Current Stories
Friday 9th, May 2008
Lunchtime Pictures - Cleveland01:35:36 PMLocation : Cleveland, OH
A few pictures of downtown Cleveland. It was too nice not to venture out at lunch.
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The rest of the pictures can be found here.
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Seeking Alpha: iPhone vs. Blackberry08:46:18 AMLocation : Cleveland, OH
In the article, iPhone (Apple) vs. Blackberry (RIM): Which Do Consumers Love Most?, Paul Carton reports on a follow-up survey of smartphone users. The original survey, done by ChangeWave Alliance and titled Smart Phone Wars: Apple vs. RIM vs. ...The Android Operating System? showed that the market is led by RIM but Apple is making great strides in capturing more share (Palm is last. *sigh*).
Paul wanted to know what makes the users of the two devices so satisified with their choice. The results? For the Blackberry, it is access to e-mail (56%). For the iPhone, it is the marriage of phone, iPod, and internet browser (36%). Depending on the results of the announced Apple iPhone SDK, and the work that IBM and Microsoft are doing to extend their messaging platforms to the iPhone, I would expect that the iPhone would continue to see upticks in satisfied users.
And the rest of the players?
But the bottom line in this horse race is Apple and Research In Motion are both giant winners. The rest of the smart phone manufacturers lose.
Link: Seeking Alpha: iPhone (Apple) vs. BlackBerry (RIM): Which Do Consumers Love Most?
Link: ChangeWave Alliance: Smart Phone Wars: Apple vs. RIM vs. ...the Android Operating System?
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Thursday 8th, May 2008
Stop Forwarding Junk09:14:41 PMLocation : Cleveland, OH
If you can't seem to bring yourself to telling your parents, siblings, significant other, or pets from forwarding you every joke, video, and unsubstantiated rumor to you, a new site may be the answer. Fill out the simple form and this message is set to the offending party:
Hi Steve,
One of your friends has sent you this message from StopForwarding.Us, a website that allows individuals to anonymously email their friends and politely ask that they stop the habit of sending forwarded emails or FWDs.
Please do not forward chain letters, urban myths presented as truth, potentially offensive jokes, videos or photos without being asked or first receiving permission. If you find something that is funny and it is clean and you genuinely think the recipient will enjoy it then foward it to that person only (not in an email blast to all your friends and family) and include a personal note about why you enjoyed it and why you think they will too. Avoid sending forwards to friends or relatives that you've grown distant with. It can be frustrating for the recpient when the only correspondance you have with someone is via impersonal, unwanted email.
For more tips on email etiquette, visit StopForwarding.Us/etiq.html
Thank you,
A Friend (via stopforwarding.us)
If you decide to use the service, you might want to ask them to spell check the message first..
Link: StopForwarding.US
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SnTT - How To Determine When You Need Another Mail.Box06:44:27 PMLocation : Cleveland, OH
You have two mail.box files on your Domino server and you are wondering if you need another one. Is there a way to tell if your Domino server is need of a third mail.box?
You need to look at two Mail Statistics, Mail.Mailbox.Accesses and Mail.Mailbox.AccessConflicts. What are the meanings of these two stats?
From the Redpaper, Domino 7 Performance Tuning: Best Practices to Get the Most Out of Your Domino Infrastructure:
Mail.Mailbox.Accesses is the total number of times that threads accessed any mailbox on the server.
Mail.Mailbox.AccessConflicts is the he number of times that a thread attempting to access a mailbox had to wait because the number of concurrent threads exceeded the number of mailboxes configured. For example, if there are three mailboxes configured, and there are four concurrent accesses, the conflict count would be incremented. If the number of access conflicts consistently exceeds two percent of the value of Mail.Mailbox.Accesses, consider creating an additional mailbox.
To get these stats, go to the Server Console and type:
Sh stat mail
Then, with the numbers in hand, make this calculation:
(Mail.Mailbox.AccessConflicts / Mail.Mailbox.Accesses) x 100 = X.
If the value of X is greater than two, consistently, you need another mail.box.
But remember, you have to have two or more mail.box' on your Domino server in order to capture these statistics.
Link: Determining the number of mailboxes required for a server
Technorati tag: SnTT Show-n-Tell Thursday
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Collaboration Technology Engaging the Campus 200809:40:15 AMLocation : Cleveland, OH
One of my Twitter followers notified me that he was presenting today at Case Western Reserve University's (CWRU) symposium on "Collaboration Technology Engaging the Campus 2008."
