My Life

Somehow last week I managed to lose my headphones, either I left them somewhere in the hotel room or on the plane on the way out. Either way I was more than a tad annoyed with myself when I realised the blunder at the airport yesterday. Luckily an airport is welll equipped to deal with the problem and I decided to treat myself to a pair of Sure SE110 sound isolating headphones. I thought my old Sennheiser ones were good but the new Sure set just blows them out of the water. The sound quality is superb and the noise cancellation, even though it is passive, is amazingly good. In fact I left them in while trying to sleep on the plane last night as good ear plugs!

So consider this a Matt White approved product 🙂

It’s been another wonderful year in my professional life (which is really the stuff you see up here).

Lotusphere is such a great start to the year, it gets me really rev’ed up for the year, tells me what I need to be looking at for the next few months and, most importantly, allows me to catch up with the great friends I’ve made over the years. It really has got to the point these days where I can’t imagine not going to Florida in January, and of course I’m already looking forward to the 2008 trip.

I’ve been incredibly lucky with the projects I’ve worked on this year, from one major one which went live in November, through to several smaller but no less interesting pieces of work that I’ve been fortunate enough to be asked to help on. Of course, the most visible application I’ve worked on is the Idea Jam. It’s the first time I’ve worked for any length of time with Bruce and it’s been a blast so far. He is really a very talented guy who deserves all the plaudits that he gets from the Lotus community. If you haven’t used Idea Jam yet, then firstly, why not? And secondly please feel free to head on over and register, your ideas will be seen by a large number of people both in and outside IBM. I think everyone is getting a lot of benefit from the site already. Over the next few months we have a lot of plans to add functionality to the site and also start selling it into companies, so if you think your company might be able to use it then please drop me or Bruce a line.

The other major thing which I’ve managed to get involved in during the year has been the Irish and UK Lotus User Groups. Paul, Eileen, Warren and Kitty put in an absolutely incredible amount of effort into the organisation of these mini conferences but it is good fun hanging around the fringes helping out where possible.

On the personal side there have been a few challenges which I don’t really mention on here, but that all seems to be under control now which is good news for all concerned as it’s not been a fun time for the others in my immediate family.

It’s difficult to know what 2008 holds for us, by all accounts we can expect a big Lotusphere in January with some big announcements, so I’m looking forward to hearing those. For the next few months I have a lot of work scheduled which is always a good position to be in and, in the end, is enough to make me happy as long as I get to meet up with my friends as often as possible in that time.

So, that’s another year over with (and I’ve been waiting for this for a while). I’d like to wish you all a very happy and healthy New Year.

</2007> <2008>

It wa s areally good Christmas back in Suffolk with family and friends for the last couple of days. And now it’s back to the real world with the build up to Lotusphere beginning and, of course, the day job(s) keeping me busy for the rest of the time. But it’s good to have had a break for a couple of days.

Well I’m off to Suffolk for Christmas Day and Boxing Day to spend some time with the family.

I’d just like to wish you, dear reader, a very happy and peaceful Christmas. Now what are you doing reading this, go and get some egg nog, champagne or whatever your favourite tipple is.

A system that I’ve been working on since March went live over last weekend, hence things being so quiet around here at the moment. Last night the development team had an impromptu post release party last night. I guess I should know this by now but beer, champagne, wine and tequila mixed with Thai food don’t lead to a good night’s sleep or a clear head the next morning.

That is all.

Well with the release of the Idea Jam and another large project that I’ve been working on for the last eight months imminent the obvious thing to do was to take then entire weekend off to go to York in the north of England. Actually it was a really needed break just catching up with family and relaxing. It’s only when I stop my normal life that I realise I’ve not had any time off since May. But even just a couple of days can make a huge difference with a quick recharge of the batteries we can push on to the Christmas break before the build up to Lotusphere in January.

So when I got home last night I pushed out a bug fix release of Idea Jam, and today have a couple more issues to sort out. It’s back to the real world again.

Well after a superb weekend, about the only good weather we’ve had all summer, lots of beer and wine and good company, it’s back to the real world this morning. At the moment sleep is a valuable commodity with three fairly major pieces of work going on at the same time. I can’t complain though as all of them are pretty interesting. In the next month or so a lot of this is coming to a head so things are likely to be pretty quiet here for a while.

In other news, did you see that we have Kevin Cavanaugh coming to do the opening session of UKLUG at the end of September. This is a major coup for as Kevin is basically in charge of the development of Notes and Domino “running Notes/Domino/Quickr etc. from a product and brand management perspective” (thanks Ed). We are waitlisted for attendees, but you never know, you may get in as other people can’t make it. If not then there’s always next year.

It’s a much needed Bank Holiday here in the UK, so a long weekend. I’m off to my parents house in Suffolk, see you on Monday. While I’m away, if you haven’t yet seen Tiki Bar TV then I definitely suggest you check it out. Or if you’re in the UK then make sure you catch the new season on the IT Crowd

The office I’m currently working in is very close to this bizarre building demolition. Interesting to read about it, and especially good when you see the Project Manager’s name.

Thanks for all the birthday greetings from the blogosphere. It’ll just be a normal day at work, but we may get out for a pint at lunchtime all being well 😉