A few months ago I blogged about one of my clients, Summit Entertainment. I commented on the small, but important role that Lotus Notes had played to help one of the smaller players in the Entertainment industry achieve the all-time box office single day gross for any movie with The Twilight Saga: New Moon. At this year's Lotusphere OGS, William Shatner outlined the important role collaboration plays in the world of movies so it is perhaps surprising that more of the major players in this industry do not take advantage of the power of the Lotus product suite. . But their loss is Summit's gain. The Twilight Saga: New Moon did not receive any nominations for this weekend's Academy Awards, but another one of Summit Entertainment's movies, The Hurt Locker, did. Over the past few months we have seen a very positive reaction at Summit to the introduction of Lotus Traveler. So it is a fair bet as news and congratulations started to spread for Hurt Locker's success that Lotus Traveller was delivering this news to iPods across the company. In total The Hurt Locker won six Oscars, including the first win by a female director and Best Movie. Yes, Avatar had many things going for it as a movie, but Lotus was not one of them! It just goes to show Lotus Knows How To Win Oscars.
One of my favorite software programs (outside of Lotus Notes) is Intuit's Quicken. I like the look/feel of a thick client product. I like the way it integrates seamlessly with the Internet. I like that I can get the latest information off the Internet without the need to switch to a separate browser. I like the ease with which fixes are downloaded an applied. I especially like knowing that a new version will be available the same time each year and I can either decide to upgrade to use the new features or hold off for another 12 months. I even like the way they cross-promote their other products & services in a way that doesn't get in the way but I know the information is there if I am interested in learning more.
There are times when I wish my other favorite thick client, Lotus Notes was a little more like Intuit.....
Wouldn't it be nice if as a Notes developer I could access and download the latest fixes to my designer client without the need to have to wait for my entire organization to deploy a new version of the Notes client. As an Administrator it would be nice to get fixes for my administrator client and have my administrator client also manage downloads of hot-fixes for my Domino servers.
It would also be nice if I knew the next release of Lotus Notes (and SameTime) was to be released on March 1 each and every year. After all, how many companies have the resources to upgrade their Notes/Domino infrasructure more than once a year. I could plan my year using a new Yellow calendar that starts on New Yellow Day (March 1). Notes development for the year can be planned knowing the timetable for each and every new release. If I was lucky enough to attend Lotusphere six weeks before, I could see demos of the latest beta and attend presentations that explain how I can make the most out of the next release. I could then go back to my company and help decide if this release is one that is needed. If our company is an early adopter we can plan each March to test applications for the upgrade. If I work for a more conservative company we would probably do this at the end of the year after a few more of the bugs have been found and resolved. Major release of applications could be planned around whether I wanted to wait to take advantage of new features or not. Domino infrastructure changes can be planned for the quieter periods when no new release is planned. And most important of all, I wouldn't have to stress out about what the next release of Lotus Notes would be called.. it would simply be Lotus Notes 2010 etc.
This
weekend Summit Entertainment's “The Twilight Saga: New Moon”
broke the all-time box-office record for an opening d ay in the US
and also many countries around the world. In the entertainment
industry communication and contacts are key. And while many of the
larger studios try to rely on Microsoft Exchange, Summit
Entertainment stands out as one of the few entertainment companies
that have placed its trust in Lotus Notes. And with good reason too.
While only a small company with less than 200 employees, it has to
find a way to manage 10 million e-mail messages. That's an average
of 50,000 messages per person that grows at an average rate of 2.25GB
per day. In the marketing department multimedia content has seen
some individual mail files grow to 72 GB. Busy executives rarely
find time to file their mail so in-boxes can contain as many as
75,000 messages. Summit's Directory system is upside down to most
companies. They have a small internal directory with around 200
entries linked to a separate Notes application (the Summit Rolodex)
with around 17,000 external contacts.
:
All the above is
handled using a single (Linux) mail server running Domino 8.5.1.
Yes, the server is clustered with a 2nd mail server to
ensure the mail system remain operational at all times and a 3rd DR
server is housed in an off-site location just in case. A BES server
is used to keep executives informed away from the office via their
Blackberries and a SameTime server provides IM.
:
IT Director
Charles Nicholls has been an ardent fan of Lotus Notes and has no
doubts about his decision to resist the constant push to migrate to
either Exchange or Gmail. He is proud that the company has never
lost any time due to e-mail viruses. And there is no doubt that
Exchange and Gmail would struggle to handle mail files of this size.
