Cursed as I am with a pedantic nature, I often over-analyse things or get irritated by things that wouldn’t bother most people. Stuff like using “your” when you should use “you’re”, and vice-versa. I wouldn’t dream of using the abbreviation commonly used for “laugh out loud” and never have done.

In recent years I’ve been irritated by the use of the word ‘leverage’ as a verb. Leverage is something you have, not something you do. Dictionary.com now disagrees with me, listing leverage as a noun and a verb, but I think this is a result of leverage now being accepted as a verb because too many people have misused it. Chambers Dictionary on-line lists leverage only as a noun. Interestly, Thesaurus.com (run by the same people as Dictionary.com) also lists it as a noun only… as does AskOxford which incorporates the Oxford English Dictionary.

Anyway, onto the actual subject… the word ‘ping’. Having worked in the IT industry for most of my working life, and having done some technical stuff in the past, I know the word ‘ping’ by Wikipedia’s definition…

…a computer network tool used to test whether a particular host is reachable across an IP network

However, these days I see it more and more in Sametime conversations. Just yesterday I was in a meeting – someone asked me if I could talk, and as usual I responded with “yes, I’ve been able to since I was two”. Naturally they found this retort very amusing (I think they did) and asked me to ping them when I was available.

On previous occasions when people have asked me to ping them I’ve then asked for their IP address. The problem with doing this is that the reply is usually “???” and then I have to explain their mistake in asking me to ping them. It’s a gag that works better with technical people.

A colleague suggested that the use of ‘ping’ comes from the noise that Sametime makes when a new line of text arrives. I disagree, it’s more of a ‘ding’ than a ‘ping’. This week I also heard someone tell someone else to “ping a note across to me”. God knows how that will work. I’ve been through all the parameters for the ping command and none of them seem to satisfy that objective.

I have an annual problem, and this year (i.e. for Lotusphere 2009) it seems that it’s going to be worse than ever. Over the course of the week, and not including the opening general session, I will have time to attend twenty sessions.

Yesterday I downloaded the Lotusphere 2009 planning database from Genii Software’s site (big thanks to Ben Langhinrichs for providing this once again). The database is a Notes application which lists the sessions and their abstracts, and allows you to add the sessions to your Notes diary. So I started adding the sessions I was interested in… and here’s the problem… I’ve ticked off eighty three (yes, 83) sessions that I’d like to attend.

But as I’ve said before, this is the mark of a great event. It would be far worse to spend four days at Lotusphere and not find anything interesting.

Last week I was interviewed by Chris Partridge of Times Online on the subject of collaborative solutions that are changing the workplace. You can read the resulting article here. Overall I think it’s a great article – I would have slightly re-worded a couple of things, but journalists don’t have the luxury of infinite column space so Chris did a good job of including all of the main points

• Adoption of instant messaging cuts e-mail by 40% – Gartner stated 40%, internally in IBM we measured 38%… but it’s not guaranteed for everyone.
• “Eventually you get fed up typing so you press a button to go on the phone” – during the interview I said “IF you get fed up with typing”.
• On the subject of web conferencing replacing face-to-face meetings – in our return on investment model we reckon on about 10% of face-to-face meetings being replaced, but that’s something individual businesses need to look at.
• Likewise the return on investment being realised in a couple of months – maybe, it depends on the business… but we have seen situations where it’s possible.
• I didn’t say that instant messaging (IM) could be used to store knowledge – that part of the interview actually referred to a Notes and web application, and also to the culture of asking questions in a place where everyone could benefit from the answer.

Interesting that Erik Larson from Adobe also said what I said during my interview, that collaboration is generational – today’s teenagers use instant messaging and social networking tools and will be expecting those solutions in the workplace. Furthermore I said that some businesses now recognise that they need to have those solutions in place to attract and retain the best talent. Stick with Lotus software, and that’s what they’ll get.

That’s nice to know isn’t it… especially as it pays my mortgage, feeds my family and keeps the wife in shoes. According to ChannelWeb, Domino not being dead is one of the ten big IBM stories of the year. Well, it is true, I can confirm Domino is not dead. Domino 8.5 is a major new version and will ship soon, certainly before Lotusphere, and boasts loads of new features. Some of these features will provide a lower cost of ownership to businesses using Domino – of which there are about 46,000 around the globe.

I would argue their statement about “Notes / Domino may have fallen way behind Microsoft’s Exchange / Outlook communications and collaboration platform in the market share race” – fallen behind, yes – way behind, no. Not according to the analysts. And Exchange is a collaboration platform now? Oh, of course, e-mail is a form of collaboration. And it has public folders. Aren’t they removing public folders from Exchange?

