April 2008
Netgear completes ReadyNAS line-up with two, four and six drive bays
by Volker Weber
NetGear now has three different devices in a number of configurations:
- ReadyNAS Pro with six drive bays.
- ReadyNAS NV+ with four drive bays. This is what I am using.
- ReadyNAS Duo with only two drive bays. I would be very interested to hear how noisy or quiet this kit is.
I am very happy with the NV+ since it sits in the basement. In my office I would find it too noisy. The new offering is not going to be any quieter, I suppose. But how are you liking the Duo?
Update: Duffbert reviews a ReadyNAS Duo with a single drive.
TomTom continues to amaze me
by Volker Weber
TomTom has just announced new versions of their ONE and ONE XL devices. And they seem to have improved on their already excellent screen mounts again. If this thing works, it must be the least intrusive screen mount ever.
Where in the world are your contacts?
by Volker Weber
XING has a new features that shows you where your contacts are. I find it pretty much useless since XING assumes I am floating south of Ghana in the Atlantic Ocean at 00N 000E. As you get closer you can find some contacts who have told XING their real location. Or a place they used to be at any given time in the past:
You can do this all the way down to the street level:
You will find that XING maps the business address by default. Since it can't do that for my address, I have to swim. ;-)
[Thanks, Stephan]
Connect your iPhone to Lotus Domino
by Volker Weber
I love this quote:
It had to happen sooner or later. We have our first iPhone user (The type of user whose requests cannot safely be refused) who simply must have access to his Lotus Notes email via iPhone.
I asked the question a long time ago: Your CEO buys an iPhone. What is your next move?
Chris explains how to properly set up your server (IMAP with SSL) and SMTP (not on your MX) to make it happen. This covers simple inbound and outbound mail, but not address book and calendar. That is the part you should start thinking about now. Because that question will come up as well.
Apple-Tastaturbelegung und Kurzbefehle Mac OS X
by Volker Weber
Sehr schöne Zusammenstellung. Danke für den Hinweis, Alper.
Twistori
by Volker Weber
this is the first step in an ongoing social experiment, based on twitter. inspired by wefeelfine and drawing data from summize, hand-crafted by amy hoy and thomas fuchs.
Last call for ILUG 2008
by Volker Weber
Most of the seats are gone, hotel rooms are filling up, RyanAir is getting greedy. Time to make your call. Paul has published the agenda. Get your seat while they last. That includes sponsors.
Eating the other Steve's dogfood
by Volker Weber
[Thanks, Markus]
TomTom GO 930/730 in Deutschland verfügbar
by Volker Weber
Die x30-Geräte haben zwei wichtige neue Features, die ich haben will:
- IQ Routes stellt bessere Routen bereit, weil es die tatsächlichen gefahrenen Fahrzeiten heranzieht. Sonntagmorgen gibt es in der Stadt andere Verhältnisse als einen Tag später.
- Fahrspurassistent zeigt bei nahenden Kreuzungen an, in welche Spur man sich einsortieren soll.
Später in diesem Jahr wird TomTom noch einen kostenpflichtigen Service namens HD Traffic anbieten, der die Bewegungsdaten von Vodafone nutzen wird, um Stauentwicklungen besser prognostizieren zu können.
Es wäre richtig cool, wenn TomTom auch die vorhandenen Kundengeräte mit der neuen Software ausstatten würden. Ich habe auf der CeBIT gefragt und eine etwas ausweichende Antwort bekommen, die mich voraussagen lässt: erst mal nur auf den x30-Geräten, später auch auf den x20.
Brick walls are there to show our dedication
by Volker Weber
You need 76 minutes to watch this. But do take the time!
Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving talk, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.
Here are some memorable quotes to get you interested.
- If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, the dreams will come to you.
- Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things.
- It's such a shame that people perceive you as so arrogant, because it is going to limit what you are going to be able to accomplish in life.
- Loyalty is a two way street.
- Tell the truth. Be earnest. Apologize when you screw up. Focus on others, not yourself.
- Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.
- You might have to wait a long time, sometimes years, but people will show you their good side. Just keep waiting, no matter how long it takes. No one is all evil.
- When it comes to men romantically interested in you, it's really simple: just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do.
[Thanks, Andreas]
Where is the Secret of Life?
by Volker Weber
Through the Rhine valley
by Volker Weber
Larger version on Google Video
Einfach mal Klappe halten
by Volker Weber
Ich bin immer wieder amüsiert über solche Dummheit:
Es folgte eine kleine Stänkerei. Die Leserin kam über diese Suche hierher. Immerhin schon die zweite Seite. Das spricht für ein gesteigertes Mitteilungsbedürfnis.
