusphere this year as fortunately Jayne is due with our first baby in Feb. A little too close to be on the other side of the world.

So I am watching the news come in from afar and here is the latest news I have been able to find out. ISW has a number of our team at Lotusphere so I am sure we will get more info coming in soon as well.

• IBM announces that since Lotus Notes 8 was released they have added 12,236 new customers. From my knowledge there used to be approximately 50,000 so this is a huge increase in new organisations that have adopted Notes & Domino.
• Lotusphere is bigger this year. Customer attendance is up 2% on last year.
• RIM introduced their first Blackberry 10 years today.  Blackberry Enterprise Server 4.16 released to support Domino 8.5 (only 10 days after the release of 8.5).
• New Blackberry Client for Lotus Connections 2.0.1 announced for release in early 2009. Supports all Connection services.
• New Blackberry client for Sametime as well. Also plans to support Quickr and Lotus Symphony.
• Blackberry XPages support in Domino Designer through an Eclipse plugin coming later this year.
• Lotus Bluehouse has been renamed Lotus Live - http://www.lotuslive.com
• Lotus Symphony for the Mac can be downloaded today including the ODF Toolkit for Open Document workflow
• Symphony 1.3 will support Office 2007 file formats.
• Lotus Notes is 20 this year.
• Quickr is integrated into the iNotes 8.5 client.
• XPages is a huge hit in Designer 8.5. This will revolutionise development of Domino Web Applications.
• Xpages will be supported in the Notes client in 8.5.1. This is truly a major new capability. Imagine the interfaces we can build for the Notes client now.
• LinkedIn Integration via the Notes Sidebar.
• Lotus Quickr will offer XPages support
• IBM is going to release SmartMarket - ibm.com/smartmarket . An store that partners can promote and distribute applications
• IBM and OpenNTF are going to form a partnership. IBM is going to provide more support for OpenNTF.
• Domino 8.5 offers 50% reduction in I/O
• Lotus Foundations will ship with VMWare support
• New release of ST coming in 2009 - ST8.5, including iPhone support
• Sametime 8.5 web client - No Java Applets required. You can export recordings of Sametime meetings as Quicktime
• Lotus Connections 2.5 - Can customise interface across the product. Profiles will support Microblogging (like twitter and Wall).
• Connections will have Widgets to integrate Flickr and Twitter etc. Will also have bi-directional sharing with LinkedIn and more. Connections extended to iPhone. Wiki's can be part of Communities with support for versions and ratings. Lots of new Connections capabilities. New file sharing capability in Connections.
• Quickr 8.2 for Domino to ship later this quarter, including LC integration and Domino 8.5 support
• Websphere Portal now to include entitlement for ePhox Live rich text editors. This is great news. Portal really needed Ephox for Rich editing of web content.
• LotusLive is a portfolio of integrated social software and collaborative services. Seems to be Connections, Sametime, Quickr all rolled into one service.
• LotusLive partnerships with Salesforce, LinkedIn and Skype

And that is it for now. More as it comes in.
Technorati: IBM, Lotus, Lotusphere2009
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IBM and ISW has just published a great case study on Tasmanian Perpetual Trustees Limited migrating from Exchange and Outlook 2007 to Notes & Domino 8 as well as their adoption of Workflow-Xpress.

More information here...
Technorati: Lotus Notes 8
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I have been using the Notes 8.5 beta for a month or so now and one of the best features is the federated calendars.

Essentially this feature allows you to overlay additional calendars with your own. For example you might want to add some of your colleagues calendars or you might have an events calendar for your organisation. Well with Notes 8.5 you can simply select which calendars you want to overlay with your calendar. On the left hand panel of your calendar go to Show Calendars and you can choose to Add a Calendar...



You choose a calendar to add and you have the option of using a user's calendar, Notes Teamroom Calendar, and even a Notes application Calendar. The ability to bring together disparate calendars is awesome. We have been able to look at shared calendars in the past and use Group Calendars to kind of compare different calendars but this is just seamless calendar overlays.

An example of how I am using this new feature is leveraging TripIT. TripIT is a new Web 2.0 type service that enables me to forward all my airline and accommodation bookings to it. When I email a booking to it the clever team at TripIT somehow automagically reads the itinerary and adds it to my TripIT Calendar. Now I can access my TripIT calendar directly via a web browser or via my Blackberry Bold's browser but I can also subscribe to an iCal feed.



