Ports Thoughts

Like most modern system that require authentication, Microsoft Windows has a password complexity setting that prevents users picking ludicrously weak passwords like "12345" or their own name. Typically an administrator can create a policy to dictate the strength of password required depending on the sensitivity of the environment and the nature of the data that the device contains. This can normally be summed up in a few brief rules - for example, must be minimum 8 characters, must contain both alphabetic and numeric characters. Sometimes they may require upper and lower case characters or even "special characters". Earlier today I was changing a few password that had expired and thoughtlessly entered a new password of mrports727somethingelse (not the real password!). Most systems accepted this including Windows 7 however, one of my other systems rejected it because it contained my username 'mrports'. "Fair enough", I thought. Schoolboy error. ...

Yesterday IBM announced the next major release of Notes and Domino will be called "Social Edition" reflecting the fact that Notes and Domino are very much a part of IBM's social business strategy along with other products such as IBM Connections and IBM Sametime. Through the support for industry standards such as OpenSocial , OAuth and SAML it also opens up a whole new world of social integration with other social networking systems and more importantly line of business applications through embedded experiences and activity streams. Now that Notes 9 Social Edition is announced and just about to go into public beta I though I would share the new icons (still subject to change of course)

Over on the Microsoft Windows Team blog they have been discussing the new design of the Logo for Windows 8 and the history of the Windows logos. I always find it fascinating how logo's evolve over time (for example IBM ) and it is especially interesting when the designers explain what they had in mind. Apparently one of the key observations was from a designer from a top agency who observed “ your name is Windows. Why are you a flag? ”. You've got to love designers. If something is stylised they say it should be more literal . If something is literal they say it is too obvious. They get paid either way. I think it is pretty clear that in reality the old Windows logo reflected the rich Aero style interface while the new one reflects the starker more angular Metro interface introduced in Windows Phone 7. However, given that it appears that Windows 8 is going to have both Metro and Aero , perhaps this might have been more appropriate?

There are many IBMers in the IBM Collaboration Solutions team who love to help out our customers, partners and the Lotus community. IBM Collaboration Solutions (or ICS) includes a wide ranging portfolio of products covering Web Experience (Portal), Collaboration, Social Business and Unified Communications. For those of you who, like myself, have a fondness for the Lotus brand it is important to understand that ICS is a superset that still includes Lotus branded products, but ICS goes beyond the traditional Lotus heartland as we integrate more and more IBM technology such as analytics and sentiment tracking into the core stack and augment it with software from our middleware cousins in Tivoli, IM and Websphere. Many of the ICS team keep up with the Lotus Community through tools like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and of course PlanetLotus.org . Sometimes watching, sometimes joining in. We also like to attend conferences and Lotus User Groups as well as participate in Podcasts, Tweetups and...

There are many IBMers in the IBM Collaboration Solutions team who love to help out our customers, partners and the Lotus community. IBM Collaboration Solutions (or ICS) includes a wide ranging portfolio of products covering Web Experience (Portal), Collaboration, Social Business and Unified Communications. For those of you who, like myself, have a fondness for the Lotus brand it is important to understand that ICS is a superset that still includes Lotus branded products, but ICS goes beyond the traditional Lotus heartland as we integrate more and more IBM technology such as analytics and sentiment tracking into the core stack and augment it with software from our middleware cousins in Tivoli, IM and Websphere. Many of the ICS team keep up with the Lotus Community through tools like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and of course PlanetLotus.org . Sometimes watching, sometimes joining in. We also like to attend conferences and Lotus User Groups as well as participate in Podcasts, Tweetups and...

I have two cats called Barney and Boo. This worries me.