Warum um Himmels Willi sollte ich einer Person, die offensichtlich kein Interesse am Gespräch hat, hier eine Plattform bieten? :-)
Can you really search in Lotus Notes?
by Volker Weber
Ed writes:
Actually, user, you can search your emails in Notes. Have been able to since, hmm, version 2? Certainly version 3. Even without a full-text index. Though obviously it would be faster with an index.
Well, you could search in Notes. If you did not have that IT department which is under pressure to cut cost and has to switch off the full text index, since they are running out of storage of all the multiple PPT files in users' mailboxes, which they are too lazy to find and therefore resend to all their colleagues. You could even try searching without a full text index, but you won't really find anything. And you have this 6.x version which your CIO calls "state of the art".
Yes, you could learn how to properly set up a replica of your Notes mailbox to reside on your local hard drive and then activate the full text index, which gets stored in your roaming Windows profile. And will by synced with your profile on the server which sits on the same expensive EMC storage device that does not have room for your full text index in Notes. That in turn drives up cost again, because you now have two mailboxes plus the full text index. And the backup on that server does not understand why the file gets dirty every 10 minutes, so it has to backup your database to background store again and again.
And then your COO starts thinking about Google apps. Since you can always search for stuff and you will actually find everything really, really quickly. Don't focus too much on why Outlook presumably sucks even more. This is the real killer:
You are currently using 2641 MB (40%) of your 6658 MB.
And it is being piloted by several enterprises you would not even count as a potential user.
Lunch
by Volker Weber
c't Mac special
by Volker Weber
Ich mag nicht jedes c't special, aber das aktuelle Mac-Sonderheft ist klasse. Sehr zu empfehlen für Mac-Einsteiger oder Umsteiger. Vor allem wegen der Trainingsvideos auf der DVD. Ich habe binnen drei Minuten ein paar neue Tricks gelernt, und dabei kenne ich mich eigentlich ganz gut aus. Acht Stunden sollen auf der DVD sein.
Kaufen. Solange es das Heft noch gibt. Ich höre, die gehen weg wie warme Semmeln.
Life can be so beautiful
by Volker Weber
As I was returning from Düsseldorf today — 90 minutes to Frankfurt and another 20 to Darmstadt — I was looking at a beautiful red sunset. The iPphone was playing David Gilmour's Castellorizon (jump to 2:40, if you are not patient), and every thing was just right. Just. Right. Does anybody play the Stratocaster like him?
Fast and slow - so close together
by Volker Weber
Downloading at 10 KB/s in a train traveling at 300+ km/h.
Mixed Tape 20 is out
by Volker Weber
Second album since Mercedes is back with Mixed Tape.
Finally: a WLAN wire
by Volker Weber
At the Düsseldorf Hilton
Sound advice for IBMers: when you show up at a customer, be on the same page
by Volker Weber
So you have a bunch of pre-sales guys showing up to showcase Notes 8, Quickr, Sametime, Connections, Tivoli etc. etc. But before you do that, make sure you have all the people on the same page. How many users, what kind of legacy software, infrastructure, etc. It's not good, if you need to introduce yourselves to each other because you never met before. Not good. Maybe it's the "work from home" thing.
Pay for sure. That's about it.
by Volker Weber
Customers who have purchased music from Microsoft's now-defunct MSN Music store are now facing a decision they never anticipated making: commit to which computers (and OS) they want to authorize forever, or give up access to the music they paid for. Why? Because Microsoft has decided that it's done supporting the service and will be turning off the MSN Music license servers by the end of this summer.
Same thing works for Vista et. al. Should Microsoft decide to not activate your old operating system anymore, you are out of luck.
Repeat after me: DRM is bad for the customer.
[Thanks, Alper]
Only in Bavaria
by Volker Weber
Talk about bad timing
by Volker Weber
From: E-Cards@hallmark.com
Date: 21. April 2008 22:47:28 MESZ
Subject: You've received A Christmas Hallmark E-Card!
If you buy a Hummer, you may want this phone
by Volker Weber
Not only does it look like a yellow H3, it's also about as stupid. My previous definition of a dumb phone was the Moto RAZR, but the Sonim beats it hands down. It's basically the opposite of an iPhone.
But let's start with the good news. You can abuse the phone anyway you want with the notable exception of dropping it into water. It's not waterproof, but pretty much splashproof. I am going to take it into the shower and make a phone call, as recommended in the handy test kit. I tried a few simple things like throwing it as far as I can, rinsing it with tap water, dropping it down the stairs, stepping on it. Not a scratch.
