November 5th, 2009
Managing information in your personal and professional life
While all of us suffer from an information overload, how we deal with that information is often what separates us on a professional level. This blog entry is a review of my experiences managing this information, leading up to Evernote, a product that works well in practice.
Here at work we are slowly implementing a records management policy, and a probable outcome is that we will be unable to keep email older than one year. As an IT professional this has implications, because my email is full of useful information that I want to keep. After discussing this at length with our records manager, I came to the conclusion that I really need some sort of "personal information manager". In about March 2009 I discovered Evernote, an online service.
But first a little history, and for that we can go back a long way to software products like Lotus Agenda and others whose names I have forgotten . One of them lost all my personal information when the computer crashed, and I never did find out who had borrowed some things of mine. But none of those products really worked well enough to "stick".
The internet has become a huge source of this information, and managing browser bookmarks has always been a problem for me. From about 2000 I used a Lotus Notes database to track my bookmarks and other information, and it worked very well. One really nice feature was the ability to add notes to each bookmark to explain why you bookmarked it. Another useful feature was replicating the database between systems so that I really had just one bookmark list to manage, even on different systems. However, there were several problems with the Notes database; possibly the biggest was that getting anything in the database involved a multi step cut and past operation. This is where Evernote really shines because (in Firefox) you can use a button that automatically puts the bookmark in your database with just one click. If you want the content of the page, there is just one box to check and you have saved it for future searching. Another really nice feature of Evernote is that I don't have to maintain any code, nor even a server. In fact I can get to my Evernote database from any browser. Evernote also features a stand alone client so in the event of them disappearing at least I can still have my information.
Evernot really shines when it comes to adding keyword tags to notes. Just like Taglocity, keyword tags actually work much better than folders because you can search on multiple keywords. Its difficult to search a Notes database and find the documents in multiple folders, but Evernote easily lets you find all the notes with a particular keyword tag. It also maintains a full text index so you can search for multiple keyword tags and even inside attached files. Another nice feature is that you can mail into your Evernote account, so if you get that technical information in your work email that you want to keep, you just forward it to your Evernote account. That gets around the limitation of having your work email deleted after a year.
All of this is not to say that it is perfect. For example, the rich text is limited - you can't paste in pictures. This is a strange limitation because you can import pdf files, and you seem to get everything - probably the case of the product not being fully developed yet. Another limitation is printing, where even though you set the font to one size on the note, when you print it out, the font is much bigger. There are feature missing: the ability to warn me when adding a duplicate bookmark. and a tool to find duplicate bookmarks. But these are minor limitations that should be resolved as the product matures.
I have been using Evernote for about 9 months now and currently have over 1400 items in my database. I really love how easy it is to clip web pages and add notes, and the fact that I can seamlessly integrate it into my personal and profession information management needs. Evernote allows all that technical information to follow be wherever I go. The searching works well, and you can add keyword tags to all Notes. There is a free version of Evernote, and a paid version at $5 per month. The paid version allows you to add any files to a note, and allows you to search inside those files. In all, Evernote has proved to be a very practical way to manage all that person and professional information that I collect very well - highly recommended.
June 6th, 2008
A Thought on SharePoint as File Server 2.0
A while ago Ed Brill had an article in his blog which mentioned SharePoint being described as File Server 2.0 (a phrase coined by Sean Burgess). This got me thinking - originally Vista was going to have a new data storage and management system called WinFS. I had even read somewhere that WinFS was going to be very much like Lotus Notes in the way it handles data. Then in June 2006 Microsoft shelved those WinFS plans. Did they pull the plug because SharePoint was going to fill that need? Basically could they make more money packaging the functionality as SharePoint that they would building WinFS into Windows? Of course there is no way to know one way or the other, but the phrase File Server 2.0 certainly did get me thinking.
April 22nd, 2008
Excel 2007 can’t open Lotus 123 spreadsheets
We hit this problem today trying to export a Notes view as a spreadsheet, and import it into Excel. Older versions of Excel could import a wk4 spreadsheet, but not so in Excel 2007. Maybe IBM / Lotus will finally provide a means to export native Excel files directly from Notes (or maybe this is just wishful thinking...!)
April 11th, 2007
Web Serendipity
Sometimes you can find gold nuggets in the rough. The nice thing about the web is that you can share these nuggets and everybody can benefit. Let me tell you about two that I have found recently. I enjoy travel and photography, and the web is an ideal way to make armchair visits around the globe. Unfortunately most web sites describing places are worse than useless: pictures scarcely larger than postage stamps, often lots of adds, and little useful information.