After moving to Domino 8.5 and installing DAOS we managed to reduce
the size of our largest mail file from 72GB down to 9GB! And the
cost to keep all this running? Well Charles has a very small team
that keeps the mail system running. I am the sole Domino
Administrator for which I only need to maintain an average of 8 hours
per week to keep the entire Domino infrastructure running in a
clean/stable state.
:
I would like to
congratulate Summit Entertainment on their box office success this
weekend. You can be rest assured your mail systems is quietly
delivering all those updates to box office numbers from around the
world.
Over the weekend I had the chance to observe close-hand the making of One Hundredth epsiode of the Taking NotesPodcast. Bruce Elgort and Julian Julian Robichaux are to be congratulated for there dedication to the Notes community in reaching this milestone. Taking Notes is probably the #1 radio station broadcasting across the yellowverse. As you can imagine these podcasts don't just happen. They require a great deal of planning and preparation plus the time to record and produce the final podcast. Bruce is an absolute legend in the Notes community having been one of the co-founders of OpenNTF. His company, Elguji provides the Notes community Ideajam and, more recently, IQJam. In addition he and Ricky Oliver came up with the concept of Show N tell Thursday. Juian has made significant code contributions to the Notes community with OpenNTF projects such as OpenLog and the handy dandy LS2HTML tool. Both guys are regular speakers at all those conferences ending with "LUG" and "sphere". Well done guys on reaching this major milestone. Avid listeners like myself really appreciate all the time and effort that goes into making these podcasts available to the yellowverse. : Note: Episode 100 covers XPages and the OpenNTF awards. Bruce and Julian invited two XPage gurus Matt White and Declan Lynch to talk about XPages. As an Xpage 1st grader I was on a school excursion to the Taking Notes studios and was fortunate enough not only to see how the show is produced but I also got to sit behind a microphone for a while for my first ever podcast experience.
Building on previous blogs, I am providing an updated dictionary of terms spoken within the Lotus Notes Community - and perhaps only mastered by an estimated 1,500 people know to inhabit the yellow bubble. Beeps
The
sound you constantly hear driving anywhere in Cairo. It is also the
name given to a group of yellow companies who focus on providing
products and services to the yelowverse. Sometimes referred to as
Business Partners, LBPs or just BPs. Beeps are different because
within beeps it is usually the developers that are born with yellow
stars on their bellies (see yellow blob).
Blueverse
Outside
the yellowverse there is a parallel universe know as the blueverse.
This universe uses development products based almost exclusively upon
Java and Eclipse. At times the yellowverse feels threatened by the
blue universe as they see them as wanting to turn their own yellowverse
blue. CAL Every year the Great Blue Oracle imposes a tax on all the residents of the yellowverse to pay for the upkeep of the Blue Empire. This tax is known as the CAL. Composite Applications see [Notes Classic] DAOS Like the tooth-fairy, the DAOS fairy visits Domino 8.5. servers each night taking away attachments and leaving free disk space in return. Domino.Doc The yellowverse's version of the dodo. Yellowsphere bingo players would always cringe if they found this product ion on their bingo card. ELSE Eclipse LotusScript Editor rumoured to be included in Notes 8.5.1 Great Blue Oracle Provider of the Lotus Notes product upon which the yellowverse feeds. The Oracle also provides food to the blueverse. Blue-food is considered by the Oracle as being more nutritional and so it feels obligated to prevent the yellowverse overindulging on convenience foods by supplementing blue vitamins into the yellowverse diet. Lotus Attack Kittens
Like
UFOs these fabled creatures are often reported as having been sited but
their true existence has never been fully verified. These creatures
are reported to appear whenever a member of the yellowverse strays from
the rules handed down by the great blue oracle.
