Episode 28, recorded Friday 26th November 2010, discussing reasons to be thankful, Connections 3.0 GA, Transformer demo, ‘classic’ applications, XPages performance in the Notes client, the new XPages URL Shortner and more…

Please note: we have started to put times in the show notes for when we start to discuss each topic, in order to make it easier to fast-forward through the show to the topics that are of particular interest.  If you would like us to produce an enhanced podcast (AAC format) version of the show with multiple chapters to cover the individual chapters, please do let us know.

Also, we have made the decision to move to recording this show on Thursdays from this point forward, in order to allow additional time to get the podcast produced and still release on a Friday in time for the commute home (in Europe and America at least). Hope this meets with your approval!

Hosts

Stuart McIntyre (blog | twitter | company) & Darren Duke (blog | twitter | company)

Guests

Tony McPhail (twitter) is IT Technical Manager with The Salvation Army, Southern Territory, responsible for Enterprise application and infrastructure, including CItrix, VMware and Lotus Domino portfolio. Domino, Notes and iNotes clients, sametime, quirck and connections.

Pim van Wetten (blog | twitter | lotuslive) has worked with Lotus related software for over 11 years. After finishing his studies in Management and Information Sciences in 1999, Pim van Wetten (1974) started working at e-office. e-office is a Dutch IBM Business Partner that consults organizations about the way they can use technologies to collaborate more efficiently independent of place or time. During the first six years of his career Pim has taken a deep dive in technology by programming in Lotus Notes, WebSphere and WebSphere Portal. Then, he broadened his activities with project management and consultancy. The last three years he specialized in enterprise social media consulting. Pim is a regular speaker on this topic and has hosted several Lotus Connections sessions at the Dutch Notes User Group (NLLUG).

Tim Clark (blog | twitter | lotuslive) is an IT Specialist working in IBM Lotus Technical Sales in the UK and Ireland. Tim has been working for Lotus since 1994 and still loves it. The last few years have seen Tim focus on XPages, but now that focus is shifting to help customers understand how they can improve their collaboration using Lotus Software products. Tim is also a founding member of the XCast, an XPages podcast, which will be re-launching for Lotusphere 2011 with new hosts.

Topics

Thanksgiving week – what is your ‘reason to be thankful’? (04:52)

Lotus Connections 3.0 GA (07:43) 

  • First available to customers, then partners – what were they thinking? 😉
  • Lots of useful resources, not least a checklist for the upgrade
  • Demo video
  • Several HowTo video’s
  • Installation worksheet (would this be appreciated for other Lotus products? Would it scare people off?)
  • Side-by-side upgrade – makes you realise how good Domino upgrades are
  • Wiki-based documentation – how do we feel about this? Should there still be a straightforward Infocenter?
  • CMIS demo of Luiz Benitez showing integration with Lotus Connections
  • Is there a pilot version of Lotus Connections 3.0?

Transformer demo on LotusUserGroup.org (28:41) 

  • What do we think?
  • Is automated process the way ahead?

“Classic”- phrase du jour (37:52) 

  • Developers are affecting the messaging side with this jihad to create a nomenclature to separate out XPages
  • Mail is still a Notes app (composite and all, people think it is just LS and forms)
  • Would you invest in a messaging platform dubbed as “classic”or “legacy” by the very people who’d sell it to you?

On a related note Jake Howlett’s “Are You A Domino Developer?”survey (41:06) 

XPages in the Notes Client Speed – Sean Cull (43:25) 

  • aka XPiNC
  • A 80 fold increase in data transmitted to the client over a regular Lotus Notes app

XPages URL Shortner (48:12) 

What happened to the XCast? (50:01)

Lotusphere 2011 only 65 days away (51:59) 

  • No sign of session confirmations yet
  • Who’s attending? Submitted abstracts?
  • What is the Lotusphere Solutions Developer Lab?