The bad news is that the software looks about ten years old. The phone ringer is not loud enough, the vibrating alarm is a joke, and the sound quality of the speaker is lousy. There is practically no way to import phone numbers, other than copying from the SIM. Sending a single vCard over Bluetooth renders a "file to large" or a "parser error" message.
The Mac recognizes the phone as "Philips 9@9R GSM Mobile Phone" when connected through USB. Bluetooth supports the profiles HSP Headset, HFP Handsfree, OPP Object Push, DUN Dial-Up Network and SPP Service Port Profile. There is no camera, no media player, nothingham.
You can take the phone to the beach, but you can't check the weather, and you won't have a camera when your dream babe comes along. And if you drop it in the water, chances are it dies.
In summary, much like the Hummer, mileage is terrible and in theory you can do things with it, that you never do anyway.
T-Mobile gibt endlich den Sonderweg mit zwei verschiedenen Blackberry-APNs auf
by Volker Weber
Schade, dass ich das erst aus einem Newsletter gelernt habe:
Liebe Leser/-innen,
zum 7. April wurde bei T-Mobile die Option "BlackBerry WebMail S" und der "Single APN" für deutsche TMD-SIM-Karten eingeführt. Mit der Einführung werden zukünftig nicht mehr zwei Geräte für die Abbildung von Enterprise und Prosumer benötigt. Es werden beide APN mail.t-mobile.net und blackberry.net - systemseitig hinterlegt. Beide APN können zukünftig mit dem Enterprise Gerät abgewickelt werden. Das bedeutet ab sofort:
- ausschließliche Bereitstellung und Nutzung von Enterprise Geräten
- Aufhebung der Zwei-Geräte Logik
Zusätzlich steht auf jedem BlackBerry-Gerät das E-Mail-Set-Up Icon seit dem 7. April zur Verfügung, so dass die User ihren Account direkt vom Gerät aus über das Set-Up-Icon administrieren können. Die Möglichkeit der Administration für den User über die Website http://www.instantemail.t-mobile.de bleibt bestehen.
Lange hat's gedauert, bis T-Mobile diesen Irrsinn beendet hat. Es gibt nun nur noch einen APN und zwar den gleichen, den die ganze Welt verwendet. Damit kann man bei T-Online nun auch als Privatkunde ein unverkrüppeltes Gerät kaufen. Leider ist meine T-Mobile-SIM seit dem 31.3. tot, sonst hätte ich es gleich mal ausprobiert.
Update: Hier steht was wirklich passiert.
Teaching Ballmer
by Volker Weber
He sought feedback from the crowd of IT pros, many of whom have dedicated their careers to becoming expert in Microsoft's products, on which Internet search engine they use.
"How many of you use Live Search as your default?" Ballmer asked. A smattering of hands went up. Tepid applause.
"How many of you use Yahoo search as your default?" Far fewer hands went up and the room was relative quiet, until it filled with laughter. Ballmer, trying again, louder this time, "How many of you use Yahoo search as your default?"The same response. "Wow, we offered 31 bucks a share," he said, to more laughter.
"How many of you use Google as your default?" Ballmer asked. The vast majority in the audience raised their hands, cheering and hooting. Ballmer looked around. Smiled. Scratched his cheek. Rubbed his face with his hand.
I have only seen two kinds of people using Live Search:
- Microsoft MVPs, Microsoft employees, and evangelists
- Those unable to find Google.
[via Isotopp]
Reservations of an Airline Agent
by Volker Weber
In five years, I've received more than a boot camp education regarding the astonishing lack of awareness of our American citizenry. This lack of awareness encompasses every region of the country, economic status, ethnic background, and level of education. My battles have included everything from a man not knowing how to spell the name of the town he was from, to another not recognizing the name as "Iowa" as being a state, to another who thought he had to apply for a foreign passport to fly to West Virginia. They are the enemy and they are everywhere.
They are even here. :-)
[Thanks, Hanno]
Sunset over Planet Earth
by Volker Weber
Photo: ISS015-E-10471 (3 June 2007)
Sing along: The Terminal 5 Song
by Volker Weber
[Thanks, Alex]
Ten typographic mistakes everyone makes
by Volker Weber
Below are ten mistakes that everyone makes, an explanation of why each is wrong, and details on how to fix them.
And you know what? I don't care. :-)
Apparently I am being sent this mobile phone
by Volker Weber
It claims to be very rugged. But it's probably not able to read a few hundred phone numbers from a Mac. Any good ideas what to do with it?
Only in Turkey
by Volker Weber
Looking out the train window
by Volker Weber
Not many shades of green yet.
A very strange thumb drive
by Volker Weber
[Thanks, Ben]
Menschen wie ich
by Volker Weber
Unser Kolumnist tut öffentlich Buße. Er hat im Schwimmbad etwas "Obszönes und Verabscheuenswertes" getan.
