Falling Dominos

I attended Henry Newberry and Scott Good’s session called “A look under the hood at a world-class IBM Lotus Domino Web application.”

I left that presentation wanting much more from their product. I will be a customer of their system. I guess their web design will replace the Domino 4,5,6,7,8, and beyond forums.

Lotus’ opening session was all about emergence and social networking. I kept seeing examples of users “rating” or tagging content in new Web 2.0 goodness. The new design of the forums seems to be a terribly old blog template. A person posts (asks a question) and users respond in a thread below the original post.

The replies in the thread cannot be permalink’ed (or at least they didn’t show that characteristic). So… if I google “ics and lotuscript” I may find the thread… but I have to scroll through the answers to find the possible solution. I cannot then bookmark just the answer to the problem… I have to bookmark the entire question… then search for the answer if I ever need to go back.

Also, Lotus must like Yahoo! Answers because I saw several examples of them embedding it into their applications. Why not steal some ideas from Yahoo? Allow posters in the forum to rate one answer as the best answer in the thread. Then… I don’t have to scroll through the entire thread to find the solution to the same problem I might be having.

Or… allow everyone to give a rating for the question and maybe the comments in the forum. Give the reader some insight into the value of the question or the comments/answers below. (Was it Stan Rogers who would write the “Already been answered… search the forum!” replies? If it truly was a duplicate question… give it a low rating… otherwise… give Sam the low rating.

Considering I will be a user of the forums… an the application was considered “World Class” I would have expected something a bit more innovative.

Oh… and when do world class web applications have a Notes Client settings/administration section?

As I walked through Orlando International Airport today, I wondered what some of the “yellow bags” were thinking.

The people who attend Lotusphere are not all the same. There are Lotus people. There are business partners. Developers. Admins. I even met some business analysts (which surprised me). Oh… and yes… sales people.

I met Lotusphere attendees in the airport who were developers (like me). They seemed inspired. Some loved the composite applications while others couldn’t stop talking about the dojo, DXL, and AJAX toys. Some people were overwhelmed but many were giddy.

I didn’t talk to any of the “suits” (people who I thought were sales people or business partners). I wonder if they think 2008 will be a year of “emergence.”

Oh yes… and for the admin “yellow baggers” I know exactly what was going through their minds: “Great… more developer @$(@$ to support. They’re probably going to want to add new applications to my servers.”

My thoughts about this past week at Lotusphere can be summed up in one sentence.

“Squirrels in Florida are a lot skinner than squirrels in Wisconsin.”

I will be attending my first Lotusphere this year. It was quite a surprise because our development team hasn’t sent anyone for over four years.

My manager has approved of the sessions that I signed up for but we agreed on a “hidden agenda.” There are a couple of things I want to try and learn how to do while I’m at Lotusphere. I’m hoping I can find other developers/administrators who have solved the same problems or a third-party vendor who can help.

Here are the issues I will be looking to solve:

• Get CoreID working with the Domino 8 web servers
• Find a better way to do TIBCO integration with Domino. We currently are using ASP.NET dll’s on our server to do TIBCO integration
• Learn more about peoples experience with mixed (Domino 8 servers and Domino 6.5 clients) environments

I ran the Palm “Centro” Versamail updater on my 755p and it ran just fine. I got the same “Build 77″ screen per the instructions.

What I didn’t get (maybe I did something wrong) is a Gmail/IMAP wizard.

I noticed IMAP and Gmail works (better than before the update). Versamail still doesn’t support “push” capability on my Sprint 755p so I will probably stick with Chattermail.

Kudos to Palm for actually updating their software in a reasonable time. But why not announce that this update worked with the 755p?

OK… the title is more serious than it looks. We’re taking our son on his first plane trip and I wanted to make sure he stayed entertained on the trip.

I ripped these DVD’s and TV shows down to my iPod for him to watch.

• Bob the Builder - Lofty’s Favorites
• Cars (Disney)
• Bob the Builder - Hold on to your Hard Hats
• Wallace and Grommit - The Wrong Trousers
• Thomas the Tank Engine - Sing a long songs
• Every Classical Baby episode
• Wiggles - Hot Potatoes

You’re probably thinking… “What’s his contingency plan?”

I’m bringing my Sony PSP with the same videos in case something happens to my iPod. Sure… we could entertain him with books and music but I’m not above having him be quiet with some videos on an airplane. I’d do the same thing.