Brownies Blog - Category : General

Footy Tipping 2007!!!!

Adam Brown — Fri, 9 Mar 2007 15:35:18 +1100

ISW has just launched their AFL Footy Tipping competition for 2007. Built on Domino off course. Check it out and win an iPod!

http://www.footytipps.com.au/domino/tipping/ISW2007.nsf/pgISW?OpenPage

Blogging Again

Adam Brown — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 12:40:00 +1100

Well like many others I got bogged down with work and slackend off with the blogging. But I am back. We have had a pretty busy couple of months on a number of fronts.

We have progressed a great deal with Workplace Forms and Workflow-Xpress Integration and now can easily integrate any Lotus Notes database Form with a Workplace Form (More on this later).

We are very close to getting go ahead with a new customer (Can't say who but they are an Australian Public company) to implement Notes & Domino. They use Exchange currently which will be a nice conversion but the best part of it is that they are a clean site without legacy Notes databases etc. We are going to be implementing Workflow-Xpress as the foundation for all Notes applications so it will be great to be able to really leverage the product in this new environment.

I also had a great Xmas of course. Jayne and I spent lots of time with Family & Friends and then spent a week with my family on a P&O Cruise from Brisbane out to Vanuatu and New Caledonia in the Pacific. Very nice. I will upload the photos to Flickr shortly and put up a link.

Anyway just a quick post to get back in the blogging action. With LotusSphere kicking off in the near future I am sure there will be plenty to chat about.

P.S. I have just integrated this blog with Snap to allow the Snap Preview feature. Pretty neat tool where any link to an external site that you mouse over you get a preview load of the site so you can see if it interests you. Great idea and very easy to implement!

ISW Finalist in Tasmanian Export Awards

Adam Brown — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 13:41:41 +1100

Last friday night I had the pleasure of attending the Tasmanian Export Awards

This prestigious program is recognised as one of the most important events on the business calendar for Tasmanian exporters. It is the State’s highest recognition of excellence for companies exporting goods and services and is held in high regard throughout the world.

I am pleased to say that ISW was selected as finalists for the award (one of only 5 Tasmanian IT companies to be finalists) in 3 categories:

UK Trade & Investment Information and Communications Technology
Caterpillar Underground Mining Small Business Award
AusIndustry Emerging Exporter Award

Being a young company I have to say I was pretty pleased with this result and it reflects the success we have been having with products like IVR-Xpress Visual Builder and Workflow-Xpress in international markets. We really have only just started and I know that we are all very excited about the future of ISW as a company exporting software solutions around the world.

Congrats to the winner of the ICT category - JadeLiquid Software

It really is great to be part of the Tasmanian economy. We live in such a wonderful place with great lifestyles. To be able to do this as well as do business on the World Stage is simply awesome.

Screen Resolutions? What size fits most

Adam Brown — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 15:13:06 +1100

Just a question for everyone. I am in the process of redesigning the layout of our standard look and feel for most of our Lotus Notes applications. What resolution do you think can be accepted as the normal? We used to design for 800x600 but I think that going up to 1024x1280 is probably reasonable nowadays. However I would probably like to go to a higher resolution again but that might be pushing it. Anyway if you have any thoughts on what should be the average resolution I would appreciate it.

Blog Spam

Adam Brown — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 09:28:56 +1100

You probably havn't noticed as I was keeping on top of it most days but my blog has been suffering from a bad case on Blog Spam. I have been deleting the spam everyday for the last month or 2 since it started. Well good news, I upgraded to Blogsphere V2.5.5 a couple of days ago and one of the fixes/enhancements was improvements to how it handles spam. It seems to be working great, not a single spam since the upgrade. Well done to the blogsphere team.

Back from Phuket

Adam Brown — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:34:18 +1100

Alas I am back at work from Phuket. We had the most fantastic time. Great resort, great weather, awesome food, shopping (wow did we shop!! The MBK Centre in Bangkok was covered inch by inch). Daily routine was along the lines of get up around 8:30am for a dip in the pool, huge breakfast, walk along beach, looking around Patong, markets etc, massage, beer on the beach, little lunch maybe, relax by the pool in afternoon heat, nap a little, read a little, head out for dinner and some night life, and then do it all again.

Some key highlights - Elephant Trek, the Novotel Resort in phuket is just fantastic, the Thai people are just the nicest people I have ever met.

Of course spending plenty of time with Jayne was great as well.

1 tip for people visiting, the Fantasea show is pretty good but don't be tricked into going early. We were told we had to leave at 5:30pm for the show and then arrived at 6pm. The show didn't start until 9pm so we were stuck in a tourist trap for 3 hours!! The show is good by the surrounding theme park is sooooo tacky. Was fun anyway.

Off to Phuket!

Adam Brown — Tue, 30 May 2006 10:43:44 +1100

Well I have been a bit slack over the last week with the blog. I have been pretty busy trying to close off a heap of work before having a break. We are off for a couple of weeks in Phucket. Warmer weather, cocktails by the pool, daily massages, bit of shopping, and a heap of relaxing. So that is it for the next 2 weeks for me!!!

Google Trends

Adam Brown — Mon, 15 May 2006 00:00:00 +1100

Google have in beta a tool called Google Trends that allows you to look at trend history for search terms. You can also compare the history of multiple search terms. It is really interesting to see the increase in some search terms:

blog wiki - Just shows how the awareness of blogs and wiki's has gone thru the roof.

lotus notes microsoft exchange - Lotus Notes is Seached for more than Microsoft Exchange however both have declined.

asterisk - This is interesting in that we have been running up Asterisk servers etc.