Wieder mal ein echter Martenstein.
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Best practices when moving your site
by Volker Weber
Planning on moving your site to a new domain? Lots of webmasters find this a scary process. How do you do it without hurting your site's performance in Google search results?
ReadWriteWeb: Real People Don't Have Time for Social Media
by Volker Weber
Let's be honest here: we're all a bunch of social media addicts. We're junkies. Whether it's a new Twitter app, a new Facebook feature, or a new social anything service, we're all over it. But we may not be the norm. The truth is, being involved in social media takes time, something that most people don't have a lot of. So how can regular folk get involved with social media? And how much time does it really take?
Mac users need to think about security, too
by Volker Weber
The phrase "security through obscurity" gets tossed around from time to time when discussing Mac OS X. The theory is that since Macs still represent a fraction of the available computers on the internet, there's less of an incentive for virus writers, malware authors, spambot harvesters, Comcast sales reps, and other purveyors of electronic evil to harass and attack the platform. Why target 5 percent of the population when you can get much better results by going after Windows?
But the truth is that security through obscurity is a flawed idea. Yes, there are fewer recorded attacks on the Mac platform, but by no means does that make it secure. So what's a Mac user to do?
What are your mail worries?
by Volker Weber
My publisher will be hosting a conference about mail administration. It is going to be vendor-neutral so it's not about only Domino or only Exchange. Instead it will cover a wide area of topics from spam filtering to storage management. Before we finalize the agenda, it would be interesting to hear about your admin worries.
What would you like to learn about at a conference? What are your pain points?
IBM Launches Pilot Program for Migrating to Macs
by Volker Weber
As further evidence of the growing interest in Macs among enterprise customers, IBM’s Research Information Services launched an internal pilot program designed to study the possibility of moving significant numbers of employees to the Mac platform. The study has already found an enthusiastic response from participants and is helping to drive Mac support for IBM’s business applications.
[Thanks, Jan]
Fish or fisherman - it does make a difference
by Volker Weber
Must admit that I liked Angelina better
by Volker Weber
The panagenda Marvel Client Skinning Edition is now available for free. I must admit however, that I liked Angelina better.
I should also mention that Marvel Client is not the only game in town. BCC_ClientGenie has always been able to do this. BCC_ClientGenie used to be Icodex Client Genie until BCC bought the troubled company. Florian once worked for Icodex and BCC owns all the IP, so you can imagine that not everything is amicable in this space. Please keep vowe.net out of this. OK?
If you think about using Vocus PR, think again
by Volker Weber
This is a company which prides itself as
Our on-demand software addresses the critical functions of public relations, including media relations, news distribution and news monitoring.
Quite some time ago, they started sending me unsolicited messages. Each of them contains in very small print a link to unsubscribe. This won't let you unsubscribe from all of their messages but only from those a particular customer sends.
Each time they sign up a new customer they spam you again. You can't even block them by sender since the messages always claim to come from their customer. All efforts to get myself off their list have not worked.
Enough is enough. From today on I am going to reject their messages and send a reply to their customers. No more unsubscribe attempts. My mail server will now educate their customers:
That's an album I am looking forward to
by Volker Weber
Strange, but after all these years I have never been disappointed by any of her productions. Hard Candy should be out in less than two weeks.
vowe's choice: Twitteriffic
by Volker Weber
I tried a few programs, but Twitterrific came out on top. I love how it goes away into the menu area when not needed. It supports Growl so I can view new tweets if I like to. Finally, it's very easy to reply to other people's tweets. Recommended.
Salesforce for Google Apps
by Volker Weber
Live today, we're happy to unveil Salesforce for Google Apps, a new product for all of those using Salesforce.com available at no additional charge. It brings the collaboration and communications features of Google Apps directly into the user experience of Salesforce.com, and is focused on streamlining the activities most frequently requested by our users. (There's more detail on our Enterprise Blog.)
Shell Meme
by Volker Weber
Try this (on one line):
history|awk '{a[$2]++} END{for(i in a){printf "%5d\t%s\n ",a[i],i}}'|sort -rn|head
This is what I get:
86 cd
64 ls
47 ping
46 ssh
33 whois
32 sudo
25 ifconfig
15 smbclient
13 telnet
13 curl
[via jcf]
15,000 attendees
by Volker Weber
today is the start of the mcdonald's worldwide owner/operator convention in orlando, 15000 attendees. schedule not very intense.
—Scott Hanson
I wonder what they are being served.