LotusScript An ancient language that can be traced all the way back to the beginning of the yellowverse when a tribe known as IRIS roamed. Lotushere Bingo Rob Novak's entertaining game for the Lotusphere Opening General Session (OGS) in which common phrases, buzzwords,
rumors, onscreen clues and new features are placed on a Bingo card and checked as they happen. Notes 9.0 Top secret next version of Lotus Notes under development by the Great Blue Oracle. Secrets of what may be in this release are somewhat revealed here. Notes Classic The original style of Notes development centred around the use of forms, views, agents, and LotusScript. This was the ONLY way to develop Notes application until the great XPage invasion of 2009. Notes Standard Notes application development for the Standard (Eclipse) client introduced with Notes 8.0. This involves the development of Composite Applications using yet another editor (the Composite Application Editor). Also includes the use of Eclipse components such as the Java views/navigators developed to support the Mail template. Like yoyos, Composite Applications have so far proven to be just a fad made popular at LotusSphere 2008 but becoming "so last week" after the announcement of XPages. Notes.Net The URL for the water-cooler where many in the yellowverse hangs out. The Great Blue Oracle renamed this to http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus, but most yellowbleeders still prefer the old way. Recursion see [Recursion] RNext The major release of Lotus Notes have been numbered 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. Most in the yellowverse recognize a pattern! The Great Blue Oracle however always refuses to commit to revealing the next release number preferring instead to refer to the next version as RNext (or similar). SSJS Server Sided JavaScript - a new language that the Great Blue Oracle has decreed all in the yellowverse must now learn (only the Oracle forgot to provide tools to learn with). SSJS includes the ancient tongue of @language as a way of appeasing the yellowverse. XPages To some the second coming of Notes development. Like many I want to believe. There is a however a popular conspiracy theory that Xpages are not true inhabitants of the yellwverse but in fact alien lifeforms that traveled to the yellowverse shortly before their home planet of Workplace imploded. Xpages brought with them a new language knows as SSJS and refuse to speak in the native yellowverse language of LotusScript. The two cultures are likely to battle over territory for a few years. Who will win is not clear, but the truth is out there. What's Hot The prize that is usually awarded by Planet Lotus to bloggers who can create the most inventive blog title and/or mention a future version of Lotus Notes. The one exception to the rule is Nathan Freeman (example) who can place the most obscure title in his blog and still be awarded a "What's Hot" prize. Yellow Blob
The
yellow blob represents the 99% of the yellowverse who choose to live
outside the [Yellow Bubble]. The yellow blob has two major
tribes. The larger tribe are those that favour the use of the Domino
Designer client. The smaller tribe are those devoted to the use the
Domino Administrator client. Despite being the smaller group, the
administrators were all born with yellow stars on their belly and hence
some often consider themselves superior. They
are the ones that usually control the relationship with the great blue
oracle and usually get to decide what version of Lotus Notes everyone else will be allowed to work with at any time. Note: Is is not completely unknown for those with yellow stars to reach out to those less fortunate - but this is still rare.
Yellow Bubble
This
is a relatively small group (Estimate 1,500) within the yellowverse who tend to
make the most noise. They blog and tweet and attend any technical
conference that ends with LUG or sphere. The yellow bubble is a
largely a sealed complainer and highly reflective. Those inside
looking out often see a reflection of themselves and incorrectly assume
the yellow blob is made up of people entirely the same as themselves. The
yellow bubble gather regularly at 4 strategically placed water coolers
to drink the yellow kool-aid. These water coolers are called Planet Lotus, OpenNTF, IdeaJam, and Bleedyellow. Planet Lotus is the yellow
bubbles' equivalent of Hyde Park's speaker corner where people stand on
yellow soap boxes and speak about all manner of Notes related issues to
anyone who cares to listen. OpenNTF is where the yellow architects and
heavy duty builders of all things yellow gather. They often work on
community projects to contruct yellow homes for those less fortunate
within the yellowverse. The yellow bubble constantly posts instant
polls at ideajam about how to make the yellowverse even more yellow in
the hope the great blue oracle will listen. And finally, for those
that feel the need to slash their wrists and share the pain, there is
bleedyellow.com. Each year the yellow bubble rewards
contributions to the community by offering speaker slots at the annual
lotusphere conference or the chance to sit and blog the opening session
from prominently placed yellow bean bags.
Yellow Core
The
yellow core is that part of the yellowverse for whom the use of Domino
Designer or Domino Administrator forms a dominant part of their day.
These people have a vested interest in success of Lotus Notes because
it directly leads to how much food they get to put on the table each
night (and how far down the plane they have to sit when travelling to
lotusphere). (Estimate 100,000) Yellow Council
Within
the yellow bubble there is a small group of people elected to high
office to represent the yellowverserse. These people get to sit on
committees at OpenNTF. They also get to participate as design partners
where they sit down and discuss with the great blue oracle about future
plans to expand the yellowverse. The yellow council is made up almost
exclusively of beeps. As with any group of politicians they are
constantly bickering about trivial issues such as whether or not the
standard unit of measure should be based upon the metric system or not
or whether everyone in the yellowverse should be required to add two
lumps of sugar to their morning coffee. Yellowbleeders Name assigned to those that inhabit the yellow bubble. Yellowday Celebrated on 11th August each year in which the yellowverse gathers by their water coolers and do all things yellow. The origins of yellow day can be traced back to Alan Lepofsky and later promoted by Mr NTF (Nathan Freeman)
Yellowverse The yellowverse comprises those people who have cause to use the Domino Designer or Domino Administrator clients. (Estimate 300,000)
WOW... Yellowday generated more blogs than I can recall seeing in a single day. Great stuff. For those of you that found your way to my trivia challenge, the following are my answers. There may be better answers out there, but these were the answers I came up wuth....
