TexasSwede

Finally home after a week in a very cold Orlando, at a great Lotusphere. Picked up my son for the weekend, handed him some of the stuff I got for him on the trip, and turned on the TV and the cable box from AT&T U-verse to watch some shows I had recorded while I was gone.

"No recordings" was the message I got. I tried a few times, but all my recordings were gone. The service worked, I had all my channels, and the internet connection worked as well. Called customer support and finally eneded up at technical support. After a while the girl I talked to came back and said that they pushed out an upgrade and that "something must have gine wrong and erased the recordings". I had about 10-12 movies recorded from when I had HBO/Showtime and the other movie channels (I since then cancelled those channels because I was not that interested in paying $50 extra/month to watch one or two movies each month), as well as several other shows from History Channel, Discovery, Military Channel and other channels. I had several eopisodes of Mythbusters recorded for my son, as well as a bunch of documentaries and movies that I specifically marked as not to delete.

The DVR has a nice feature, it start deleting the oldest recordings to make room for a new one if there is not enough space, but I can protect the shows I want to really save.

I asked the girl what AT&T could do for me, and after talking to her supervisor, they offered to credit my account with 10 dollar. I asked to talk to the supervisor, and he siad that is the most technical support can do. When I indicated that I found that offer unacceptable (just going online and trying to find all those shows and movies would take more that $10 worth of time, even if counting below minimum wage), the supervisor said he would send a message to the billing department and someone would call me back tomorrow. They better have something else to offer, or I will be a very unhappy customer.

I been pretty happy with the service this far. I have four incoming streams, meaning I can record three channels and watch a fourth one, all at teh same time. The internet service (I curently have the Elite plan with 6 Mbit down and 1 Mbit up) is pretty stable. Lately I had to reconnect more frequently with the wireless router, and for a few days prior to leaving for Lotusphere I had more problems that usual. But other than that, I have been happy with them.

The PVR have several USB ports, but they are basically useless, since you can not paly Divx or any files from them, and you can not hook up any external drives to transfer your recordings over to, so you have a backup if AT&T decide to reformat your drive while you are gone...

Well, I will update this entry tomorrow, if AT&T call me back... Stay tuned.

Update: AT&D did call me back this morning (Saturday), I had told them I would be home/available between 9am and 3pm (have a friends b-day party in the afternoon), and they called shortly after 9. They upgraded me from U200 (200 channels)to the U300 plan (300 channels, mainly getting a bunch of movie channels) for free for six months, and upgraded my Internet from Elite (6/1 Mbit) to Max (10/1.5 Mbit) for free for six months. I think that was a good offer and a nice gesture of them. I might also go for the VoIP phone service, that will save me about $15 in taxes each month, they say.

The other day I joined the video sharing site/service Qik and downloaded their (free) application for Blackberry. What it does is similar to YouTube, but you record directly for the site and the video get uploaded at once. As they describe it:

Join Qik to share live video with anyone and everyone—or only share with the people you choose. Use Qik and start showing your audience of choice what’s going on anywhere and everywhere you go.

I thought it could be fun to create a group for Lotusphere 2009, so I did. The URL is http://qik.com/groups/3003. It is an open group, anyone can join for now. Why not use this to upload your clips from Lotusphere? You can setup your account to automatically post a tweet when you upload a clip, and to send it to YouTube as well.

A fairly large number of phones are supported, including Blackberry och iPhone.

Update: I am still trying to figure out how to add a video you created to a group. Stay tuned.

This weekend I went to the local AT&T and got myself a Blackberry Bold. I initially wanted the Storm, but after reading all the reviews, I decided I should go with a Bold. My AT&T account was eligible for an upgrade now in January (actually January 19, but as I will be in Orlando then, I wanted to upgrade early). It was no hassle, compared with earlier times I been getting cell phones. In and out in about 10 minutes. I did not bother having them transfer my contacts or contents. All my pictures were already on my memory card (which I could use in the Blackberry), and I had already synced all my contacts to my computer at home. So when I came home, I could just re-sync all my contacts back to the new phone, and I was set.

It took me about a day and a half to get used to the phone, find all the settings, find some nice layouts for the screen and download some useful programs (e.g. Lotusphere’09 Session Database, Yahoo Go!, Facebook, twibble and Goggle Mobile/Maps/Sync/Gmail). I also made myself a couple of background images, just to try it out. I had one on my old Samsyn Sync phone I was happy with, but the resolution/size was totally wrong, so I ended up recreating it, and it actually turned out much better this time.

So after about two and a half days, what is my opinion? Well, I have to say I really like it. This is my first Blackberry, but I have been playing with some older models, about 2 years ago. This one is very nice compared with them. The screen is absolutely gorgeous, crisp, clear and easy to read. The programs, both built-in and most downloaded, are easy to use. I love the GPS functionality, and the camera is creating pretty good pictures, in good light conditions.

