One more city down for the Notes Domino 8 Upgrade Seminar, with 2 North American cities left to go (San Francisco and Toronto).  Once again I was not disappointed in what the attendees had to say and provide for feedback.

• 100% were on 6.5.x and higher (ok outside of one desolate R5 server)
• 85% used Sametime already and really needed to understand what the new integration offered.  They liked it but had rightful concerns over missing functionality and the locking of the chat as Notes did other things
• The limited number of users you can get on Citrix with the Standard client sucks and they let me know
• Widgets need tons of business value demos to sell them to the executives
• Productivity Tools were the doorstop of the sessions with people stepping right on by
• Lotus Connections made no sense to 90% of them at first.  Later, about 50% I think really got it (while they all then understood it).  But managing all that additional hardware was brought up
• Lotus Foundations is a cool product if you don't already have a Domino domain, which they all did of course
• Integration of Sametime is awesome if it was available while doing something else in Notes 8.  Otherwise they want the standalone version (mentioned again)
• Integration of Activities is confusing to many as to why choose that or Quickr or why at all.  This got answered
• The Sametime Gateway is of interest to them but MS connectivity is still a demand in Europe
• Coffee breaks are not often enough, mainly after huge lunches
• Attendees love free tools that we give away
• Expanded policy control for desktops and security will be implemented right away
• People are tired of Smart Upgrade and want full provisioning,   Oh yeah, and provisioning that actually works, which is broke right now
• I know the list went on by I will update after I sleep and fly....

I broke their hearts when I taught all about site updates to only let them down with it isn't working.  On the good side, I think many are excited about the upgrade.  I was surprised at the length of time a lot will be taking to get upgraded in full.  We are talking well into next year.

Food this week was excellent, and I caught the play Billy Elliot (review here).  Dinner the first night was Kare Kare, an excellent Indian place.  Next up was a chain before the play for speed reasons and finally Amaya.  Outside of that it was all conference food for me :-)

Hi, I sent this posting over via email so it cold be pasted in.  I went to the Lotusphere Comes to You in St Louis last week for my first time.  I knew it was only a day review of what was explained to me a week long event.  I knew it would be consolidated.  I was not ready, however, for the way it was presented.  The speakers showed a lot of videos and hardly anything live.  One person actually showed his inbox, but everyone else had these pre-planned videos and stuff.  It turned out to be like a sales meeting in a way, where they talk about the products but only show slides.  I thought half of this was shipping? Could they not show it?  Are the demos too hard?  How can I make this work for my users then?

Also some of the speakers didn't seem to know fully the material or topic they presented.  Questions went unanswered.  That was a bit disconcerting for those that couldn't got to Lotusphere and needed more information.  I didn't plan on speeding a day there to get more questions that I came in with (meaning others asked some good ones too).  I know we only had a day to get this completed, but it seemed a bunch of product announcements from Lotusphere didn't even make it into the program in any way.  I know I stepped out once for a phone call, but in 20 minutes they could not have done them all as the session I stepped out from was still going strong when I reentered.

So my last thought was the actual other attendees.  From talking to people, there was like 3-4 times as many people last year.  With about 20-25 there this year, what happened?  I am sure it was not the change in venue as I got the email weeks before.  Where the heck was everyone?

IdoNotes note: I found the same thing from LCTY in Minneapolis per this blog posting.  I couldn't comment on that blog posting as it required a Wordpress account.  I suspect we are seeing this at cities that partners do not do a majority or any of the presentations?

Many of my fellow bloggers have posted and express excitement over Connections for Blackberry.

• Lotus Connections Blog
• Mitch Cohen (Curious Mitch)
• Gia Lyons of IBM
• Darren Adams of IBM posted beta screenshots

I, unfortunately, do not share the same enthusiasm. I have already let RIM know those thoughts through some surveys that I already provided.