Furthermore, 2007 saw an increase of about 10% in Notes / Domino customers on active maintenance, and we’re tracking the same sort of increase for 2008. I would speculate that this is a result of customers seeing a solid roadmap and the fact that Notes 8 puts to bed the old ‘Notes is ugly’ argument. Not to mention the fact that integrated Lotus Symphony provides a viable low-cost alternative to Microsoft Office.

Add to that the fact that we are still taking customers off competitive products, and 2008 saw some major brand names switch to Notes / Domino. Needless to say, I can’t wait for these to turn into public references in 2009.

One last thing to say about this… Domino dead? Domino has a roadmap, one which we’ve talked about publicly. While the fine details of the features may be not public knowledge, many of our customers know about them. We know that the next version of Domino will be delivered in 2010, it will be based on the consistent architecture and will be an evolution, not a rip-and-replace overhaul. Ask yourself this… if you use a solution from another company, and that product doesn’t have a publicly-announced roadmap, shouldn’t we being questioning whether that’s dead instead?

Ever since the wife acquired an iPod and speakers many moons ago, the Christmas play-list has been a feature of the festive season in the Adams household. I nearly used the word ‘treat’ there but then remembered it features some ghastly offerings such as ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham and ‘Wombling Merry Christmas’ by the Wombles. We have some debates about whether some qualify as Christmas songs, such as ‘Stay Another Day’ by East 17 – my argument is that just because it happened to be a hit at Christmas and features some bells at the end, that doesn’t make it a Christmas song. The wife disagrees.

Over the last couple of years I’ve grown increasingly irritated by the fact that if I hear one track I instinctively know which is next, so I suggested to the current Mrs Adams that she at least changes the order. Failing to get any progress with that idea, I decided to create my own Christmas play-list. Naturally Wham got the boot, along with East 17 (because that’s not a Christmas song) and ‘Fairytale Of New York’ which (and I know this won’t be a popular opinion) I can’t abide.

In comes ‘Proper Crimbo’ by Bo Selecta (it’s crap but it’s funny), ‘Little Saint Nick’ by the Beach Boys, Bert Jansch’s version of ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’, ‘Thanks For Christmas’ by XTC  and ‘Christmastime’ by the Smashing Pumpkins which the wife consequently said she wanted too. And there it is, fifty-four top festive songs.

But then I started thinking… if I had to pick just ten, what would they be? This is tricky. A Christmas play-list spans the decades from the Rat Pack offerings of Dean and Frank, through the 1970’s hey-day of Christmas songs (Slade, Wizzard), through to the present day when Christmas songs are seen to be a bit naff. And then you need a bit of choral action. Tricky indeed… but here’s my top ten.

1. I Believe In Father Christmas – Greg Lake
2. Happy Holiday – Andy Williams
3. The Christmas Song – Nat King Cole
4. Happy Christmas (War Is Over) – John and Yoko
5. I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day – Wizzard
6. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – Perry Como
7. Winter Wonderland – Tony Bennett
8. Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! – Dean Martin
9. O Holy Night – Nat King Cole
10. Merry Christmas Everyone – Shakin’ Stevens

Okay, let the agreements and disagreements begin.

I should give it its proper branded name… IBM Lotus Notes Traveler. There you go, that keeps the brand police happy. As you know, IBM Lotus are the software brand that gives you choice. You can use a BlackBerry, you can use Windows Mobile (with Traveler and with other solutions such as CommonTime, DME and Intellisync), you can use Symbian devices, and you can use an iPhone (with iNotes Ultralite).

IBM Lotus Domino 8.5 is very close to shipping, and one of the many new goodies is Traveler support for various Nokia devices running the Symbian operating system. A contact from a very well-known and valued Lotus customer (hi Richard) recently asked me “which devices does that cover?” – you can find the answer here, and the answer is “lots of devices”.

So why is this so important? Well, choice is important and at Lotus we like giving you choices. IBM Lotus Notes on Windows, Mac or Linux. Domino on a whole range of server platforms. It costs more to develop, but we think you’re worth it.

The other reason it’s important is that, if you look at that range of Nokia devices, people in many organisations will already have those devices in their hands. So the cost of enabling mobile e-mail and calendars may turn out to be lower than you think.

And the other other reason is market share. This surprised me when I saw it yesterday. According to Gartner (December 2008) Symbian devices accounted for 49.8% of smartphone devices shipped worldwide in the 3rd quarter of 2008. RIM (i.e. BlackBerry) were next with 15.9% followed by “Mac OS X” with 12.9%. Does that mean iPhone? Probably. Windows Mobile took 11.1% of the market, Linux devices took 7.2%, and the one-time giant of PDAs, Palm, took just 2.1%. So, Symbian was the clear market leader, and thus my title is vindicated.

