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.

Last year one of the key concerns highlighted by delegates at IDC’s Unified Communications conference was whether UC requires significant investment in new communications equipment. With continuing pressure on budgets, many organisations do not have sufficient funds available for large scale capital investment but recognise the value a more cohesive communications strategy can offer the business.

If you’re interested in attending, here’s the link for registration.

The Notes & Domino 8.5.x upgrade workshop is intended to provide the customer with an in-depth examination of the new capabilities of version 8.5.x. For existing customers, this exploration will help them assess the additional value and potential impact to their existing environment. For new customers, this exploration will give them an invaluable insight into Notes & Domino 8.5.x.  At the conclusion of the workshop, the customer will leave with an excitement about the business problems this new version can help solve.

Sounds good? Okay, here’s the dates and locations for these free-of-charge events…

• Wednesday 29th September – IBM Warwick
• Tuesday 5th October – IBM Staines
• Wednesday 6th October – IBM Manchester
• Tuesday 12th October – IBM Edinburgh

Interested? E-mail Matt using matt dot newton at uk.ibm.com – or leave a comment here and I’ll pass your details on.

If the noise of Steve gnashing his teeth over Linux drowns out Mrs Ballmer’s snoring, what effect is Apple’s popularity having? Regardless of how good Zune media players may be, the cool-ness of wire-lessly sharing media with other Zune owners is dampened by the fact that there may be no other Zune owners within a fifty mile radius. Throw a Zune randomly over your shoulder in an urban area and chances are you’ll hit two iPod owners (one directly, and the second when the Zune bounces off the first person’s head).

What about the Mac versus the Windows-based personal computer? From here on I’ll adopt Microsoft’s moniker for the ‘PC’. According to a comment on Cult of Mac, PCs outsell Macs by ten-to-one. This doesn’t surprise me at all. Macs are more expensive (we’ll have the “you get for you pay for” argument later) – that may not be so much of an impact for the private consumer who will have to save a bit longer or dip into more of the savings to cough up £1,500 for an iMac or MacBook Pro, versus £800 for a good-quality Windows PC or laptop. But in business that amount of extra money doesn’t wash when you multiply it across two, five, ten or fifty thousand people. Companies will look for a massively-discounted deal on some fit-for-business kit… not top of the range but it’ll do the job. And that’s not the business Apple are in, although they have some traction in some market sectors. Some companies are indulging in the idea of consumerisation – the idea of giving an employee a sum of money to choose their own computing kit – but if their critical business applications run on Windows only it becomes Hobson’s choice for the operating system.

This makes me wonder what Microsoft are playing at with their PC vs Mac mini-site. Are they worried about starting to lose the corporate market? Probably not. However, consider the fact that Microsoft get a lot of mileage from the fact that people use Windows and Office at home (and college) and then take that advocacy into the workplace… could a growing number of Macs used in personal life start to chip away at the Windows dominance in the business environment? Maybe, but I also think that Microsoft are targetting those people who may be seduced by Apple’s cool factor… people like me… I was seduced and it was the best £1,500 I ever spent (not including money spent on an engagement ring to secure the hand of the current Mrs Adams).

Microsoft put forward a number of compelling arguments to halt that seduction…

You can’t get a Mac that ships with a Blu-ray player, TV tuner, Memory Stick reader, or built-in 3G wireless.

Some of that may be true, but you can get a Mac with a built-in SD card reader. Whatever, none of those omissions have bothered me in the slightest.

Macs can’t connect to an Xbox 360.

Why would I want to connect my Mac to my Xbox?

Things just don’t work the same way on Macs if you’re used to a PC. For example, the mouse works differently.

Indeed, that’s why I clicked on the option to make my Mac mouse behave like a PC mouse… so now the mouse works in the way I got used to on a PC. The Mac is a different beast to a PC in many ways, so why would everything work the same? This statement implies that Windows is perfect in every way, and to deviate from that is a step back. And that’s complete garbage, because there’s loads of things that Windows does badly that the Mac does better.

With a Mac, it’s harder to set up secure sharing for your photos, music & movies, documents, and even printers with other computers on your home network.

That’s a statement totally lacking in any evidence. I’ll give you one example… I have an Archos media player, and it was a hell of a lot easier to set up media streaming from the Mac than from Windows. In fact I wouldn’t even say “set up” because from the Mac it just worked. Windows required some tinkering, encouragement and a small amount of swearing.

If there’s a Mac version of a program you need, you’ll have to buy it again and relearn how to use it on a Mac. [Note the 'If' in italics].

What do users of GarageBand and iMovie for Windows think about this statement?

Macs only come in white or silver. PCs are available in a full spectrum of colors across a range of price points.

This is clearly Apple’s biggest mistake. They made iPods available in a range of colours but failed to do the same with the Macs, a decision that could ruin the company </sarcasm>. Ironically in this one statement, they mixed the most ridiculous reason (the colour choices) with the strongest factor of PCs… the fact that there is a great variety of choice in specifications, price, vendor and ultimately quality. Apple’s offerings are more expensive and more limited in choice.

