I find my iPad makes me read a lot more.  Many people prefer books over e-readers.  However, I for some reason am the opposite.    In fact, my iPad makes my iPhone, more often then not, just a phone.

Flipboard is a 2.0 startup that went into beta last week.  Response was so huge, their servers bombed almost instantly and they went offline to sort things out.  Now it’s back out.

Flipboard is an iPad reader app, that hooks into your social networking products and displays links, tweets, status, photos in a magazine format that you just flick though.  I can see this becoming the “must have” iPad application.

Download it here

From my mailbox

Thank you again, and please say a prayer for me (struggling with ST8.5… after one year passed
laughing at OCS for its cumbersome architecture it is sad to be hit by Nemesis…)

Any bloody chance on a “do not ask me again” check box on this? (he says after having to see it a lot of times tonight)

With the impending release of 8.5.2, I was going to create a new page to list all products that support 8.5.2 like I did with the 8.5.1 supported page.  If you have a product that will be supporting 8.5.2 from the start, drop me a line and I will start putting together the page.

This is more of a thinking-out-loud post so feel free to move along.  I am asking a question, not posting a solution.

I have a document library.  It’s very old.  In fact I think I built it in 4.0 of Notes and started to chuck in personal stuff and catagorise everything in there (think tagging).  Its been upgraded to the latest design over the years, is encrypted and secure and basically my life is in that little application.  It’s not on a server and not stored in a normal place, and I’m happy with security.

Recently I took a look at Evernote.  A free application with premium features, including offline services on the iPad/iPhone for about $45 per annum.  I like it.  I like how I put stuff in Evernote and it is sync’d with a cloud over an encrypted channel, and then sync’s with my iPad/iPhone on the fly.  The iPad works with offline data too (think replication).  There is an ability to encrypt text so there is added security.  There are mail features and photo features and lots of other cool features I don’t use or need.  I just want tagged information available to me.  I do miss the cleanliness of the Lotus Notes Document Library application and also it’s better attachment management.

Snapps created the Quickr tool for iPad/iPhone.  I really like it.  Today I got thinking how hard would it be to do a document library application with sync capacity on a secure domino server, available on the internet.  No customisation of design allowed, just the one design and requiring internet name/password locally.  No overly complex requirements.  Just something simple.  Then add in the “replication” feature so you have local access on your device.

All of this is available already with the browser on the devices and a http enabled domino server.  But that doesn’t have replication or take advantage of the UI.

Snapps went a long way towards this already.  I may discuss with developers in Bluewave but thought I would ask if

1 – Would there be any interest in using it in the business.

2 – How difficult would it be?

There has been a *lot* of doom and gloom on PL recently. A lot of it due to the general economy, some of it about the Lotus space, most of it well deserved.

Over the past week, three unexpected, new services projects from new customers have come our way. All look quite realistic, and all are in the Domino services area (Domino is not all we do). Talking to people about business life in general and comments about “the phone is ringing again” come up. Of course not matching the heydays of 3 years ago, or even the nutjob heydays of 1999. But there is momentum at this stage. And it is nice to see.

Being a hardened admin, I am a cynic by nature, and that is a trait I am desperately trying to shed. It is good to see new business. Even if other companies or competitors are getting new business, it is great to see people do well.   Nobody wants to see people out of work.

How is the market for you?

On a side note, smarter people then I have suggested I simply ignore the content devoid, attention seeking posts that seem to plague the wonderful PL resource.  I am trying, but it’s tough.

Yes I bought one.

No I can’t afford it right now.

Yes I was more taken by the iPad then bothering with a new iPhone

No I couldn’t resist it

Yes I am left handed

No I haven’t noticed anything yet

Yes please leave a message if I’m wrong on that

Trying to line up suppliers when you are moving house is akin to herding cats or trying to get Lotus Geeks to decide where to go when in Vegas (yes, it’s an “in” joke).

Although the Sky TV move happened on schedule, Virgin Media wont install my broadband for another week. In fairness, this is not a delay, it’s just their next available slot. Another wincing point is that I am being moved from cable broadband to good ‘oul adsl (telephone line based) broadband. God help me.

So between now and then, all the kit in my house will connect to the intertubes using my MiFi. So far, this device has never failed to impress and has saved me a fortune.  This little device gives me decent connectivity on the Three network (although it is unlocked). A few short years ago, this would of been considered smokin broadband!

My lack of travel for the first half of this year is now leading to a fairly unforgiving few months ahead.  Trips to France, Austria, Germany, Holland all are now in the near future.  Having a PAYG data sim in each of these countries (when you land – buy one if you have a MiFi) saves a lot of money.  Strongly recommended.

With all the devices available to people these days, it is very difficult to know which is best. Over beers and discussions about these devices, the criteria you use to choose them is totally subjective on the user’s habits. A quick count of old and new devices I have available (not including computers) and I have about 16 to hand. Some of which are totally ancient, others include flavours of blackberries, iPhones, iPods, iPads, Nokias, Erricsons, Motorollas, HTC’s, Palm etc etc (I *really* could go on).

My favorite argument on choosing the device I would depend on most is “if you had to pick one to use solely, what would it be?”.

For me, Blackberry Bold. No doubt. It is a hammer to hit a nail, great phone, great collaboration tool, great battery life, dependable, strong, good maps tool (ask me about being lost in the centre of Barbados… blackberry maps to the rescue). For web browsing it is “ok” and it works as a media player if you need it to. The proof is in the fact it is the primary device I use every day, even with all other devices available. I never check to see if I packed my blackberry, as it is in my pocket before I go anywhere. Customer sites I know that have had senior staff ditch their blackberry for an iPhone note that many revert to the blackberry (or worse, use both) after a few months.

But, as we say, everyone is different. Which device would you choose if you had to?