Scoot's Blog

Nice iPhone app

Just purchased the business card reader application for my iPhone 3GS and I must recommend that it works a treat. I purchased this because I had a growing number of business cards scattered around the office and in my bags etc.

Business Card Reader

So far I have used it on about 10 cards and only had two issues. The first was due to worn print on the card which the software made a couple of recognisation issues, but these were limited to the @ symbol and one other character. The second one was related to bracketed 0 in phone numbers, for example +33 (0) 12345. But this is easily fixed with the editing option.

I would give this app 8 out of 10, but beware it really needs autofocus of the 3GS or an adpater for older versions of the iPhone.

The first 45 days

So 45 days have passed since starting the new role, so its 45 elapsed days and only 26 working days due to weekends, holiday and bank holidays. Having a blast so far with learning loads of new products not just Beehive, but lots of familiar concepts and architectures due to JEE. Have spent some time build and demoing the product whilst learning on the job in terms of the capabilities of Beehive.

Looking forward to the start of the new quarter which looks like it will be very busy with lots of interesting leads coming in now for the product. Likely to be a trip to Netherlands soon and then we shall see where else I need to go. One thing I have noticed that I have been so busy that my blog and twitter entries have tailed off a lot, but hopefully I will address that soon.

It is good to see that Mac’s have been embraced by the Oracle population as a business tool although its not standard issue. As with other companies it is creeping in as an alternative. Wondering if I should try the Linux desktop at some stage but this will need me to run a VMWare client image for some demos especially the Outlook integration. Nice to see a large number of iPhone in use and the option to use either IMAP or push IMAP service on it. Enjoying using the Blackberry 8900 as a busy device especially with its huge battery life. I will see what Apple do with the WWDC event in a week or so with the iPhone, might be worth upgrading if battery life is better.

I have loads of training materials to get through over the next month and need to look at what other training materials I want to do in the coming year. My training schedule has been something like this:

• Induction to Oracle
• Product and Development Training on Beehive
• Sales Training
• Red Stack Training (Beehive related products only)

Look at development tools as well to gain an understanding of the art of the possible going forward. Other areas will be related to portals and other E2.0 products including ECM, RM and IRM.

I will post a similar update in a month or two….

iPhone 2.2 update

So after a wait I have updated my iPh0ne to v2.2 and at the same time I have also updated the RebelSIM card I am using as a hack. The hack allows me to use my vodafone SIM in the locked on O2 iPhone.

There were issues reported that 3G may not work with the new RebelSIM software, but other wise all should be normal. On first use I saw that I was only getting a 2G data signal so resigned that it was as stated a known issue. When I went into the office I get a 3G signal and thought fab.

The second thing I tried was to pairing with the BMW bluetooth and would you believe it it works, thank you Apple for sorting the 3G bluetooth code  with 2.2, fingers crossed that it doesn’t break with 2.2.1 or even 2.3.

Since pairing with the car kit data seems to have disappeared from the phone, I need to spend some more time investigating but I am currently baffled with this one so may try and update 2.2.1 and see if any improvement.

I will keep you posted on this one…

Wednesday at LS09

Cool Keynote session on social networking with HSBCs Ian Haynes on stage talking about how they use connections. There was  PLI and SuccessFactory on stage talkling about there experiences with Connections 

Mac to the Future session

Overview of what Lotus is doing in this space..

Lotus Notes 8.5

• Feedreader, Sametime, Widgets, CAE
• Spotlight support for searching 
• Unicode
• Cross-platform support migrate Window to Mac
• Multi-user support, run from any user account
• MAC keystrokes supported in RTE
• Mighty Mouse support
• Java agent support 
• PErformance
• Applescript
• NSD crash protection

Lotus Notes 8.5.1

• Symphony support directly in client and support for activities plugin
• Improvements UI in conjunction in Apple UI team
• Use iWork bundles seamlessly as attachments (Round trip, fidelity)
• FTI for attachements
• Quality improvements

Dragging objects such as graphic in safari into an email demoed, drag contacts from ST embedded to email to, cc, bcc, body fields, neat features. Support for bundles is cool, support for spotlight looking good. 

Symphony on MAC

Sametime Meetings on MACs cool and about time… Adding livescreen share from 1 mac to any other platform. Lotus Connections Firelox support 2 on Tiger and Leopard, Investigating support for FF3 and Safari 3.1 for 2.5 of connections.

iNotes back instead of DWA fully supports safari on the MAC working with Apple and of course ultralite support for iPhone.