Traveler for Android out by the Holidays (58:01) 

Tips

(1:02:18)

TimKeep an eye out for the new book “Mastering XPages Development”(Amazon UK US) due out in time for Lotusphere 2011 and should be on the bookstall. Written by Martin Donnelly, Mark Wallace and Tony McGuckin with technical review by Maureen Leland and John Mackey.
PimMy tip is about social software. Focus on collaboration, on improving your daily activities. It’s about business value, not a social cool tool.
TonyUse Lotus Sametime.. awareness to see if people are available, send message to see if they can accept your interruption.
DarrenThis has been said before in TWiL, but Evernote is amazing. I’m using it to sync “notes”between several Windows laptops, my Galaxy S Android phone, my BlackBerry Tour and my Galaxy Tab Android Tablet. I store things like wifi passwords, etc and have them accessible no matter the device I’m one.
Stuarta) Need to know more about Social Collaboration (and specifically Lotus Connections)? Join the Collaboration Matters/Applicable webinar series, starting on December 6th.
b) SSDs rock.  Expensive but worth every penny/cent/dime etc

Episode 27, recorded Friday 19th November 2010, discussing ILUG 2010, Blackberry Enterprise Server Express for Domino, the RIM Playbook, UKLUG 2011 and more…

Hosts

Stuart McIntyre (blog | twitter | company) & Darren Duke (blog | twitter | company)

Guests

Warren Elsmore (blog) has worked in the Lotus arena for 15 years and is a Senior Architecture Consultant with the Bluewave Group.  Bluewave provide technical architecture consultancy and advice to a range of large and small customers across the globe. Warren has spoken at many Lotus events including Lotusphere, Collaboration University, the View Admin conference, ILUG and UKLUG. He also writes for Clippings and in any spare time he has left he runs the UK Lotus User Group!

Steve McDonagh (blog | twitter) was a Nurse then switched to IT, now an IT Manager for an American/Japanese multinational electronics company specialising in Collaborative Technologies.  Steve has used IBM Midrange kit for 25 years from the System34 to the i5, and has been developing on Lotus Domino for 16 years. He assists in both the ILUG and UKLUG Organising Committees, and describes himself as a ‘professional eejit’!

Jennifer Stevenson (blog | twitter | company) has over 15 years experience with Enterprise Collaboration and has spent the last 6 years supporting and advocating the mobilization of collaborative applications and technologies. Jennifer is currently an Enterprise Product Manager with Research In Motion (BlackBerry), where she focuses on mobility and IBM’s Lotus portfolio of products as they pertain to BlackBerry. As an Enterprise Product Manager, she works to promote product evolution, awareness, interest and adaption ~ as such, Jennifer is a frequent speaker at industry and RIM-sponsored events and conferences worldwide.

Eileen Fitzgerald (blog | twitter | company) has been working in the Global Notes environment for over 15 years as a Global Notes Architect for multinational companies, Eileen then focused on Service Delivery, managing Notes services, infrastructures and functionalities according to ITIL Standards. Eileen is the co-organiser of ILUG and a speaker at Lotusphere. Eileen has various credentials in IT, Project Management and ITIL management for which she is a passionate advocate.

Topics

ILUG wrap-up

  • Overall reflections on the conference?
  • What were the highlights?
  • Attendance compared to previous years?
  • What value do vendors get from sponsoring or attending user groups?

Blackberry / RIM news

  • BES Express for Domino now available
    • Has been available for Exchange for a while – what impact has it made on BES licence sales? Why did it take so long to get the Domino version out?
    • How do organisations get it? (The easiest way is to visit www.blackberry.com/express and download it directly from the website)
    • How is it taking off? Who is using it?
    • How does it differ to the full version? (There is a comparison matrix posted @ http://us.blackberry.com/apps-software/business/server/express/Comparison_Chart.pdf)
    • What do end users need on their devices to use this? (assume consumer BIS versus BES contract?)
    • Will BES Express evolve along side BES Enterprise and BES Express for Exchange
  • Playbook
  • When will it be here?
  • Plans for Lotusphere 2011
    • Will you be sponsoring the event this year?

UKLUG 2011 announced at ILUG

Gartner: 20% of all businesses will have replaced email by 2014

  • Do we think this is realistic?
  • Replace vs. Deprecate?

Tips

Darren    If you ever debug SMTP via telnet then a DOS prompt is not your friend. Instead use Putty the SSH/Telnet client. Simply put it into telnet mode and to port 25. Voila, you can now use a backspace in the SMTP session. They sky is now blue, angels are singing and you will swear less often in the office
WarrenGet involved! Whether at your local user group or at Lotusphere this year. And if you don’t have a local user group, why not start one?
SteveGoogle have just changed their Google Docs interface for phones, and you can now edit !! Well on iPhone and Android 2.2.  Here’s a Youtube video showing the functionality.
Support Tim Clark’s Movember effort!
JenniferTake a moment to look at the different applications available in AppWorld, you’ll be surprised how many applications are available that have a complimentary application for the desktop that integrates with the LN client. Applications such as Tungle, Google Maps, LinkedIn, Twitter, all of these applications have widgets for the LN client and have a smooth interface and provide deep integration with the native BlackBerry applications such as email, calendar, phone, etc.
EileenILUG presentations will be available from Monday on the ILUG site
StuartIf you’re an IBMer, please please try and get to know the competitive products, particularly Google’s and Microsoft’s.  Examples would be Google Docs or Skype – without using them, how can you really promote and compete with Symphony/LotuslIve or Sametime Unified Telephony?