Quite an impressive list of presenters, as well as topics. Looking at the Breakout Sessions, it is interesting to see how wikis are being applied to learning as well as the use of virtual worlds, specifically SecondLife, to extend the traditional campus.
Of course, they are streaming the symposium. :-)
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LinuxInsider: IBM Fuels New Blue Biz Initiative With Linux09:06:18 AMLocation : Cleveland, OH
More news outlets are reporting on the latest announcements from IBM concerning Lotus Foundations Start and "Blue Business Platform." LinuxInsider reports:
"IBM has a great deal of expertise in Linux, as well as great software assets in the Lotus product set," Charles King, principal with Pund-IT, told LinuxInsider. "What IBM did with this offering is leverage its expertise in the product set specifically for the SMB market."
With this integrated combo, he added, "IBM has hit one out of the park."
King also tells Linux News of one of the more interesting features of Lotus Foundations Start, which should not be lost on the SMB market:
"It is an interesting box -- an X86-based tower server," he noted. "It includes a suite of Lotus applications that basically are a plug-and-play operation." That is, it can perform just about any task from backup to productivity.
"It has an interesting 'ET Call Home' style support as well," King added.
"It is different from the typical Wintel (Windows on Intel) products that dominate this space."
Link: LinuxInsider: IBM Fuels New Blue Biz Initiative with Linux
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Wednesday 7th, May 2008
The Quiet Hero by Gary W. ToynLocation : Cleveland, OH
The Quiet Hero: The Untold Medal of Honor Story of George E. Wahlen at the Battle for Iwo Jima, by Gary W. Toyn, is one of those books where important history would be lost if not for the vision of the author. Toyn details the life of a common Utah man who left home at age 18, to enlist in the Navy shortly after the outbreak of World War II. Two years later, George E. Wahlen found himself on a spot of land in the middle of the Pacific, battling the Japanese for control of Iwo Jima.
Contents:
Foreword
Introduction
Preface
Chapter 1: D-Day, February 19.1945
Chapter 2: Birth to Boot Camp
Chapter 3: Sailor to Marine
Chapter 4: Training to Training
Chapter 5: Hawaii is Hell
Chapter 6: Finding God
Chapter 7: "Operation Detachment"
Chapter 8: D-Day, February 19.1945
Chapter 9: D-Day Afternoon
Chapter 10: D+1 and D+2: The First Casualty
Chapter 11: D+3: This Lousy, Stinking Island
Chapter 12: D+4: A Shift in Momentum
Chapter 13: D+5 and D+6: The Calm Before The Storm
Chapter 14: D+7 A.M.: The Crucible
Chapter 15: D+7 P.M: My Job...No More...No Less
Chapter 16: D+8: Regimental Reserve
Chapter 17: D+9: Dig and Hold
Chapter 18: D+10: Taking Hill 362A
Chapter 19: D+11: Caught From Behind
Chapter 20: D+12: The Final Act of Heroism
Chapter 21: Evacuation
Chapter 22: From Patient to "Pill Pusher"
Chapter 23: Home and Discharge
Chapter 24: Post WWII
Epilogue: From Mettle to Medal
Appendix A: Two Navy Crosses for a Medal of Honor
Appendix B: Timeline
In Memoriam
Acknowledgements
Helpful Terms
Notes and Sources
Photograph/Image Credits
Index
For his actions during the Battle for Iwo Jima, Pharmacist's Mate Second Class, George E. Wahlen was awarded the Medal of Honor. His rank, Pharmacist's Mate, is misleading to civilians as he was a corpsman from the Navy assigned to a Marine Battalion. He provided first aid to wounded Marines. But since he was attached to the Marines, he had to not only learn first aid and how to dress wounds, he was also required to go through the same training as any other Marine. It was during this training that Wahlen had self doubts as he was a Navy man, just a corpsman, and was worried that if he found himself under fire, that he would let down the Marines that he was supposed to help. Due to his actions on Iwo Jima, Wahlen was awarded the Medal of Honor. He did not wilt under the pressure of battle, gaining the admiration of the Marines that served with him.
Toyn's book takes you through Wahlen's life, including his time on Iwo Jima, through present day. As I read the book, I was struck by the tone. Much like George Wahlen himself, Toyn writes is a very understated way. It isn't until we are presented with the actual text of Medal of Honor commendation that you realize that what you just read was an incredible story of valor, honor, and duty. It is a testament to the foundation that Toyn has built. At one point in the book, after an extremely difficult day on Iwo Jima, Toyn writes of George:
...[He] was no longer concerned about acting cowardly in the face of battle . . . he figured that what he had accomplished was no more heroic that what anyone else in his unit had done . . . "
It is that attitude that permeates this book; Wahlen just doing his job.
