Showtime
My Blackberry Enterprise Server Push Utility for the Lotus Notes Client, allows you to create Jobs for individual Channel, Message, and Browser Content Pushes, as well as allows you to delete Pushed Channel Icons from defined recipient devices.
Contact Information
Blogger, podcaster, writer, and geek Chris Toohey covers topics from application development to the latest must-have-gadgets.
Latest Updates
More on Mailer...
More on Junction Lite...
More on Remote Console...
More on Controller API Utility...
Products & Applications
Time Tracker
The idea is simple. At the start of your day - upon completion of your first task - create an entry highlighting what you did and whether you feel it was an efficient or inefficient use of your time. Based on several requests, you can also select the priority, apply categories, or even align your time against a project.
For Lotus Notes Client v8.0 and above, you can use the Time Tracker Widget to make this process even easier!
Zephyr
My Configuration-based Rich Text Mail Merge and Emailing Utility, Zephyr allows you to create rich, data-driven emails to support automated workflow - all via Microsoft Word Mail Merge-like architecture. Dear <firstname> allows you to personalize each email message not only to the individual recipient, but also to the individual application workflow event!
xCopy
xCopy is a simple configurable xCopy client for the Lotus Notes client. By creating and defining xCopy Profiles, you can batch process your file backup or remote upload jobs. With the addition of the xCopy sidebar widget, you can easily kick-off these jobs, and modify both the xCopy Profiles and xCopy itself.
Community & Resources
Lotus Technical Information & Education Community
The Lotus Technical Information & Education community is comprised of IBM, business partner, and customer subject matter experts who use product wikis, published articles, white papers, community blogs and the latest in social media to build and share high quality technical content.
OpenNTF.org - Open Source Community for Lotus Notes Domino
OpenNTF is devoted to enabling groups of individuals all over the world to collaborate on IBM Lotus Notes/Domino applications and release them as open source.
developerWorks Lotus : Wikis
Share your deployment experiences and best practices in our wikis and help IBM to create scenarios for successful deployments. Contribute to the community by collaborating on shared content and leverage the shared knowledge from that community.
Say it with me: App Stores define the product!
09/23/2009 12:53:26 PM by Chris Toohey
Pre|Central reports that the Palm App Store been overwhelmed with application submissions, and with the App Store opening tomorrow (September 24th, 2009), I think that's a great problem to have!
From the Pre|Central article, Palm Developer Community Manager Chuq Von Rospach posted to the Palm developer discussion board the following:
We got more applications than we could handle well, which is a good problem to have. Unfortunately, it means we dropped some things on the floor, and that's bad, but with the impending "stuff" that's coming, this is all going to get a lot easier for everyone and a lot more transparent. If you didn't get a response in a timely manner, let me apologize to you. We should have done a better job on this, and I apologize for this. I'm working with the people I work with on this to try to make sure we do a better job of this moving forward. Good news is we've hired some people -- one's started, one starts next week, and the third starts the week after that, and that'll give us some great people and some new resources to make sure this gets fixed and works properly.
This brings me back to my ever-ongoing struggle with picking my next DMP: the Zune HD vs the latest iPod Touch. Specs-wise, the Zune HD is the favored product - beautiful OLED screen, HD FM Tuner, ability to go (with the dock) to 1080P video... but I've already decided that my next DMP will be the iPod Touch.
Anyone who knows me will tell you, I'm no Apple fanboy... so why the change? Simple: it's the App Store!
I know that I can buy the iPod Touch and - within minutes from purchase - begin purchasing (at a minimal price) an application that will address a real world need. I want to tweet from the road? There's an app for that! I want to post to a Blogger API-based blog? There's an app for that! Hell, I want to write code while I'm in the stands waiting for my son's football team to take the field?! There's an app for that!
The Zune HD? Sure, there's the Zune Marketplace App Store... 9 applications in total - and the only non-Game categorized applications are an MSN Weather Widget and a Calculator. Sexy huh?!
So, I'll be picking up the iPod Touch. Again, not because it's technology-wise a better product, but because of the options that are available to me post-purchase.
See, for me - as I rarely buy any big-ticket items for myself, a product designed for my sole usage that will cost ~$400USD... well, it just doesn't sit well with me. As a result, I tend to purchase a device and try to get the most out of it - via updates, upkeep, and kid-glove care - as possible. Thus, the initial purchase is simply the selection of the technology, and I have to decide from the time of adoption which product will look to have the better lifecycle.
I need my initial technology investment to grow with my needs, as well as the ever-evolving user experiences that tomorrow's gadget will bring to the table.
So being able to choose through literally thousands of applications allows me to evolve my use of the device with my needs. After all, there's an app for just about anything you need it seems.
Coming back to the Palm Pre - they have a single device in the field running the WebOS and the new Palm Pre hardware, but they have so many hungry vendors and individual developer application submissions that they have to bring on new staff to cover them all.
... So where's the Lotus App Store?
You may say it's OpenNTF. For our community, I think that's as close a fit to anything that's out there and available today. But while the solutions available on the OpenNTF catalog are some of the better applications developed for our particular platform... I don't think it's enough.
We need a simple, low-cost, consumer-focused application store - where a user of a product from the Lotus product portfolio can browse through consumer-priced applications, plug-ins, add-ons, and such. The result: you'll not only empower the user to do more with their technology investment, but you'll give them ideas on how they can better use the product.
You'll also drive vendor participation and innovation - as this is absolutely an untapped revenue stream that will breed a new level of competition.