In symphony, can do Open send to mail….auto attaches the presentaion/doc or spreadsheet, Offline activities will work and all looking cool. Nice support for ST Unyte.

iPhone Applications support coming soon

• Connections Application on iPhone
• Sametime support on iPhone

More to come in 2009

Tuesday at LS09

Today up at 6ish dressed and email checked off to get breakie meeting up with Karen and Rob. I bumped into Brian Campbell and Dan Kikuchi and chatted about our time working on the Portal 6.0 beta programmes and how the economy is in both the US and UK. 

After breakfast off to INV105 Glimpsing the Future: Report from IBM Research & The Center for Social Software with Brendan Buckingham. Irene Greif and team went through the what research are doing in the Social Software space. This session was an excellent insight into some of the project on going within IBM especially the Social Accessibility tools demo’d by the team from Tokyo Labs. The tool was an excellent example of social networking and the crowdsourcing of getting content accessible. 

The other neat research project explained was related to travel and this was entitled Sojourn/ Voyager The tool will basically allows you to interact with fellow travelers and start to manage trips, with co-workers to allow you to benefit from sharing cars/taxi and meeting for dinner etc. The tool will also allow you to to see recommendations on things like hotels and airlines similar to content that is available in tripadvisor.

Coffee with Brendan Tutt checked in at home and then went to AD401 IBM Lotus Connections Customizations with Karl Brooks and Mike Roach. The session looked at CSS customisations, header and footers and finally widgets.

INV101R From Web 2.0 to Enterprise 2.0: Collaboration, Productivity, and Adoption in the Enterprise. Reckling and Kogan providing more information on Web 2.0 to E2.0. Lots of references to books on mass collaboration including Clay Shirky Here comes everybody. Walked through three scenarios on using E2.0 in business.

AD405 Are you REALLY taking advantage of an integrated Lotus Collaboration experience – Thomas Schaeck and Derek Carr gave an informative overview of the services available to consume and produce with REST APIs within the Lotus product suite including demos of Quickr, Connections integration with Portal with improvements coming with an iWidget for Quickr libraries

Caught up with Jon and had a look around the showcase, store and bookshop. Spoke with MainSoft team on MOSS and WSS integration with Lotus products.

ID217 IBM Lotus iNotes for the Apple iPhone and iPod with Will Williams and Eric Portner with some really good demo on a simulator for the iPhone. I have used the Lotus Greenhouse Ultralite mode in iNotes (see greenhouse.lotus.com to get access to the service). It is really good and we are waiting for access to the internal pilot for this service at IBM.

mobile devices for Lotusphere

So today we had a great discussion at work about how to make ourselves more mobile and less back breaking wandering around LS09. Cali at work has a knee injury and wants to ensure that she doesn’t have to lug around a heavy Thinkpad. So the most common devices suggested so far in order of popularity were:

1. Eee PC or other netbook.
2. Blackberry
3. iPhone
4. MacBook / MacBook Pro
5. Thinkpad
6. No device

So bottom of the pile comes the standard IBM issued laptop with top of the pile being Eee PCs/Netbooks all self funded. What does this say about the devices in use today, I think the main conclusion I can draw is that most of the techies (and some non techies) like to have the right device for the right situation. 

So what is the right device for LS09? Well guess what? It depends? I do sound like a consultant now my research so far goes like this..

People who will be blogging will have a suitable device in terms of size of keyboard/screen so this will be the folks with MacBook/MacBook Pro/Eee PC/Netbooks/Traditional Laptops (all shapes and sizes), this normally discounts anyone using iPhone/Blackberry/SmartPhone sized device but could be done if the user wanted to.

Having a schedule of what is going on at LS09 the users are typically taking iPhone/Blackberry/Smart Phone/PDA style/size devices as they are easy to carry etc. I am betting there are a reasonable amount of people that will also have some larger device laptop/netbook style in addition to the mobile device.

There are will be a large number of users who will have a traditional laptop/Mac to be able to continue and do their day jobs whilst away, so the normal working device works for them.

The final group are those  that take no device. I wonder how many of those there will be? 

So what device will you be taking this year to LS09?

I will be taking my iPhone and MacBook to ensure that I can do some real work plus have portability for the days I just want to know my schedule.

update on the iPhone

As promised I said I was post an update on my iPhone and how I am finding things. Firstly I haven’t moved to v2.2 at this stage as I know it will break my turbosim card and therefore I would be unable to use with my Vodafone sim. I know that updates to the turbosim are available and I am in the process of sorting this out so I can upgrade.

