Time for a change...

Thought I'd change the color of the blog a little, as you couldn't see the PlanetLotus.org stuff with the black background, and I couldn't figure out how to change the text color in the widget.

I'll probably play around with the colors some more, when I have the time.

You only have one chance to make a first impression...

This is going to be a little more of a rant that I would like, but I'm just back from the lunch and learn and was not all that pleased with the presentation. I should probably cool down some before posting this, but won't as it is still fresh in my mind.

First of all, I need to state that I do not hold DMC Consulting accountable for what happened today. They were only the hosts for the Lunch and Learn. They did not lead the session. It was lead by two IBM/Lotus people whom will remain nameless at the present time.

I was joined by my network administrator, the VP of Sales, and the Director of Operations at today's lunch and learn on Lotus Notes 8.0.1, Quickr, and Sametime (at least that's how it was presented.) The first Lotus person went through the normal sales stuff (how collaboration and the "next gen" and "x gen" people are using the tools available to share information. Same basic stuff I saw and heard all week at Lotusphere. What kind of upset me was that the presenter just kind of skipped over the whole Quickr piece of the presentation and jumped to Connections and Sametime (and Sametime Unyte.)

The second person was going to do the live demonstrations of the products. Unfortunately, this person hadn't rebooted their laptop since they left the hotel this morning, and had a lot of problems getting the Notes client to work properly. Fortunately, we didn't have to wait for a reboot of the laptop (although it probably would have made for a better demo.) They had problems getting the Sametime Unyte demo going (the meeting session timed out, for some reason, and they had to set up another meeting to join.) Actually, Sametime Unyte may be worthwhile for us to check out, as we (upper management people) do a lot of traveling to the parent company offices.

Anyway, there was a little bit of a demo of Sametime and Samtime Unyte. Quickr was demoed using Greenhouse, and very little was done using the Notes client and Windows explorer (probably the way we would use it mostly.) A lot of time was spent on Connections (which wasn't mentioned in the invitation I had received), which wasn't bad, but it wasn't what I brought everyone to see.

We saw very little of the Notes 8.0.1 client and the new features. I realize that time was limited (11:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., with a short lunch break), but I was expecting a lot more.

Again, maybe my expectations were higher than what the intent of the Lunch and Learn was suppossed to be about, and that would be my problem. However, with the technical issues that the presenters had, it didn't show the Lotus products in a very good light. I was a little embarrassed for the presenter doing the demo, when they manually minimized all the open windows (instead of pushing the Show Desktop icon in the quick launch bar) and we saw that they were playing solitaire this morning before leaving the hotel.

I just received an email from the VP of Sales, in a reply to my email to him, apologizing for the presentation, who said that, while the technical difficulties were annoying, he did come away with some thoughts, and would like to discuss them more in the near future. Maybe it wasn't as bad as I though it was, but still... it should have been a lot better than it was.

I came away a little disappointed, but hopeful that I will have another opportunity to right the Lotus ship, and do what it takes to get things rolling here.

I know that I can count on DMC Consulting to help me in my future demos and sales pitches to the powers that be. I did speak with my account person prior to leaving about doing something to get Quickr in for testing purposes (or just purchasing a few licenses to get started) and did send him an email concerning my thoughts about the presentation.

Maybe tomorrow will be a better day...

And so it begins... maybe

Overnight we got 5" of snow and another 2" to 3" inches forecasted for today. Not what I was hoping for today. Sure, the kids are happy that they don't have school, but today was the day that I was (possibly still am) taking several people from work (VP of Sales, Director of Operations, Controller, and the CFO) down to DMC Consulting in Toledo, OH to a Lotus Lunch and Learn. The agenda is Lotus Notes/Domino 8.0.1, Quickr, Sametime, and anything else they have time for. It was going to be the first time these people would have seen these offerings.

I know the CFO won't be going, as he has had the flu all weekend and already told me this morning that he won't be in today. The VP and Director both live in Toledo and less than 5 miles from DMC, so they should still be attending.

