dadams.co.uk

John ‘Jim’ Adams - 24th November 1940 to 29th September 2006

I can hardly believe it’s been a year since I got that phone call, my brother Steve telling me that our dad had collapsed and died during his pool maintenance round in Florida. The next week was pretty horrible… I flew out to Orlando with my sister Sue on the Monday morning, attended the funeral on the Tuesday, flew back that evening, arrived home on Wednesday morning… and then we moved house on the Thursday. I was moved by the amount of people who attended my dad’s funeral service. The chapel was crammed full of people… his friends and customers, all of whom were deeply shocked by his sudden passing but full of good things to say about him. Not that I expected any different. Speaking at the service was one of the most moving experiences of life, and it was probably because I do so many (too many) presentations as part of my job that I was able to keep going.

However, one thing I could be 100% sure of today, if he was sitting here next to me now my dad would tell me not to focus on the sad stuff. He’d tell me to lighten up. “Worrying” he once told me “just makes you ill, so don’t do it”. He also once told me to bump him off if he became old and senile (which I didn’t actually agree to and now don’t have to worry about). With this ethos in mind, I’d like to remember his genius and occasional wit with a few choice stories…

Bad jokes - a couple of weeks ago I was chatting with my uncle Terry, and he said that what he most remembered about my dad was his bad jokes. Like father, like son. The one he probably told to everyone, and Terry remembered this, was the one about being a tap dancer and falling into the sink. The ironic thing was that you could tell my dad a joke, he’d tell you it was rubbish, but then he’d tell you one even worse.

He was also very good at spinning stories. Nine years ago I was working in Boston for two weeks and he flew up from Florida to spend the weekend with me. I clearly remember a story he told me about a friend of his who had hit a wild pig with his car, and then later got in trouble with a wildlife warden. It was spun out in great detail for about twenty minutes, until I discovered that it was all completely untrue and had been constructed with the sole intention of delivering one bad punch-line (the pig had squealed on him).

More recently, he’d had the end of one finger amputated due to some damage to the bone. When my daughter Lauren looked very concerned, he just told her that he was special as he was the only guy around who could count up to 9½.

The remote control - nearly twenty years ago (possibly a bit less) Sue and I shared a flat, but as she was a British Airways stewardess at the time she wasn’t there often. My dad stayed in the flat for a few months before leaving for the USA. Mostly this worked very well because he liked cooking and served up some good stuff - his signature dish was mince and potatoes, and also invented the ingenious method of warming the plates by putting them on top of the boiler. Sometimes in the evening, if he was bored, he’d do his best to irritate me for a laugh - things like throwing peanuts at me or hitting my head with a slipper while I was watching television. This was a few years ago, and the television didn’t have a remote control (imagine that kids, the Dark Ages). In the living room there was one prime-position chair in front of the television and a sofa (not in a prime position), so occupancy of that chair was hotly contested - sometimes won by tossing a coin or stealing the position if the occupier moved out. So, the lack of remote control meant that you had to get up and physically go over to the television, which sometimes resulted in a childish race to the prime chair if you could move off the sofa quick enough.

One evening he claimed occupancy of the chair, but then wanted to switch channels. I got ready to make my move - and then I saw it. He had brought in a length of bamboo, and wielded it across the five foot gap to the television to hit the buttons. Genius.

Practical jokes - looking back, one of his pranks stood out. I arrived home from work one day and he announced with the most serious dead-pan face that there were mice in the flat. He then preceded to pull the sofa away from the wall to reveal a number of small black objects which he pointed out were mouse droppings. When I asked him if he was sure, he picked one up, looked at it, popped it in his mouth, and after a moment of serious thoughtful consideration said “yeah, they’re mouse droppings alright”. Of course, they turned out to be small pieces of raisins. Right, very funny. But I had to hand it to him, his face didn’t crack once all through the prank.