"Hero" is a word that has lost a lot of meaning these days. In the pages of this book, you will learn what that word really means. And it isn't limited to just the story of George Wahlen. The men that he served with also deserve that title, and their stories are in this book, too. This book is a tribute to George Wahlen and the memories of the men that gave the ultimate sacrifice to this nation.
Technorati tag: book review George Wahlen The Quiet Hero Gary Toyn
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Tuesday 6th, May 2008
Apple Support - The Best09:53:39 AMLocation : Cleveland, OH
Your mileage may vary.
According to Consumer Reports, who surveyed 10,000 subscribers over a period of a year and a half, Apple's desktop and laptop technical support blew away the competition. The scores, out of 100 possible points:
Desktop support:
- Apple - 81 percent
- Dell - 56
- Gateway - 54
- HP - 47
- Compaq - 47
Laptop support:
- Apple - 83 percent
- Lenovo - 66
- Dell - 60
- Toshiba - 55
- Gateway - 54
- Sony - 51
- HP - 48
You have to be a subscriber to Consumer Reports to read the report on-line.
I wonder:
- Do the numbers show what you can achieve when a manufacturer controls the hardware and software?
- A "feel good" effect of the Apple brand?
- A different user base?
- The feeling that when you call Apple Support that they really care about you and your hardware (that's what I get when I call them) and aren't trying to get you off the phone?
Link: ZDNet: Consumer Reports: Apple Leads in Support - by double digits
Link: ComputerWorld: Apple tops tech support survey - Consumer Reports says
Technorati tag: Apple
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Lotusphere Comes To You - Cleveland - Part IILocation : Cleveland, OH
Is it really "better to be late than never?" Apologies to those that thought that I would never post this.
Notes/Domino 8.0.1 and 8.5 Update and Futures, presented by Lisa Sarkardy, Lotus Central Region Technical Sales Leader. As you may know, at least I hope so, Notes/Domino 8.0.1 is out. Now. Release 8.5 should be released in the second half of 2008. Release "Next" in 2009. Lisa went over the new features/updates in R8.0.1. In case you were sleeping, some of them are:
- Widgets
- Traveler
- DWA Lite
- Quota Gauge
- Default Reply is without Attachments
- Quickr plug-in
- Secondary time zone in Calendar, for those that travel a bit.
- Citrix 4.5 Support
Someone asks: "What is Quickr? Answer: "Evolution of TeamRoom," "comparable to Sharepoint," and "user created spaces/folder structure."
Lisa then went into a demo of creating a widget in R8. I got the feeling that Lotus expects a "normal" user to do this. The wizard is easy, I have my doubts that a "normal" user will do this unless they are trained. And if they are trained in doing this, and they come to expect this type of functionality, how will a competing messaging platform hope to replace the functionality? Further, if you do train the users and they take advantage of this, who will be monitoring widget creation?
Lisa followed this up with a demo/explanation of Quickr. There were a few questions, like: "Do you need a server for this?" "What's the difference between Personal and Standard?" And, "How can Admins turn this off?"
Domino Web Access 8.0.1. AJAX. Web 2.0 framework. There is a Lite version, specifically for those that have low bandwidth or don't need all of the bells and whistles. DWA 8.0.1 has autocomplete of e-mail addresses. In fact, it is "intelligent type-ahead" which means that the client knows the last 2,000 addresses that you have used. There is a single template that incorporates both the Lite and Full versions.
Lotus upgraded the UI in blog template in 8.0.1.
Compression. Two new application properties are Design Note Compression and Document Compression. You should see 14-70% disk savings by enabling one/both of these settings. It is transparent to the user and it helps with I/O in addition to the disk savings.
There are two new Compact switches to enable/disable compression:
-V
-v
Native 64-bit support:
- Win2003 x64
- AIX 5.3 and 6.1
- i5 OS V5R4 and V6R1
There was a conversation concerning how to save additional disk space which brought Lisa to talk about "My Attachments," an application that is an additional cost from ISSL.