Since this (see screenshot above) has been under development for such a long time, I expected one simple thing. I , without hesitation, expected all five services to be primed and ready. Only have a native Profiles and Dogears makes it useless for my suers to load. For the other 3 services, you have a link that launches a Blackberry browser session that you must log into once again. Humorously I see how Chris Whisonant of Lotus911 only pointed out connecting to BleedYellow via the new client.

Profiles and Activities are arguably the most important parts. But in my opinion, any hook into social software should expose all of the services, or just don't present them until they are ready. Accessing the Connections information via that tiny browser is a terrible experience and I don't want my users doing it. I have been getting deeper into the social networking over the past year or so and see Lotus attempting to make strides. But having a Facebook application for Blackberry that works better and offers more, makes the Lotus Connections one a hard sell.

So the internal NOC team here uses Neoware thin clients to connect to the Citrix 4.5 server.  Today the Windows guys decide to upgrade to 8.0.1 Standard and find that each user was, as expected, using lots of memory around 400MB each.  With the machine it runs on being a dual processor with 3.5 GB of RAM, they had higher expectations.  So after everyone came on day shift and logged in as usual, the machine started grinding.

Unfortunately, they want all the bells and whistles, but back to basic mode they have to do.

Since everyone gets this one, you missed my rant about ATT and their sucky free wireless mesh they put here in St Louis.

You also missed my recap of Admin2008 plus pictures.

Lastly, the blog server is now 8.0.1 and my logging of RSS feeds finally hit peak level across my blogs and took HTTP down.  All is well once again, thanks to Steve C himself.

Our city allowed AT&T to come in and fire up a free wireless mesh downtown that covers like 8x8 square blocks.  Something like that.  There is 2 mesh networks available.  The first one they offer, called ATTMetroFree is a slower, yet free, wifi network.  It has a banner on your browser, so no big deal.  They attempt to do pop-ups, but anyone in their right mind blocks them nowadays.  But if they think that is working, fine.  So I can do SSL and all the web browsing I want.  However, it will not allow Notes traffic.  I first noticed it when attempting to replicate.  So I fired up NotesPing and watched as they block 1352.  Bastages.  Screenshot here.



I didn't even think about trying their other mesh ATTMetroWifi that charges a daily or weekly rate to browser.  In price it is comparable, like $7 USD a day or $15/week.  Good for the traveler and they guarantee VPN and higher speeds.  But what the heck is going on here?  Throttle my connection is you need, but why are you blocking ports.

So I dutifully switch the networks the local cafe's offer, unrestricted or gosh forbid in an emergency grab a loft wifi that got left open.

First things first, here are the pictures:

www.flickr.com IdoNotes' Admin2008 photoset

So recapping the last two days that were totally a blur. Pushes to Domino 8 are incredibly strong with a large focus on people that stuck in any session that did with upgrading. The mix of clients/servers was 6.5.x all the way to current. But the overwhelming feeling from all of them was they will make due with getting the necessary resources and get that awesome Notes 8 Standard client to the users. The talks of waiting for 8.0.2 went away when we showed them the security controls and features. Rob, Andy Pedisich, and I are on the orad again in 2 weeks to keep the Notes Domino 8 Upgrade Seminar going. Join us in London and San Francisco if you missed the show here.

Sametime sessions, including the jumpstart were popular. Once a grasp of how the Sametime client integrates and what features are missing was covered, I did a session on Sametime Advanced. Of those that came, two had a strong need for persistent chat. Others wanted to see what all the hype and difference was about. But everyone agreed that Sametime 8 was the place to be. I was happy to see so many people that had picked up my book on the Sametime Gateway and how it saved much time and energy. Yet the room had a ton of poeple that wanted to get it installed. The need to remove the public chat clients and make some instant messaging policies is getting stronger.

