mattwhite

All Quiet

My it’s quiet round here isn’t it.

Well actually there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on around the Lotus community (if you set aside all the toys being thrown out of prams by various people who shall remain nameless).

You may well have heard of Twitter which is a service that in the words of their FAQ page is “Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Bloggers can use it as a mini-blogging tool. Developers can use the API to make Twitter tools of their own. Possibilities are endless!”

Well the latest news for the Notes 8 client is that Mikkel has created a sidebar plugin, and it really is very cool. If you are lucky enough to be using Notes 8 in anger then it’s a must install to keep up with the latest community happenings.

In the user group world, ILUG planning continues apace and now Warren is asking for UKLUG Sponsors. If you’re interested, head over to his blog and drop him a line, it promises to be a very good two day conference in September.

Of course through all of this IdeaJam development and sales continue. If you haven’t yet registered your interest then now may just be the right time.

Yellow Bleeders at Logon

If you use a Mac, then you’ll probably use Adium as your chat client. Wonderfully it has a Sametime plugin. Adium is integrated with Growl which gives you a little popup when certain events happen, like someone logging onto a chat server somewhere. So, when I start up my computer these days I have the superb site of the best people in the Domino world appearing on the Bleed Yellow public Sametime server. If you’re not already a member then I highly recommend signing up.
Yellow Bleeders at Logon.jpg

Don't forget London Beers next Tuesday

Don’t forget the Domino metup next Tuesday evening. I’ll bea heading down to the Market Porter from about 6-ish next Tuesday (the 18th) evening. Hope to see you there. If you’re having trouble finding us, my mobile is 07767 384970.

IdeaJam product ready

Well things have been quiet on the IdeaJam development front for the last couple of months. The reason is that we’ve been working to get the saleable version of IdeaJam ready to go. We have just about reached that point now. Over the next week or two we’ll be upgrading the current site to use the new design which adds a whole load of new features. If you’re interested, or know someone who’s interested, in running IdeaJam within their company then please do contact myself or Bruce. We have set up a page for you to register interest and we’ll get back to you with details of the application that will make Idea management in your organisation a lot easier.

Once we’ve updated the live site we’ll be discussing on the IdeaJam blog some of the new features that maybe aren’t so visible for the user, but make managing the application a doddle (in the last couple of weeks we’ve got the setup time for a new IdeaJam down to 30 minutes, start to finish!).

ILUG Sessions List

OK, all it seems that I am doing on the blog at the moment is pimping ILUG. In the background work is completely manic with IdeaJam plus my other jobs taking pretty much every waking moment, hence the lack of posting here. In theory things will quieten down a the end of this month but I’ve thought that before. Besides, I am absolutely loving all of the work I’m doing at the moment, some really cool stuff, interesting projects, life is good.

Anyway, back to the primary purpose of my blog at the moment. Paul has published a rough draft of the ILUG Sessions List, I think you’ll agree it looks pretty damned good. So if you haven’t already registered, I would take this opportunity to get on the list, as spaces are going to become limited very soon.

Registration is Open

We got a little carried away and opened up registration a whole 20 minutes early, so run, don’t walk over to ilug2008.org and register while there are still spaces.

Don't forget…

that at 1pm GMT today registration for ILUG 2008 opens. Now although capacity is up from last year I suspect that places are going to go quickly so make sure that you register early.

LotusBeer London

Julian and I were chatting and decided that it’s about time for a London Domino beers evening in London. The tentative plan is to meet up somewhere in Zone 1 from about 6:30pm on Tuesday 18th March for beers and… well more beers. If you’re around and have an opinion about where would be a good venue then let us know, otherwise we will take a unilateral decision for us to meet at the Market Porter. 😉 Either way, hope to see you there.

Update: OK, I’m told by a certain Scotsman that the term LotusBeer has prior art in the form of the Aberdeen Lotus Drinking Club. Obviously I am mortally embarassed to have made such a rookie mistake and, as way of recompense, there will be a free beer voucher behind the bar of the southern arm of the Lotus Drinking Club when we meet in March for any of our north of the border brethren to take advantage of. (Restrictions may apply, see pub for details)

BBC Shows on iTunes Music Store

Well this is interesting. The BBC have put some of their more popular shows onto the UK iTunes Music Store for paid download. Oddly I don’t have any philosophical objections to paying to download shows I’ve missed, even if I have already paid my license fee. If it makes my life easier then that’s fine. But there are a few problems with the current set up.

Firstly, at £1.89 per episode it is *way* too expensive. The equivalent shows in the US cost $1.99. With the current exchange rate that works out at £1.00. I could live with a pound a go, but almost two pounds takes it out of my price range.

The selection of shows on the ITMS (in the UK at least) is woefully small. If I’m going to get into this then I’d like there to be a fair chance that the show I want will be there, otherwise I’ll continue with my current set up for catching up with missed programmes.

Finally, I believe that in the US, you can subscribe to a season rather than buying individual episodes of a programme. If, for example, I wanted to get season 3 of Lost, then I would much prefer it came down to me automatically after it got released rather than me having to go and actively buy it.

So what do you think? If you’re in the UK will you be using the new service? And if you’re across the pond, do you already use iTunes, or do you have some other route for getting your TV?