Ports Thoughts

There have been a few people talking about the new Lotus iNotes Ultralite and specifically how well it works on the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch . Less comment has been made about the fact that iNotes Ultralite works very well in a browser on a PC. What I haven't seen mentioned so far was if iNotes Ultralite works on a Nintendo Wii. So I thought I would give it a go. First I type in the URL and see if the Wii version of Opera will be able to handle it. Not surprisingly iNotes brings up a dialog saying that it is not certified to use this browser. But offers a link to use Ultralite mode. And it works perfectly. It looks pretty stunning on my 40 inch Sony LCD TV. As you see, here is my Inbox. Even complicated emails (this is a calender invite) all render perfectly, Obviously IBM will most likely not be certifying iNotes for the Wii any time soon, but so far I have yet to find any functionality that works on the iPhone that doesn't work on the Wii. So if you want to check your em...

Receiving attachments via email is a bit of a two edged sword. On the one hand it is quite an easy way to get stuff, but on the other hand you don't necessarily know if the attachment contains wondrous information which will transform your life or viruses and other malware which will destroy your computer. In order to help users, when they double clicked on an attachment Lotus Notes would bring up a dialog box warning the user of the possible perils and offering some alternatives including "viewing" the attachment to check that it was safe before launching it. But these days most computers and particularly those ones that are used for business have Anti Virus software installed to watch your back. In which case if you add AttachmentActionDefault=1 to your notes.ini file then double clicking an attachment will launch it in the native application with no dialog box. More details are here: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21292126

There are some debates about IT products which are far more like religious arguments rather than technical discussions because there really are no right or wrong answers, just opinions. Obvious examples are the two button "PC Mouse" vs. the single button "Mac Mouse" , coding using "Multi Threading" vs "Multi Process" techniques, using images in GIF , JPG or PNG format or perhaps the ultimate in cosmetic comparisons, the Black Thinkpad vs the White Macbook One such debate has revolved around what key should be used to refresh a view or page or in the case of a mail client, check for new mail. As with most things in the PC Software world, there has never been a standard for such things. Each developer does what they think best. However, over time " De facto " standards sometimes emerge. In the case of the refresh key, it became the key F9 since this was what was used by Lotus 123 , the dominant application at the beginning of the...

I had the pleasure of visiting a Lotus Notes customer today and briefing them on what is coming up in the forthcoming Notes/Domino 8.5 as well as Quickr , Sametime and Connections . That isn't particularly unusual, I spend a lot of my time ensuring that our customers are aware of upcoming features in new versions of our software and indeed our new collaborative and social offerings. But what I really enjoy is finding out about our customers. They are all unique and vary from International Airlines to 5 people Internet start ups, film makers to police forces, Universities to chocolate makers. Today I was at a manufacturing plant of a well known worldwide car maker based in Swindon. The main thing that struck me was that all the employees were wearing identical white uniforms. This would not normally be worthy of comment. Many manufacturing sites mandate that their staff wear protective uniforms. What was unusual here was that everyone from engineers, secretary's to Senior Mana...

A few days ago my friend Ed Brill was writing about the suitability of services such as Gmail in the Enterprise . Despite the vogue for services such as Google Apps and other "Software as a Service" and "Cloud" computing, he points out that they simply aren't as reliable as on premises solutions (or hosted ones for that matter). However, one of the biggest challenges with these solutions is "who you gonna call" when there is a problem. If you can't access Gmail you won't get very far phoning Google. However, these free services are normally deemed to be fine for consumer use. Well I have just had a personal experience that even makes me question that. Since around 2000 I have been maintaining a web site for the band that I'm in. Being a cheap skate I just grabbed a free site at Tripod . It was a bit spoiled by the adverts but it worked fine. Tripod was subsequently purchased by Lycos but it didn't seem to change anything. It only got ...

OK - so it is kinda like shooting fish in a barrel poking fun at MS Windows for crashing. I'm sure that we have all seen the famous Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) on airport monitors and ATM machines, not to mention our home and work PCs. But it is rare to see one as high profile as this - during the climax of the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics. More ironic because PC suppler Lenovo ditched Windows Vista for the supposedly more stable Windows XP. Full story Here

Matt and Alexis looking ravishing seconds after tying the knot. Matt and Alexis on Kew green The bride and groom with the bridesmaids and page boy. Matt with some of his family Alexis and some of her family Matt and Alexis on the back of a vintage Routemaster bus which was used to transport all the guest from Kew to the reception in Soho. Matt's Mum and Dad with Akira and Junji Traditional cheesy self service shot of Mr and Mrs Ports Alexis and her daughter Tracy The fantastic wedding cake made up of loads of tiny cakes Matt and Alexis have their first dance as a married couple Ali cuts a rug on the dance floor Alexis opens the card from Lucy Alexis and Ali Matt and his Best Man.