The yellowverse began its existence with the release of Lotus Notes 1.0 in what year? 1989
Yellow Fab Four: Name the four developers of the first version of Lotus Notes and name their company Ray Ozzie, Tim Halvorsen, Len Kawell, and Steven Beckhard - Iris Associates
Yellowtainers: Which of the following have NEVER performed at Lotusphere (Doobie Bros,
Blue Man Group, Beach Boys, Earth WInd & Fire, Pointer Sisters) Beach Boys
Yellow Secrets:
Name the undocumented LotusScript property that can be used to
determine if any field has been changed since the document was last
modified. NotesUIDocument.ModifiedSinceSaved
When did Big Blue (IBM) acquire a yellow tinge by purchasing Lotus? July 1995
Who's yellow blood was spilled to create the LotusScript object model Bob Babalan
Yellow Code:
What was the name of the product that first allowed Notes developers to
use LotusScript to access Notes databases before it was provided as a
standard part of Notes 4.0. VIP
Yellow Names: The Notes
workspace often has a little icon used to select replicas. These icons
are then placed on larger icons that represent each
database/application. What are the names for these icons? The hinky minky (switch replicas) is placed on chiclets (aka database icons)
Yellow Acronyms: What does NSF & NTF stand for? What extension can be used to force a Notes database to a specific Notes version?Notes Storage Facility & Notes Template
Facility (but I will also accept Nathan Thomas Freeman). .NS4 will
save in Notes 4 format etc.
The last year that the lotus community did not get the chance to paint Orlando yellow with a LotusSphere conference. 1994 (held Dec 1993 and Jan 1995)
Where/when did IBM announce Workplace? It was announced at Lotussphere 2002 under the name NextGen and formally introduced at LotusSphere 2003.
Who wrote an article in InformationWeek entitled "IBM View: Lotus Notes is a part of the IBM Workplace Family"? Ed Brill
What was the last year the great yellow document management tool Domino.Doc was mentioned at the OGS? Those that play Lotusphere Bingo will now this is a trick question - To the best of my knowledge it never was
Yellow Stars:
Which of the following are yet to be awarded a yellow star on the Lotus Walk of Fame as official Lotuspehere guests (Jim
Lovell, Walter Cronkire, John Cleese, Larry King, Neil Armstrong) Larry King
Yellow Talk: Which two companies were purchased by IBM in 1998 to create Sametime Databeam & Ubique
Yellow Names: Where did the name Domino come from? Domino was the code name for the http server add-in for Notes 4.x
Eclipse was developed as a replacement for which Java IDE? VisualAge
Yellow Fun: Who created the concept of Lotusphere Bingo? Rob Novak
Yellow Secrets:
Name the undocumented @Function that can be used to retrieve
information from the currents user's location settings (e.g. home mail
server) @LocationGetInfo
Yellow Future: Who first posted this preview of Notes 9.0? Yes, you got RIck Astleyed!!
In honour of Yellowday I thought I would try and challenge a few of you to some Notes trivia. This is a challenge to yourself so see how you go without Googling the answers. I will post my version of the answers tomorrow.
The yellowverse began its existence with the release of Lotus Notes 1.0 in what year?
Yellow Fab Four: Name the four developers of the first version of Lotus Notes and name their company
Yellowtainers: Which of the following have NEVER performed at Lotusphere (Doobie Bros,
Blue Man Group, Beach Boys, Earth WInd & Fire, Pointer Sisters)
Yellow Secrets:
Name the undocumented LotusScript property that can be used to
determine if any field has been changed since the document was last
modified.
When did Big Blue (IBM) acquire a yellow tinge by purchasing Lotus?
Who's yellow blood was spilled to create the LotusScript object model
Yellow Code:
What was the name of the product that first allowed Notes developers to
use LotusScript to access Notes databases before it was provided as a
standard part of Notes 4.0.
Yellow Names: The Notes
workspace often has a little icon used to select replicas. These icons
are then placed on larger icons that represent each
database/application. What are the names for these icons?
