Notes on Productivity Home Page

Update: I've posted the solution as a response comment. See below...

As an IBM Champion, I often have to save clients from misinformation and FUD about Lotus Notes. Other times, I have to save them from themselves. Sometimes, I just have to put on my cape and save the day. I love challenges, but some are harder than others...

A client called me recently to tell me that after many years of happily using Lotus Notes, he now had a problem: his folders in his Lotus Notes Mail are disappearing - yes disappearing. Let me explain. He opens his Lotus Notes mail and clicks on "Folders" in the left hand outline. Normally, this would expand to show the list of available folders. In his case, as soon as you click on the folders entry the list of folders disappears. I created a new database with just a few test messages and folders - same problem.

Continue Reading "You probably won't guess the cause of this Notes mail folder problem" »

Yesterday, I posted this topic to this blog, seeking an answer to question. The title I chose did not actually ask a question. So, as you might expect, I didn't get the answer I hoped for.

If you are a Lotus Notes for Mac user, I'd appreciate your quick thoughts on this.

Today, I was coaching an executive in how to use Lotus Notes as a tool for getting things done.  In the course of our work together, I went to show him how to capture and paste a shortcut  to a folder or a file into any Notes document (e.g. a To Do, or document or even an email) so that later, when he opens the document, all he has to do is click on it and Notes will take him to the folder or open the file.

Oops. I should have tried it first.

When I drag the alias into a Notes document, Notes properly shows the attachment type:



However, when I go to open the attachment, I get an error indicating that the file is already open in Mac OS X.



I use this capability all the time with Lotus Notes on Windows. Works great. Next to doclinks, this is a powerful feature for managing information that resides outside of Lotus Notes.

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that I can do this with Lotus Notes on the Mac.  

I told my client I would reach out to the Lotus Notes Community to see what I could learn...

Please post any feedback below. Thanks!

Here's a quick Bloomberg interview with David Allen talking about the frustrations and opportunitiues of technology.

David Allen's is a long time Lotus Notes user and champion. I set up David's first Lotus Notes server nearly 20 years ago. (He was on cc:Mail before that).