Enter Flickr and Wikipedia.
While reading an article on the BBC website about Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland, I was fascinated by the stone carvings. Unfortunately the pictures on the BBC web site were too small. Now, one thing I have noticed is how useful Flickr and Wikipedia are when you want to see travel pictures of a place. Look up Rosslyn Chapel on Flickr and you will see lots of pictures taken by several people. Many of these are full resolution 2000 pixels across or larger. So if you want to look around at almost any place on the globe, just enter that name in Flickr. Most of the time you will find somebody has posted some pictures about that place, and those pictures will often give you a far better idea about the place that any tourist or commercial web site can do.
Recently an opportunity to visit the east shore in Maryland came up, and a friend suggested St Michael's as a destination. Googled web sites on St Michael's had little of interest. Then I tried St Michaels in Wikipedia - what a difference. One of the really great things about Wikipedia is that most of the pictures include links to full size images.
I don't think that using Flickr and Wikipedia as travel resources was something that could have been foreseen. But these are good examples of quite unexpected serendipitous benefits that sometimes surface.
February 13th, 2007
25 Hours Days?
Working with the teams responsible for the (US) change in Daylight Savings I came across this: a 25 hour day occurs once every year when changing from daylight saving time back to normal time. Time keeping systems that limit you to 24 hours per day are going to break if you work 25 hours on that day! Just thought you might want to know...
February 11th, 2007
Blog News
It took quite a bit of effort, but the missing content in the side bars is finally fixed. (Note to self: Next time, read the instructions properly!) I must still add some missing attachments, and they will come in the next few days. I will also update DocMaster to a more recent version.
I must add that Steve Castledine did a tremendous job with the anti spam filter. Previously it was killing me - sometimes over 400 spam messages posted per day. Since implementing the filter - none. Thanks Steve, for a job well done.
February 5th, 2007
Lotusphere: Worst Practices "Pre" video
... and here is the promised video, posted on You Tube. (Editing it was MUCH more work that I expected, mainly because it was done on a slow laptop.)
January 25th, 2007
Some feedback on Lotusphere 2007
I am sitting on a plane returning from Lotusphere 2007. Thought about live blogging, but decided that it's better to pay attention during the presentations. Besides a laptop gets very heavy by the end of the day. For the first time in years, I can say that IBM finally "gets" Notes. What I mean is that Notes now finally has a decent roadmap for the future.
Because of my work, I was looking to see the plans for the future of Notes. I well remember the collective groan that went up at the opening session of Lotusphere a few years ago when Lotus introduced the "dual lane" approach. So I was very interested in where Notes is going. My real interest is "How effectively can I use this tool to solve business problems that other tools haven't been able to solve.
With that in mind, I attended a designer session. It was mildly interesting until last 15 minutes when Maureen Leyland arrived and demoded where the Designer client is going; based on Eclipse, the Designer now has an open architecture. Same for the Notes client, also based on Eclipse. Finally, I saw IBM with a decent, logical, plausible future for Notes.
With these new directions, I think Microsoft finally has a reason to look over their shoulder. When IBM and Microsoft battle it out, I score as a customer. Remember how long IE6 was Microsoft's browser? Years. Only when Firefox appeared and started taking market share did Microsoft start improving IE. I see the same thing happening with the Apple / Windows race. These races are ones that we, as customers, do not want any vendor to win! As long as these companies are competing we score.
Much to my surprise, I bumped in Gary Devendorf at the Dolphin on Wednesday. Gary used to be "Mr LotusScript" until IBM laid him off. A few months later he was working at Microsoft, helping them integrate their products with Notes. It was very interesting to hear his comments on the culture, and on how people relate at Microsoft, compared to IBM. Personally, I think IBM rather shot themselves in the foot letting someone like Gary go.
This year my favorite presentation was "Worst Practices" by Bill Bucan & Paul Mooney. When you put an Irishman and a Scot of doubtful sobriety on the stage together you will have an interesting banter. I hope to post a video on this soon...
October 11th, 2006
New Blog Template
Well, I have deleted over 40,000 spam messages and banned those IP addresses from posting. Hopefully that will take care of most of the spam problems. At the same time this blog template was upgraded to release 3.0.2, which caused several things in the left column to disappear., and a security bug that prevents anybody from posting comments. These should be fixed in the next few days, as work permits.