So here is a list of the applications I have installed on my iPhone:

• Apple Remote
• Wikipanion
• MobileFiles
• News UK Lite
• Discover
• Dictionaire
• Currency
• iFooty
• BBC Reader
• Google Earth
• Google
• Say Who
• Facebook
• Twitterrific
• PeguinLite
• TicTacFree
• PAC-MAN
• VirtualPoolLite

So a real mixture here, but the most common one I use are:

• Twitterrific
• iFooty
• BBC Reader
• Facebook
• News UK Lite
• Currency

Top application for me based on use and usefulness is Twitterrific as I use this as my main update method to Twitter when out and about. The application just works and is easy to use on the iPhone although I wish I could find a quick way to reply to someone, I am sure I am just being a numpty here. 

So what about my other faves at the moment, well here is a brief summary of each one.

iFooty – For all my american cousins, it is proper football none of this picking the ball up and running and wearing shoulder pads, leave that for Dallas Basically I use it as the quick way to find our Footy scores and news which works a treat. Content comes from the Beeb so is good quality and up to date.

BBC Reader – Use this a lots to pick up content from the BBC news site, its a quick way to navigate content on the news site and much faster than using the browser.

Facebook – Use this less these days than when I first got the phone as I update via twitter now so one update for both, but still a very good application. Only bug I have is the time stamps on the status and notifications are wrong they must be using the servers local time settings and not mine. 

News UK Lite – Good and quick way to see summary news informations from several different sources. I use this a lot just to do a quick check on what going on in the world.

Currency - I have installed this app for when I am travelling and expect to use it a lot when in Orlando next week at Lotusphere. The application is simple to use and a quick way of calculating costs when out and about.

I will let you know how I get on with the update and what other applications I can find.

What do I have on my Mac & use with it?

So big Mac & Apple fan so thought that I would dump a list of what I have and use at home for my real computing needs.

Hardware:

• MacBook – First Gen Black 2GB RAM, 200GB 7200rpm Disk
• Mac Mini – First Gen – PowerPC 1GB RAM, 80GB 4200rpm Disk
• Samsung 19inch 4:3 Monitor
• Samsung 32inch TV for Mac Mini
• Apple Wireless Keyboard
• iPhone 8GB
• MS Wireless Keyboard & Mouse – About to be retired due to sticky keys
• Various External USB drives
• Numark USB Mixer plus M-Audio unit
• Technics SL1200Mk2 Sliver
• Technics Amp/CD/EQ/Tape/Radio Separates
• Mission Speakers

Software:

• Mac OSX 10.5 Leopard
• Apple Aperture
• Apple iWorks 08
• Apple iLife 08
• OpenOffice 3
• VMWare Fusion 2
• Firefox
• Filezilla
• Tweetdeck
• NI Trackor DJ Studio 3 

iPhone

So had the iPhone for about two months now and I am very happy so far with the device. Having used many device manufacturers in the past and have seen how some of my friends and colleagues get on with their devices I can say that it is up with the other main vendors, there are pro and cons of the iPhone and I suspect that some will be addressed over time.

iphone

I do find it interesting that many people have stated that the camera is not very good, but I would counter this argument that not many cameras are very good phones OK may be thats not fair, but in reality if I want to take a decent picture I will always use a camera and not a phone (regardless of make of phone) as cameras will alway take better pictures. I might be proven wrong there, but only time will tell. I have used many phones to take pictures and it is great to capture that moment when this is the only device available, so the picture quality is not fantastic, but you do get the moment and any picture is better than no picture. 

So here are the things I like so far:

• Design – Overall fab design and excellent UI / UX
• Apple Integration – It just works so well with my MacBook and Mobile.Me. 
• Phone quality  - reasonable call quality so far, but have had a few drop outs, but suspect more to do with carrier
• iPod – Yes I am a fan of iPods, I have three plus the iPhone and each has its place. For short trips I use it a lot, but on longer journeys I would take my 8GB Nano as its is more convenient on planes etc and won’t drain the battery on my phone.

Things that are not so great:

• Locked to a Carrier – This is pain in the backside, I wish this would be sorted for the UK as it restricts users choice. To overcome this I have brought on Pay as you Go and then purchased a SIM adpater by TurboSIM to allow for my work vodafone sim to be used in the iPhone. The TurboSIM is a no-cut sim adapter that works great. There are some downsides to using this solution, software updates to the iPhone are likely to break the adapter requiring an update to the TurboSIM software. You need to swap back to your O2 SIM to be able to sync with iTunes
• Calls not getting through when using some of the applications. I have seen this happen when browsing my mail or surfacing the web.