Notes on Productivity Home Page

My team and I have been asked a lot recently: will eProductivity work with IBM Verse? Most of the people who ask are IBMers afraid of losing eProductivity and becoming less productive as a result.

If you use eProductivity or have some interest in it, head over to Inside.eProductivity for the details: click here.

After setting up Deja Office on my new iPhone, I have been experimenting with their "Memos" or Reference Database over the last few days.  Here is what I have found:

I created a new test document on the iPhone and synched it over to notes.  I made sure to choose a category for this test document, and was pleased to find that when I replicated with Notes, my test memo appeared and was correctly categorized.

However, I was away from my computer yesterday and needed to capture some information into my Reference Database.  I pulled out my iPhone and quickly created a new Deja Office memo.  The information I was recording fell under two categories in my reference database, so as I was adding the category, I chose two categories, everything looked fine, so I saved the memo and double checked that it was recorded in Deja Office - no problem so far.

It was not until I synched Daja Office with Lotus Notes that I noticed the problem.  I replicated Notes, then went to my Reference Database and opened the category I had filed the memo under to find the memo.  To my surprise, I could not locate the memo under either of the categories I had filed it in, nor could I find it in my uncategorized view.  It was not until I searched under "All Documents" that I located my entry.  It appears that Deja Office had created a new, invisible category that was a combination of the two categories I entered.  This new category does not appear as a category on the left side of my screen.  

This is a big problem for me as I often have entries that use multiple categories.  I would love to see a solution for this.

Our company recently purchased several iPhone 5c's for testing purposes and I spent a good portion of the day setting up my  phone and testing various productivity solutions to see how well they integrate with eProductivity.  I set up Lotus Traveler to synchronize my email, contacts, and calendar. Next, I set up the IBM Traveler Tasks application and the IBM Traveler Companion App I was disappointed to learn that IBM Traveler does not provide a solution for the IBM Notes Notebook as this is a key element in any personal information management (PIM) system.  I use my Notes Notebook as my go to Reference Database.  The Reference Database is a key tool in my toolbox and I find myself using it on my smartphone on a regular basis.

Continue Reading "Deja Office for Lotus Notes" »

Evernote's CEO, Phil Libin, shares his perspective on the necessity and value of an app store. Some of these points apply to the ongoing discussion around a Lotus App Store...

1. Meritocracy is sweet
2. Desktop software is viable again
3. Multi-platform users are the best kind
4. A strike against lowest common denominator

Read: Four Lessons From Evernote’s First Week On The Mac App Store

Source: TechCrunch

Guest Post by Amy Mack

Today I tried installing the WildFire application for Lotus Notes by ISW.  I had hoped to be able to use this as a productivity tool to save me the time of updating and managing each individual social networking site I use.

WildFire is a Lotus Notes application for your sidebar that allows you to update your status in one place and let the software do the rest.  WildFire will take that status and update all of your various social networking accounts - without your ever having to log in. WildFire is a free download from the OpenNTF web site and you can watch a video over here.

What I thought would be a quick and easy installation, however, turned into a major four hour project as I ran into many problems with both the installation process and with using WildFire itself.  For example:  in the installation instructions, they told me to go to Lotus Notes and go to "File-> Application -> Install."  In my Lotus Notes, however, I was unable to find the "Install" option.  After about an hour of frustrated searching, my sister and my dad called  Bruce Elgort who directed us to this site. (Apparently I wasn't the first person to be baffled by the process of installing composite applications in Notes. I wonder if they could have made it any harder?)

To enable the "Install" option, follow these steps:  

1. Close you Lotus Notes client
2. Browse to the plugin_customization.ini in the notes application folder\framework\rcp
3. Add com.ibm.notes.branding/enable.update.ui=true
4. Save and close file and restart Lotus Notes

You can now find the Eclipse update manager under File > Application > Application Management.

The installation process seemed to run more smoothly after that (although some of the instructions had to be completed through trial and error due to unclear directions), but using WildFire itself was a different matter entirely.

It was a bit confusing at first as to how to link WildFire to my private accounts, but after some hunting (and trial and error) I was able to successfully connect.  Unfortunately, I was not able to be able to make WildFire display my feeds.  Also, when I tried making a test post in WildFire, I was unable to see it when I logged into any of my social networking sites. Then, Notes crashed. Finally, in frustration, I restarted Lotus Notes to see if that would fix the problems.  When Notes was fully logged in again, I found that all of my connections had been erased.

I was initially very excited by what this product promised and I do hope to give it another try someday, but after nearly four hours of trying to make it work I've run out of time and patience.  

I have read that Wildfire is popular Notes application, so there must be a way to make it work. Hopefully, for people that want to try, this post and the link above will be a help.

Guest post by Wendy Mack

Today, I decided to install Tungle to make my scheduling much easier.  This free application eliminates much of the unnecessary time, emails, and mistakes that accompany scheduling events.  Synchronizing with your calendars, Tungle.me posts your available meeting times to the web and helps you manage your schedule without sharing private information.

The registration process of Tungle.me is very self-explanatory.  You can register for Tungle.me here.  Simply fill out your information and follow the instructions provided!

The only problem I encountered during setup was when I was trying to install the widget to allow Tungle to sync with my Lotus Notes calendar.  It appears that the widget feature does not work when Lotus Notes is running in Basic mode.  It is important to make sure that Notes is running in Standard Mode, before following the directions provided under the Calendars & Contacts link.  After that, I found the integration process with my Notes calendar to be extremely easy.  The only thing the widget does. however, is integrate your Notes calendar with Tungle.  As far as I can tell, you cannot use Tungle offline with Notes.  After the initial setup, your entire calendar must be managed on the Tungle site.

With Tungle, I am now able to share my availability with others so that it takes me less time to try to organize meetings and find a time when everyone else can meet.  I simply send a link to people to view my available times, and/or when I create an event I am able to select several preferred times that I can meet.  Tungle handles the rest!  My associates can respond with the time that works best for them and Tungle updates my calendars for me.  It also sends me an email notification that the meeting has been scheduled for me.

I am very pleased with what I have seen so far and I look forward to becoming more productive with this application!

Update: For a good overview of other meeting scheduling applications here's a good summary I found on Mashable,

Looking for resources on how to get more done with the free eProductivity Reference app? Then head on over to the GTD & Lotus Notes podcast and check out Episode 14. We just posted it yesterday.

In this episode, Eric Mack is joined by GTD creator David Allen and GTD coach Kelly Forrister, a powerhouse trio of productivity knowledge. They're discussing the ins and outs of personal reference systems and how you can create an outstanding system in Lotus Notes.

Ask yourself: Do you have a trusted system where you can park all that non-actionable reference information that comes your way? Or is your desk, your office, or even your house a personal information landfill?

Tune in for expert solutions to these questions.

Posted by Ryan Heathers

This weekend, I was reading the comments in a discussion thread on Engadget about RIM's BlackBerry offering.  Many commenters were quick to showcase their stupidity and inability to spell while blasting every aspect of the BlackBerry in order to  show how much they hated RIM and how badly they wanted an iPhone or Android.

Since I'm working on productivity solutions for all three, I was trying to read between the lines of the comments to see if there were any valid arguments that I could learn from. Among the large volume of useless drivel attempting to pass for comments, one commenter had this to say:



His concise statement summed up much of what many in the discussion thread were trying to communicate.

Do you agree? Is it all about the Apps?  

If so, what are the implications for Lotus Notes in light of recent discussions around an App Catalog or an App store for Lotus Notes?