8.0.2 or 8.0.3 will support Win2008
Traveler
Win Mobile devices only at this point. Notification to do a synch. Lotus/IBM doesn't want to say "push." You can use Traveler in R7.0.2 and above. She then showed a few screen shots.
iPhone. DWA Lite to run using the iPhone browser. A low cost mobile solution. "Has anyone heard from another IBMer about iPhone plans?" asked Lisa.
Lotus Protector Family. Security and compliance to Domino e-mail. Anti-spam/anti-virus, encryption, secure access. Will be integrated with the Domino Administration Client.
Lisa then talked about Release 8.5
- Calendar enhancements
- ID Vault
- Use of alternative directories
- Reduction in storage costs
- Modernize Domino application development
- iCal subscriptions and federation (must be the new term). Overlay your work calendar with your personal calendar.
- An 8.5 on Mac screenshot
- Additional group calendar views (week/month/day/two day)
Question: "Can Admins control 'calendar federation?" Much laughter.
Alternative directories. Lisa made sure that we understood that the Domino Directory is still supported and will be supported. There will be tools available to help with migrations from DD to an alternative directory. Active Directory will be first, followed by LDAP.
New Templates! Release 8.5 will introduce the new templates for Domino. It was a long time coming.
- AJAX
- Built in editors
- Tools to assist you to modernize your old web applications.
Designer 8.5 will be in Eclipse. Editors to be included in Designer 8.5:
- HTML
- JavaScript/CSS
- Java
- LotusScript
Integration of Lotus Components Designer into Designer 8.5. RAD for Portal.
<break for lunch>
I took an extended break, missing the IBM Lotus Social Software Strategy and Roadmap, presented by Heath McCarthy, Portal and Collaboration Architect, as I caught up with a few IBM employees.
The next session, "The Business Value of Web 2.0 and Collaborative Portal Solutions," presented by Brian Aylward, wasn't one where I took any notes. I think that I just allowed Brian his time, without concentrating on taking notes.
The final session, "Lotus Quickr 8.1 and Team Collaboration" was presented by Chris Blatnick, Lotus Senior Technical Sales Leader.
Quickr 8.1 Release:
- Symphony Connector
- Windows Explorer Connector. With this, you can drag and drop from anywhere.
- Sametime Connector
- Outlook Connector
Templates:
- Out-of-the-box there are 25 templates. Using them is a two step process: Select the template, and give your page a name. Done.
- SNAPPS templates. Free and very nice. Includes a Survey.
Two versions of Quickr:
J2EE based and Domino based.
Not the same, but reaching parity.
Do you have e-mail with a lot of attachments? Detach to a Quickr page and slim down your mail file.
They are still working on the UI, but your users will find it fast use and understand.
RSS enabled.
The wikis "aren't fully baked yet. They are close but not 100%"
Google gadgets integrated in Quickr. Showed a demo of a mashup with Google Maps and Locations of people.
"Empower your users to document their systems using a wiki."
There is no integration between the Quickr calendar and the Notes calendar. Yet. Keep asking for it.
Quickr becomes middleware to your back-end ECM systems.
Quickr Content Integrator to grab content from SharePoint and migrate it to Quickr. An additional cost.
Quickr Entry - Simple entitlement.
[Editor's note: It was 'strange' to see Chris present outside of a UI session. It may take me a few more sessions seeing him in his new role for me to accept that he is more than the Interface Matters guy. That's my problem, not Chris'. But he brings his usual easy presentation style to the presentation.]
Technorati tag: LCTY
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Monday 5th, May 2008
New Nine Inch Nails Album Price - Free10:27:31 PMLocation : Cleveland, OH
Nine Inch Nails' latest album, The Slip, is a free download. The New York Times reports:
The album, which became available for download just after 3 a.m. Eastern time on Monday, appears to represent the first time a superstar act has distributed an entire album without any opportunity for people to pay for it.
While many in the industry have their doubts that free music is the way of the future, Jim Guerinot, a talent manager, offers a different take:
“I think free has been very important for a long time,” he said. He noted that Nine Inch Nails itself oversaw the leaking of certain tracks from its last major-label album, 2007’s “Year Zero,” as part of a reality game designed to excite fans. Since the now-independent band controls its own recordings, he added, it can “acknowledge what the marketplace is already showing us: free exists whether you want to acknowledge it or not. Let’s acknowledge that, use it and do something with it.”
I think that the slump in sales that the music industry is currently experiencing is only going to get worse.
Link: Nine Inch Nails Free Download
Link: The New York Times: Jeff Leeds: Nine Inch Nails Album if Free Online
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