I don’t really know how to finish this blog post - I guess I’ll just have to say that he’s very much missed, but we have loads of good memories of the man who loved his family, his wife Susan, and the life that he’d found for himself in Florida.

Today, for the second time this year, I had the opportunity to join Lotus Vice President Kevin Cavanaugh at a customer meeting. Until recently Kevin was the Vice President for Notes / Domino development, but now runs the messaging and collaboration business. Although I spend a lot of time talking about our products, it’s always useful to hear someone talk the talk and give their perspective - and when it’s the guy who’s been in charge of building the products for several years, it’s a good time to shut up and listen.

With version 8 there’s been a lot of focus on the client, but the Domino server seems to be the unsung hero. One of the things that struck me as Kevin laid out the strategy for the customer was how much the product has grown and improved over the past few years. Of course it should grow and improve, but the remarkable fact is that all these improvements have not required a change in the architecture - it’s been consistent for years and will remain consistent in years to come.

Kevin waxed lyrical about the performance improvement goals that he kept setting for the development team… which they kept on achieving. If you’ve seen my presentation on either version 7 or 8 you may remember a chart which shows the scalability improvements from 6.5 to 7 - the scalability on some platforms (Windows and pSeries) increased by 50%, but that was bettered by the whopping 80% on iSeries (sorry, System i) and Solaris. The team did such a great job on reduction of CPU usage in 7 and 8.0 that they then had to focus on I/O so that the server could catch up with itself (that’s layman terms).

Add to that the news posted by Rob Ingram on the Domino Blog this week… the database compression work planned for delivery in a later version was to be brought forward to Domino 8.0.1 - in other words, a capability delivered earlier than expected. Rob explains that the new compression technology reduces database sizes (and that includes mail boxes) by around 40%. This in turn has a beneficial effect on the I/O which in turn benefits the server performance. And we haven’t even played the 64-bit card yet (that’s coming soon).

Now, let’s re-iterate something here. All of these improvements have been delivered on a consistent architecture, one which has evolved but has not required rip-and-replace operations. I always make the point that I would never trivialise the process of upgrading from one version to another, but I make no bones about proudly showing the presentation slide in which the server versions are joined by lines labelled “upgrade”. Even if a customer jumps a version (e.g. 5 to 7 as some customers are now doing) it’s still an upgrade. There’s no requirement to migrate data or move mail boxes from one server to another. And although we can’t see into the future (this is just arse-covering) there are no plans to make this necessary. Why should we? The architecture is solid and keeps improving.

That slide I mentioned… upgrade, upgrade, upgrade, skip versions if you want, co-exist versions… ask those guys from Redmond to show you their version of that slide. I’ve drawn it myself and it’s not a pretty sight, but you don’t want to hear it from me… ask them.

Back in June this year I wrote a post entitled “Should Microsoft be worried?” which discussed the open source productivity editors integrated into Lotus Notes 8. The message was clear for Notes customers… pay money for Microsoft Office or start using the editors which are effectively free because they’re already paid for courtesy of the Notes client license.

Let’s face it, Microsoft don’t even have to get out of bed to sell Office… the money just rolls in because most businesses and consumers believe there’s no alternative (and many get themselves tied into a license agreement which looks good value but is often an expensive option). I have a friend who had left her job at a large confectionery company and was starting her own business as a management trainer. She was talking about the cost of buying a laptop, and then having to buy Office to go on it - I asked why she didn’t just download OpenOffice for free, but to be honest her “what’s OpenOffice” reaction wasn’t a surprise. People just don’t know they have a choice.

Starting today, Lotus are getting very serious about competing with Microsoft in this space with the announcement of Lotus Symphony. If you were born in the 1970’s or earlier you may remember that there’s already been a Lotus Symphony, but this is a new offering which is effectively the Notes 8 productivity editors de-coupled from the Notes 8 client. This means that the editors are no longer just a free proposition for Notes customers… they’re free for everyone. Yes, you can download and use them free of charge.