Yellow Acronyms: What does NSF & NTF stand for? What extension can be used to force a Notes database to a specific Notes version?
The last year that the lotus community did not get the chance to paint Orlando yellow with a LotusSphere conference.
Where/when did IBM announce Workplace?
Who wrote an article in InformationWeek entitled "IBM View: Lotus Notes is a part of the IBM Workplace Family"?
What was the last year the great yellow document management tool Domino.Doc was mentioned at the OGS?
Yellow Stars:
Which of the following are yet to be awarded a yellow star on the Lotus Walk of Fame as official Lotuspehere guests (Jim
Lovell, Walter Cronkire, John Cleese, Larry King, Neil Armstrong)
Yellow Talk: Which two companies were purchased by IBM in 1998 to create Sametime
Yellow Names: Where did the name Domino come from?
Eclipse was developed as a replacement for which Java IDE?
Yellow Fun: Who created the concept of Lotusphere Bingo?
Yellow Secrets:
Name the undocumented @Function that can be used to retrieve
information from the currents user's location settings (e.g. home mail
server)
Yellow Future: Who first posted this preview of Notes 9.0?
For a longest time now I have been kind of curious to know just how many more weird people there were like me in the yellowverse preferring to develop applications using Lotus Notes rather than some of those other languages. In my last blog I amused myself with a definition of all things yellow. So I then decided it was time to do a little bit of research to see if there was any way to measure the size of the yellowverse and the various water coolers dispensing the yellow kool-ade. It seems there are not a lot of hard numbers available in the public domain so I lined up a few of the key players to conduct a straw poll to at least put a number out there for others to refine. Many thanks to Ed Brill, Bruce Elgort, Nathan T Freeman, and Chris Whisonant who kindly offered some of their insight. The following are collection of stats, best guesses, (and not so good guesses) about our amazing yellowverse..... 134,000,000 - Number of Lotus Notes users 405,000 - Postings in Notes 6/7 Discussion forum 300,000 - Yellowverse - Those that have had cause to take the shrink wrap off their copies of either Domino Designer or Domino Admionistrator clients (est.) 100,000 - Yelow Core - Those who use either Domino Designer or Domino Admionistrator clients as a major part of their daily job (est.) 62,000 - Number of votes cast at Idea Jam 60,000 - Number of registered users at openNTF 20,000 - Number of people who have asked questions and/or posted answers in the Notes 6/7 Discussion forum 10,000 - Members of a Chinese Notes User Group 10,000 - Estimated attendees at Lotusphere 2001 (before enrollments were forced to close) 7,000 - Estimated attendees at Lotusphere 2009 7,000 -Comments added at IdeaJam 5,600 - Registered members at bleedyellow.com 2,500 - Total number of ideas posted at Idea Jam 1,500 - Yellow Bubble - active members of Notes community (est.) 1,500 - Highest known hit count for a blog entry at bleedyellow.com 840 - Highest known hit count for a blog entry via Planet Lotus 350 - Number of blogs found at Planet Lotus 200 - Typical number of yellowbleeders online at any time (Sametime group) 1 - The number of Lotus Notes developers required to build the average Notes application 0 - The actual number of other weird people found to be just like me. (yes we in the yellowverse are all different in our own special ways) Please feel free to add to or correct any of the above numbers.
