Yes, I’m still alive. I’ve just been up to my eyes with work, traveling all around the world deploying new Domino servers. I’ve been working at my present place of employment for 12 months now and in that time we have deployed 30 Domino servers spread over 13 different locations around the world ( including Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York, Ireland, UK and mainland Europe) , over 1000 clients, IBM Lotus Web Content Managment Server, Sametime, and even some Domino Workflow applications. It’s been a busy 12 months but well worth it, we have a mail and application infrstructure that has had 100% uptime over the past 6 months and people within the company are starting to realise how much benefit can be gotten from replicated applications and discussion databases.

So looking for a great hint? Well when we originally deployed the system above we rolled out Lotus Notes 6.0.2CF2 to the desktop as that was the latest available version. When 6.5 came out I upgraded our hub server and when 6.5.1 came out I upgraded the rest of the servers. We are now in the planning stage to replace the notes client on the desktop with the 6.5.x client but before I start this rollout I’ve been making sure of one thing…

All applications that are being developed and all current applications that are out there are being upgraded to include the SameTime online functionality where possible. I believe that this will be a big win for IT as when the new version of Notes gets rolled out to all the users they will instantly see the Online Status in all their applications. So if your thinking of going to 6.5.x then get the developers up to speed today and get those applications prepared before the rollout.

Anyway, back to work for me… See you in another few weeks

A good while ago I added into the BlogSphere RSS feed a special tag for each RSS item that would point to an individual RSS feed for that items comments. At the time there was no RSS reader that supported the new feature so I promptly forgot all about it and it has been part of the template since.

Last week while away on a business trip I wanted to catch up on all the blogs so I downloaded SharpReader, a great RSS reader that I had used before and really liked. I then loaded up the OPML file from News4Notes and started reading the blogs.

Much to my surprise I noticed that beside all the entries for blogs based on BlogSphere ( and also the NotesTips site ) there was a little plus symbol and clicking on the symbol caused SharpReader to fetch the RSS feed that was associated with that items comments.

This is really a great way of catching up with not only the blog entries but also the comments for the entries too. I hope that this functionality is eventually put into a few of the other RSS readers and more importantly into the other blog template that people are using.

SharpReader also has some great threading functions, it can link different RSS feeds from different sites if it finds links in the RSS feed that point to permalinks that it has found in the other sites RSS feed. Really clever stuff.

I was playing around with the new iWatch application by Tom Duff that was posted to OpenNTF the other week and I created a new News Alert for the word IBM. After a little while a whole bunch of articles arrived into the database that contained the word IBM and one of them caught my eye…

According to Server Watch IBM’s messaging strategy is a tangled mess and that IBM may have its work cut out for itself as it attempts to sell customers simultaneously on its Lotus Domino/Notes and Workplace Messaging offerings.

Obviously the message that I got at Lotusphere is different from the one that they have been reading. I was under the opinion that IBM had two totally different markets for the WorkPlace Messaging and Lotus Domino offerings. WorkPlace messaging is designed for large workforces that wouldn’t necessary have access to a computer all day, it’s web based and with a nice clean interface allows this type of worker to walk up to an open access terminal, enter their credentials and access their email while the Lotus Domino offering is aimed at companies where people work at desks and have computers infront of them all day.

Another problem for Workplace is its lack of consistent client integration. No one component of workplace integrates with all four of client options (Lotus, Notes, Web browser, mobile, and Microsoft Outlook), and no client integrates with all of the Workplace components, Takahashi explained.

Another message that was missed by the Radicati group at Lotusphere… They haven’t seen the Workplace client yet and obviously haven’t heard of the plans to make the Notes client access the Workplace server. My personal opinion is that by Domino V9 the server we know and love today will be a MAJOR component of the Workplace server and thus provide Workplace with the Domino Applications stack, better POP3 and IMAP stack ( for outlook integration ) and even contain parts of Domino Everyplace so mobile clients can also connect to one solidified server solution. The DB2 access we are seeing in the new Domino 7 beta is the stepping stone to this integration into WorkPlace server.

Notes V10 will then see the Notes client being replaced with the super client. This falls in line with the new alternating Server, Client major update release phases that were announced also at Lotusphere.

The long-term plan is for Domino to be part of Workplace. IBM has yet to reveal the specifics of this, however, and has not announced plans beyond version 8.0, which is set for release in 2006.

Maybe I’m wrong but just because IBM haven’t mentioned plans for the future versions of Domino ( Domino 9 and 10 were promised at Lotusphere ) that doesn’t mean we can’t see where it is heading ourselves…

Opinions Welcome…