IBM Lotus Quickr V8.5 for Domino shipping data announced!

It's finally there! The announcement was made today that IBM Lotus Quickr V8.5 will be released on September 13th. This release was long anticipated!

Early 2009, on the eve of the Quickr 8.2 release the DomDoc redbook team I was on describing a migration path from the DomDoc platform to Quickr was already told some of the features likely to be in the 8.5 release. One (folder security) even made it into the Redbook itself as an announcement for the next (8.5) release.

At that moment, we didn't know it would take until September 2010 to actually get that release. So it feels really good that it's here now and I can't wait to start working with it!

Business Partner Locator

Was entering IBM Partnerworld today when I noticed the link to the Business Partner Locator. As I had heard someone complain about the fact that finding BP's through the IBM site was rather laborious and outdated and that they couldn't even find all BP's in there, I decided to check it out and clicked the link.

"Business Partner Connections has been replaced by the new and enhanced Business Partner Locator. You will be redirected in a moment, please update your bookmarks"

Mmm, ok, apparently this site recently changed. Not that I'm interested in knowing that, I'm clicking a direct link so just forward me to the new site. It would be different if I was using a bookmark, but I'm not! I'm directly clicking a link on the IBM Partnerworld homepage so how difficult is it to change that link itself?

The site opens and the first thing I see there is:

"Finding the right Business Partner just got simpler!"

Good! Apparently someone figured it needed some updating as well and decided to spruce it up.

The site itself seems relatively easy. A dropdown box on the left  to select a country, some text helping Customers & BP's  and a demo link on the right.

Now, I'm a visually oriented person. So when I see something like this and I'm trying to orient myself, my eyes automatically draw to the Demo link. It's big, it's in an important spot and looks as if it's a video. I love vids, so I click it..... and regret it

It turns out to be a full length demo in 13 stages. Illustrated by the impressive Table of Contents on the left.....  My god how difficult is this tool?
So I start and let the video go through the first four screens. Now I'm not a native English speaker but in my ears this guy is articulating as if I'm a three year old and still I find my mind wandering of. Keep it short, please!

I end up at screen 5. "Demo 1: ......". Again the guy starts talking, welcoming me at the demo part of the video and explaining we will start with a demo about Search criteria.

And then it stops

Yes it actually stops without any explanation. I wonder why. Is it broken? Is my browser crashing??? Is this a demo that would normally be done live and where the guy giving the demo would now switch to his live environment to show something?
No it turns out it's suppose to do that. I have to scroll down (apparently my 1280*800 screen resolution is not big enough to fit the whole video on one screen) and in the bottom of the screen, below the copyright footer I find a button that I need to click to start the demo part of the demonstration.

??? Am I the only one not finding this very logical? I mean this is why I was actually watching this video in the first place, so why stop it and make me manually restart it to see the most interesting part?!?

So I start the demo and it all got a bit corny by then. I mean listen to the guy and watch the screen and count the amount of times the word 'Business Partner' is used either in the text balloons or in the text he's reading. I'm not listening to what he's saying at all anymore at this point. Just wondering where this will end up.

Well, at another stop it turns out. Because as soon as this part of the demo ends and the video goes over to screen 6 "Demo 2:......" the same happens again.

Needless to say I didn't actually watch the whole thing after that. No clue how long it is but I'd say about 20-25 min at least. And all this to explain how to select a country, define some criteria using dropdown boxes and watch the details of a business partner.

So I ditch the video and even though I'm ready to simply chuck it all away and return to the Yellow pages by now, I decide to actually open the tool itself. I must admit: It works and looks pretty nice.

Nice....nice!?! Is that all you have to say after all that?!?

Yes, that's all. So IBM please drop that video, correct the link, take out that irritating redirect (according to the video it's been up for weeks anyway) and trust your users. We're not that stupid.

ps. If you want a real good laugh than please click the "Thank you" entry in the video's Table of Content after having tried to watch some if not most of the very elaborate video..... Apparently they do know how to be short. :-)

NerdGirls in Amsterdam

In two weeks time NLLUG the biggest Lotus event of the year in The Netherlands will  take place in the Amsterdam Arena. There is a real buzz surrounding the NLLUG already if you follow twitter and several of the blogs and for good reason! The line up is pretty impressive and the diversity of topics and speakers makes it interesting for almost anyone involved in Lotus products.

