Posts Tagged 'collaboration'

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Laptop-less, but a survivor

Published June 18, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
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It’s hard to imagine being without my laptop. If you own a laptop, and had to be without it (not by choice) – you’ll understand. My ThinkPad T41 is 3 years old in August, and he’s been giving me some problems for some time.. Most were minor (USB related stuff), that had little effect on my daily work, but for the past 2-3 weeks it’s getting worse.. It got stuck coulpe of times, resulting in an abrupt shutdown, using a long press on the power button..
I’ve lost sound as well, on speakers and headphones..

So I had to put it away.. for our tech support..

It’s only been 3 days now, without emails (Lotus Notes 8), IM (Sametime 7.5.1), my 35GB of WPLC related data – and it’s hard.. I do have my favorites at del.icio.us, and used Gmail from time to time, but it’s just not the same.. Google Reader kept me in sync with my feeds, but being away from my data was just too hard. And although many collaboration softwares are available (from IBM and others), I realized I just didn’t use them as much as I like.

Only today I had to give a presentation about Web 2.0 at IBM, using Lotus SW, to a large customer. I realized that all my files are stored on my hard-disk, and I have no remote access to them. There is a security issue, obviously, in putting personal data on a shared spcae, but there are many examples out there of how to make resources available online, shared as well as private.

So, my (new) resolution after this short laptop-less experience is to make a better use of Lotus collaboration software, so I’ll have most of my HOT materials available online, regardless of location and device…

BTW, my laptop is fine – new motherboard, and we’re back to business..

Back to Lotus Notes 8 (Beta 3)

Published May 30, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
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I’ve been with IBM for 6 years now, and Lotus Notes is the email client I’m used to, although I do work with Outlook at home from time to time. How do you know if someone is a Notes user? if he uses the phrase ‘new memo’ instead of ‘compose’ or ’email’…

I wrote 2 months ago about my recent upgrade to Notes 8 client, but the early beta was too heavy for my laptop, and slowed down performance, so I rolled-back to 7.
Now I’m back. The new Notes 8 Beta 3 (see demo) is available for some time now internally at IBM, for early adopters, but now it’s also available for customers.

The beta 3 Notes (and Domino server) are much more faster than before. In fact, there’s hardly any different from my previous 7 version.
New interface is much better now, with clear icons, in a web 2.0 style (rounded style with cute animation), there’s an improved calendar and address book, built-in Sametime (IBM internal messaging application) and collaboration tools and also a support for Office documents – you can create and edit ppt/doc/xls files directly in Notes, and even run your presentation (slideshow mode) directly from the client. There’s also an interface to Lotus Activities, a new web-based workspace for virtual teams, still under beta testing, and internal only.

Needless to say that Notes 8 was built and designed on top the recent innovations in collaboration and communications, and is an excellent platform for organizations who has information sharing and managing in mind. You can start today – download the beta code now.
You can also read and view a visual tour of Lotus Notes 8,recently conducted by Computerworld.

Pictures courtesy of Ed Brill, available in Flickr – check out ibm.com/lotus/getn8now

Web 2.0 for Big Blue (aka ‘the Enterprise’)

Published May 15, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
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I attended a semi education today, held by IBM’s GTU, part of their quarterly relationship events with the developers community. The education was titled ‘Web 2.0 for the Enterprise‘, and featured a lecture by David Boloker (Strategy CTO, Emerging Internet Technology, IBM SW Group) and a live demo by Vova Soroka (Senior Manager, Collaboration Technologies, IBM Haifa Research Labs).
David talked a bit about Web 2.0 technologies, especially the implications for the enterprise and how IBM is putting it to use, using the recently announced Lotus Connections. I’ve heard David in the past, at a recent Lotus event 3-4 months ago, and his insights are always current and up-to-date.
The second half of the education was a live demo by Vova Soroka. Vova and his team followed-up on David’s introduction to web 2.0 technologies (ajax, rss, web-services, mushups, wikis, etc) and took the audience through IBM’s web 2.0 tools:

  • Fringe (enhanced employee directory)
  • Connections (a shared, browser-based workspace)
  • SameTime SONAR plug-in (IBM internal IM with a ‘popularity’ plug-in that analyzes your interactions and scores your buddy list)
  • and a new QEDWiki platform, that’s available for download at IBM’s alphaWorks site.

I’m not a developer, so I won’t get into the technical details of each tool, but I will say that it has been an eye opener for me. I consider myself an early adopter, and like to test beta versions of different internal IBM softwares, but the possibilities of web 2.0 for the enterprise are endless. Especially if you’re working at IBM… 😉

You can see a video of Rod Smith from IBM, on ‘Mushing up Business Value with Web 2.0’, from the recent Web 2.0 Expo, held this April in San Francisco. You can access some of the sessions’ material over at the presentations archive.
Also, a 9 minute demo of QEDWiki:

Can’t see the video? click here.

Back to Lotus Notes 7, after all

Published March 25, 2007 Uncategorized 2 Comments
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Last week IBM Forum Israel hosted a Collaboration Event, with Ed Brill, WW Lotus Sales Manager for Software Group. The event was the second time I got to know Lotus Notes 8, the new (and still in Beta) version of IBM’s email client, Notes 7.

After some chats with technical colleagues from SWG I decided to download the beta version, a hugh 1GB file, that occupies some 1.6GB installed… not for everyone.. I backup all my C:/notes/data directory (another 4GB), and then started the process. Good to know that Lotus are thinking of bi-directional (bi-di) languages, and the installation was in Hebrew.. cute.

My first impression was very good. The new UI (user interface) is cool, good colors, web 2.0 kind of icons and some great improvements to the calendar and contacts views. It worked well, at first, but slower than my Notes 7. There was a delay between the actual click and the action itself, although the machine never froze, and you could work on other views while the inbox was refreshing. Some of my DB took a little longer to open, but I guess that an increased RAM would make it better (my T41 have 1GB, with Intel Pentium M 1.7GHz).

I roll backed to Notes 7 after a week of usage, for 2 main reasons:
First – the speed. Maybe an additional 512MB would make it better. 1GB would make a hugh difference. But with the current specs, it’s just too weak to support Notes 8.
Secondly, I think it’s a glitch in the system, surely not intentional, but I couldn’t switch my keyboard with Alt+Shift between Hebrew/English. Just didn’t work. Only in Notes 8. I had to go to the language bar and switch from there. Bothering, although I know the guys from SWG are ‘living’ like this for 2-3 months now… so it’s not that bad.

Once Notes 8 is official, I’ll definitely upgarde, but only after a 1GB boost to my RAM. Notes 8 is much more friendly, user interface is excellent and the collaboration options – which I haven’t elaborated, but you can read all about them here – are phenomenal. And I haven’t mentioned the possibility to create/edit Office documents, in Notes, what IBM is calling ‘productivity tools’.
Notes is climbing. Fast.

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Mobile & Media Consultant. I help startup companies launch products to the consumer market. Reach out: dvir.reznik [at] gmail.com
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This is my personal blog. The postings here do not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my past employers or of my clients. It is solely my opinion.