Well it appears that the iTunes Music Store has finally started selling TV shows here in the UK. In and of itself not big news, especially when you see the very small selection of programmes you can download and the fact that they cost £1.89 (or $3.78 for those over the pond). But what it does open the way to is movies being available at some point in the near future and then the Apple TV actually becomes an appealling product.
Back to work
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.
August Bank Holiday
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
A new blogger
Please join me in welcoming (finally) Julian Woodward to the blogging world. I’m sure it will be updated both frequently and regularly Julian 😉
And so it starts for another year
Well registration has opened for Lotusphere 2008. I’m already signed up with a room in the Dolphin booked. The process was unchanged from last year with the cost being $1,895 for the early bird registrations. I think the Dolphin is slightly cheaper than usual at $205 per night but I am probably mis-remembering.
It’s always good to have something to look forward to in January.
Two Days Into Notes 8
So I’m a couple of days into using Notes 8 so I thought I’d give my impressions.
The first thing to say is that the client is dramatically quicker than Beta 3. This had actually turned into my biggest worry, but there was no need, it feels almost as fast as the classic Notes 7 client, Which may not sounds good but given that I’m running Windows on Parallels with only 512mb of memory allocated I’d say that’s pretty impressive.
Of course the client feels so much more solid than the Beta which was pretty unstable for me. I’ve been doing proper development and using the new Composite Apps and haven’t managed to crash at all yet.
Talking of Composite Apps I have actually managed to get one working which is an enormous step forward compared to my progress last week. This is still the area which feels least complete of the whole client. There are just silly little things which would annoy if you spend a lot of time using them. The “pin” to hold the components tab in place doesn’t work properly, the amount of caching which goes on in the editor in huge. To the point where if you change something you even have to restart the entire client for it to be picked up. I’m not too worried as I won’t be using this stuff again any time soon but for what is a headline feature it’s a little disappointing.
I don’t want to give the impression that there are lots of problems, though, because there aren’t. If I were able I would uninstall my 7 client today and would be happy to do everything in 8. I can’t due to work requirements but rest assured I’ll be pressing to upgrade as soon as possible.
From my point of view Notes 8 is the best combination of improvements in functionality and stability that you could ask for of such a huge product. A big round of applause for the development and testing teams from me.
I almost forgot to mention that a new episode of Taking Notes came out yesterday which features Julian interviewing Mary Beth, Ed, Alan and Rob about the release. Well worth a listen, as always.
Notes Domino 8.0 is out
Well unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ll know that at about midnight ND8.0 was released. So I’m currently downloading the server and client to upgrade my own installations. Things are likely to go a little quiet in the Domino blogosphere for a few days as we play, but then expect a huge amount offun geeky posts 🙂 So I know what I’m doing this weekend.
Update
OK so this may take longer than anticipated. It seems like maybe lessons haven’t been learned from the Beta download problems. The Download Director keeps crashing and I’m getting about 40kbps download!
UKLUG Waitlisted
Warren has just reported that the UK Lotus User Group next month is now full.
If you haven’t registered yet please do still sign up. As people drop out, those on the waitlist will get contacted.
If you have registered and can’t make it please do let Warren know so that someone else can take your place.
20% chance we're living in the Matrix
Here’s something to screw with your mind on a Wednesday afternoon.
UKLUG Hands On Labs
So Warren has announced one of the cool things planned for the upcoming UKLUG next month. IBM have graciously loaned us 20 laptops to set up a Lab to show off all of the latest and greatest Lotus software offerings, including Notes 8, Quickr, Connections (maybe) etc etc. Now you know why I’ve been looking at Composite Apps recently. So depending on how well my playing progresses, there should be one of those to play with as well.
Either way, there will be some good stuff, so if you haven’t registered yet, then get in quickly, the spaces are going fast.