As I have been asked a few times, I thought I would publish the feature list.  Obviously this is still beta and open to change blah blah blah

• Symbian^3 support
• Symbian ^3 device encryption enforcement
• Installation improvements for Lotus Notes Traveler client for Android
• Name Lookup enhancements for Android
• Updated Widgets for Android
• Android chair side calendar actions
• Android 3.0.x tablet menus
• Multi-line signature now possible on Android
• Mail routing configuration no longer needed on the Lotus Traveler server
• Meeting notices sent from mobile devices are now sent “from” the mobile device user
• Name Lookup requests are now executed against the user’s mail server directory
• Lotus Traveler data only remote wipe for Apple iOS devices
• New security policy option which requires approval for new devices
• Android Home Page Widgets for mail and calendar
• Android Calendar enhancements
• Android Tap to dial for calendar entries
• Android Mail enhancements
• Android OS 3.0 support
• Select which applications are allowed to sync for Apple devices
• Reply and Forward indicators from Apple devices
• Domino Mail-in Database lookup
• Group name lookup
• Domino encrypted mail support for Android

Depending on the device (*cough* iOS *cough*) and the policy in Lotus Traveler, users can just go hog wild with their synchronisation settings on their device.  They need to see every email they ever received on the device.  They also need quick access to what they were doing on a Wednesday in May, 2002.  This is possible if they change the default settings you forced down in the policy, but it ties up a few things.  First, it will make syncing take a long time, and if the Traveler server is busy (more on that in later posts) it will affect performance by tying up a prime sync, keeping a thread to a target mail server open and more.

With 8.5.2.3 there are three new parameters to assist.  You can set Traveler server-wide settings on maximum sync values.  Just add these to the ntsconfig.xml and restart.

<PROPERTY NAME=”USER_EMAIL_LIMIT” VALUE=”14″/> (Mail Limit)

<PROPERTY NAME=”USER_EVENTS_LIMIT” VALUE=”30″/> (Calendar limit)

<PROPERTY NAME=”USER_NOTES_LIMIT” VALUE=”30″/> (Journal limit)

(Set limit as desired of course).

Technote here.

Over the past two years, I have had a number of long journeys on the bike.  Most riders take comfort in the solace of taking a 2-wheeled journey.  You are uncontactable.  In the moment.  Focussed on the task at hand.  Selfish (it’s my life.. I want to keep it) and in control.  I love it.  But as the trips get longer,  access to good technology becomes more and more important.  I started with Tom Tom for my iPhone, and then spent months looking for a good iPhone Motorbike mount.  Having solved that I was simply using in-ear headphones under my helmet.  Useful, but arkward.

As some of the trips have been work related, pulling in every hour or so to check voicemail and mail was becoming more and more of a nuisance.  So I began to do my homework on an in-helmet bluetooth system.  This week, an Interfone F4 was purchased.  It is a bluetooth in-helmet communications tool.

There are two parts to the helmet construction.  Fitting the earphones and mic snugly in the helmet.  Then fitting a mount piece for the Interfone on the side of the helmet.  This takes some time to do right.  With my Shoei Helmet, it also requires small incisions in the padding to get the cable neatly out of the helmet to the mount.  My brilliant local stockists, Belfast Honda, fitted it for me, free of charge.  After that part is done, the rest is geeky, and quite straightforward.

First charge of the interfone kit is overnight.  After that you get approx 5-7 hours of usage.  Subsequent charges are only three hours.  I paired with my iPhone4 and immediately get call control, voice control, voice answer and volume control through my helmet.  As the iPhone4 supports A2DP by default I also get stereo music and sat nav commands as I go.  To make this work on earlier iPhones, you need to buy the bluetooth adapter.

Not only that, but this device can pair with multiple bluetooth devices concurrently.  It can also do exactly what I needed.  Pair with two phones simultaneously.  My work phone (Blackberry) and my UK work phone/iPod/Sat Nav (iPhone) are both connected.

The sound quality is good on the device, and I can make/take calls up to 60mph (100kph) easily.  After that, helmet noise gets in the way a bit, although I do think my Arai is a tad noisy.  There are some limitations on the dual-device support though.  It seems that when my blackberry gets a call, it takes over the A2DP status from the iPhone, so I lose music and Sat Nav instructions until I disconnect the berry.  I need more time to play to find a workaround and play with all the other functions.  After my next long run, I will give a verdict.