Episode 26, recorded Friday 12th November 2010, discussing the new Lotus Connections 3.0 release, notesiscool.com, IBM’s new Social Everywhere campaign, the Foundation appliance end-of-life and more…

Hosts

Stuart McIntyre (blog | twitter | company) & Darren Duke (blog | twitter | company)

Guests

Suzanne Livingston (Connections team blog | personal blog | twitter) has, over the past 10 years, held a variety of roles within software development, including development, design, user research, and now product management. She is currently senior product manager for IBM Lotus Connections, a social software suite for businesses and organizations. In this role, Suzanne works to define the overall social software strategy, develop and drive product requirements with engineering and design, work with customers and partners to shape the product, and publicize the product through demonstrations and presentations at numerous industry events.

Mac Guidera (blog | twitter) is a Social Software product Manager at IBM. He joined IBM Software Services for Lotus 5 years ago after working as a business partner for many years. Focused on Lotus Domino web development, Mac helped his customers using cutting edge solutions around Java, DXL and Ajax technologies. After working in Services, he went on to become the Technical Team Lead on the Lotus Greenhouse team. The Lotus Greenhouse allows IBM customers and partners to try out the latest form Lotus in a single unifies environment. After working with that team, Mac joined the Lotus Connections team as a Product Manager and is currently working to drive IBM Social Software portfolio.

Darren Adams (blog | twitter | notesiscool) has been with the Lotus brand for 19 years, starting in Customer Support and moving to Sales as a Systems Engineer in 1994. More recently he has held the role of Lotus.Technical Sales Manager for the old North Region and then UKISA, and then headed up the Competitive SWAT team. After spending three years as the Messaging & Collaboration Business Unit Leader for UK & Ireland Darren moved on to be Business Unit Executive for Messaging & Collaboration in North East Europe, holding that role for a year before returning to a re-vamped version of his previous role in UKI.

Mark Dixon (blog | blogtwitter | twitter | company) is Business and Technology Consultant at Applicable, and has 20 years of experience in Information Technology Management including 10 in Unified Collaboration and Communication consultancy. MBA specialising in Technology management.  Mark is currently leading the hosted Connections offering delivery at Applicable.

Topics

Connections 3.0 announced at Enterprise 2.0 

  • What was announced? When will it be available?
  • So what’s new?
  • Social Analytics, Mobile, Community, Forums
  • Overall UX enhancements, Compliance, Extensions
  • The new UI moves away from the OneUI we’re used to – will the other products move in this direction too?
  • How does this release set compare to the opposition?
  • Some new case studies (CEMEX, Bayer etc) announced. What benefits are they getting from Connections?
  • What are Applicable planning for Connections 3.0?

NotesIsCool.com

  • Where did idea come from?
  • Why are we seeing Notes ‘fan sites’springing up?
  • Whats the feedback been like, and what did IBM think of it?
  • How’s the site built? Why not Domino?

Lotusphere Social Aggregator now online 

  • OGS and other sessions to be streamed live for the first time
  • #ls11 is the hashtag to use

Social Everywhere 

  • New campaign from IBM
  • Seeing roots in Cognos, Rational etc.
  • New IBM product page at http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/socialcollaboration/
  • Interesting to see the term ‘social collaboration’being used – Collaboration Matters has been using it since 2008 😉
  • With Project Vulcan in the future, is social collaboration where its at? Will the other products in the Lotus portfolio head towards this product segment?

Lotus Foundations withdrawn 

  • Discussed this last week, Ed Brill has now entered the conversation
  • Does it make the situation any more obvious?
  • Are there lessons to be learnt from Nitix experience generally, and this situation specifically?

Luis Suarez – Enterprise 2.0 Evangelist of the year. Congratulations!!!