What are the things I don’t like? Well, there are a few. Some may be due to my inexperience with the device, but some are legit issues. Nothing that really take away too much from the Bold, though. My biggest issue, and probably just due to not being used to the device, is the keyboard. The numeric part have the numbers in white, just like the qwerty keyaboard. That makes the left-most keys hard to read, and creating some temporary brain overload when trying to type. I also am missing more specialized characters, like the Scandinavian Å,Ä and Ö characters. My old Samsung had those.

The background light level is going up and down, and I have not figured out why or how it works. I am sure it has to do with the light conditions around the device, though.

As I said, I synced up my contacts with my computer at home, and when I got to work I synced it up with my Notes address book there. I also synched the calendar both with Google Calendar (using Google Sync) and with my Notes Calendar. Here I got some conflicts, the same item was sent to Google Calendar, then sent to Notes, and suddenly I had two conflicting items for the same event in the Blackberry calendar.

I then talked to our network admin and he set me up on the BES, and (without making any changes in the device), I suddenly had two copies of every contact. I am not sure if this is due to synchronizing with Notes through the Blackberry Desktop Manager and Google Sync, or the connection to BES. But that is pretty annoying.

So there are little issues like that, which I am sure I will get under control eventually.

In the mean time I am happily playing with my new toy. Well, I am not sure I should call it toy, I have some female friends who got a strange look on their faces when I told them I bought a new toy this weekend. I don’t know why, but I have a feeling they were thinking about something else, until I told them what I got…

One of CNNs currently most popular aricles is Obama picks Bible for inauguration, but what verse?.

While President-elect Barack Obama will certainly be making history when he takes the oath of office on January 20, he'll also be repeating it -- by placing his hand on the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used during the inauguration of 1861.

Presidents have differed greatly, however, on the question of which passage the Bible should be opened to during the swearing-in ceremony.

It brings up the question of what -- if any -- biblical passage Obama will emphasize.

I have a couple of suggestions:

[Exodus 21:2] "When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing."

[Exodus 21:7-8] "When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do."

[Exodus 21:26-27] "When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free for the eye’s sake. If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let the slave go free for the tooth’s sake."

[Leviticus 24:16] "And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death."

Sorry, I could not resist. :-)

Update: Fixed typo in headline... Thanks Roland!

The concept of Notes@Home ({link} and {link}), or "Notes Home Edition" as I like to call it, is very interesting, and I think it would be a great way to increase the visibility of Notes. The people who initially would install it would probably be the more technical kind of users, some of them probably the same kind of users we see bashing Notes on /. and similar sites, basically because they haven't seen the current version, or the product at all.

The second group I believe would install Notes Home Edition would be members of the Notes community. But not on their own systems, most of us probably already use Notes at work and at home. No, I think it would be family members and friends who would get it installed.
Last weekend I formatted my ex-father-in-law's laptop and re-installed Windows on it for him. I also downloaded and installed Symphony. Would it not have been nice if I would been able to download a limited Notes client as well, so he would use "Notes 8 Home Edition" for his mail? I could have setup a mailbox on my server and given him access to Sametime (if I had a Sametime server).

I understand the issues Ed have with cost (there have to be some development/testing associated with creating a new client, even if it is built on an existing one). But initially make just an english language version, perhaps a spanish, french and german version as well. That should cover a large part of the western world. Start there first, before spending any more money.

The client need to be able to do the following:

• access mail on a Domino server
• download/syncronize with POP/IMAP mail

If there could be syncronisation with Gmail and perhaps Yahoo mail, that would be even better. I am sure the Gmail API is published somewhere....
There are many things that can be dropped from "Notes Home Edition", like activities, composite applications, etc. Make it a stripped down version with the most important features, and a few ones that "regular" users actually might use, like the RSS reader.

Also, in order to show the power of Notes, there should be some way to run either local applications, or even applications on a server. Here we have the tricky question, and it is related to licensing... How do IBM avoid a company from getting the free "Notes Home Edition" clients and using in the business? On the other hand, the Domino Express offering works on a honor system already.

I would love to setup a small server at home (or actually open up the one I have) and let my sister, her boyfriend, and some other friends use it for mail and some applications. I can also see consultants setting up a server for their clients, offering not only mail but also discussions, IM and some shared applications. Perhaps the blog template?

What about this:

• Domino Enthusiast Edition - up to 25 (50?) clients/IDs allowed, all must be using Notes Home Edition, except the administrator who can use a full client. Also allow web access. This one should be free. Charge for support.
• Domino Consultant Edition [1] - up to 25 (50?) clients/IDs allowed, can be a mix of full client and Home Edition. Webaccess is also allowed. This one could cost a little bit, say $200 or something, with support extra. Must be able to purchase it directly from IBM online, since business partners probably won't bother about selling it for that price.

The Consultant Edition would however be a great tool for small consultants to get Domino in the door at some clients. They can use the Notes client for free for a while, access mail and a few simple applications, perhaps even a custom built application by the consultant. When they are ready to jump to hosting their own server, they are already used to Notes, and "locked in" to the Notes application they use. Another win for Lotus.

[1] Someone in marketing can surely come up with a better name. "IBM Lotus Domino Restricted Commercial Version with Collaboration and Instant Messaging for Small Businesses"? ;-)