Belfast from above

This video (courtsey of vowe) struck a chord with me. From 12 years as a consultant, I have seen this too many times

One event that I will not miss, is the
most excellent UKLUG conference to be held in Edinburgh in October.  For
details, click here.
 I will be presenting a session called "DAOS – step by step"
which will go through the configuration and implementation of DAOS in your
environment with a very explanatory and non-biased view.  Gab Davis
and I went though the admin sessions making selections from many great
abstracts.  Of course, if you do plan on speaking at UKLUG, and have
not submitted a session, you would be wise to get it in there asap.

I have heard excellent reports about the
Norwegian Lotus User group, and sadly I had to cancel my attendance.  In
addition, I had to pull out of DNUG this month too.  No major issue,
aside from the fact I am just too busy to lose a few days at conferences,
regardless of how much I enjoy them and the people I meet there.  Luckily,
Ed Brill was there with what I believe was a great presentation, and my
twin Greg Engels presented on my behalf.

I doubt half the audience noticed it
wasn’t me! ;)

Note... this is not aimed at Lotus
Domino’s upcoming support (and available in private beta) for Activesync.
  I’m quite sure this applies to Activesync/iPhone in general regardless
of MS Exchange or Domino.  

Ya see, I had a hope that when I used
activesync for getting corporate email/PIM information, that it would "sync"
with my contacts on my iPhone (and in turn, on my Mac that has sync’d through
iTunes) and iCal.    So, I could use iCal or contacts and then
when I add something there, it would go to my corporate mail contacts or
calendar.   I think there are a lot of Mac users that would also want
that.  

Well, guess what… Nope.  Doesn’t
work that way.

When you enable Activesync on your iPhone,
iTunes is cut out of the loop and no longer syncs your contacts/calander
etc.  This is NOT a bitch at Exchange or Domino for that manner…
its more a disappointing discovery and a piece of functionality that is
almost perfect… so close you can almost reach for it…

… or pay for it if you bend over and
give apple money for a mobile me account.  Apparently then it works.
 Nice one Apple.  How to squeeze another few pennies out of the
consumer market.  Now, I am no expert on Activesync, but I have done
a bit of research on this and found numerous rants on iPhone sites about
Outlook users being disappointed about this lack of functionality.  I
have a feeling that this disappointment will be shown in the yellow bubble
when Domino 8.5.1 comes out.  I’m sure what I am looking for is not
a corporate business requirement (in fact they may be against it), moreso
a consumer requirement from geeks… so I reckon "snowball’s chance
in hell" of getting that fixed by Apple or anyone else for that matter.

I would be delighted if someone could
comment and tell me there is a way around this btw… so feel free to chirp
in with a rant or chirp in with a solution.  Either way… I might
feel better!

Update:  A source told me
that the new version of iPhone OS3 and its associated iTunes (all still
in beta) "may" resolve the activesync syncing locally issue….
here’s hoping

UKLUG
is rapidly approaching.  With the summer coming up (apparently – although
the hailstones here don’t seem to indicate it in any meteorological sense)
time will simply fly before it is October, and you are in Edinburgh, attending
a fantastic FREE event, and wishing you could of presented.

Well, here is the announcement.  The
track managers are selecting the sessions over the next week.  So
IF YOU WANT TO PRESENT at the event, go to UKLUG,
register and submit your session on the shiny new xPages website.  Gab
Davis and I are taking care of infrastructure session selection, so keep
them interesting and appealing.   Carte blanch abstracts like "I
can present anything you want" will not work… pick a topic and submit
an abstract… we would love to have you there.  Don’t forget if you
are looking to get onto the speaking track at events like Lotusphere, presenting
at a user group event goes a long way in proving that you can publicly
speak and transfer knowledge.

As an experiment, I have enabled a side
block with my public Google
latitude information.  To
do this, you have to make your google latitude information publicly available,
and Im sure that raises the obvious concerns.  I don’t mind people
knowing where I am, but have restricted my public information to city level
only.  Feel free to add me on latitude as a friend to try it out.
 

Update:  Image is not too
clear – "Note:  The Blackberry Administration Service requires
Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 6.0 or greater with Javascript turned
on"

Taking a small moment from my "too
busy to sleep let alone blog" exile to congratulate GSX
for their new hire of Eileen Fitzgerald
as their Vice
President for Customer Delivery and Product Management.
 Over the many years and projects, including ILUG and speaking at
Lotusphere, I have always gained a strong respect for Eileen’s exceptional
skills and integrity.  I’m sure the many geeks that know her for speaking
and working in our area will wish her very well in the future.  Antoine
from GSX
has made a great hire, and Eileen is now working with what I have found
to be an excellent company.