I have yet to call DMC to see if they are still planning on doing this today, and I'm hoping that they still are. I have been excited about this, as these are the people who will reap the most benefit from these new products.

Wish me luck!

Well, I just received a call from DMC... looks like this thing is still on. I'm going to attempt to make the trek down to Toledo in about a half an hour. Hopefully, the weather won't be as bad as it looks.

It's a Woot!Off

Beginning today, Woot! is having a Woot!Off. When one item sells out, another one shows up. Check it out. Can't beat the $5 flat fee for shipping.

The Woot!Off could end today, tomorrow, or Sunday. It all depends on how much they have to get rid of.

Album Cover

Since everyone else is doing it, I figured I'd do the same...


Here's how to do yours...

1 - Go to Wikipedia's Random article page. The first article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to the Random quotations page. The last four words of the last quote is the album title.

3 - Go to Flickr's Interesting photo page. Third picture, no matter what it is, is your album cover.

4 - Put it all together to make your album. Either crop it to CD cover size, or just use the raw image itself ... the only rule is you're only allowed to add the album title and artist title.

Look at me! I'm Flocking!

I'm not sure how I found it, but I know I got a link from someone who is listed on the PlanetLotus.org website.

What is it? It's the Flock browser. It is billed as "The Social Web Browser", as it has some built in widgets for various social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, etc.

It is built over the Firefox browser, of which I am a huge fan. I've found that many of the extensions for Firefox work in Flock.

So far, I like what I see. I'm still playing around with it, but so far, so good.

Where do I go? Where do I look?

OK... it's kinda late (9:30 p.m. EST) and nothings on the tube (watching Benny and Joon... love that movie... one of Johnny Depp's underrated roles) and surfing the web (mostly through PlanetLotus.org.)

I've been a Lotus Domino/Notes administrator for some time, since the R5 days, but the title of admin is mostly in name only. I know enough to be dangerous, but other than that, I rely on my local consultant, Googling (is that a real verb now?), and Notes.net (just about in that order) for quick answers to my, sometimes, stupid questions.

I've been to some administrator training classes, but it was so long ago, and learned a lot of stuff that, at the time, did not affect me or my company. Most of the training was back in the R5 days, and I never had the opportunity to take any of the R6 or, now, R7 admin classes at places like New Horizons and DataPlanners (are they even still in business?)

I'd love to find some low cost online alternatives to spending time away from the office. I work in a small shop (me and our network admin... that's it) and it is difficult to leave for a week or two for training classes. I was lucky enough to get to go to Lotusphere last week. I probably won't be able to go again until 2009.

I forget where it was, possibly the "Beat the Developers" session, as I hear it is informally called, but someone brought up the lack of books of any type for R7 or R8 out in the market. I'd love to have some kind of reference book to um... refer to when I have questions or want to look at how to do something. I need it in plain English. I need someone to explain it to me like I don't know what you are talking about, because, for the most part, I don't know... or at least don't feel like I know.

I'm a terrible reader. I'm more of a skimmer than an actual reader. Hell, in high school I never read one book that was assigned to me. I do regret it now that I'm 25+ years removed from high school, as I missed out on reading some good books... some classics. (Whoops... guess I went off on a tangent for a second...) I probably I would not take the time to read through the help text in the Admin client to find what I'm looking for. I suppose I would if there was no place else to turn, but it wouldn't be the first place I looked.

So, I guess what I am asking is this: Where do I go? Where do I look for learning more about being an administrator for Lotus Domino, without having to leave the office for a week at a time? I've been taking classes online through Ed2Go via my local college. I've taken everything from HTML to Javascript to Project Management classes. Each class is 6 weeks long, all done online, at about $90 per class. I get a certificate stating that I took the class and passed the online exam when I'm done (granted... it's not worth the paper it's printed on), but I also have all the class materials printed out and in a three ring binders that I can refer back to when I need to. It would be awesome to find something similarly available for administration training.

That's all I'm looking for. That and something that I put under my pillow at night and have the information drilled through my thick skull and into my long term memory so when I wake up, I know all I need to know. Which ever is easier, I guess.