So sexy?
by Volker Weber
Download YouTube Videos as MP4 Files
by Volker Weber
An interesting side-effect of YouTube's recent push for higher quality videos is that most videos can be downloaded as MP4 files directly from YouTube. Until now, you could only get FLV files from your browser's cache or using one of the many websites that let you download YouTube videos. In fact, to download the MP4 files, you need to use the same URL like for FLV files and append "&fmt=18":
Hilarious Engrish
by Volker Weber
I have been told that the chinese text is actually very polite.
Kids, don't try this at home
by Volker Weber
[Thanks, Schweppes]
7 reasons Twitter can't be a Microsoft product
by Volker Weber
- It does just one thing, and it does it very well.
- It has no extra features.
- It has brazillions of clients.
- It's neither tied to Windows nor Office.
- It does not require an install.
- Nor does it require any fixpacks.
- Or a reboot.
Server outage due to bad water cooling
by Volker Weber
[via tieftonfraktion]
Microsoft posts a new beta of RDC 2.0
by Volker Weber
As reported before, Microsoft slipped the release date of RDC 2.0 and let the existing beta expire. That is very unusual for them. Betas are always timed to run well past the release date. In this case, the beta did expire, but at least it did not time bomb:
Without a release and without a new beta, Microsoft must have been flooded with angry comments.
Thanks to all for sharing your feedback on RDC updates, today we released RDC Beta3 replacing RDC beta2, extending the beta period through the final release of RDC 2. You will no longer see a pop-up beta expiration message. The download is available here.
In addition to the updated expiration, you will also notice many improvements in the new build.
The new beta also pushes out the release date to the summer.
[Thanks, Flemming]
From my inbox
by Volker Weber
neue chefin gibt gas: schlokus notes is killed, exchange is coming
That was the sound of one Lotus customer imploding. Mail and calendaring only.
A compliment gone terribly wrong
by Volker Weber
Apologies, Tom. I know what you want to say. The funniest thing is actually the header:
vowe.net would not exist
by Volker Weber
... if I had Twitter seven years ago. It does everything I needed then.
Quote of the day
by Volker Weber
My iPhone feels slightly heavier when it's connected to wifi...
—Joi
vowe.net is back after massive downtime from 2:48 to 16:44 CEST
by Volker Weber
Hey, just when I was getting used to live without vowe.net (hint: http://twitter.com/vowe) the site comes back up to life. Root case was hard disk trouble on the massive RAID. Fsck needed several attempts to get the file system back into operation.
211 people told me about the down time. It's good to have readers. :-)
Music playing when the site came back? Play it loud.
There are still RedBooks being written
by Volker Weber
Objectives:
To create a Redpaper that describes how to best install and run Microsoft Windows Business Essentials Server on blade servers in an IBM BladeCenter S chassis.
OK, it's "only" a RedPaper.
Kleine Butze in München gesucht
by Volker Weber
Aus meinem Freundeskreis:
Knackiger Sportstudent sucht ab sofort ein Zimmer in München. Kann WG sein, oder eine Wohnung für mehrere Studis. Am liebsten in der Gegend Schwabing-West, Maxvorstadt. Kann auch vorübergehend für ein paar Wochen sein.
Wenn jemand was weiß, bitte Mail an mich.
Magerfettstufe: Verträge sind zum Lesen da
by Volker Weber
“Wieso abgelaufen?” “Ja, die Flatrate lief nur drei Monate. Hat 0 Euro gekostet. Jetzt ist sie alle.” “Wo denn das?” “Bei O2. - Aber meine nächste wird in den kommenden Tagen freigeschaltet. Dann kann ich wieder frei telefonieren und muss nicht immer darauf warten, dass man mich anruft.”
Seht Ihr, was da kommt?
aber klickt man erst einmal ein wenig rum, erfährt man, dass man einen 24-Monate-Vertrag abschließt. Die restlichen 21 Monate kostet der Spaß 21,25 Euro. Das hat der gute Junge nur nicht ganz verstanden. Vermutlich wurde er auch nicht wirklich darauf hingewiesen, oder die Augen waren so groß, dass die Ohren durch das breite Grinsen verdeckt wurden.
So zieht er also los und lässt sich gerade den zweiten 24-Monate-Vertrag freischalten.
Die einen fängt man mit ganz doll "Steuern sparen", die anderen mit "kostenlos". Das Problem ist nicht etwa fehlende Intelligenz, sondern Gier.
[Danke, Hanno]
Video on Flickr
by Volker Weber
The rumours are true and “soon” is now. We’re thrilled to introduce video on Flickr. If you’re a pro member, you can now share videos up to 90 glorious seconds in your photostream.
