56: As easy as ABC

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Episode 56, recorded on Thursday 16th June 2011, discussing IBM’s 100 year anniversary, the Domino and Traveler betas, The Salvation Army’s application for the Christchurch earthquake and more…

(As easy as ABC… Anniversaries, Betas and Christchurch…)

Hosts

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

Guests

Mark BennettMark Bennett (blog | twitter | company) is IT Director at The Salvation Army in the New Zealand, Fiji, and Tonga territory.
Sam SawatzkySam Sawatzky  (twitter | company) is the Computer Services Manager & Part-time Domino Admin for Mennonite Central Committee Canada – an international NGO doing relief and development work.
Ben ChapmanBen Chapman (twitter | company) is a Technical Evangelist for Lotus(can we still say that? ;))/IBM Collaboration Solutions in the United States.

Topics

IBM hits 100 

  • 100 years since four companies merged to form the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation
  • In the the Fortune 500 first list (in the 60’s) only 70’something survived into the 90’s
  • What does IBM mean to you?
  • What will be the big moves of the next 100 years?
  • How Stuff Works podcast

Lotus Foundations 

  • Is it staging a comeback?
  • Parts reinstated into Passport Advantage
  • Have seen no announcements or feedback on why this might be – lack of communication when Foundations was withdrawn, again now it has been reinstated…

Is Domino part of the Social Business agenda?

Notes/Domino 8.5.3 coming soon, now free of NDA 

  • Lots of goodies…
  • Symbian^3 support and encryption
  • over 50% of the Traveler enhancements listed are Android specific (from Ed’s blog)
  • GA due in Q3

Traveler 8.5.2.3 released 

  • Partial wipe of iPhone – makes use of P.O.E. easier while abstracting corporately-liable info.
  • Previous was to make iBrick -> plug in to iTunes to restore all data except that configured by policy
  • Heard via another podcast there is a drive up market for iPhones, taxi drivers can get up to $100 per device IF they’re popped the battery … is this a losing battle?
  • Lotus Traveler Database De-fragmentation for Improved Performance
  • System performance impacted as db sizes grew.  Run 1x / month
  • How do you support Android devices? HTC sense UI is so different to MotoBlur, which is different to put Android (Nexus One)
  • Get agreement from executive about support boundaries BEFORE you turn it on
  • Sort out your policies BEFORE it is released

Apple event (WWDC) – Lion and iOS previewed 

  • Of course Stuart is running both 😉
  • iOS 5 rocks, very few apps don’t work (Gowalla being one). Traveler seems to work in most cases (calendar invite accepts being an exception!).  Loving the new Notifications system – a massive improvement!
  • Lion is sweet but still quite unstable, not sure about Launchpad, seems to be aimed at new switchers.  Do not upgrade if you want to run Notes 8.5.x!  Worked initially, now won’t start and won’t reinstall.
  • As iCloud comes on-stream a lot of the new features will make more sense.
  • iCloud and multiple Apple IDs

Social Connections 

  • Registration now open
  • Sponsors and Speakers invited

Tips

Darren:
SpiceWorks is free (not open source, just free) with help desk, network monitoring (although I still prefer Nagios and NagiosQL for that), PC Inventory (think Belarc) and IT reporting all in one. Pretty slick and I have a few customers using using it. We’re starting to use for PC, switch and server inventory too.
Mark:
Transform your Notes client into mission control with some sidebar widgets.  They transform the client for your users too. Snippets, File Explorer, WildFire, Quickr, Connections, ANY Google Gadget, create your own from your Lotus Apps.
Sam:
We’ve upgraded to Windows 7, and on most machines the Right-click -> Send to -> Mail recipient shell menu option has not worked. I found someone in the forums with the same problem, who opened a pmr. There is a file that is needed in the system folder for this to work with Lotus Notes. I deployed it to our workstations, and now everyone is very happy.
Ben:
iWildfire by ISW – surface Connections on your iShiny – built in configurations for DeveloperWorks, Greenhouse, can add other Connections deployments.  Ad driven, but pro version in the works
Stuart:
Don’t upgrade to OS X Lion beta just yet! Be social, use your LinkedIn recommendations… trying to write at least 2-3 a week…