Pretty interesting stuff.

Air Hockey over the net!

Adam Brown — Tue, 9 May 2006 11:20:12 +1100

The CSIRO has an impressive setup with many interesting research projects etc but the real crowd puller is the Air Hockey over the net. They have 1/2 an air hockey table setup with a projector displaying the other virtual half of the table that is setup on the other side of the room with a projector as well. Players just play like normal but the direction and speed of the puck is sent over the net to the other half of the table and out comes the puck! Pretty neat.

CEBIT 2006

Adam Brown — Tue, 9 May 2006 09:06:36 +1100

I am working at CEBIT for the next 3 days out of the Sydney Convention Centre. Started the day with breakfast in a nice little cafe just near the centre and are now setting up our stand at the show. This year we have joined the Tasmanian Govt Department of Economic Development stand so we have some good company. Viewbuild and the etechgroup as well as DED are sharing the stand with us. The exhibition seems to take up about 5 of the halls but I will need to have a look around shortly. Immediately it was obvious VOIP has many stands but I will work out the other main trends over the 3 days.

We have on show our suite of ISW and IBM software including IVR-Xpress Visual Builder as a core product to display. Ian has brought up an IBM xSeries server running Asterisk Virtual PABX that is tunneling thru the net to another Asterisk server in Hobart. We will be able to show people how it can then make long distance calls to Hobart at the cost of local calls. We also have a number of soft phones installed as a demo of what could be done in a call centre environment.

We have our ISW Solutions That Work software catalogue on the stand as well so we will be able to present on our range of products as required.

I will go have a look around and see what else I can find. Will be interesting to see how much IBM and Microsoft software is on display and from which partners.

50 years of play doh

Adam Brown — Thu, 4 May 2006 15:53:25 +1100

XBox, Playstation, iPods, electric this, computerised that, I still think the best toys are those that were invented years ago and will stay around for ever.

You know things like Lego. Things were you use your imagination and make something. I burnt many hours playing lego as a kid. And mum never had to say turn that thing off!

Well one of the greatest has just turned 50. Play-Doh. So come on which of you didn't have play-doh when you were a kid? Not many I would suggest. And still most kids nowadays get some play-doh at some point.

from the article:
In 1965, U.S. Patent No. 3,167,440 was granted to Noah McVicker and Joseph McVicker for a “plastic modeling composition”, (which was originally intended to be a wallpaper cleaner) now called Play-Doh. Little did they know that they had created the substance of childhood memories as well as many a childhood meal, unfortunately.

Play-Doh persists as one of the most well known and popular childrens “toys” with over 2 billion cans sold since its invention in 1956. As you attempt to clean your children’s Play-Doh out of the carpet, the car, and the bathtub; take a look back with us at how it all got started.

Ivory Fields Spa Retreat East Coast Tasmania

Adam Brown — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 10:21:28 +1100

Back at work from Easter. We spent the weekend at a wonderful place on the East Coast of Tasmania, the Ivory Fields Spa Retreat. This place is simply a little piece of paradise. The web site just doesn't do it justice. Every little detail was just great. The accomodation was this great chalet looking over a herb farm surrounded by bushland. It was far more than your standard B&B. Great friendly service where nothing was too much trouble. We spent lots of time just relaxing, went for a few walks along the east coast beaches, a few spa's, and went on the Fairy Penguin tour at Bicheno (cute little buggers). All round an great way to spend easter.

So if you happen to be in Tasmania and head up the East Coast this is the place to stay.

Your personal DNA Report

Adam Brown — Fri, 7 Apr 2006 12:11:22 +1100

I came across this web site that will analyse your personal DNA (character I guess). Only takes about 5 minutes.

Apparently I am an Animated Leader that should consider taking some more time to day dream. I think I will leave day dreaming for when I am old!

My Personal Dna Report

Check it out and analyse yourself.

Well here we go....

Adam Brown — Tue, 4 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +1100

Well after trawling many blogs for the last few months I have decided to jump on the bandwagon and give blogging a go. Even just making the decision to blog has been an interesting experience.

We discussed things such as what should the blog be about? Should it be a corporate type blog from ISW or should it be just me? Should we make it personal or should the opinions be that of the company?

At the end of it all we have decided that it should be my blog, hence the name Brownie's blog. That off course it would discuss topics that relate to what ISW is doing, which is obviously a big part of most of my days, but that I should also just blog about what interests me. And that if I want to express opinions that arn't necessarily that of the company then so be it!

So after having made these decisions the next step off course was getting on with it. I have adopted the BlogSphere template from the guys at BlogSphere and off course OpenNTF based on Domino which is simply brilliant. Setup was pretty easy once I got my head around the database and modifying the css etc. Just then a matter of deciding what features I wanted and the general layout of the blog and wammo. Here it is. The only part that I don't seem to have working just yet is the Web Poll. But alas I should have expected at least 1 challenge otherwise it wouldn't be any fun.

So today I start my side life of blogging. No more just trawling others. Time to contribute myself.

Obviously it will take some time to build the content up here, and off course I don't expect the flood of readers to come along. But if you do happen across the blog please get involved and make a comment. At the very least it will provide me some encouragement to keep on blogging.