Let me know if you want images of the device fitted.

Steve leaves and things just start falling apart.

After almost four  years, my Wenger laptop backback is starting to show its age.  This bag was a fantastic purchase, and I have zero regrets with it starting to tear and leak a bit.  It has been used almost every day and traveled heavily (on planes, trains, bikes and more).   I am more than happy to purchase another one from their range.  Before I do that does anyone have a suggestion for an alternative?

A new blog

Simply stated, I’m going to build a mobile app for a notes database. I’m going to start with a pretty complex set of databases and bring them to a mobile phone. My goals and materials should be pretty typical for what most people are likely to have lying around – Lotus Notes db that is very old (10+years), very complex (hundres of views, forms and fields), and very large (1 gig+). The goal will be to distill the business functions down to a level that makes sense for a mobile version of that app, yet still provides the user with what they need. I’m also going to try 3 different approaches to the problem and explore the pluses and minuses of each. The first approach will be to work with out of the box stuff – ie XPages.

Interesting.  Go here.

Anyone that operates in this little world should know Teamstudio.  They are an institution in the Lotus world and dare I say a de facto standard in the development world.    Well, one of the faces of that company is Simon Peek.  Been to a conference anywhere in the world?  He has been there on the Teamstudio stand.  Well, Simon moved on from Teamstudio today.  And that is a loss.

Simon is one of the good guys.  Honest (sometimes painfully), sincere, customer focussed and although he always jokes about, he gets the job done.  Every time.  Customers, vendors and partners all feel this way about him.   He (and Teamstudio) epitomises involvement with the customer base.  Fare well Simon.  You will be missed.  I will miss our abusive conversations ;)

Posting this as a 9 year blogger and observer of the yellow bubble.    I don’t like reactionary blog posts either, so please feel free to ignore and skip by.

It seems to me that the most “social” and community orientated people have left IBM/Lotus.

Chris Blatnick, Darren Adams, Tim Clark, Mary Beth Raven, Alan Lepofsky, Kathleen McGivney.  The list goes on.  I am happy for all of them as they have moved on to bigger and better things.   IBM, the list of people that get standing ovations, thanked, recognised publicly and appreciated by the community (that consists of Business Partners and customers) grows thin.

I’m happy for everyone moving on.  I’m sure IBM replace the people with new blood that will continue internal “business as usual”.  My question is, who will replace them in the  public “social” world?

A face is the cheapest form of marketing.

And yes, I most likely will regret posting this later.

A lot of configuration changes are made to Lotus Traveler via the server document (Traveler tab) and lotustraveler.nsf database.  In similar fashion to Domino, the configurations are written to the equivalent of notes.ini, NTSCONFIG.XML.  This file exists in X:\IBM\Lotus\Domino\data\traveler\cfg directory.

<rant>Small rant.  Traveler is one of the few installs I know that creates three directories around a domino server, all called Traveler.  This does not help supporting it </rant>

You can make edits to this file yourself.  Many of these parameters represent server document configurations so do NOT change those ones.  Change them in the server document as the server doc alteration will overwrite your manual edits.  Only change values that are not represented in the server doc .    Be careful what you change as it can impact (read: completely F&^k up) Traveler.   If you have ignored the previous statement and consequently impacted (read: completely F*&ked up) Traveler, just shut down Traveler, then delete the file.  It will recreate from the NTSCONFIG template file using the defaults.

First simple adjustment.  You may want to alter how many addresses are returned in a directory lookup.  Depending on the version of Traveler, the default is 25 or 50 (8.5.2.2 and later).  That is completed with this line

<PROPERTY NAME=”NAME_LOOKUP_MAX_RECORDS” VALUE=”50″/>

Alternatively, you may want to change how many characters you enter before Traveler starts completing name lookups.  This applies to iOS only.

<PROPERTY NAME=”NAME_LOOKUP_MIN_LENGTH” VALUE=”3″/>

Restart Traveler and off you go.

Just select Weather on the top right