08/28/2009

The Exchange team are considering using Silverlight for a richer web admin

Category
The Exchange team is looking for feedback on future Exchange development...
The Exchange product group is investigating possible technologies we could use in future releases of management tools. One potential technology we could use is Silverlight; this would provide the ability to offer rich management features in a web-based interface, but would require that Silverlight be installed on PCs that were used to run those web-based tools.


You can find the questionnaire here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=HAgcwD78hYt2RcqtBvFrEA_3d_3d

Posted by Carl Tyler At 09:40:01 AM Location | | Comments (1) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/26/2009

Expand Sametime Meeting Room Functions with a Single API

Category

I forgot to blog that a couple of weeks ago I had another article on the UC View published.  This one covers the Sametime Meeting Room Javascript API.  

The IBM Lotus Sametime Meeting Room Client (MRC) JavaScript Extensibility application programming interface (API) is a toolkit in the Sametime arsenal that is highly useful but often overlooked. This toolkit allows a third-party application to interact with the MRC by receiving event notifications and enables developers to add custom menu options. As of this writing, it works with Sametime version 7.5 and later.

Using the Sametime MRC JavaScript Extensibility API, a developer can add additional menus to the MRC, as well as track who´s presenting and which people are entering and exiting meetings. The API also allows developers to have the MRC interact with Sametime server activities, which can lead to powerful integration options.

To help you understand what you can do with this API, I´ll give you an overview of what applications my company has been able to build using it. Then I´ll help you get started and develop a basic MRC add-in. After you have these basics down, I´ll demonstrate how to access events, monitor movement in meeting rooms, and add custom menu options.


It requires a subscription to read the entire article and can be found here:
http://www.theucview.com/ucview/ucview.nsf/CurrentIssue/6CEE5EA9E75A8B92852576010060A1D0?OpenDocument

Posted by Carl Tyler At 11:39:09 AM Location | | Comments (0) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/25/2009

Updated Epilio Buddylist Control posted.

Category
Judging by the download numbers, there are quite a few Sametime Administrators out there that are using the Free Epilio Buddylist Control for making changes to users buddylists or booting users of the server.  I'm pleased to say, we've just posted a new version 1.2 that contains some important bug fixes and a couple of new features.  Nothing earth shattering in the new features, but they've been common requests.  We've added the ability for administrators to remove all references to a user from private groups within a users Sametime contact list, and added support for handling users who have been given nicknames.

Feel free to download it, and if you have any further feature requests, please let us know.

http://www.epilio.com/web/BLControl.htm

Posted by Carl Tyler At 02:54:59 PM Location | | Comments (5) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/24/2009

Did you know about Snipping Tool?

Category
Did you know that with Windows Vista and Windows 7 there is a small application called Snipping Tool.  It allows you to snap shot part of your screen, highlight areas etc.  You can then save it, copy it, email it, the usual stuff.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 01:56:18 PM Location | | Comments (2) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/24/2009

Domino administrators have been spoilt for far too long

Category
What a strange title you may think.  Having just spent the weekend installing some IBM products that are running on the combination of DB2 and Websphere, I have concluded that IBM believes Domino Administrators have been spoilt, and for far too long.  Domino administrators take for granted some simple things:
* The Domino server starts as a service when windows restarts, no batch files.
* Installing Domino doesn't involve running batch files.
* Installs that take 5 minutes
* You rarely open a command window
* A console to show you something's going on.

Well those days are going away, as more Domino apps become Websphere apps, start loving those batch files!

Hopefully IBM will start to realize that time spent on installs, and editing batch files, it less time spent pushing the business value of these apps.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 08:08:42 AM Location | | Comments (14) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/20/2009

Magic Quadrant for Web Conferencing

Category

ATT has been kind enough to purchase redistribution rights to the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Web Conferencing.  Which means we all get to read it for free

http://www.corp.att.com/awards/docs/gartner_mq_0709.pdf

Posted by Carl Tyler At 02:48:55 PM Location | | Comments (0) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/20/2009

Will Lockerbie release affect the US-UK ‘special relationship’?