Add to this the fact that IBM joined the OpenOffice.org community last week and you can see there’s a lot of commitment behind this move. What’s also interesting is that IBM (and Lotus) traditionally offer software for businesses, but now here’s something for the consumer market. Don’t forget that this is also an option for Linux users and at some point in the future Mac users. Okay, Microsoft probably aren’t shaking in their boots today, but that’s not the point… the point is that now you have a choice.

Final point - I pay taxes to the UK government and to my local authority. Millions of other people do the same. Some of that money swells the Microsoft coffers, and that makes me unhappy. There is a growing movement in the UK to stop this kind of behaviour and ensure that publicly-funded organisations take advantage of free open source software. Be part of it.

Way too early. When last we discussed the footy, ManYoo were languishing in the drop zone and Florida Steve was talking about not being able to give Chelski that kind of lead. And now look at the table. After the final whistles blew on Saturday, the top four had an all-to-familiar look (albeit not in the order that many would have predicted). But then Manchester City decided it was time to recapture some of the form that took them to the top in the first couple of weeks, and Chelski were duly pushed down into 5th place.

In our last look at the table, thirteen places and five points separated Arsenal and ManYoo… now it’s just three places and two points. How did that happen? Arsenal won all their games during this period. Ah, but look closely - Arsenal have played one match less and therefore could go five points clear again. True, they have to win that game in hand. Their next match is against Derby, who with one point from five matches were starting to look like a push-over. Ironically, if Newcastle had managed to give Derby a pasting tonight then ManYoo would have been dumped out of the top four. However, spoilsports that they are, Derby somehow managed a 1-0 win. I just hope they won’t spoil my day next Saturday.

And finally, in my previous football-related post I asked “that guy who writes for the Daily Mail who reckons that Spurs will knock Arsenal out of the top four… how are you feeling about that prediction now?” - any further comments on that idea mate, or would you like to conveniently forget it ever went to print?

I was going to entitle this entry “crikey, my arm hurts” but I decided not to. Apparently video games cause children (and adults) to become couch potatoes and obesity is the knock-on effect. Well, whoever said that obviously hasn’t worked their way up to Wii tennis pro status and then maintained that status in the face of fierce opponents of skill level 2,000. I reckon I’ve lost a few pounds, but I also have one arm like Charles Atlas.

Ports also has a Wii and has already destroyed a light shade - no such damage in the games room round at Adams Towers, although I did clout Lauren’s foot while swinging back a virtual bowling ball (hey, my top score is 246 - I’m a bowling pro too).

Baseball remains a bit of a challenge, and I’m glad no-one can see me through the window adopting the batting position.

Apple are quite smart really. I think they announced their new range of iPods just in time to capture the imagination of the Christmas market and ensure that they’re actually available (Nintendo take note). And yet again they’ve delivered something with the “I want one of those” factor. Actually, several devices with the “I want one of those” factor, addressing several market segments and budgets. Very few companies can do that. One the downside, they also served up a huge helping of device envy to their existing iPod owners (but as discussed here before, that’s part-and-parcel of investing in technology - life stinks, so hold your nose and get on with it).

An iPhone-lookalike iPod (the iPod touch) was expected, as was the re-vamped nano with added video. Less expected, from what I’d read, was the re-vamp of the more traditional iPod (now re-branded as the iPod classic). Nice new colours for the iPod shuffle, but I really couldn’t care less about that one.

Last week I debated whether to wait for the iPod announcements or get an Archos 605. In the end procrastination resulted in me waiting for the Apple announcements. And to be honest I’m still undecided. The iPod classic wouldn’t be of any benefit to me - personally I think the screen is too small for watching movies, so it would only be a music player, and my existing grey-screen 20 gb iPod is fine for that. So, the iPod touch with it’s 3.5 inch screen and integrated Wi-Fi is the most coveted. However, when you compare it to the Archos 605 the specifications are rather disappointing.