Disaster recovery was packed. I think many came in looking for the silver bullet of what should be done to get DR alive and functioning. What they walked away with was a plan, steps and decision points on how to build the proper topology with all the diagrams to get started. It was sad to talk to those that lost not just data during 9-11, and how they coped. It was an eye opener for me as well. I hope I helped, but Domino makes DR easy.

After a great dinner with Ed Brill, Alan Lepofsky, Susan Bulloch, and John Head, day 3 was beckoning.

The vendor floor was busy since the crowd here was larger once again than years past. As the questions get harder each year, the skillset of the administrators and developers that attend get better. Which makes us work harder to put on a better show. Hope everyone enjoyed, I need a nap.

There are enough opening session remarks already blogged.  But here is what I gathered from talking to attendees all week.  Even though we are entering Domino 8.0.1, most have not made the full move to Domino 8 and are here to learn even more about it.  Even with all the press and online info, they still want to see live demonstrations on everything you can think of.

As usual I am not disappointed with the variance of types of issues they face on a daily basis.  From unique requirements to unique issues, they bring it all to the table.  There are happily not many at all they run R5, most are stuck in the 6.5.x and 7.0.x realm.  So the move to 8 is an important step that they are undertaking and by us including the entire Notes Domino 8 Upgrade Seminar (still some cities left to attend) into Admin2008, they more than get their money worth.

The troubleshooting SMTP session I had first was a nice group that needed to understand the finer points of debugging and where to even begin.  After a quick Internet access issue, we were up and moving.  Then the real fun started as the Sametime plug-in and Administration session was up next.  A room full of Sametime 3.1 to 8.0 users and servers.  We dug deep in some areas while giving a glazing on others that I cover in sessions later this week to show them how it all fits together.

Right after a quick lunch I had a packed room for Leveraging the Messaging Enhancements in Domino 8.  The room was rowdy, fun and had great questions about the new features and implementation.  From message recall (booooo) to the new OOO as a service, they got it all.

Lastly was Sametime Gateway, one of my personal favorites as you know.  Smaller group that was already filled to the brim with knowledge, but they all wanted to get it working.  So we went hard through the configuration.  One person stated later that they broke so many rules I was teaching they are startling over.

To finish it was 'beat the geeks' then a sponsor party.  Nothing finer than a hundred geeks crammed into a room late in the evening.

I got this little tidbit in email today and had some thoughts:

Good news for your business! Now, IBM can help you make a splash in the software as a service (SaaS) market. For the first time ever, IBM is offering you the opportunity to sell Web conferencing services to your customers. The IBM Lotus Sametime Unyte Meeting solution - a full feature, easy-to-use service - is now available via Passport Advantage. Come join us to learn how to grow your business by selling Lotus Sametime Unyte through Passport Advantage. We'll also outline the IBM SaaS strategy, and how we hope it will create more business opportunities for you to sell your way into bigger profits and happier customers

Previously, Lotus.IBM attempted this very offering on their own.  Unyte gives them a better exposure and ease of use than the previous Sametime offering, but each partner now competes directly with each other and with IBM in sales.  From what I know learned at Lotusphere, you as the partner are not hosting this offering, simply pushing the business to IBM directly with some markup in there.

So will you go after this market?

Hot from the printing presses, get your copy here for free!

IN THIS ISSUE
* From the Editor: Chris' 26.1942 UZS
* Sponsored by BCC
* From the IdoNotes Mailbox: Is There Really a Pubnames.ntf Fix for Domino 8.0.1?
* Sponsored by EMC
* From LotusUserGroup.org
- Lotusphere Comes To You ONLINE
- Take Jess and Tom's Lotusphere Challenge
- Moderated Topic Forum - Policies in Your Notes & Domino Environment
* Part 3 of 3: Domino Monitoring and Reporting
* Quick Tip: Removing Unwanted Fields From Outbound Domino SMTP Messages
* From the IdoNotes Mailbox: Is Lotus Notes 8.0.1 Standard Supported on Citrix?
* LotusUserGroup.org Virtual User Group Meeting