Any time is a good time to download and install Mozilla Firefox. Now is an even better time. According to the BBC News Technology page, “security experts urge users of Microsoft’s  Internet Explorer to switch to another browser until a security flaw is fixed”. Oh dear. Thankfully I do all my financial transactions in Firefox… and while it’s probably not 100% perfect I don’t think security experts have ever warned of something like this.

So do yourself a favour – switch to Firefox and stick with it.

Thanks to Pete the Hampster for the link (yes, that’s how it’s supposed to be spelt in Pete’s world). And also thanks to Lewis Turek who posted the link in a comment (which was held for moderation, cos it had a link in it).

Yes, I know, we’ve been down this path before. But the question needs to be asked. This time it relates to an article on the BBC News Technology page, that well-known Microsoft PR machine which occasionally gives Apple and Google a nod too. Today’s article is entitled “Can Microsoft make its future mobile?” – and by the way it’s the Beeb who have missed out the possessive apostrophe, not me.

The article discusses the efforts of Symbian (perveyor of the operating system for Nokia devices), Apple (the iPhone, have you heard of that?), RIM (BlackBerry, but you knew that), Google, HTC, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. They’re all players in the mobile market. Some bigger than others – the article recognises that RIM are the big players in the corporate market, the iPhone is winning the mind-share battle, and Nokia have the most devices out there.

With that in mind, I have one question for the Beeb… why does it always have to be about Microsoft?

For those of you who have been following the roller-coaster ride of my search for my ancestors here on dadams.co.uk, you’ll know that as yet I haven’t really left my proverbial chair. All the research so far as been done on various web sites… oh, and not forgetting info from my relative Caroline (who I got in touch with via a web site). The first reliable national census was carried out in 1841, and central birth / marriage / death records started in the 3rd quarter of 1837 – this info is available on-line. There are some parish records available on-line, but there’s a lot of info missing. While Norfolk is very complete, London and Middlesex records are very infrequent. So there comes a time when you have to leave the chair and get down among the old records.

My research so far had revealed that one of my great x4 grandfathers was Russell (sometimes spelt with one l) Brown, born around 1791, a fisherman living at Fisherman’s Place in Chiswick. Fisherman’s Place was a group of run-down cottages situated very close to St Nicholas Church, otherwise known as Chiswick Parish Church. Fisherman’s Place, incidentally, was known as Slut’s Hole until they changed the name (for the better, methinks). So, was it safe to assume that the Brown family and some of my other nearby ancestors were recorded in the Parish of St Nicholas? The answer, it seems, is yes. If you’re interested, you should refer to the map in this blog post.

The web site of Chiswick Parish Church states that the church “is privileged to hold almost complete Registers and Vestry records in the Archives dating back to 1622″. And they welcome enquiries from researchers. Fantastic. I e-mailed Jane Watson, keeper of the archives, who responded very quickly and said that they would look for some likely records when they held their next research meeting. A couple of weeks later Jane replied and said that they’d found many relevent records, but the best course of action would be to contact her colleague Carolyn Hammond at Chiswick Library. Jane explained that the library’s local research room had transcripts of the parish records, and it prevented handling of the old original records. Carolyn has written a book on the history of Chiswick (you can find it on amazon.co.uk) and she invited me to meet her at the local research room where she works part-time as a volunteer. I took an afternoon off work and made my way to Chiswick.

Carolyn started by showing me an entry found in the parish’s poverty register, describing the condition of John Cotton (another great x4 grandfather), his wife Sarah and their seven children. Actually I didn’t have proof that this was my John Cotton, although research during afternoon proved this was him. This is how the entry from 6th April 1840 read…

Husband sat by fire either tipsy or sick – wife says he worked for Jessop – but out of it now – was turned away by Finch for misconduct

2 sons – 5 daughters

1 son aged 24 laid up sick for many years

One daughter seemed a tidy girl – walked lame

All brought up in Charity School – some there now cloathed

In coat club

A great start. No, seriously, for good or bad this is a piece of my family history. Carolyn then showed me how to go through the parish baptism records and I spent the next two hours searching through a hundred years worth of records. There were many successes – I confirmed that the aforementioned Russel was the son of Russel Brown and Mary Dukes, and that Russel Brown senior was baptised in 1756 (his date of birth was missing). I found Russel junior’s date of birth (14th November 1790, so just off the 1791 estimation). I found many siblings for my ancestors – these can be very useful when details about your own ancestors are missing. I also nailed down the identity of John Cotton – I’d known that was the name of my great x4 grandfather through his daughter Sarah’s marriage to James Brown (Russel’s son)… but in the 1841 there was no Sarah in the household of the most likely John Cotton.  There was however a Sarah Cotton at Chiswick House, which was situated (I now know) at the end of Bennett Street where John Cotton lived. The baptism records matched up John’s children with those listed on the census, and there was a baptism record for Sarah in exactly the right year to match her age on the census and marriage certificate.