So where do we start?
|
Unless otherwise stated, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. |
Chris, I think the problem with a Lotus App store is that consumers aren't running,and really can't run, Lotus Notes. In the corporate world Notes apps and even purchasing are controlled. You're not going to get a secretary buying her own Notes app to track Sports ticket requests.
Until there's a true standalone client - that's free , and has improved email setup for IMAP/POP accounts I don't see anything happening. Look at Eric Mack's eProductivity app. He has a really neat looking application. And he actually gets some non-notes people wanting to get Notes JUST for his mail template. So they first have to figure out how to buy the Notes client (not easy) then they need to figure out how to setup a mail connection (not easy) and then they get to his software - the piece that they want.
I'd love to see a streamlined "Home" Notes client. Even better would be SOME kind of home server or home peer to peer replication so a family with multiple computers can actually replicate/share data in apps that they might buy. Just SOMETHING for the home user. Look at microsoft Access. A nice DB program. At least in the old days it came with a runtime version so you could write an app and sell it. No additional license needed. We need Notes Runtime version almost.
Before we can write and sell the apps, we need to have a platform that's geared for the home user.
@David:
Imagine if Erik Mack created an eProductivity add-on for Lotus Notes - say, for $30USD - that would allow you to get some of the basic functionality and organization capabilities of the eProductivity solution. Now imagine if that could be added to the user's Lotus Notes client by them browsing through an online-accessible and easy to use Application Catalog? Hell, think of it like the Widgets Catalog.. but online.
That would not only empower the user to get more out of the technology itself, but would allow the user to customize their UX to meet their own business needs.
Not to mention bring in more revenue for Erik Mack and his awesome eProductivity solution.
Sure, there are product adoption concerns with people breaking the technology, etc. - but that's why (just like Apple) you have a review mechanism in place to approve and accept a given product into the store.
Consumer technology is making it's way into the business world. And we in the business world should take a few cues from the consumer technology world: people want to personalize their user experience to match how they work. Providing an App Store for Lotus products is just an extension of that.
Chris,
Don't get me wrong. I'm all for a Lotus App Store I just don't know if the product is ready for it yet.
If there's a $30 eProductivity for Notes that arguably helps the user who's going to buy it? The admin assistant who needs it? How does that get approved in her company? How does she get notes support when the IT department realizes she's "gone maverick" and changed her template. Assuming she even has the access. What if it's not a template. What if it's a "Ticket Tracker" application that she can run locally. But now it's not backed up on the server. How are the IT departments going to react to users attempting these things? Heck lots of departments are still running 6.5?
I love the idea of a store. I want the store! You're right that consumers are driving this stuff to the business world. I just think that we need to find a way into the consumer HOME first. And we need product changes to do that. But once we get into the home then they will start demanding those tools at the office.
The iPhone is a perfect example. Originally Apple made NO effort to target businesses and quite frankly businesses didn't want it. But it took off in the Home and those people demanded to have it for the business.
That's what we need to do. Make Notes available and accessable in the home. Create apps that the home user/family will want to have and use. Then they'll start wanting/demanding to have these tools in the office!
Unfortunately there are many things that need to be addressed in order to attempt to penetrate the home:
Price of Notes Client / Designer
Ease of purchasing
Compatibility with IMAP/POP
Ability to use MULTIPLE e-mail accounts EASILY
Home server? replication?
Domino based hosting - (Price/availability)
And probably a lot more if I thought about it. Everything's addressable of course, but Lotus has to want to do it.
Notes is not a consumer type application. It's strength, to me, is that I can build an app to suit my (company) needs and can be done so quickly. I can model a line of business process and automate it to improve productivity.
My take is that IBM look at Access and other "desktop" databases as toys that are not to be treated seriously. Up to a point in time I believe they thought that of Notes as well which is why it got shabby treatment.
Notes needs to get back to the RAD behavior and feel it used to have and get some updated UI data entry tools as well, plus a basic report writer.
This kind of tool gets its' tires kicked by the power user, the entrepreneur and the systems analyst.
I have seen some incredible applications written in FoxPro which have run whole companies (a bakery, gas service station, air conditioning service company).In each case someone at the company took a copy of the program and built an application that drove the business.
From a database/backend system standpoint Notes/Domino is incredible. From the front end it is exasperating. The UI is missing abilities that have been the desktop "toys" for twenty years.
I give thanks to the bloggers who have worked miracles with the UI to show what can be achieved, but, in the end the limitations are still there.
Why is there no native bar chart tool? No native SVG display. Even dBaseII allowed the developer better UI control when it was introduced two decades ago.
On a different train of discussion, I don't think there should be free version of the notes client at all. And if there is a stand alone version, it should have nothing to do with mail, other than being able to send/receive vi programmed control.
I would rather see some "Approach" type controls hooked into the front end and the ability to have a runtime only image.
I think we need to not focus on the client. What kind of apps can you run from a web server that are based on Domino that would add value to the user of a smart phone? Take the LotuSphere sessions database. I would imagine we would all pay $9.95 to have that available to use during LotuSphere. The average user has no idea what platform / language an application is written, nor do they care. They just want to be able to do "something" of value from a smart phone.
I don't think I could add much that hasn't already been so eloquently said. I can just reiterate that the Lotus portfolio IS NOT a consumer tool, as much as we'd like it to become one. The only product that even has that potential is Symphony, and it's not a market that amenable to too many variations on apps.
If it's any consolation, I was smitten by the app store vision when I started doing some Expeditor dev as well, but the answer for most people has not and -I suspect- will never be a unified client no matter how flexible and no matter how hard IBM repeatedly pursues that dream.
We need a very good Product Catalog - not an appstore.