But do you get what you pay for? After using an iMac at home for over a year, and now a MacBook Pro when out and about, I’d say yes. Even on a well-specced ThinkPad I’d experience an awful lot of egg-timer in a day. On the Mac everything is almost instantaneous. Bear in mind that on the iMac at home there’s usually two other people logged in and I’m running a lot of applications, but it never goes into one of those disk-thrashing death spirals of unresponsiveness. Yes, it’s better specced than the ThinkPad and it cost more, but that’s why I do say that you get what you pay for and (in my humble opinion) it’s worth it.

Barbara is a return to the more simple straight-forward style of their second album ‘With Love And Squalor’, but it’s evident that Keith Murray and Chris Cain have improved as song-writers and can litter their work with catchy riffs and melodies. And as a former bass-player myself, I can appreciate Chris Cain’s pulsing bass-lines, particularly on tracks like Nice Guys and I Don’t Bite. Best track… undoubtedly Ambition, but the mellow Foreign Kicks runs a close second.

If I have one criticism it’s that the ten tracks pass in less than thirty-two minutes. But it’s short and sweet, and overall I’m in love with Barbara.

In complete contrast, next up is something without electric guitars. Incubus front-man Brandon Boyd stated on the band’s Alive At Red Rocks DVD that he amazes himself every day at how badly he plays the guitar. Six years later Brandon is clearly more confident about his musical abilities and plays everything on his debut solo album ‘The Wild Trapeze’ bar the keyboards. I’d take a guess at saying that Brandon isn’t someone who would sit down at a conventional drum kit, and instead has beaten several different drums and mixed them together. The effect defines the album and gives it a unique feel, and is most evident on the album’s stand-out track Runaway Train.

Overall, everything is done differently to how Incubus would do it… Mike Einziger’s powerful and complex electric guitar work is replaced by acoustic strumming, Ben Kenney’s clear-cut bass-lines are replaced by fuzzy acoustic basses, and Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann provides the under-stated keyboards. Overall ‘The Wild Trapeze’ is more moody and restrained than any Incubus album, but occasionally soars to dramatic heights on tracks like A Night Without Cars and Here Comes Everyone. In charge of his own creativity, Brandon’s voice and self-harmonies have seldom sounded better. Thankfully, this is a solo album rather than an album by a solo artist – Incubus are returning to the studio as a band later this year.

Finally, it’s difficult to review an album when it’s only 11% complete, but that’s the situation with The Smashing Pumpkins‘ new offering ‘Teargarden by Kaleidyscope’. The Pumpkins reached the height of their popularity and creative strength with ‘Siamese Dream’ and ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’ in the 90s, and then saw their popularity decline into an eventual break-up. Billy Corgan went on to form Zwan (who delivered a sole but excellent album) and then followed-up with a rather lacklustre solo album. Getting back together with his once-disgraced drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, Corgan reformed The Smashing Pumpkins and produced a strong comeback album ‘Zeitgeist’ (reviewed here by guest blogger Florida Steve).

After Chamberlin left the band, Corgan continued and recruited 19 year-old Mike Byrne to the drum stool. After working with some touring band members and starting the recording of  ‘Teargarden by Kaleidyscope’, Corgan finalised a line-up by officially adding touring guitarist Jeff Schroeder and (yet another female bass player) Nicole Fiorentino.

The new work is part of Corgan’s new approach to recording and releasing his music – he stated that the old concept of recording an album of ten or so songs was done with, and planned to release ‘Teargarden by Kaleidyscope’ one track at a time via the Smashing Pumpkins web site. Reaction to the new material seems incredibly positive, and judging by the live sessions recorded at New York’s Terminal 5, there’s more great stuff to come. Billy Corgan is an enigma and a genius, he’s still a major force in rock music, and his band are resurgent in doing what they do best, albeit with a changed line-up. Corgan is the lynch-pin but he needs a great band around him as he once did and now has again.

IBM Lotus Notes 8.5.2 (to keep the brand police happy) is scheduled for release in Q3 of 2010. Those of you working to the Gregorian calendar may say “hey, it’s Q3 now” – indeed it is, so expect it soon. ‘Soon’ is of course a vague adverb – in the grand scale of the history of our planet the 2014 World Cup is happening soon. England will soon get another chance to lift the elusive trophy. Anyway, I digress. So what’s in this forthcoming version? Loads of stuff, but I’ve picked out a few highlights.

Multi-threaded replication – we have some whopping big Notes applications containing thousands of documents… sales opportunity tracking, customer contact, and the IBM directory catalog which allows me address any one of the 350,000-ish people in IBM even when disconnected (actually at only 80 mb it’s not really that big). Sometimes there’s a lot of updates in these applications, and the last thing you want to happen is that all-important e-mail getting stuck behind a behemoth replication operation. Never fear – now you can replicate multiple applications (and e-mail) at the same time, and chances are your e-mail will finish first while the big fella keeps going.