 So all I do is Add a Calendar, select an iCalendar Feed as the source, enter the URL to my TripIT feed, select a colour, and their you go. Your flights etc are automatically added to your calendar!!



So all I do now is email all my flights to TripIT, there secret sauce reads the document, and they add it to my calendar!! Now there is a reason to upgrade to Notes 8.5 when it arrives!
Technorati: Lotus Notes TripIT
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Further to the recent release of a case study ISW is pleased to publish (with IBM) this video case study: Please feel free to rank the video well:)
Technorati: Lotus Notes 8
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ISW has just published a new case study with IBM on the recent Sydney Diocese Secretariat upgrade and migration to Lotus Notes & Domino 8.

Have a read here.....
Technorati: Lotus Notes, Case Study, Anglican Church
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I just purchased a BeyonWiz DP-S1 PVR. It is a Dual HD receiver with 250 GB drive, wireless access, etc etc. For those in overseas etc reading this it probably isn't a big deal but PVR's are relatively new devices in Australia. In particular ones with downloaded TV program guides. The great thing about the BeyonWiz is that it supports IceTV's Interactive service which allows you to program the recorder via a web site. The Beyonwiz then periodically connects to the IceTV service and downloads the current schedule of things to record. So for someone that travels as much as I do and constantly rings home to ask for something to be recorded that is just great.

But it gets even better. IceTV have a service for mobile devices at http://remoterecord.com.au that allows me to log on from a Blackberry browser for instance. But even cooler is that using my Lotus Notes 8.0.1 Sidebar I have created a Widget that automatically logs onto the site and shows me the TV Guide. I can simply select what I want recorded from my sidebar and the Beyonwiz is updated!

Now that is a great use of the Notes 8 Sidebar Widgets if you ask me!


Technorati: Lotus Notes 8, Sidebar, Widgets, Beyonwiz, IceTV
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The Brown Blog Wordle:


Technorati: None
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Just a thought that it would be great to have a sametime status of Invisible for all those times when you still want to log on but don't want people to see you. ie You might want to access a sametime bot or just do some work at night without being hassled.

Idea Jam link
Technorati: Sametime, Lotus Notes
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Quickr 8.1 has just been released. The announcement letter is here.

The new features are:

New features in Lotus Quickr Standard 8.1

• Usability enhancements to the browser experience:
• Improved navigation and breadcrumbs throughout
• Streamlined context menus
• Simplified check-in/check-out and version control
• Single-page member management
• Note: These usability enhancements apply to Lotus Quickr services for Domino
• Lotus Connections integration:
• From a Lotus Quickr place, access an individual's Lotus Connections profile (in place of the "person card")
• Lotus Notes 8.0.1 connector:
• View and access Lotus Quickr places from the Notes side shelf
• Drag and drop attachments and entire e-mail contents
• Lotus Symphony connector:
• Context menu within editors to contribute and share content in Lotus Quickr places
• Microsoft Outlook connectors:
• View and access Lotus Quickr places
• Drag and drop attachments and entire e-mail contents
• Personal file sharing:
• Streamlined place for an end user to store important files and share them with others
• Available separately (with the Lotus Quickr connectors) as Lotus Quickr Entry
• Administrator enhancements:
• Policy settings for places (maximum size, days inactive before locking)
• Easy-to-use browser interface for administrators with improved reporting
• Note: These administrator enhancements apply to Lotus Quickr services for Domino.

New features in Lotus Quickr Entry 8.1:

• Simple personal file sharing improves personal productivity and reduces space required for e-mail attachments.
• Single personal place for storing and sharing content accessible from any of the Lotus Quickr connectors or a Web browser.
• Content moves seamlessly from Lotus Quickr entry places to standard Lotus Quickr team places.

I am particularly looking forward to having the Notes 8.0.1 sidebar connector. I have been using the beta sidebar for a while and it is great but was always a little buggy (which you would expect off course). Now that it is released I will be able to get all our staff using it. I think that this feature alone dramatically increases the usability of the product for file sharing. It is so simple and accessible having Quickr in your sidebar.

The other thing I am interested in understanding better is the Personal File Sharing feature. Not quite sure how this works yet but am interested how easy it is to share files across boundaries. This is where Quickr needs to compete with the ease of say MS Groove file sharing capabilities. The benefit that I see Quickr having over Groove is that Groove requires each user sharing to install Groove whereas Quickr is accessible from the browser.

The Symphony Connectors are also a big step.
Technorati: Lotus Domino Quickr
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