I love Lotus Notes. And I wish it had been me who had set up ilovelotusnotes.net, but it wasn’t. So far the comments have been pretty much what I’d expect – the perception is that the hate-filled rants on ihatelotusnotes.com are mostly from people using older versions of Notes. Mind you, once you hate something you’ll probably convince yourself that you’ll always hate it, no matter how much it improves. So going to that site and telling people that they’re on an old version won’t help. Let them get on with their whining. If they ever read that book ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ they may see that whining about your e-mail client isn’t one of them.

It may surprise you, but I think that Lotus Notes Sucks is a far more constructive web site than ihatelotusnotes. Rather than directionless whining, this guy actually took the time to document reasons why he thought Notes sucked… and he was good enough to cross them off when the issues were fixed (up to a point). It’s a shame that the conclusion “Lotus Notes sucks” was applied to each of the eighty points, thereby making it seem a little witless and predictable. Our host also refers to the time he was contacted by Mary from Westford with an offer to participate in the Notes redesign (the basis of Notes 8), but he declined.

What’s also apparent is that the site hasn’t been touched for quite some time – the last update was in February 2006. Several fixed issues remain listed as current ‘suck factors’. Maybe he got bored, maybe his company migrated to Outlook. I hope he’s happy now.

A couple of years ago I recorded a series of videos for GuruOnline. Our contact John has often mentioned that the series has been viewed a considerable number of times (over 19,500), so when the chance to record some more videos came along I needed little persuasion. However, I had forgotten how tortuous the process of filming is… well, for me anyway. I can stand up and give a presentation without a moment’s thought. I can sit across the table from a customer and talk until the Sun expands and swallows the Earth. But stick me between a green-screen and a camera, and gremlins will enter my head.

After a slow start, a large number of profanities and enough out-takes for the GuruOnline team to release an 18-rated DVD box set in time for Christmas, we managed to get thirteen videos in the can. This time around the subject was ‘collaborating in the cloud’… no product names mentioned, but you can read between the lines.

My frolleague Steve Heeney also recorded a set of videos on the same day, rattling off nineteen in just over an hour (impressive). So Steve probably has a better chance of a career in t.v. than I do.

And a bit of trivia to end with… I took four ties with me, changed my mind twice minutes before the camera rolled, and I’m happy with my eventual choice.

You can view the videos, and my tie, here.

A few weeks ago I received an invite to the grand opening of Polycom’s new Executive Briefing Centre at a plush 16th floor location near Liverpool Street station. Today marked the event, and I have to say that Polycom’s new location is tremendously impressive – if you get an invite, take the opportunity to visit them.

Joined by my frolleagues Stuart McRae and Murat Gunenc, I was there because we’re partners with Polycom in the UC² market offering integration with Sametime 8.5.1. After presentations, demos, drinks and nibbles – and catching up with my very good friend Tony ‘Binge Thinking’ Cocks – it was time to depart and make my way to Waterloo to catch the Ascot Express (it was too late for one of the two direct trains back to Camberley).

As I handed my badge in I was offered a parting gift, but the lady from Polycom apologised that they were only giving the TomToms to customers. A TomTom One, just for turning up at an event with free drinks…? That’s what I call generous. If you were the owner of one of the many non-attendee badges, right now you should be kicking yourself. Anyway, I have a TomTom XL and I understood that the gifts were for customers (I could have argued that IBM are a Polycom customer, but that would have been rather petty), so ’twas no big deal. Instead the nice lady offered me some rather expensive-looking pens or a ‘communicator’.

I’m okay for pens and the picture of the communicator on the box looked interesting so I gratefully received the gadget. On the train (a journey which offers lots of available time) I took a closer look and saw that the product was actually a Polycom CX100 Speakerphone For Microsoft Office Communicator 2007. At this point I was tempted to eject the box out of the train window, but not wanting to hit the 18:57 from Hampton Court I decided to inspect the device further. It’s got speakers, it’s got a microphone, it’s got a flap on the back that opens, and underneath said flap is a USB cable and connector. The instruction booklet says, and I quote:

In order to use the Polycom CX100 Speakerphone, Microsoft® Office Communicator 2007 must be installed on your computer.