Category

This is a very popular question right now on the news websites and cable channels at the moment because of the dying Lockerbie bomber being returned to Libya.  Here's the thing though, this isn't a political decision, this decision is made by the Justice not by the government, two separate entities.  You know, they work independently of each other, one does not control the other.   The government can certainly give their input, but the decision is not theirs. If it didn't work that way, Britain would be described as some kind of backwards state, which as it turns out is now what some news channels are describing it as.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 09:44:51 AM Location | | Comments (7) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/19/2009

Is this the voice of someone really excited about an upcoming major product release?

Category
So I started watching the Office 2010 videos.  This poor women had me asleep within 5 seconds.

Office makes billions of dollars for Microsoft and this is the best they could do? At first I thought that maybe it was one of those robot videos (although if you look at thisexample of Emily they're more life like than this), where it wasn't a real person, talk about monotone.  This is the problem many people have when reading teleprompters, it doesn't come across as sincere unless you're really good at it.  We see it at Lotusphere in the opening sessions, and her we see it in a Microsoft video. Sadly Monica is not good at it.  She'd probably be good at self hypnosis tapes. You're on a warm sandy beach, sleep, your muscles are relaxing, sleep, your floating like a cloud, sleep....

See What's New in Microsoft Web Applications 2010

Now compare Monica from Microsoft with Jennifer from Microsoft, without even looking at them, which one seems genuine and more likely to keep you interest? Jennifer is enthusiastic, she makes you want to listen, it makes you want to find out what Jennifer has to tell you, why is Jennifer excited?.

See What's New in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010

Sadly for Microsoft, most of the videos on the page are like Monica.

Think about these videos when you present or do a conference call, if you sound interested yourself, your audience is more likely to be interested, believe in what you're talking about it comes across.  Smile, smiles when sincere open people up, as crazy as it sounds people can hear smiles, when you answer the phone always smile, the person at the other end can tell.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 07:09:40 PM Location | | Comments (4) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/18/2009

Whenever you hear SharePoint change it to Connections...

Category
A video by Common Craft for Microsoft Sharepoint.

You can easily take this video and change every occurence of Sharepoint to Connections, SocialText, Quickr etc.


SharePoint in Plain English

Posted by Carl Tyler At 12:02:49 PM Location | | Comments (2) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/17/2009

Short field take offs and landings

Category
This weekend I flew to visit a friend.  Not far from their their house there is a small runway, when I say small it's 1900 ft.  On a hot day, 1900 ft is tight in my plane.  Let's just say my butt cheeks were clenched for that take off

Now if only my plane could do this kind of crazy stuff

Posted by Carl Tyler At 01:42:00 PM Location | | Comments (8) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/17/2009

Funniest message of the day

Category
My DSL connection (and a few thousand others apparently) has been playing up since Saturday.  I called the company (Fairpoint) to find out what was going on, the message on the support like whilst waiting was:

"if you are having problems with your dsl connection, please go to our website and click the link for live help."

Posted by Carl Tyler At 09:14:23 AM Location | | Comments (2) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/14/2009

Have trouble remembering the IBM developer works URL?

Category
I found it a little cumbersome to remember and type in
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks

Sure you can bookmark it, but I often prefer just typing URLs in, especially when I go to a machine I haven't used before.  So to make my life easier I got the domain http://Mydworks.com and forwarded it to the IBM site.

Feel free to use it if you want.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 01:59:44 PM Location | | Comments (4) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/14/2009

A different kind of back up

Category
Yeah I can't imagine what could go wrong with this setup...

Posted by Carl Tyler At 09:42:02 AM Location | | Comments (6) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/13/2009

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat SDK now available.

Category
Microsoft has now made available the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat SDK.  The SDK is well thought out and offers 3rd parties a lot of opportunities.  If you don't remember the OCS Group chat capabilities came about through the acquistion by Microsoft of Parlano.

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat SDK

Microsoft also made available the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat Hotfix KB 969819  which improves a number of aspects of the product.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 10:43:21 AM Location | | Comments (0) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/13/2009

Enable tethering on your ATT iPhone without jail breaking it.