How I got started with Lotus Notes
by Volker Weber
I think it was 1994. Wolfgang Hilpert and Oliver Heinz explained the concept in my living room. Bärbel Widhalm sent me the product. I inserted a 3.5" floppy disk into my OS/2 machine which was also running a two line mailbox and a FidoNet Binkley mailer. 16 Megabytes was plenty.
Three months later I wrote my first article on Notes for c't 1/1995, another one for c't 3/1995 and my first Lotusphere report for c't 4/1995. The same year I also architected my first major Notes infrastructure for n thousand people. Two years later Lotus invited me to take CLP tests at CeBIT in Hannover and I passed all exams for Principal CLP Admin and CLP Developer in one day. When I told Ute she asked me why I did not take the Principal CLP Developer exam. Did that the next morning.
Just put these letters in the correct order: CFFFKOU
by Volker Weber
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Apr 07, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- The Board of Directors of Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company, today sent the following letter to Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft Corporation.
Dear Steve:
Domino Web Application Development Best Practices Wiki goes live
by Volker Weber
Domino Web Application Development Best Practices Wiki - seven words. That qualifies as a proper IBM name.
Lotus and IBM Redbooks have partnered together to populate this wiki with best practices from IBM, partners, and customers. This combines the quality and reputation of Redbooks with the dynamic and collaborative Wikis that Lotus has published. Wikis are a relatively new Web browser-based technology that allows people to easily publish new and updated information as well as add comments, which results in technical information that is more accurate and current.
This is a test. The first wiki to replace the RedBooks we have known for years.
[via Chris Toohey]
Want to make your Notes Workspace look like THAT?
by Volker Weber
Florian is a smart man. Everybody is talking about the chicklets this week and how IBM forgot to make them look good in Notes 8. Now he is filling in:
GYWAM 2.0 allows you to freely customize your chicklets (including an alpha channel for freestyle transparency), hinky-minkies (twisties) on any background image of your choice
Give him a few more days to get this out the door.
LoungeFM
by Volker Weber
Very relaxing: LoungeFM from Austria. Use this stream with your Sonos.
Walt Mosberg on broadband (and the iPhone)
by Volker Weber
iPhone with 3G in 60 days? If Walt says so, it is going to happen.
Are IBM Business Partners making too much money?
by Volker Weber
Last week I received this mail from a partner:
As a 10 year IBM partner I have become very disallusioned with IBM and the way it treats its partners. Its like they feel that they are doing us a favour by letting us be partners. Just the other day I wanted to quote a very large customer on some Lotus software only to discover that my allowed mark up was 2%. Basically I wont sell IBM software any more and we have largely moved all development to open source platforms and libraries.
Now I am reading on Adam Osborne's site:
Effective 1 June,
- All renewal margins will ONLY be available through certified Business Partners. i.e. If a partner is not certified in an IBM brand, they will not be able to fulfil the renewal.
- A Business Partner can ONLY fulfil renewals in the IBM brands where they are certified.
- Renewal margins have been reduced for all brands.
Is IBM thinking their partners are making too much money? Or what is going on there?
Mobile codes
by Volker Weber
The amount of junk that is pre-installed on the Nokia E90 is just amazing. I saw it has a code reader but I assumed it would read EAN codes, which sort of works but not very well. What it does read is Datamatrix
or QR codes
It would not read the code on a Deutsche Bahn ticket though. Any luck with this?
Planet Lotus has an iPhone icon now
by Volker Weber
Refresh your Homepage bookmarks on iPhone or iPod touch. Oh, and maybe, just maybe, trying to get rid of the chicklets was a bad idea all the time. I'm just saying.
Neulich am Geldautomaten
by Volker Weber
Eigentlich sollte es so was nicht geben. Interessant auch die Geldbestände eines solchen Automatens.
Waterbed prank
by Volker Weber
Darmstadtium
by Volker Weber
Photo Philipp Klinger
Detlev Schümann: Notes Traveler - Installation und Nutzung
by Volker Weber
Mit Domino 8.01 hat IBM auch das Traveler Addin vorgestellt, der Mobile-Mail Funktionen für Notes Anwender Out-Of-the-Box zur Verfügung stellt. Im Vergleich zu Microsoft, die eine ähnliche Lösung mit ActiveSync schon lange im Angebot hat, ist IBM mit dem Traveler etwas spät dran. Aber besser spät als nie und darum werde ich im Folgenden das Produkt etws näher beleuchten.
Critical system update - never again
by Volker Weber
"This is me" - a comic by Gerald Himmelein three times a week.
New poll: what is Rhodin's heritage?
by Volker Weber
The whack-a-brill thread sparked a new poll after less than 20 hours. As what will the departing Lotus GM be remembered?