The iPod touch wins hands-down on look-and-feel, style, weight and ’slim-ness’, and it looks like there’s a few more bits in the box. The Archos 605 wins on screen size (4 inch) and resolution (800 x 480, compared to the touch’s 480 x 320). Battery life for video is roughly equal.

Where the iPod touch falls down is on it’s storage capacity - it will be available in 8 gb and 16 gb models. Not including the 4 gb flash drive model, the Archos 605 starts at 30 gb and goes up to 160 gb. The small capacity, and the fact that storage is on a flash drive, gives the iPod touch that slim advantage. But let’s put this into perspective - currently I have around 9 gb of music on my current iPod, so that’s more than half of the 16 gb capacity gone. An average DVD ripped into the right format will be around 1 gb - ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ (a bum-numbing 2 hours 34 minutes) weighs in at 1.5 gb. ‘Team America’ (1 hour 33 minutes) is 928 mb. Therefore after the music goes on, the 16 gb iPod Touch would have room for 7 DVDs if I’m lucky. Not exactly a broad choice when you’re considering what takes your fancy when sitting in Manchester airport. On the other hand, the 40 gb Archos 605 should comfortably hold 30 DVDs.

Of course, despite all this thought process, I’m no nearer a decision. But if I hang on another year…

What a week… I arrived at Cape Town on Tuesday morning, in the nick of time to present at the launch event for our three new offerings (Notes 8, Connections and Quickr). That evening I flew to Johannesburg with my colleagues (Ross, Uffe and local-boy Hannes) ready for the next event and a meeting with the press on Wednesday. The Joburg event (in the swanky Melrose Arch development) was crammed to capacity with an audience of around 140 attendees. This was followed by dinner at the Butcher Shop in Nelson Mandela Square (I had ostrich - but not a whole one, and not even a leg). An early flight to Durban started the Thursday agenda, and Friday consisted of some customer visits before a late lunch at the Indigo Moon restaurant in Pretoria.

Reaction to the new products was amazing. I’ve already heard that one company in South Africa has already upgraded to Notes / Domino 8, and an attending CEO has taken the decision to move in Notes / Domino 8 in place of Outlook / Exchange in his company. That speaks volumes. And again, just like some recent events in the UK, I had numerous conversations with people very serious about replacing Microsoft Office with the free integrated productivity editors.

I came to one important conclusion while travelling in and out of South Africa… they really need to sort the airports out before the 2010 World Cup. Okay, they have improved the departure gates at Johannesburg, but the check-in area is still absolute bedlam. They seem to think the best way to reduce unemployment is to give everyone a job at the airport (but not assign them any duties… just let them stand around doing nothing).

Cape Town airport isn’t much better - I arrived at 08:20 in the morning and it was the only flight coming in. I got off the plane and got to the luggage carousel within 15 minutes (great)… but it was a further 40 minutes before my case arrived. Acceptable for a large airport with a lot of flights arriving, but not a small airport handling just one flight.

I travelled out in Premium Economy (or ‘World Traveller Plus’ as British Airways call it). Officially I was eligible for Business Class (over 10 hours, overnight, work on arrival) but I find gaining approval too long-winded and tiresome. So I opted for the easy approval option of World Traveller Plus - this worked well as I had the first row with plenty of leg room. However the return journey promised to be a nightmare, in cattle-class shoved in a tiny seat with no leg room or elbow room for 11 hours. Things promised to get worse - even though I checked in fairly early (after battling for 15 minutes to join the end of the queue) there were no aisle seats left (groan). I requested a seat move if at all possible and carried on. After a cuppa and a mooch round the shops I went to the gate to find that they’d found me an aisle seat, 28J. Economy, but an aisle seat, so an improvement. What I didn’t know until I got to 28J was that this newly-allocated seat was in World Traveller Plus… and, double bonus, was on it’s own next to the emergency exit so I had 7 feet of leg room (more than enough) and no-one beside me. Thank you British Airways.