I arrived home, kissed the current Mrs A, hugged the offspring (beaming from a wonderful first day at her new school) and suffered a frenzied attack of affection from an excited micro-dog. Then I put Polycom’s claim to the test… would this nifty box of tricks work without Office Communicator 2007, and would it work with Sametime Unified Telephony? Answer… of course it does. Windows XP recognised it, so did the MacBook Pro, and switching over to SUT’s softphone both of them provided perfect integration.

And not only does it work, it’s the perfect thing for SUT demos. Earlier today I demoed SUT, but there’s always an audio barrier to break when in front of an audience. Can you hear this voice coming out of my mobile phone or my wireless headset? Maybe if you’re right down the front next to me. But with the CX100 we have the perfect telephony end-point for letting the audience hear what’s going on.

While I have no plans to relegate my Plantronics head-set to a dusty drawer, I have a feeling I’ll be using the CX100 a lot (and I should also mention it comes with a smart carrying pouch). I intend to call my Polycom contact tomorrow and see if I can blag a couple more, because it’ll be such a useful addition to our SUT briefings. But I think I should mention that Polycom need to correct their marketing message – it’s not just for Office Communicator… this integates with SUT too.

If you’ve ever bothered to read the About me page here on dadams.co.uk, or if you’ve known me since school days, you’ll know that I once came very close to fame through music. Okay, close-ish. In my teens I played the six-string guitar quite badly, and then took up the bass guitar when one of my school chums, Al Johnson, needed a bass player for his band. Myself, Al, and drummer David Hunt became a band with no name and no singer, and never played any gigs. But it was fun rehearsing in Dave’s bedroom.

Moving onto Sunbury College I hooked up with a guy named David Tinham, and we were joined by vocalist Caroline Tyers to form a band that again never saw the light of day. After college I answered an ad in the NME and auditioned for an Addlestone-based band featuring Jenna (now with the surname Fox) on vocals, Julian Leech on guitar, and wild-man Gary Puttick on drums. Julian left, was replaced by Gary Howes, and then Julian rejoined. We did play some gigs, just small local venues and we did have a name. I liked the idea of having the word ‘Empire’ in the name and either Gary or Jenna liked the idea of turning it into something German / Gothic… so we adopted the rather daft name of Empire Strasse.

A short time after Empire Strasse disbanded (and Jenna went on to work at Lotus before I arrived there), I was introduced to the guitarist of Heaven Can Wait (another Dave) who were looking for a bass player. After a successful audition I joined vocalist Chris, keyboard player Danny, Dave, drummer Simon (who had been to the same school as me) and the aforementioned Caroline later joined as an occasional backing vocalist.

We played a debut gig in a local pub, and over the next year played a number of gigs… more pubs, the Tunnel Club in Greenwich (still there on the South side of the Blackwall Tunnel, but now has a different name), Zetas in Putney, the Rock Garden in Covent Garden, and the Hammersmith Palais. The Hammersmith Palais? Yep, and we supported two bands that you may have heard of – The Chiefs of Relief (formed after BowWowWow split) and Furniture (remembered for their one and only but rather good hit ‘Brilliant Mind’).

It came to pass that being in a band is expensive. For example, at the Hammersmith Palais and Rock Garden gigs we paid them to play there, but got a cut of the tickets. A good strategy for a band waiting experience and to get noticed, but not a good way of making money. Small pub gigs were actually more lucrative. Rehearsing wasn’t cheap either – whether it was the youth club hall in Addlestone or (if we were feeling flush) the rehearsal studio in Kingston, it all cost money. When the rest of the lads decided they wanted to invest a fairly substantial sum of money in getting a demo tape recorded, I had to decline – it was at the time when the mortgage rate had soared, and I was the only one with such a financial commitment. We went our separate ways, and I was eventually replaced by Peter Parker. No, not that Peter Parker…

Heaven Can Wait didn’t make the big time, so I didn’t miss out on fame and fortune. But I do now hugely regret hanging up my bass guitar and wished I’d kept playing, especially now that Lolli is learning the guitar and is so interested in music. I often find myself staring longingly at shiny bass guitars hanging up in music shops that I pass. Sad, isn’t it?

