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Products & Applications

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.

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.

First Impressions: IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1 from Packt Publishing

01/29/2010 12:20:00 AM by Chris Toohey

IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1 from Packt Publishing I just received my review copy of IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1 from Packt Publishing and wanted to give it the First Impressions treatment. This book, published in January 2010 by co-authors Barry Rosen, Bennie Gibson, Brad Schauf, David Byrd, Dick McCarrick, Joseph Anderson, and Tim Speed, covers topics including Lotus product portfolio, the Lotus Notes Domino 8.5.1 integration capabilities with other IBM products and services, and the platforms integration with Service-Oriented Architectures.

Notice I said platform and not product, as that's an important distinction with IBM Lotus Notes Domino 8.5.1 that I'm happy to see the authors make: Lotus Notes Domino has evolved into an application and services platform. But I'm getting ahead of myself here...

Overview

From the foreward -- written by Mark J. Guerinot, Director (Americas) Software Services for Lotus (ISSL) -- this book pushes the message the majority of you already get:

[IBM Lotus Notes Domino] is no longer just an e-mail tool, but a basis to extend business communications to a new level.

Unlike the Lotus Notes Domino 8: Upgrader's Guide, this books skips the history of IBM Lotus Notes Domino and jumps into an overview of the latest enhancements of IBM Lotus Notes Domino 8.5.1.

Chapter 1: Overview of New Lotus Notes 8.5 Client Features

This chapter actually starts off with the New Lotus Notes Client Features of release 8.0 and builds to the latest features of release 8.5.1. Fair enough, as the release 8.0 content that is covered in this chapter is absolutely transferable to 8.5.1 and -- quite frankly -- if they didn't review the user interface enhancements, this chapter would be lacking.

Reading like a punchlist of things you should show your project champions to sell them on why they need to upgrade to release 8.5.1, we review the latest improvements in the functional layout of the client. The Open List, Thumbnail Viewer, Grouped Tabs, the enhanced Search, improved Out of Office engine, federated calendars, and more are discussed via a brief description and (most importantly) screen captures showing off these features.

If you have no plans on upgrading to Lotus Notes Domino 8.5.1, I'd keep Chapter 1 as far away from your user community as possible. It highlights every feature that - when demo'ed to customers - I'm immediately asked "so when can I do all this?".

Chapter 2: Lotus Notes 8.5 and SOA

What Chapter 1 did for users, Chapter 2 promises to do for developers!

After giving you a crash course on SOA, this chapter pretty thoroughly covers Composite Application Development, shows an example of Lotus Notes Domino Web Services, and explains that Lotus Notes Domino 8.5.1 supports open technologies such as OASIS/ODF (the Open Document Format) and the Eclipse Rich Client Platform.

This discussion of Lotus Notes Domino 8.5.1 transitions quite nicely into the next chapter...

Chapter 3: Productivity Tools

Here, we discuss Lotus Symphony, IBM Lotus Documents, IBM Lotus Presentations, and IBM Lotus Spreadsheets.

And while the introduction to the chapter actually discusses Total Cost of Ownership, a turn of the page reassures you that you didn't accidentally start reading IBM sales and marketing copy.

This chapter not only reviews the productivity tools in detail, but also discusses their integration with the IBM Lotus Notes 8.5.1 Client and their management and deployment via Domino policies.

... which leads us to the Domino server.

Chapter 4: Lotus Domino 8.5 Server Features

Here we learn more about Message Recall, the enhanced Out-of-Office functionality, Mail Inbox Maintenance, enhancements to AdminP, Domino Domain Monitoring (DDM), Domino Configuration Tuner (DCT), and many more things that you admins would drool over.

I, as a developer, tend to ignore the improved server administration features and functionality in IBM Lotus Notes Domino 8.5.1. All I know is that my code runs smoothly and the Domino servers never. go. down.. I digress...

This chapter briefly dives into all of the reasons that a Lotus Notes Domino Administrator would want to upgrade their environment. Like Chapter 1 with your user community, if you don't want your admins to upgrade your environment: don't let them read this chapter!

... and that about wraps up this First Impressions review of IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1 from Packt Publishing. As with all of my reviews, I will be giving away my review copy to some lucky dominoGuru.com reader via Comment Lottery as soon as I finish reading this book.

Expect that contest to start early next week, and -- as always -- your feedback is appreciated!

 
Michael SmelserName:Michael SmelserWebsite:http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/BigMutantComment

I know it is just preliminary, but no talk of XPages?

Chris TooheyName:Chris TooheyWebsite:http://www.dominoguru.com/Comment

@Mike:

That's covered in Chapter 8: What's New in Notes/Domino 8.5 Development, so stay tuned!

Timothy BrileyName:Timothy BrileyComment

"[IBM Lotus Notes Domino] is no longer just an e-mail tool, but a basis to extend business communications to a new level."

I'm surprised to see a statement like this from the Director (Americas) Software Services for Lotus, since it's NEVER been just an email tool.

Thomas BergeName:Thomas BergeComment

Hi Chris

I've just ordered this book myself and can't wait to get it delivered. I've been supporting and administering Notes/Domino for 10 years now, but I am delighted to say that IBM has made more progress with the product line in the last 3 years than they did combined in the 7 years before that.

People I worked with who have always hated Lotus Notes are now started to come around to it and some have come to me and said that they are impressed with what Lotus Notes can do for them compared to other products.

John LindsayName:John LindsayWebsite:http://www.florida-poolsidecottage.comComment

@Timothy - I thought it was just me - I was kind of disappointed at that as well. We got Notes in 4.5 for precisely that reason.

Good to see a book about Notes though - there's been a right dearth of them in the last few years, look forward to hearing your verdict Chris.

Tony WestwellName:Tony WestwellComment

Hi Chris

Good to here you feel there not missing anything, sounds like an interesting read. Have to agree with @John, there has been a dearth of books about notes. Surely the head first people are missing a trick here too.

Curt StoneName:Curt StoneWebsite:http://www.onecheekgeek.comComment

Good to see a book out there so that the uninformed know the platform is still alive and kicking. Just reading your post makes me still shake my head in wonder why anyone would choose a different platform.

Thanks Chris.

Charlie ReidName:Charlie ReidWebsite:http://www.crassoc.bizComment

Thanks for the review, We need to encourage the Lotus Education department to start a program that encourages writers. I'm going for my Sametime cert and find nothing on the certified site, no books at amazon and no study guide. We as a community must educate the buyers and users of the software to make the want to use our software. PS. I did order Mr. Millers book but that was from LuLu.


(not published)




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