My personal favorite: The "NerdGirls: Get social!" session. An informal social session for any girls out there involved in Lotus. A possibility to meet and mingle with other NerdGirls and learn how to connect through Twitter, Skype or LinkedIn. Sharing information with a worldwide network of women within the Lotus community.


 So join us on Thursday September 9th and tell your (female) coworkers to come!

As with all NerdGirls events, men are welcome to join as well!

Captcha

Did you now what a Captcha was? I didn't until I started writing this blog. Searched for it and found out it's actually a term, not a product or company. 

Oh well.  This wasn't my reason for writing this blog, I just found the below Captcha quite funny. I mean they are a pain in the ... without having to use specific diacritic symbols so this one really makes the difference.

And no, it did not work without the Umlaut on the 'o'.

The ultimate women's lifesaver......

Yesterday while waiting for a customer a colleague asked about my laptop case. I've got one of those with wheels that you can pull around in stead of carry. Hé! It's my mobile office, I don't see you carrying your desk on your back, right! According to him it was more acceptable for women to have one with wheels as they tend to carry around a lot more stuff.

Mmm...... that got me thinking so later that evening I unpacked my bag to see what was actually in it.

I think I'm pretty organized! Ok, I've got two mouses, about 7 pens and two emergency sewing sets (?!?) in there which is a bit much....

But in general I don't think I carry around excessive amounts of stuff.  Especially if I compare it to some of these!

What's in a name

I hate those flaky terminologies that are used to describe certain ICT phenomena's without actually defining them. Everyone is talking about it but nobody really knows what it entails. The term 'Web 2.0' is a good example of that.
Ask anyone and they will either come up with some elaborate but non-descriptive explanation or simply say it is the new thing out there. Even Wikipedia keeps it about as vague as possible:

"(Web 2.0) ...does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but rather to cumulative changes in the ways software developers and end-users use the Web." 

Yeah right. That explains it......

The problem is that the more flaky it is the more popular it starts to become so I wasn't surprised to hear someone talk about  'PR 2.0' today at all. It is clearly catching on. Just stick '2.0' to the end of it and it's a whole new ball game!

At least '....2.0' is relatively save. I couldn't help but chuckle when I read some tweets that speculated about the name of the next Lotus Notes release and that it shouldn't be called Lotus Notes 9 as it sounds like 'Lotus Notes Nein' (Nein being German for 'No'). Look hard enough and you'll find an alternative meaning for almost any term in some other language some where.

I mean, SOA still can be kind of a tricky subject for any self respecting Dutch account manager to bring up in a conversation. Not because customers are weary of thinking about the concept of using 'services' but simply because the term is actually widely known as the acronym for Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD). And say Flickr to someone in The Netherlands and people won't think you're talking about sharing photos on the web but think you're actually calling them a faggot.

But hey, what's in a name!

Silly Season - Breaking news

The one thing that Social Media has tought us is that you can never predict what is hot or not. Even the most trivial thing can be made into a straight out hype on the Internet within a day.

Take the infamous "Blumenkübel". Now you might think 'What?' and yes I thought that as well. But still this word made it into the WorldWide Trending list on Twitter, has a Facebook page with thousands of followers and was mentioned on major news sites. It has been one of the topics for the last two days on the internet.

So what is it all about then?
Well simply put Nothing really. It's a non-story, something to talk about in the absence of serious topics (summer recess). 'Blumenkübel' means flowerpot in German and refers to an article in an obscure local German magazine two days ago about a flower pot outside an elderly home that got broken by vandals.

Someone started twittering about it and within hours this story just got totally hyped. Worldwide people were twittering about....... a broken flower pot.
Some of them not even knowing what the word meant at all. Al thanks to social media. Would you have predicted that a broken flower pot would have gotten that much attention??

Funny detail, the author of the article just started and this was one of her first articles. Now that's a way to make an entrance!

Car

Heard a co-worker's company car got stolen today. Wouldn't have minded if it was mine, would solve some Personal Liability problems.....

Like the unexplainable scratches ("No I didn't do that! The wall just ran into my door, than ran around the car and did it again......twice!") or the sticky carpet caused by the fact that I only saw this brilliant solution after I spilled a full cup of diet coke over the carpet.....

dttp://thereifixedit.com

sigh....