What’s caused this outpouring of musical nostalgia? When Heaven Can Wait played at the Hammersmith Palais (twice) we paid the guy running the mixing desk to record it on video. At gig #1 the plonker didn’t switch on the sound until two songs into the set. When we played the Palais again five months later we were a much, much better band and our small following said the gig was awesome. Unfortunately the video turned up with no sound at all… so the only record of Heaven Can Wait in action is this old VHS tape recorded from an early gig – I don’t recall the year but I’m going to guess at 1988. At the weekend I found it in a drawer, and after a unsuccessful attempt to transfer it onto my Archos media player my good pal and technology guru Gareth ‘G’ Cook came to the rescue.

A bit of jiggery-pokery on the iMac, and here it is on YouTube – part 1 and part 2. I may upload it again with a higher resolution. Bear in mind that the audio was taken directly from the instruments and microphones, it’s not great quality (the bass isn’t very bassy) and there’s no noise from the crowd – when Chris asks if everyone is having a good time, there’s muted response. There were about three hundred people there, and they did have a good time. Also bear in mind that this was recorded in the late 1980s, and therefore my trousers and all other dodgy styling should be forgiven.

It’s been quite a Summer for new releases… hot on the heels of Notes / Domino 8.5.2 and Sametime 8.5.1 comes this update to Quickr for Domino. Yesterday we announced that Quickr 8.5 would be available on 13th September 2010 – today I attended our introductory webcast for the new version, so it seems like a good time to run through the improvements and new capabilities…

Performance – version 8.2 boasted some considerable performance statistics, and there’s further leaps with version 8.5. A re-design of the user experience hides the fact that there’s been vast improvements to the architecture under the hood, and it shows on our internal deployment. 8.5 flies in comparison to previous versions.

The rich text editor – the editor is a common component across web-based Lotus products, and supports richer editing than previous versions. Better support for images, tables and rich media such as Flash, and lighter versions can be used where applicable (e.g. comments in the discussion forum).

The document library – probably the most-utilised element of Quickr, so it deserves extra attention. It has a cleaner and more intuitive layout, and there’s been a focus on speed – both in terms of performance and the steps to create, edit and publish content. Focusing on an individual document, the user interface now resembles the look of Lotus Connections Files, with versions and comments easily visible. Click on the document image for a larger view.

Uploading of files – now a much more streamlined process featuring a ‘lightbox’ (rather than going through successive screens of options). The upload box allows setting of readership and authorship, providing a granular level of access control.

Discussion forums – another much-used element of Quickr… the user interface has been refreshed, comments are easier to create and view, and important discussion topics can be pinned to the top.

Connectors – they expose the Quickr document libraries into Notes, Windows Explorer, Symphony, Microsoft Office, Outlook and Sametime. Loads of new goodies… Sametime awareness and linkage to chat in the file properties, dragging a file into a Sametime chat to transfer it, and dragging a file into a Sametime 8.5 meeting to share it. The connectors are also supported by that strange Office 2007 ribbon thingy, so you can have full management of Quickr content from Office applications. Click on the file properties image for a larger view.

Lists – our Quickr Product Manager Dave Kajmo described lists as something that people said was available in SharePoint, so they wanted it in Quickr. Well, the functionality has always been there as custom forms and folders, but it was quite well-hidden. The lists functionality makes it more accessible and adds some major improvements. The process of creating the custom form is far better, and the resulting form has a much better look and feel… same goes for the customisation of the list’s view. You can also create a list from an existing spreadsheet (Open Document Format or Excel).

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) integration – loads of good stuff here, but for me the stand-out feature was the fact that the Quickr connectors honour the ECM’s mandate for metadata. So when a file is checked in, a dialog box will appear and request the metadata. No check-in allowed until the details are provided.

Drag and drop into Notes – this has been available in previous versions, but the Quickr 8.5 connectors will format the resulting link very nicely, as illustrated here.

Calendars – the new Quickr team calendar is lifted directly from Lotus iNotes, so it now has a tasty look and feel. If you’re a Notes 8.5.1 + user, you can add the Quickr team calendar as an overlay to your own calendar.

Multi-lingual server – multi-national customers can now take advantage of a single Quickr server to serve users in any country. The language that displays in the browser is simply based on the browser’s language settings. The demo this afternoon showed switching from English to Japanese on the fly.

There is more (admin, analysis, enhanced third-party authentication, and, oooh, a Linux server), but I want to go to bed in a minute. I’ve showed you some small snippets of the Quickr user interface, but I’ll leave you with a bigger view of the document library – click on the navigation panel to the right.