Category
My love hate relationship with the iPhone continues.  Someone sent me this great link that unlocks the iPhone tethering capabilities without having to jailbreak the phone.  I tried it last night and at my house I was getting about 1.35Mb down and 300k up.  

http://www.examiner.com/x-17950-Atlanta-Gadgets-Examiner~y2009m8d10-iPhone-Tethering-and-MMS-settings-ATT--Tweaks-to-enable-these-popular-features-on-the-iPhone

Posted by Carl Tyler At 09:43:26 AM Location | | Comments (2) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/10/2009

More Microsoft patent and prior art rubbish

Category
Microsoft just got approved a patent for storing a word processing document as XML.  I'm sorry, but if I remember rightly, the eSuite Word Processor back in 1998 was using XML as it's storage.

Seriously, do the patent folks really do any fact checking or look for prior art?

Posted by Carl Tyler At 04:49:56 PM Location | | Comments (1) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/10/2009

Obama is coming to town - means no flying.

Category
President Obama is coming to Portsmouth NH to discuss the health care plans.  Which means no flying in and around Portsmouth.  Already Obama is better than GW Bush was, Bush stayed around for a few days at his parents house, I guess he had a lot of washing to do,  which meant no flying for the whole time.  With Obama, he's just visiting for a few hours.

My plane is smack dab in the middle of the circle, I guess it and Airforce one will be hanging out and chilling for a while.

Obama No Fly Zone

Posted by Carl Tyler At 04:42:23 PM Location | | Comments (8) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/10/2009

Have you seen Bump for the iPhone?

Category
This app was in the recent iPhone ad.


Watching it, I think it would be really cool if it had a paypal component, so you could paypal money to a friend with a bump.

Posted by Carl Tyler At 01:36:54 PM Location | | Comments (7) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/06/2009

Cab drivers should only tell me their political opinions if I ask

Category
I just had a taxi ride, with a driver who is a big Talk Radio fan and HUGE Glenn Beck fan.  He started of with the usual, the weather is nice and then he turns to politics.  He proceeded to tell me how the left wing president and his Chicago mob are taking America away from it's citizens, and how democrats were mean to Sarah Palin, how David Letterman made a bad joke about her, and if he had been Imus he would have been fired, then he got started on the  health care bill.

He started to tell me how with Obama you wont be able to see your existing doctor anymore, that the system is going to cover illegal immigrants, and that old people will die, and then to top it off he told me how Obama wasn't even American.

Now for 95% of the ride, I just nodded my head and didn't make on that I already thought this guy was a complete nut who listened to way too much radio without questioning anything they tell you.  So decided it was time to start asking him questions:
* Do old people not die now?
* When illegal immigrants visit the emergency room now, who pays their bill?
* Have you ever experienced health care anywhere outside the US?
* Do you have any friends that have filed for bankruptcy because of medical costs?
* Have you ever been turned down for health insurance?

I didn't tell him my feelings one way or another (very unlike me), I just asked some questions.

I've had my own experience of dealing with health insurance companies this year, and I have to say, the American system drove me nuts.  Multiple bills from different people, spending 8 hours on the phone arguing with the insurance company when they refused to pay one of the bills (they ended up paying).  

Yes there are good things about the American system like money being spent on research, but there are many other failings.  My belief is that a certain level of health care should be a basic human right.  Maybe that's because I'm European, maybe it's because I don't believe that all people without insurance are lazy no good losers, maybe it's because that's my opinion.  People on the radio also forget, people in Europe that want private health insurance can still buy it, it isn't an all or nothing system.

Anyway, if I get in a taxi that I'm paying for, leave your politics at home.

Before anyone says, hey you're talking about politics on your blog, there is a difference, this is free, you're not paying to visit this blog. This is my space where your are guests, I can say whatever the hell I want

Posted by Carl Tyler At 12:55:50 PM Location | | Comments (10) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/06/2009

Missing Twitter?

Category
If you're missing twittering with your Yellow Universe buddies, don't forget if you use Sametime and log into Bleedyellow, you could use Epilio Jessie.

Have Twitter capabilities always been in Sametime?

Epilio Jessie is now available for download

How to install Sametime Plugins within Lotus Sametime and Lotus Notes

Posted by Carl Tyler At 12:51:02 PM Location | | Comments (0) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This 

08/05/2009

Slip and Slide on steroids

Category

Sure it's fake, but still fun...

Posted by Carl Tyler At 01:00:11 PM Location | | Comments (0) | del.icio.us  Technorati  Digg This