Tips

DarrenD    THE Ed Brill will be presenting in Atlanta at ATLUG on Friday 19th, Nov, a change of day! Details on the blog. Also been doing traffic analysis on Domino servers, switches and routers and I am using MRTG aka Multi Router Traffic Grapher
SuzanneCheck out the new social everywhere series on Synch.rono.us
MacAs with anything.When using Social software, you don’t have to do it all at once…start small and eventually it will become part of your everyday.
DarrenAFeel free to e-mail me with content suggestions for notesiscool.com
MarkAnyone BUT IT should drive social computing initiatives
StuartSpeck case for Macbook Pros – transparent plastic clip on cases for MBP – beautiful and provide great protection. (Amazon US | Amazon UK)

Episode 25, recorded Friday 5th November 2010, discussing the new Source Control Plugin for Domino Designer, XPages.info, whether XPages is good for web site development, BES Express for Domino and more…

Hosts

Stuart McIntyre (blog | twitter | company) & Darren Duke (blog | twitter | company)

Guests

Maureen Leland (blog | twitter) is the Lead Architect for IBM Lotus Domino Designer, bringing the power of the Eclipse platform to Domino development. She has worked on Lotus design tools since 1992, beginning with Lotus Notes ViP, and moving to Iris to work on Domino Designer in 1997, where she contributed to the 4.6, through 7.0 Domino Designer releases. She was the UI architect for all the IBM Workplace Designer and Lotus Component Designer releases. She returned to Domino in 2007 to revolutionize Domino Designer for the 8.5 release and beyond.

Sean Cull (blog | twitter | company) started FoCul Ltd in 2000 after ten years in industry as an Engineer in the chemical sector.  Since then FoCul has been developing collaborative solutions that allow people to do their jobs and waste less time on administration and chasing information.

Bruce Elgort (blog | twitter | company) is the president of Elguji Software, the creators of the hugely popular IdeaJam collaboration site for the Lotus Community. His other megahits include co-founding the Lotus Notes open source community OpenNTF.org and hosting the Taking Notes Podcast with the famed Julian Robichaux.

Luis Benitez (blog | twitter) is one of the Social Software Product Managers for IBM.  Prior to this new role Luis was the Lotus Social Software evangelist for the Americas and leads the internal Lotus Social Software community with over 2000 members..

Topics

Source control enablement support for Domino Designer now available on OpenNTF 

  • The Wait Is Over: Source Control via SVN for Domino Designer
  • How does it work?
  • What are the benefits?
  • What does it use for a repository?
  • what about DXL?
  • Is it a front-end to whatever you have installed in eclipse (e.g., CVS, etc)?
  • Can you go back to normal control of code?
  • Can it be applied per DB or do you need to use for all DBs?
  • What was the reason for posting this to OpenNTF rather than coming in normal development cycle?

XPages.info 

  • Another great community-driven site
  • Who owns it? Who runs it?
  • Who’s it aimed at?

Using XPages For Websites. Good Idea? 

  • Fantastic thread going into pros/cons of ‘heavyweight’XPages web development

Cognos BI 10.1 with Connections integraton 

  • What’s been the reaction to this announcement?
  • Lots of discussion about “Social Everywhere”(on synch.rono.us etc), is this the first demonstration of this?
  • Two way street
    • Connections to help add social to BI issues, resolution
    • Cognos to add analysis to Connections environments

Lotus Awards nominations open 

  • New categories
  • Only open to Advanced and Premier partners
  • Is it worth entering?

NotesisCool.com launched 

  • New site by Darren Adams
  • Highlighting what’s ‘cool’about Notes and Domino
  • Show the product!!

RIM formally announces free BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express Software for IBM Lotus Domino 

  • Free free free
  • Important to RIM? (threat from Traveler)
  • Important to IBM? (equals MS Exchange support)
  • Jennifer coming on podcast next week – give us your questions!

Lotus Foundations server appliance is End of Life

ILUG2010 next week 

Tips

DarrenStandalone Solutions Configuration Tool (SSCT) – build your own xSeries servers including blades, from your desktop
SeanOneUIV2 CSS demo site
BruceMacOSKen Podcast, MacOSKen LIVE! and MacOSKen Day 6
MaureenEmbrace Eclipse!
LuisLotusLive iPhone app – Did you know you can go back on slides in case the presenter is going too fast?
StuartThe Lotusphere Podcast – let us know if you’d ‘like to share your story’!