- DoesNotWorkplace juggernaut
- Lotus' knight in shining armour
- Burner of RedBooks
- Forever confused with a sculptor
Here are the results:
ImageWell 3.5: Fast & Easy Image Editing
by Volker Weber
XtraLean writes:
We've been very happy to be able to offer ImageWell for free for the past several years. In the past, there were two flavors of ImageWell - a free version packed full of useful features, and an upgrade called the 'Xtras' which added even more features such as batch processing, templates, and more.
As a small two-person company, we are unable to continue developing ImageWell as a free product.Starting with Version 3.5, there is only one version of ImageWell. The free version is no longer available and has been discontinued. Version 3.5 is a low cost paid version which offers all the features from the former Xtras & Free versions combined into one product for only $19.95.
There is also an introductory offer:
You can purchase ImageWell V3.5 for only $9.95 until April 10, 2008. Please also feel free to pass this discount offer along to a friend or family. The details are as follows:
Special Price: $9.95 (regular price is $19.95)
Discount Code: INSIDE
Offer Good Until April 10, 2008
How to Buy: simply enter the discount code at the ImageWell store page to purchase at the discount price. Your serial number will be automatically emailed to you immediately following the completion of your purchase. The store page is located here: http://store.xtralean.com/imagewell.html
This is money well spent. I use ImageWell to quickly resize graphics and upload them to vowe.net.
Sneak preview
by Volker Weber
It's coming. ;-)
Play the Heathrow T5 Baggage Game
by Volker Weber
[via Bill]
IBM looking for an intern to build a competitive strategy for the Lotus division
by Volker Weber
We recently posted an internship opening on our social software team! We're looking for someone to build business case around a competitive strategy for the Lotus division. The business case would include proposed product packaging, competitive analysis, and pricing analysis. The position will involve research, business case analysis, and client facing work to test & validate proposed solutions. We're looking for someone with experience in business case development, business model analysis, and competitive analysis as well as technical, communication, presentation, research, and sales skills.
Sounds like a job for an intern.
Bye bye Naymz
by Volker Weber
I have a few hundred contacts on XING, LinkedIn and FaceBook. Two have signed up for Naymz. Which keeps bugging me to sign up. No more.
New poll: OOXML an ISO standard. Good or not?
by Volker Weber
The question was simple. Here are the results:
Office Open XML files formats approved
by Volker Weber
ISO/IEC DIS 29500 receives necessary votes for approval as an International Standard
Time for a new poll >
Heaven and hell in Europe
by Volker Weber
I think I will have to rewrite my favorite joke: heaven and hell in Europe. This is how it goes:
Heaven: the policeman is British, the lover is Italian, the cook is French, the engineer is German and it is all organized by the Swiss.
Hell: the policeman is German, the lover is Swiss, the cook is British, the engineer is French and it is all organized by the Italians.
Here is the twist: according to The Beeb Heathrow is now shipping truckloads of baggage to Milano to have it all sorted out by the Italians.
Who can rewrite hell?
New Lotus General Manager: Bob Picciano, VP WW Sales, IBM Information Management
by Volker Weber
According to Ed Brill, Bob Picciano will be the new Lotus General Manager. You can find a more recent bio on ZDnet China:
Bob Picciano is IBM’s Vice President of Worldwide Information Management Sales where he is responsible for sales and operations over the entire spectrum of Information Management’s award winning products and services, a multi-billion dollar product set that is sold in over 130 countries around the world. Mr. Picciano reports directly to Ambuj Goyal, IBM’s General Manager of Information Management. He is also a member of IBM’s Integration and Values team, a hand picked senior leadership team of IBM’s top 300 executives that was formed to provide guidance across IBM on various business and strategic issues.
In his most previous roles Mr. Picciano was VP of Data Servers, responsible for business line performance of IBM’s highly successful database portfolio of software products including DB2, Informix IDS, Cloudscape, RedBrick, and XPS. From 2001 to 2004, Mr. Picciano led the worldwide development and support of DB2 Linux, Windows and Unix platforms as IBM’s Vice President of Database Technology and performed his worldwide duties while on international assignment leading the team from IBM’s Toronto Software Development Laboratory in Markham, Canada.
Mike Rhodin to leave Lotus
by Volker Weber
Dear Northeast Europe IBMer,
I want to share with you important announcements which IBM is making today to reinforce our focus on clients and what we are doing in markets around the world.
Sustaining our profitable growth requires IBM to sharpen our attention on both major markets and growth markets. This will enable us to take advantage of the world’s diverse growth dynamics.
Major markets are large economies and IT markets where we deliver value by integrating IBM’s advanced capabilities and solutions. Growth markets are where investment and support are needed to help clients create unique business models and build out infrastructure for the future.