October 8th, 2006
Spam Attack
For the past 3 months work prevented me from even looking at my blog, but this weekend there was the chance to make amends. That is when I was dismayed to see over 200,000 spam messages. Fortunately Steve Castledine's blog template 3.0.2 has the tools in it to block the spamming IP addresses. This is the template that Steve gave a "blue wash" to, and a version of it is now part of Notes 7.0.2.
So if you had posted something on this blog after June 1, your post will have been deleted, and you will be marked as a spammer. (Email me and I will remove the block). It may take me a while to get rid of all the spam, and to get this new template functioning properly, but there are some new articles in the pipeline.
April 20th, 2006
New Downloads category
As a way to improve the organization of this blog, I have added a new "Downloads" category - see under "Archives" in the left column. If you want to dowlnload something, you will find it here.
February 20th, 2006
New laptop & New York presentation
Although I have used Dell PCs & laptops
for years, the newish HP Pavilion really appealed, A few weeks ago my resistance
crumbled and the dv8000z model was ordered. This really is the nicest laptop
I have ever had the pleasure of working with. Let's start with a screen
that is 1680 by 1050 pixels - larger than my desktop. Then add the fact
that all the ports are down the sides, and not round the back, and a full
101 key keyboard. This is more than a laptop - it is a personal workstation.
As you might gather I am very happy with it, especially when working on
PowerPoint presentations. All that screen real estate really is useful.
This week I am presenting at the Teamstudio Seminar in New York: "Bring
Control to the Process: Implementing Best Practices for Your Lotus Notes/Domino
Environment". I'm flying
from San Diego with Jet Blue for the first time, and am interested to see
how they compare to the other airlines.
December 21st, 2005
Missing keystrokes problem.
Recently I was working in my home office
when my wireless keyboard started playing up and dropping random keystrokes.
The wireless mouse on the other hand worked perfectly. Of course the first
thing that comes to mind is to check the strength of the keyboard battery.
According to the Windows control panel it was good. Strange. Even checked
them with a volt meter (one of the benefits of being trained as an electrical
engineer) - the battery was good.
Must be a faulty transmitter in the keyboard. So I bought another of the
identical model. Strange - the problem was still there. Tried different
combinations of new and old keyboards and receiver units - they all behaved
the same way; and each time the mouse worked fine. What was even stranger
was when I moved the receiver closer to the keyboard, all keyboards worked
perfectly. Again, behavior was identical with the new and existing keyboards.
The I noticed my cordless phone on my
desk had moved to within a few inches of the original site of the keyboard
/ mouse receiver unit. Even though they were operating on different frequencies,
the output from the phone was strong enough to sometime scramble signals
from the keyboard. I also realized it was doing the same thing to the mouse,
but that was masked by the fact that you don't notice a small amount of
dropped data from the mouse. All it means is the mouse sensitivity goes
down slightly (i.e. you must move it further than before for the same on
screen effect.)
To solve the problem, I moved the cordless phone back to it's original
location, and everything worked fine. Didn't even need the new keyboard.
Like many problems, this one is so obvious when it is explained, but can
be quite difficult to resolve. I shared it in the hope that somebody else
can avoid the same pain.
By the way, if you use a wireless keyboard,
you need to be aware of the security risk. It is possible for someone with
sensitive equipment to pick up the signals from some distance away. Potentially
they could grab your passwords off the air. I have no idea of the encryption
used on the link between the keyboard and receiver unit, but doubt that
it is "industrial strength". If somebody has the equipment to
get the signals, they probably have the skill to crack the encryption.
Just be aware of this risk. It may be enough to make you decide to go back
to a wired keyboard.
November 21st, 2005
Security
I am amazed - it happens so often. A laptop
gets stolen, complete with the personal information from thousands of people.
Look at this article from the Chicago
Tribune: "A Boeing Co.
employee's laptop computer that contained Social Security numbers and other
personal information for 161,000 current and former workers was stolen,
the company said Friday. " And then they go on to say "had no
evidence that any of the personnel information ... was accessed or misused."
Wonderful. Because they don't know about it, it didn't happen!
But really - haven't these IT managers ever though of using Notes clients
with local encryption turned on? That is a pretty watertight solution,
and no casual thief is likely to have the tool to crack Notes security.
If you use "in placed editing" in the Notes client, Notes will
delete temp files, preserving your security (no comments on recovering
deleted temp files).
What it really needs is a comprehensive look at the security of information
traveling around on laptops, and a look at tools like Notes that transparently
encrypt your data. However, what we have is a gaping hole with in organizational
security. Remember, it's always you an me who pay the price. If an ID thief
gets our data, we are the one who spend months sorting the problem out.