Another discovery is that John Cotton’s father, John (yes, another one) had acted as the Parish Clerk for a number of years. And just to confuse everyone, his wife was Sarah too.

Although I found a lot of details, there’s still some missing – not all the events happened in St Nicholas Parish. Marriages typically took place in the bride’s parish (as they do today) so I didn’t find some of the marriage details I hoped to. But that’s okay, it gives me something else to search for… and I now know that local resources are the things to look for.

In closing I’d like to say a big thank you to Carolyn and Jane for their dedication and time. No payment was requested, although I will be making a donation to the fund that helps to maintain the records.

What do you buy the woman who has everything? A box to put it all in? The wife bought her main Christmas present at the airport on the way to Chicago, and it’s been tucked away ever since. It’s a handbag… can’t remember what make… Gucci or something like that. I’m about as interested in handbags as she is in catadioptric telescopes. Anyway, being a generous sort of guy, I recognise the need to purchase some Christmas surprises for the current Mrs Adams. But what…?

Okay, I have a small list. Then I saw the Technika Viewbox. Excellent, the wife loves her iPod and likes to download music videos from iTunes. And it was reduced to 75 quid. Perfect. So I decided to get down to Tesco to have a look at the technology close-up.

One thing you should be aware of is that we’re only 7 minutes away from the nearest branch of Tesco (which is located right next to one of the UK’s largest branches of Marks & Spencer). Yes, 7 minutes… if you drive there at 03:00. On a Saturday afternoon a few weeks before Christmas it’s a marathon trek. Anyway, I arrived, I parked in the nearest possible parking space to the entrance of Tesco (about half a mile away), bumped into my frolleague Jon Adams (no relation, but we have an amusing story about both walking through the door of 10 Downing Street), and found the Viewboxes. And then it struck me… maybe I should have bought an iPod with me.

After returning home and seeing to a couple of errands (including the usual father-chauffuer weekend job) I made some excuses and returned to Tesco. I parked half a mile from the entrance and walked through the rain, got to the Viewboxes, and stuck in Lauren’s iPod nano (because she has more movies than I do). After 5 minutes of fiddling about I worked out that there’s a setting on the iPod to tell it to output a video signal, and this successfully displayed a movie on the Viewbox’s screen. Pretty good… not Sony / Panasonic quality, but we’re talking 75 quid. At this point I started to over-analyse whether this would be something the wife would use, so decided to return home and do some subtle investigations.

Later – during a commercial break in Get Me A Celebrity, I’m Out Of Here – they showed an ad for the Viewbox. “Terrific” said the wife, “I’ve always wanted something like that”. Excellent. “Darren, pop down to Tesco tomorrow and get one”. Oh great.

So by 10:30 this morning I was back down at Tesco. As there’s fewer places for people to go on Sunday, the traffic was worse (even with my local-boy knowledge short-cut). I parked half a mile away from the door, and made my way to the Viewboxes. Hmmm, less in stock than yesterday, but still quite a few. I tried the wife’s iPod touch on the display model… slightly different procedure for getting it working, but fine nevertheless. I queued, I paid, I walked back to the car, and drove home.

Back in the kitchen the wife removed the Viewbox from the packaging, plugged it in and docked her iPod. She selected ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ by the now botox-ridden Mariah Carey. There was Mariah’s dulcet tones but no image… just some jumping lines. I ensured the iPod was docked properly. I tried my iPod. I tried the wife’s again. Nope… out of all the Viewboxes piled around the display model I’d picked the one that was kanckered.

Back in the car, back down to Tesco, parked slightly more than half a mile away from the door (everyone in Surrey was there now), walked back through the rain, through the door and to customers services. There was a small queue, which got longer as an elderly woman went through the process of a new mobile phone being activated. I was a hair’s breadth away from shouting “blimey love, go home and read the effin’ manual” when her transaction ended. After two more people it was my turn. They swapped it without an argument (that concerns me, I wonder how many more had been returned) and I asked if I could test the new one rather than be subjected to a fifth visit in one weekend. I got it out and plugged it in, and then docked my own iPod. At this point it’s worth noting that I only have one movie on my iPod – the DVD of ‘Incubus Live At Red Rocks’. And thus at full volume, the first song ripped out across the store with the delightful lyrics “Hey mega-lo-maniac, you’re no Jesus, yeah, you’re no f***ing Elvis”. Thankfully this was accompanied by live footage of California’s finest, so I repacked the Viewbox, walked back into the rain and returned home.

The Viewbox is now installed in the kitchen, the wife is extremely happy, she’s downloaded lots of music videos for Christmas songs… but I still need to get her something for Christmas.