Month: January 2013

VentureBeat: Once king of enterprise software, Lotus Notes is dragging IBM down

After the Wall Street Journal wrote an article about IBM Notes, it seems that there are some other news organizations have picked up on it and have spinned it into another direction. The “not too favorable” direction. For example, VentureBeat writer Dylan Tweney has another view:

IBM has more modern social-media software, too, but only makes about $55 million per year from that segment of its business. So the challenge for IBM is to continue milking as much revenue as it can from Lotus, while gradually shifting the branding and the revenue to newer, sexier lines of business. One example: Renaming its annual Lotus conference, Lotusphere, as “Connect2013.” Yeah, that’ll help.

We’ll be watching to see if the earnings report sheds any more light on IBM’s efforts to turn Notes around. But as for me, I’m not holding my breath.

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John Scalzi: Punting the Start Screen

For those of you curious about every aspect of my technological life, I will note here a slight change to my UI experience of Windows 8, namely that I’ve installed Stardock’s “Start 8″ program, which reinstates a Windows 7-like start button and menu to the desktop, and banishes Win8′s Start Screen into an optional little area you can visit if you like, and not if you don’t want to.

I did this because simply put I’ve come to believe the Win 8 start screen, and the whole environment it propagates is just terrible UI for those of us who actually use their computers for work, rather than using them just to play games and get on Facebook. When I’m working I often have several programs open in several windows, and have those windows up where I can see them all, because each window has information relevant to what I’m doing. If I need to access additional programs, I don’t want to have to leave that environment; it messes with work flow.

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Thanks, Matt.

IBM Notes Mail Rules – Working With Limits

A Help Desk case comes into the queue. A user, when attempting to create a new mail rule, is receiving an error. IBM Notes cannot create a new rule because it exceeds the 32K limit. This user isn’t dumb, he knows that there is no way a simple mail rule will exceed a 32K limit. And he’s right.

What he doesn’t know is that the Mail Rules view, however, can exceed that limit.

Especially if that view has over 100 mail rules. Yes, this particular person had more than 100 rules.

This was an easy fix, one that is told to “Mail Rules Power Users” time and time again – combine your rules. For example, if you have several rules that move mail into a particular folder, combine them into one rule using the “OR” statement. Or the “AND” statement. Like this:

mailrule

Instead of having three separate Rules, I’ve combined three Rules into one. Best of all, I’ve reduced the size of the Mail Rules view accordingly. The unspoken, added benefit is that I can now have more than 100 Rules, as I have Rules that perform several functions at once.

TechNote: Is there a limit to the number of mail rules each user can create?

America’s 100 best beer bars: 2013

As craft beer has exploded, so has the number of incredible places that serve it. This list celebrates those special haunts with less than three locations and one passionate focus: beer. There might be darts and a jukebox or candlelight and a turntable; there might be five beers or 500. But in every spot on our list, you’ll find an excellent brew in your glass and people—staff, owners, barflies—who care about that as much as you do. (Read last year’s list here.)

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Chicago Lightning by Max Allan Collins

The short story isn’t something that I normally read, which is unfortunate. It’s a great art, where the author has to convey quite a bit in a compressed time frame. Because of this, some aspects you would normally expect while reading a novel are missing, such as detailed character development. However, if you pick up a collection of short stories centered on one figure, for example, Chicago Lightning, by Max Allan Collins, the reader is able to learn quite a bit about the central character as well as some recurring characters. Where Chicago Lightning really takes off is in the author’s use of real cases using an old form – the private detective.

Nathan “Nate” Heller is the central character and the private detective. He isn’t quite what you might expect of a 1930’s and 1940’s private eye as described by other authors, such as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, or Mickey Spillane what you might expect. Actually, I find that I love reading about Nate, and his cases, than any other detective in the genre. The language, characters, and cases make this a wonderful read. Where it really shined, for me, was when Max Allan Collins put Nate Heller in cases in which I am familiar, for example, the Cleveland Torso Murders in the 1930’s. What makes that story so wonderful is that Collins brings Nate to Cleveland to work with Eliot Ness. In fact, Heller and Ness work several cases together, which brings those stories alive.

If you’re looking for something “different,” introduce yourself to the short story with a strong character like Nate Heller. The tight writing, exciting cases, and hard dialog, will keep you turning pages well after you should be turning in for the night. Chicago Lightning is an exceptional collection of stories.

Disclosure:

Obtained from: Amazon Vine

Payment: Free