21st century application icons – when I started at Lotus in 1991 (straight from school, obviously) and used Notes version 2.0a, Notes application icons could only have sixteen colours. When I woke up this morning, that was also true of the current version (8.5.1). But that’s set to change with 8.5.2 – you can now load a full colour 32 x 32 image into your application to use as the icon. The old-style icon will remain stored in the application and will be used with older versions or if that full colour icon hasn’t been set. A feature that has zero productivity value yet will please millions (me included).

New mail preferences - quite a few here, including the format of displayed names (e.g. last name followed by first name, rather than first then last) and ‘automatically close original e-mail when replying / forwarding’.

Forward an e-mail from the Trash folder – I hate having a scroll-bar in my inbox, so I’m often quick to delete e-mails. Later, I’ll need to forward that e-mail to someone else, which means restoring it first. 8.5.2 allows me to forward directly from the Trash folder. I’m already using that one a lot.

Send someone a personal group – a great new feature in the personal address book, you can click the Send option and a special e-mail type will send the group contents. The recipient will then see an option to import the group straight into their own personal address book. You can also do this for location profiles.

There’s loads of other features, these are just a few that I’ve picked out. Notes / Domino 8.5.2 will be coming ‘soon’.

The what-if scenario… if that goal had been given (as it should have been) then England might have gone into half-time at 2-2. That could have changed the second half – when you’re behind and chasing a game it can leave the defence exposed, and the risk is conceding more goals… which is exactly what happened.

However… let’s be honest. We can sulk about that goal and the what-if scenario, but it doesn’t change the fact that England were massively disappointing during the World Cup. Robert Green was the scapegoat after the first match, but show me a goalkeeper who hasn’t made that sort of blunder during his career – poor old Greeny just chose to do it at the most inopportune moment. England’s real problem wasn’t their goalkeeper, it was the fact that they then couldn’t go on and score a couple more against a USA side ranked below England.

After the poor performance against Algeria (ranked twenty-two places below England), it was relief rather than admiration when England beat Slovenia (ranked seventeen places below) by one measly goal. And there you have it… four matches, four goals (if you count the one that wasn’t but should have been). Matthew Upson out-scored Wayne Rooney and Peter Crouch. After the same number of matches Argentina had scored ten goals. That’s how to progress in the World Cup.

Right now for me it’s a case of deja-vu (which I’ve experienced before, ho ho)… in the early days of the iPhone, and sporadically ever since, I received numerous e-mails from excited IBMers asking how they can get their iPhone connected to the Domino e-mail infrastructure (I’ve checked my job description, there’s no mention of this responsibility). Now I’m seeing the same with iPad owners. Our official mobile e-mail solution in IBM UK is the BlackBerry but Traveler is starting to gain a foothold, mainly due to the Apple devices.

The article does a good job of pointing out the major advantages of the BlackBerry solution… and solution is the right word. I’ve heard people say that Blackberries are expensive to own, but the infrastructure does provide what an enterprise needs with little or no requirements to add extras in order to make it enterprise-grade and extremely secure.

Since the article was written the iPhone 4 has been announced and I’m sure this will put more pressure on RIM and the other device providers. Consumers will lap it up, and IT departments may groan as expectant iPad / iPhone owners crave to get connected. Whether that trend gets traction in the enterprise space is yet to be seen, but one thing is for sure – consumerisation and end-user-power grows stronger every year.

Once the neglected stepchild of IBM’s colossal services business and systems unit…

Presented in the style of a slide-show, this article describes why software is now big business in IBM (which I’m rather relieved to hear). The Lotus brand gets three slides right at the end, describing Project Vulcan, LotusLive Labs and the expanding support for mobile devices. So, head straight to slide 25.

For something so packed with features it’s incredibly thin and light – I worried about snapping it when removing it from the box. The first issue I hit was the only negative – it’s the 8 gb model, so realistically has about 7.3 gb of storage. My music collection weighs in at 11.2 gb, so I had to de-select a number of bands and artists. Goodbye Coldplay (mind you, I should remove them anyway).

Now the positive points. As I said, it’s thin and light – incredibly so. It barely registers any weight in your hand. A gnat’s lunch weighs more. So in the last week I’ve tucked it into a suit and shirt pocket, and used it when I wouldn’t normally consider using one of the bigger devices.

Now, I keep going on about how thin and light it is, because it’s not just a music player. It’s amazing enough that they can fit 8 gb of storage, a battery, and the gubbins for a 2.2 inch (240 x 376 pixels) screen into it. But that’s not all – it has an external speaker, a radio and a video camera (complete with microphone). Okay, it’s not high definition video, but considering what it’s squeezed into I consider that an amazing feat of micro-engineering. And the quality is pretty good.

This now means I’m a three-iPod guy. My original 20 gb white 4th generation classic (complete with a monochrome LCD screen) provides music in the car, the iPod touch caters for games, e-mail, videos, Twitter and many other applications… but the nano looks set to be my primary device for music outside of the car.