Simply put... I bleed yellow because I am able to develop applications of high quality in a fraction of the time required for most other application development platforms. That's right, I develop applications with Lotus Notes. So on Yellow Day I thought I would outline some of the aids I now use that give me an advantage over and above the edge Lotus Notes already provides. 1) BA/BSAs This might surprise a few people, but my number one aid is working as part of a small team with either a Business Analyst (BA), or Business/Systems Analyst (BSA). I have found that in larger corporations Lotus Notes is increasingly being caught up in greater demands for compliance and corporate governance. Just Enough Governance is a great blog site on this topic. While not all BA/BSAs can adapt to the subtle differences of Notes development (e.g. its speed), those that can make a huge difference to developer productivity. I happily allow them to handle all the documentation/compliance needs of my projects while I focus on understanding the requirements and writing the code. 2) Multiple Monitors One day my chair ran over the video cable of my computer monitor at home. I didn't notice and thought my monitor had simply blown up. I chose the fast path solution of rushing down to my local computer store and buying a new monitor. Later the original problem got noticed and my orginal monitor was soon working again (duh). I then decided to connect both monitors. I was so impressed with what I could now do I took my 2nd monitor into work so I could get these savings where it counted most. Now I have three monitors at home and I insist on having two monitors where I work. If possible my preference is to have at least one wide screen monitor as the extra width really helps when doing development (e.g. Notes 8 sidebar). To give me increased flexibility I use USB DVI adapters that allow me to quickly plug one or more external monitors into my laptops. 3) Newsgator FeedDemon You might already be using a better RSS feed reader. But if you don't have one at all I would strongly urge you to get one. The Notes 8 RSS reader is a good start but it is not great. Newsgator provide an excellent feed reader at the perfect price (FREE)... Since I started using a feed reader I have felt connected to an immense network of brilliant Lotus Notes minds. I am presently monitoring 75 separate Lotus Notes feeds via my feed reader. The software operates very much like my e-mail database (e.g. "in-box", folders, mail rules, search), except I am getting almost no spam. If anything at all happens in the Notes world my feed reader soon alerts me wherever I may be (home/work/travelling). If you are unable/unwilling to get access to a feed reader, the next best thing is planetlotus.org. 4) OOP/Framework After spending a period doing C# development I found it impossible to return to Notes programming without doing ALL my LotusScript in Object Oriented Programming. Procedural programming had become too counter-intuitive. One of the advantages of OOP is that it allows me to develop a framework so that the generic code can be inherited from the framework and I only need to focus on the code specific to each application. Frameworks can vary in size and complexity. I have developed my own framework (.Domino Framework) which is now an OpenNTF project. I genuinely believe that OOP/Framework allows me to build Notes applications 50% faster than before. It is not unusual for me to be able to deliver a prototype application within 24 hours of the first requirements session with the users. Sometimes even the most ardent "Notes-haters" find themselves taking a new look at this platform because they can't argue with the results they get. 5) (FREE) TeamStudio Tools One of the downsides of OOP/LotusScript is that the present Domino Developer IDE SUCKS when it comes to coding classes. Notes 8.5.1 (or beyond???) will address this with a new Eclipse IDE. In the interim TeamStudio provide two free tools that can be a big help to navigate the huge chunk of code that now resides in the Declaraions sections of each LotusScript library. ScriptBrowser is a Class browser that allows you to see your class structures and quickly jump to a specific class/proipery/method. LSGoto allows you to quickly jump to a specific line in a LotusScript module. Teamstudio also market a range of Notes productivity tools. I am a big time user of Design Manager, CIAO, Configurator, and Delta and use some of their other products from time to time (Note: these tools are not FREE). 6) MyEclipse Apart from LotusScript, the Domino Developer IDE also sucks when it comes to maintaining code written in Java, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, or XML. Domino Designer also does not provide an image editor. To meet these needs I have recently started using MyEclipse. This tool is Eclipse based and looks remarably similar to the new Domino 8.5 IDE. No surprise given they are both Eclipse based. The basic version costs $30 and a professional version costs a mere $60. 7) Web Browser Tools While I probably spend less than 20% of my time developing Domino Web applications, when I do, I find I get great value out of developer toolbars. These toolbars allow me to see what is going on inside my HTML. Microsoft's Internet Explorer Toolbar and the Firefox add-on Web Developer meet most of my needs. Both products are free. 8) Blackberry No, I don't do Blackberry development on my Blackberry, but this device does save me a lot of time by allowing me to use otherwise dead time to great effect processing my mail, browsing web sites etc. I have started developing applications for delivery to Blacberry devices so it doesn't hurt to have a device. I find the physical device is a little easier to control than the Blackberry simulator and it doesn't come with some of the simulator's limitations (e.g. all simulators have the same PIN and so only one can be connected at a time). 9) Bleedyellow Community The Lotus911 folk have done a great job of bringing the Notes Developer community together via its bleedyellow Web site. This site allows me to tap into the collective skills of the Lotus911 gurus and many of brilliant Notes developers who connect via the SameTime bleedyellow group. None of the sites I work for have Lotus Connections so this site allows me to experience the product first hand, including the ability to create blog sites such as this.. (Having a blog site is definitely NOT a productivity aid!!!). 10) Non-Notes Development Finally I would like to encourage all serious Notes developer who have not already done so to rack up some serious time (6+ months) doing development in a non-Notes development platform. It is a great way to broaden your horizons as a programmer and the skills learnt can often be applied back to Notes development. e.g. If you don't already do OOP then a period of time doing C#, VB.NET, or Java development will soon get you into the habit. It may be hard to go back to LotusScript, because of its limitations as a OOP programming language, but you will appreciate the speed of Notes like never before.
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