October 31st, 2005
Thoughts on Notes support costs from the field.
Like many others. I keep my eye on the
Notes and Domino job market on places like Dice.com etc. - they give you
the "pulse" of the market. And since the start of 2005 that pulse
seems to be quickening.
While both Exchange and Notes / Domino claim similar market shares, there
seem to be more Exchange jobs out there than Notes / Domino ones. I've
been thinking about this for quite a while, and then it hit me... Could
the difference be simply because once Notes is up and running smoothly,
it can stay that way for years without much attention? In other words,
given Notes and Exchange shops of similar size operating in "the field",
it takes more technical support to keep Exchange running that it does Notes.
I would be curious to hear any other thoughts on this subject.
September 20th, 2005
Is that old magic coming back?
After several moribund years, are user
groups returning to life? Is that old magic coming back? This evening I
attended the Las Vegas Lotus User Group meeting at the Las Vegas Hilton.
David Stephens from IBM gave an interesting look at Workplace Services
Express. But the real star of the show was Lance Spellman of Workflow
Studios. (Sorry David, but you
didn't stand a chance next to Lance and his support team).
In true Vegas style Lance dressed up as a "green man" (a play
on the Blue
Man currently showing in Vegas).
Not only is Lance a capable performer, but he did an excellent presentation
on using Ajax with Notes views, based on work done by Bob
Obringer. After the meeting
we stopped in at Quarks
Bar and Restaurant. Needless
to say Lance fitted right in with the Star Trek theme! Many thanks to Brian
Benz for organizing such an excellent user group meeting. My only regret
is leaving my camera in the hotel room, otherwise there would be some pictures
posted here.
August 4th, 2005
Welcome
Aah - the obligatory welcome page. This
blog is about my thoughts on collaborative computing, mainly on the
Lotus Notes / Domino family of products. I am also very interested in the
management of collaborative computing - how to effectively use collaborative
computing to improve the bottom line of the business. I hope to publish
at least one article per week, if time allows.
In one way, this blog is a collaborative
computing effort - you could say I'm eating my own dog (Doig?) food. I
long ago found that no matter how much I know, there is always plenty to
learn from other people. My hope is that the articles published here will
stimulate comments that add to their value, so we all benefit.
Of course my comments in this blog represent my own options only, and not
those of any employer or customer, past present or future.
August 1st, 2005
Contact Me - Updated 2/11/2007
Email: chrisdoig-at-yahoo-dot-com
Cell: (760) 470-2011
Skype: chris.doig
August 1st, 2005
About Me - Updated 2/11/2007
Here is a little auto-biographical background to put some context around entries in this blog of mine. Since a kid I have always had an interest in hardware and software. This led me to study Electrical Engineering at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and I graduated with a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering in 1989. While studying, I started a computer company, Cirrus Technology, which I ran until 1991. We focused on the corporate market, supplying hardware, networking and software. We also developed software for a number of corporate clients using Clarion (now SoftVelocity) - an advanced database tool in those DOS days.
After Cirrus I took a job as IT Manager (equivalent to an IT Director in the US) at the Medical Research Council of South Africa, and later a position as a System Development Manager at Plessey South Africa (now Tellumat). After working at Plessey for almost 2 years opportunity knocked in the form of a "green card" - the right to work in the US for any employer. Being the adventurous sort (I was a hang glider pilot for 10 years) and having always wanted to "see how the other half lives" my wife and I decided to emigrate. We felt that if we didn't like it, we could always return. But we have enjoyed living in the US immensely since 1995.
Emigrating was quite a change. While the lifestyle in California was very similar to Cape Town, the culture was surprisingly different. On arriving in the US I started job hunting over the internet, and four weeks to the day later I started at Seagate Technology in Scotts Valley, California. Early in 98 the CIO at Seagate, Tom Dillon, left and joined Candescent Technology. A few weeks later Tom approached me and asked me to set up the Lotus Notes environment at Candescent from scratch. I jumped at the opportunity, and stayed with Candescent for 4 years until they ran out of money - a Silicon Valley startup that didn't quite make it. I then joined Idec Pharmaceuticals at a Senior IT Manager. That was my dream job, perched on the cliffs at Torrey Pines, in San Diego. Two years later Idec merged with Biognen (now BiogenIdec), which prompted a change in direction to that of an independent consultant.
My primary interest is the intersection between the business and IT, or applying IT to solving business problems, and empowering people. Over time my interest and skills have developed, constantly improving ways to efficiently manage IT teams to delivering value to satisfy customers.
Hard at work...