…if by “soon” I were to mean: Summer, 2008.

CommonTime announced that they will have a version of their mNotes product available for the iPhone this summer (2008). The announcement comes after Steve Jobs committed (again - ’cause I’m pretty sure he did it when he previewed the iPhone) that there will be a developer SDK available for the iPhone in February 2008.

Despite this announcement, CommonTime’s website does not make mention of it (at least, not of this post). Infact, their last “news” story is from June of 2007.

So … while I want to be really excited about this it means we still have to wait, we’re not sure what we’ll be getting and the company that will bring it to us doesn’t want to advertise it on their website.

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Friday night, I bolted home with my fresh copy of the new Mac operating system in hand. I grabbed my wife’s MacBook and convinced her that it was the least critical of our machines and should thus be the first one we upgraded.

Two hours later, we had a fresh Mac OS on the machine with no apparent problems. So I whipped out my MacBookPro to upgrade my main machine (the one I use at work, home, coffee shops - everywhere, really). Again, a short period of time later, the entire computer had been updated and appeared to work fine. It wasn’t until about 3PM that day that I realized there was one little app I didn’t test out - one I’ve never had to worry about in the Windows world: Lotus Notes.

I won’t lie. I panicked. Notes on a Mac is a second-class citizen. It’s never out at the same release level as the rest of the clients. It always has some odd things that don’t quite work right. Sure, there have been some improvements, but its never at (or even near) the top of the list of operating systems that IBM seems to put much care into.

All that panicking aside, I’m pleased to report: it works! See for yourself:

What’s really cool is that it actually looks much better in Leopard. Note the red dots that now appear on the tabs at the top (they were there before - but didn’t appear red unless you moused over them). The new grey window frame also makes the application look nicer. There’s a lot of “stuff” that happens in the toolbars in Notes, so its nice to have the window framed in a different color to clean it up a bit.

There’s also a new icon that appears in the dock when Notes is replicating. It doesn’t give you any information - it just sits there bouncing and then goes away when its done. I can see how that would be handy. It would be awesome if it showed a status - but I know that’s asking WAY too much.

I’ve also learned that Notes 8 (on a Mac) will support Leopard when it comes out this quarter (although I haven’t seen a confirmation that it is Notes 8 and not 8.0.1, which would obviously, be much better). That same link confirms that Sametime 7.5.1 will not support Mac - which is a bummer. However, the upcoming Sametime 8 apparently will.

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As a new parent, I’m finding that the way I view a lot of things is quickly changing. Someone asked me to write down my first thoughts when I brought my son home from the hospital. I had three main thoughts:

1. Driving him home felt like I had fine china that couldn’t be replaced in the car (if I were a cop, I would have pulled over about 20 people for bad driving on that short trip home)
2. The world seemed totally different - almost like I was  seeing it in full color for the first time
3. I have so much to teach him, and so little time

What’s funny is that now that he’s (officially) three weeks old, I find so many reminders every day that I’m now a parent and that the world has changed. Today, I had another one: I added him to the Notes user dictionary for spell check.

Sure, I’ve sent emails with his name many times in the last few weeks, but for some reason, I just kept hitting skip or skip all. Today it finally hit me that I’m going to need to have that word added to save me time from now until … ever.

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This week Apple announced their new O/S, including a server version of the product. For years, I’ve asked everyone who will listen (and many who won’t) at IBM/Lotus to consider building a version of Domino that runs on the Apple server. In short, their response is one that suggests they don’t think they’d get a good return on the time invested to build it.

However, as I read through the list of 250+ new features in the latest version of Mac OS X Server, I suddenly started to envision a road map where this server might be considered a replacement to Notes/Domino.

Hear me out.

The Mac OS X Server’s core pieces of functionality include:

• Email server
• Calendar server (built on industry standards and supporting rooms/ resources)
• File sharing / directories /authentication
• Web hosting (including Apache, Ruby on Rails, Tomcat, WebObjects and a 64-bit Java VM, PHP, Perl, RSS, etc.)
• Client management
• VPN
• iChat server (IMs, screen sharing, etc.)
• Wiki team collaboration
• Spotlight searching including visual search (cover flow and quick look)

Now, I get that this isn’t a 1-to-1 replacement for Domino (I avoided saying it was an “Apples and oranges” comparison). However, it goes a long way to replace a lot of the functionality I use Domino for. Obviously, there are many, MANY applications that I’d need to completely re-develop if I were to move away from Domino. However, all of the pieces ship with this box for me to get started.

While I can’t consider a short-term replacement of Domino with this server, it is an indication of some potential replacement in the future. And the part where you need to really take this idea seriously is the bottom line. The server (hardware) costs $2,999 with an unlimited client version of the operating system coming in at $999.

So maybe what I want isn’t a version of Domino that runs on a Mac server OS, but rather a roadmap for the Mac OS X Server that helps me start walking away from Domino altogether?

