Not me… Rocky
goes to IBM.  Congratulations Rocky… Does this mean  you buy
drinks next Jan?

I have my XDA2s a few weeks now, and
apart from a few gripes (some hangs, battery performance, GSM signal in
a few places iffy) its been a great piece of kit.  My biggest problem
was that the BES client software did not come with the ROM build, so this
evening I installed and configured OneBridge
messaging gateway from extended
systems.  A few years ago,
we used a predecessor of the product (IBM Mobile Connect) which worked
well on my original XDA.  It had a very bad habit of duplicating all
my calendar entries though.  Extended Systems have definitely evolved
the product now, and it works a treat.  Installed and configured in
an hour, with many profile configurations available to administrators and
all major devices supported.  The security capability of the product
(including proxy software and reverse proxy support) makes it very comparable
to BES security, and as I play with the kit, I hope to blog more about
it in the next few weeks.  If anyone in the local area wants to see
it in action, just drop me a line and I will show it off.

Ed,
you paying attention to this one?…
Warren
and Kitty
are getting married in December
this year, and have arranged a lovely around the world trip which they
spoke about in a pub in Edinburgh last night to myself and Frank.
 In passing, Kitty (the non-geek geek girl or "nggg") mentioned
that as part of their honeymoon, they were taking in Lotusphere ’06 in
January.  We have had a few partnerships arise from the events, and
also a few engagements.  But a honeymoon???  Is this a first
fellow bloggers?  If so, I believe that Kitty should wear her wedding
dress for the week, especially at the opening session and on the rollercoaster
in Universal studios.
Congraulations to you both…. you very nice but incredibly sad people
 

In short, a very good day.  We
had to repeat the sessions in the afternoon due to the amount of bookings.
 The ND7 preview went down very well, with some excellent questions
and great interest.  The user base was mostly R5/R6 users, with a
smattering of R4 clients in there aswell.   In these circumstances,
its always useful to point out the ND7 features but also mention what is
available in ND65 aswell.  Integrated IM was a big feature, but the
policy  improvements, DDM and extended rules gained many nods.  Harry
Dunne and I gave the IBM roadmap presentation, which tries to take the
best information from many Lotusphere strategy sessions.  Although
none of it is technical, the session was very popular with many people
coming up at the end to comment on how IBM were doing the right thing with
the strategy (not something we would of heard 18 months ago).  Finally,
a quick demo of ADSync which is always popular.  My thoughts from
the day were:

1. You just can’t say "IM
   is free" enough.

2. People do not believe Workplace
   Service Express will install that quickly.  I have been challenged
   to show it off up there, and I am going to.

3. "Thirty Three" said
   with an Irish accent is apparently the funniest thing we can say.

4. Don’t be afraid to say "I
   will get back to you".  But always follow through on that. (that’s
   an old one for consultants)

I had the pleasure of meeting Frank
(at last) and having a pint with
himself, Warren
and Kitty.
 Kitty, I took a look around your site.  Are you sure you are
not a geek??????   Instant Lotusphere memories and warnings to Frank
that he must attend next year.  Frank, did we manage to mention that
once or twice?   Frank also has the privilege of meeting another
person known for a pint or ten, Mr
Buchan, this evening.    Let
us know how it went and remember after 6 pints, tell Wild Bill to stop
trying to talk shop!

The original sametime everyplace server
worked on pocketpc but always caused
me grief on the blackberries.
 Especially the native client (the java client worked ok).  As
posted by Ed
and Carl,
RIM
are introducing a new sametime plug-in on the berry client later this year.
 I am looking forward to seeing this in action, and hope that is causes
me less grief then STEP did…

Not much time to do anything recently
other then work.  In the past 2 weeks, I have been involved in upgrades,
server crashes, network failures, Administrator
errors, and numerous meetings
and many late hours. (oh yes, not to mention meeting some other bloggers
for drinks).  This has left me with little time to do anything other
then work.  One point though, with 3 upgrades, BES interaction, failures
and server crashes I not once had to touch a backup tape.  Considering
everything that has gone on, I thought that was a point worth mentioning..
 Up tomorrow morning at stupid o’clock to get a red eye to Edinburgh
to give the
CES/Bluewave ND7 sessions.  Hope
to see some of you there on Thursday.

Yep – I know.  www.pmooney.net
has had some downtime recently.  Since moving to Fedora linux with
ND7B3 I have had some Thread Panic errors (Buffer Pool Table full).  I
just have not had the time to research and resolve as yet and I am still
getting used to linux OS.  The bummer is the error does not trigger
the automatic restart feature so its down until I can restart it.  Still….
its beta software on open-source OS, its the best way to learn a product.

Thank you to David
Kaspar for pointing out Agile
Mobile Messenger.  It is
an IM client that allows connection for AOL, Yahoo, MSN and ICQ.  I
have installed it and it seems to work a treat!  It also has a file
send feature, which I will have to try out when I get a chance.

A new database property, which is a
tick box that requires manager access to activate and deactivate, with
and "are you sure prompt" afterwards.

The property?… "under no circumstances
allow any design replacement or refresh affect this database".

Some may ask why and some admin guys
will know my pain.  Support call today.  All domino servers down.
 "Ok, go into the Domino directory (names.nsf file) locally on
the server… what do you see", I ask.

Admin responds, "inbox, drafts,
sent etc…"  I am sure most of you can figure out what happened

Well, finally I got my XDA2s on Friday
and since then have been mucking around with the new unit and seeing what
it can do.  

The Good.

The unit works well, and the pull down
keyboard is quite easy to get used to and functional after a while.  The
new button layout is excellent, and the navigation button at the bottom
has been greatly improved.   It comes with the usual standard software
kit, but is missing some of the default XDA2 applications (MS Reader??).
 The WiFi card is excellent, and relatively easy to configure but
overall connections need work.  The camera facility is ok and the
1.3MP improvement is noticeable.  That being said, I personally don’t
agree with picture phones (but its a different rant).  Bluetooth connectivity
works fine and it doesn’t take long to attach to my Jabra 250.  I
installed AIM for PocketPC, Egress (RSS Reader), PocketTV (for copying
my DVDs to my SD card).  I already ordered a 1GB SD card from ebay
and have a secondary battery on the way.  Its a capable phone and
text features work great.

The Bad

No Blackberry PocketPC software!! It
is on the XDA2 and it aint here for gods sake.  I mailed O2 and was
sent a link to a ROM upgrade.  I received an XDA2 ROM upgrade link.
Wrong model so I didn’t bother.  If anyone knows where I can install
this piece of software, let me know.

The connection settings part of Windows
Pocket PC is improved but still a mess.  They should just scrap it
and use a GUI like XP to keep it simple.

There is only a GSM connectivity connection
with the ROM, no GPRS configuration.  I will have to enter these in
manually.

The processor (Intel Xscale PXA272 520MHz)
definitely is under pressure on this unit and the new Windows 2003 pocket
PC (SE) definitely slows it down.  Also, it has hung a few times since
I got it, but I do think its an Egress issue which I will investigate.


The Summary

Needs some ROM upgrades definitely but
I am looking forward to using it in work mode over the next week.