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Wednesday
May172006

Lotus Notes Hannover (Notes 8) to include Word Processor, Spreadsheet, & Presentation Tool, based on Open Document Format

A huge announcement from Mike Rhodin while demonstrating Notes "Hannover" at DNUG/IBM Lotus Technical Conference keynote- The Notes "Hannover" release will include spreadsheet/presentation/word processing productivity tools supporting the newly ratified Open Document Format .  "We are going to provide an open alternative".  Here is a screen shot of this in action (More work to be done to UI apparently):

Image:Brownies Blog - Lotus Notes Hannover (Notes 8) to include Word Processor, Spreadsheet, & Presentation Tool, based on Open Document Format

This is pretty exciting stuff. While I am sure they won't have the full functionality of Microsoft Word 2007 etc, I am also sure it will probably suffice for 90% of users. We have had many clients wishing this kind of functionality will be added to Notes so that their users can drop Word etc.

Here is some more info. 

Tuesday
May162006

Google Trends

Google have in beta a tool called Google Trends that allows you to look at trend history for search terms. You can also compare the history of multiple search terms. It is really interesting to see the increase in some search terms:

Image:Brownies Blog - Google Trendsblog    Image:Brownies Blog - Google Trendswiki    - Just shows how the awareness of blogs and wiki's has gone thru the roof.
Image:Brownies Blog - Google Trends

Image:Brownies Blog - Google Trendslotus notes    Image:Brownies Blog - Google Trendsmicrosoft exchange    - Lotus Notes is Seached for more than Microsoft Exchange however both have declined.


Image:Brownies Blog - Google Trends




Image:Brownies Blog - Google Trendsasterisk - This is interesting in that we have been running up Asterisk servers etc.
Image:Brownies Blog - Google Trends

Pretty interesting stuff. 

Monday
May152006

More Sametime 7.5 features

The more I see the more I want it.

Ted Stanton has continued his Sametime Sunday posts showing the great new features. Here are his two latest:

Sametime Meeting Screen Sharing - This is essentially the same as past verison of Sametime however the interface for doing so is more usable and makes more sense. One of the problems in the past of the Screen Frame and the Entire Screen options was the fact that your Sametime Chat screen might pop up while you are in the meeting and if you have friends like mine it might not be very appropriate. In Sametime 7.5 however when you are in a meeting you can have your status automatically change which will prevent this from happening.

Location Awareness - There are many new improvements relating to location awareness. This is a neat feature for me as I tend to work from many different locations. This will mean that other users will know where I am rather than having to ask all the time. Also means I will know where other people are so that if I do want to call them or meet face to face (this does happen sometimes:). 

Tuesday
May092006

Air Hockey over the net!

The CSIRO has an impressive setup with many interesting research projects etc but the real crowd puller is the Air Hockey over the net. They have 1/2 an air hockey table setup with a projector displaying the other virtual half of the table that is setup on the other side of the room with a projector as well. Players just play like normal but the direction and speed of the puck is sent over the net to the other half of the table and out comes the puck! Pretty neat.

Tuesday
May092006

CEBIT 2006

I am working at CEBIT for the next 3 days out of the Sydney Convention Centre. Started the day with breakfast in a nice little cafe just near the centre and are now setting up our stand at the show. This year we have joined the Tasmanian Govt Department of Economic Development stand so we have some good company. Viewbuild and the etechgroup as well as DED are sharing the stand with us. The exhibition seems to take up about 5 of the halls but I will need to have a look around shortly. Immediately it was obvious VOIP has many stands but I will work out the other main trends over the 3 days.

We have on show our suite of ISW and IBM software including IVR-Xpress Visual Builder as a core product to display. Ian has brought up an IBM xSeries server running Asterisk Virtual PABX that is tunneling thru the net to another Asterisk server in Hobart. We will be able to show people how it can then make long distance calls to Hobart at the cost of local calls. We also have a number of soft phones installed as a demo of what could be done in a call centre environment.

We have our ISW Solutions That Work software catalogue on the stand as well so we will be able to present on our range of products as required.

I will go have a look around and see what else I can find. Will be interesting to see how much IBM and Microsoft software is on display and from which partners.