That’s why we announced plans to create a distinct Growth Markets unit.
I will lead this new unit effective July 1st 2008. Until then, our existing management system remains in place, which means I will continue to be accountable for the business in Northeast Europe while leading the phased implementation of the Growth Markets unit. Headquartered in Shanghai, it will be made up of Asia Pacific, Latin America and a new unit to be called REMA, consisting of Russia, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa.
On July 1st, Mike Rhodin will replace me as General Manager, Northeast Europe.
Mike joins Northeast Europe from Software Group, where he has been General Manager Lotus Software. He has over 24 years of experience in IBM across Services, Solutions, Software, product design, business development and business transformation.
With your help, we will ensure a strong performance in Q2 focusing on our clients and the business. At the same time, Mike and I will oversee the important creation of and transition to REMA to become part of the new Growth Markets unit.
Effective today, April 1, we have also announced important changes to our Northeast Europe leadership team:
Larry Hirst becomes Chairman IBM Europe Middle East Africa, replacing Hans Ulrich Maerki, who is retiring after a distinguished IBM career of 35 years.
Brendon Riley becomes General Manager, IBM UKISA, replacing Larry.
Steve Cowley becomes General Manager, IBM CEMAAS, replacing Brendon, and will become General Manager, IBM REMA, once formed.
Sebastian Krause becomes Vice President, Software Group, Northeast Europe, replacing Steve.
Elly Keinan, Vice President, Sectors, Northeast Europe, becomes General Manager, Operations, IBM Japan.
During the transitional 2Q, until a replacement is named, Mike Rhodin has chosen to perform Elly's duties. This allows Mike to get acquainted quickly with our clients, our business and you.
I want to emphasize that we have worked very hard this past year to build more teamwork, drive operational excellence, and enhance our leadership. By doing that, Northeast Europe delivered very good performance in 2007.
As we begin Q2 2008, I would ask you not to get distracted by this transition, but focus on our clients and what we need to deliver against our objectives.
As always, success is up to us.
Update: According to Ed Brill, Bob Picciano, former Vice President, WW Sales, IBM Information Management, will be the new Lotus General Manager.
The Register: Creative threatens developer over home-brewed Vista drivers
by Volker Weber
Creative Labs has enraged customers by threatening a developer with legal action after he wrote drivers that allowed its products to run smoothly on Vista. Soundcard maker Creative accused the developer, known only as daniel_k, of theft and warned him not to infringe its intellectual property.
Daniel_k has created a number of drivers which make Creative's soundcards work smoothly on PCs running Windows Vista. He had posted a link to them on a forum on Creative's website and many users had downloaded them. Without his drivers, users say, Creative's soundcards cause Vista machines to crash or features to fail.
No, this is not an April Fool's.
[Thanks, Ben]
A moose once bit my sister
by Volker Weber
Currently a top search on PlanetLotus.
Update: Game over. Yancy killed the moose after more than 2k searches. Thank you for playing.
Update: Reports of the moose's death have been greatly exaggerated.
What is Lotus' stance on Solaris?
by Volker Weber
Andy Mell comments:
I really need to tell you all that I am intensely irritated that IBM have apparently chosen to drop Solaris as a supported platform for Quickr. I was expecting Quickr 8.1 to work on Solaris like all the previous versions of Quickr, as nothing was announced to the contrary. Did they announce they were going to drop Solaris support? Did they heck.
We even bought new Solaris servers to run it on. IBM have screwed their customers once again. Can we get an assurance that Domino itself will continue to be supported on Solaris?
What's the deal? Is this just a minor slip and Quickr will soon be supported on Solaris, or is Lotus stepping away from the platform?
Update: What I did not know when I posted Andy's comment was that The Turtle had already posted about the end of Solaris support for Quickr. THe IBM support page leaves no room for interpretation: Quickr on Solaris is left behind.
Commentary: This is going to cost IBM dearly. You don't surprise your customers like this without penalty. What happens here is a career damaging surprise. Go ahead and tell management that your expensive Solaris boxes can't run the new version of Quickr you have been gloating about ever since Lotusphere. What would be your next logical choice? Linux? Sorry about that, but that would only work on WebSphere Portal. Harrumph.
What's the next surprise? Want to upgrade your Domino servers on Solaris? Sorry about that?
The only safe platform for Lotus software is Microsoft Windows. Microsoft wins.
April Fools' Day
by Volker Weber
Time to try some harmless geek pranks. The NET SEND one works particularly well. Especially if you are on a Mac or a Linux machine, where you can set the "from" name:
smbclient -M NETBIOSNAME -U FROMNAME