No, I really want a Domino that runs on the server and integrates with the existing Mac OS X Server stuff. — However, based on this feature set and the economics of the system, I’m immediately starting a research project on the viability of these machines replacing some degree of our existing Windows network. I think it can happen somewhat easily. The question is: will it replace some of Domino as well?!

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The company I work for is looking at a variety of tools that could be used to store information that doesn’t really fall into any existing system out there. The idea is to capture knowledge that is somewhat random, yet categorizable, in a way that allows people to easily search, learn and modify.

The first tool that came to mind was a wiki. The OpenNTF.com Domino wiki, to be exact. The tool allows for free-form entry of information, attachment of files, searching and versioning. Its CSS based, so changing the UI to fit into an existing system would be relatively easy. It also is RSS enabled, so when we launch Notes 8, we could include it as an RSS feed, giving people easy access to newly created/changed documents.

Really, the tool is a near-perfect fit. With one unknown: will people ‘get’ the WikiMarkup language that’s built into it. This tool is easy to find via the “Style Tips” button at the top of the page and allows you to use some common symbols to change your text appearance. Example (from editing/creating a new document):

As you can see, pound signs, asterisks, pipes, etc. all serve a purpose in the markup language. The concept is really pretty straight forward, but people who are used to a “B” button in MS Word might not get this type of “coding” to get your text to do stuff. There are a few “sandbox” type pages with examples that helps and once you save the document, the result is pretty clear and looks nice:

So that’s the big question: will people “get” the markup language or will all of the documents just look like a bunch of raw text. In all honesty, the answer to the question will be a big factor on the usability and adoption of the tool.

So now we’ll throw it in front of a few users and see what happens.

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Last night, one of the new iPhone ads came on the TV. As I was passing through the room, I said to my wife “Ugh! I hate those new iPhone ads.” She asked why, suggesting that she thought they were really good.

And that got me thinking … am I just so jaded on what I expect from “tech” ads (Lotus, Apple, etc.) that I think they all suck? Perhaps. - That prompted me to take a closer look at the latest round of iPhone ads. I quickly realized that they do a good job of demonstrating how the average person can use this powerful device is situations that happen frequently. Most of those situations are ones that, when they happen without an iPhone, leave you somewhat stranded.

Take the ad with the guy who tells the story about meeting his girlfriend’s boss and fiancé’s. At the restaurant waiting, they realize they didn’t know the woman’s name. So he whips out his iPhone, checks the bosses wedding website and finds it out. And the day is saved.

That scenario happens. And without an iPhone, you’d have to resort to “hi ………. you!”

So the ad serves to tell a story about how everyday problems are solved with this device. That’s a good message. And its one that Apple thinks is key to tell people in order to sell the phones.

So while I don’t like the look and feel of the ad, its effective. Especially if you knew what I was talking about before you saw the picture on the blog post.

So maybe, just maybe, I need to take a closer look at some of the Lotus Notes/Domino 8 ads I’ve been complaining about. Maybe I don’t like them, but they are effective. Maybe…

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I wasn’t able to attend Ed Brill’s presentation in MN last week (the whole “having a baby thing”) and I’m really bummed. Thanks to the miracle of technology, I was able to at least see the slides he posted. One in particular caught my attention:

Note the extra bullet point at the bottom. I’m going to assume that means “this space reserved for Mac OSX.”

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Ever since I heard that IBM/Lotus was going to spend some serious time (and money) promoting Notes 8, I’ve been anxiously awaiting opportunities to see the results of those efforts in action. Anyone who’s talked to my lately might be surprised that I’m not posting something about my true feelings behind this ridiculous concept.*

But no, I’m living by the “if you don’t have something good to say…” rule.

While I was on Digg.com today I noticed a clever little ad on the side promoting Notes 8 (kind of). As you can see, its a nicely designed ad and I thought a pretty clever way of distributing those pieces of content.

Not bad. Not bad at all!

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* OK, so since the end of the “If you can’t say something nice…” comment in today’s world means “… then post a blog entry about it.” I felt it was appropriate to give an ever-so-brief reason for why I thought the link above is a bad idea:In short: Its a clever idea, but poorly done. It is apparently targeted at end-users but does very little to explain what the product does and why I need it … certainly not until I read the text on the cards shown after picking my “messed up animal of choice.” However, even once you read those short descriptions, you find comments like “… that’s almost as smart as Notes 8.”Now, I may be jaded on this one. So I did a study. I put that site in front of 8 people I knew that don’t work in IT and have never used Lotus Notes. I simply said “I want to show you this site about an exciting new product that you could use every day at the office to improve the way you do your job - and I want you to spend 3 minutes with it and tell me what the product is, what it will do for you and if you are interested in learning more.”

So far the answers are (summarizing common themes here):
- Um… Lotus Notes?
- Don’t know. But it has something to do with animals.
- No, not really. Why did you show me this?!
Still, I’m hopeful that other upcoming ads will be more informative and inspiring.

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