Good Tips & Advice from the Sys Admin Newsletter February 2007 - LotusUserGroup.org

From the SYS ADMIN TIPS NEWSLETTER PRESENTED BY LOTUSUSERGROUP.ORG...

Podcast about the problems with DST:
http://www.idonotes.com/IdoNotes/IdoNotes.nsf/dx/02122007124126PMCMIPTG.htm
(I need to listen to this one yet...) While I don't expect to have to directly handle any issues from it, I'll need to be informed as to how other's are dealing with it.

Past Articles here.

CANDID TALK ABOUT LOTUS CONNECTIONS

As IBM has been running this software internally for some time, IBM
has brought all the hype about Web 2.0 capabilities and the future of
combining enterprise employee information, together in this new
software release. Lotus Connections, according to marketing
statements, is social software that creates a dynamic network of
employees, partners and customers to help execute decisions quicker.
Not to be confused with Lotus Quickr, of course.

Here is what I take away from my podcast with Alan Lepofsky while at
Lotusphere 2007
() and all the information I have read. The idea is not
revolutionary for the consumer market space, but hard to implement for
the enterprise space. Forgetting hardware or installation needs, read
as I type about the implementation and acceptance of each of the
areas.

Profiles: A keen area where people can actually enter information, not
only professionally, but personally. It becomes an online living
resume of sorts, allowing people to reach the right person that has
skills in certain areas. While some of this can be drawn from HR
systems, most of the information will be missing or in paper form,
like certifications. It will be up to the individual, unmonitored, to
enter information about themselves into the profiles. Getting the
people to fill it out correctly will be the effort. While people
spill life stories onto MySpace and other personal networking sites,
work smarts seem to fall under Knowledge Capital.

Communities: Now this caught my eye. Bringing together people based
on area of interest from within the enterprise. Interaction is based
on email, Sametime, Dogears and even Activities. This is the move
that companies have been trying to make for years with such things as
Portal and discussion databases. Implement awareness with Activities
and the social bookmarking (that I talk about in a moment) and you
have an amazing opportunity. Having said some glowing comment, I
found only one negative at this point. I know people are overwhelmed
with information at this time and are over subscribed with RSS feeds
and websites to visit. The tendency here is to join every community
that you have interest in. Information overload in the extreme.

Blogs: There is not much here to say. Blogs are everywhere and it
pushed those that don't blog yet to start. I think that getting good
information and a schedule for posting is just as important as saying
you have a blog. A good side is that this can be an internal only
blog that is not publicly visible, a huge selling point for
executives.

Dogear: Ever wanted others to see your links and have to mail them?
This lets you start sharing important links with others that can then
learn from the items you read. Dogears are folded into Communities to
have sharing based strictly on a defined topic. This also allows you
to share only what you think others will wish to see and not every
bookmark you may have. I would like to see this as a Google Marker
type popup for ease of entering.

Activities: A dashboard to track a project or task that needs to be
completed. Wrapped inside are chats, emails, webpage links and loose
documents. Templates can be made for specific types of activity
areas. I haven't played with this as much as I would like so I am
hesitant to make any overall comments. Outside of the tests I did, it
shows great promise for collaboration.

So, there is the small overview. Look for expanded coverage of my
thoughts in my blog at http://www.IdoNotes.com.


VIRTUAL USER GROUP MEETING PRESENTATION AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD

If you missed our Virtual User Group Meeting on January 10th, don't
fret. You can still download Rob Wunderlich's presentation on
mobilizing your Notes. The download is free for members

Here's the outline of the presentation. You can download it here.


Introduction
* Demo: Get your Notes mail to your handheld
* How do you enable the mobile workforce?
Mail / calendar / contacts
Browser access from mobile devices for key applications, not
as easy as it sounds
Syncing 'custom' applications
* The Market
* Demos
* Keeping the CIO happy
* Rolling out the project
* How do you 'future-proof' your organization's mobile initiatives
* Where to go from here
* Resources for you check out
* LUG moderated topic forum

Domino Interface: Launching a Window from a View

Here's a link to an interesting technique on avoiding too many tabs in the Notes Client. A very good description on how to implement it..,great post Richard!!

Domino Interface: Launching a Window from a View

LotusUserGroup.org -- User Group Forum

From the LotusUserGroup.org site a very good article regarding sites for reference to UI: LotusUserGroup.org -- User Group Forum.

Here it site descriptions:

If you are interested in the subject of user interface design and usability, there are many great resources available to you. I´ve created a list of some of my favorites below. One of the great things about UI design is that it is really technology agnostic. The same rules apply (mostly) whether you are building a Notes application, a VB app, a website with Ruby on Rails, etc. Of course, these ideas and techniques can often be modified or enhanced for a particular platform, which is why I started writing about this subject on my blog, Interface | Matters (http://interfacematters.com).

Remember that interface design is as much art as it is science. In my opinion, there are really no hard and fast rules...you just have to use what is right for the particular job at hand. As Steve Krug says, this is all really just "advanced common sense"! With that in mind, here we go...in no particular order of importance:

Websites

useit.com - Jakob Nielsen´s website (http://www.useit.com): Love him or hate him, Jakob Nielsen is one of the leading UI guys...really considered the grandfather of "discount usability engineering". His website has a lot of great information for free, but full-blown technical reports from his company will cost you. And yes, his site is pretty ugly, but he says it´s on purpose! happy

OK/Cancel (http://www.ok-cancel.com/): A more humorous and sometimes tongue-in-cheek look into usability design can be found on OK/Cancel. This site is a collaboration between Kevin Cheng and Tom Chi. They often use a comic strip to get their ideas across and write some interesting (although often opinionated) pieces on usability, user interfaces and the computer industry.

Advanced Common Sense (http://www.sensible.com/): The website for usability consultant Steve Krug (author of "Don´t Make Me Think"): Although there is not a lot of original new content on his site, it serves as a good supplement to his book. You can also find links to interviews Steve has done and updates on what he is currently working on, workshop information, etc.

Usability Professional´s Association (http://www.upassoc.org/): From their website: "The Usability Professionals’ Association supports usability specialists, people from all aspects of human-centered design, and the broad family of disciplines that create the user experience in promoting the design and development of usable products." Here you will find resources such as articles, case studies, guidelines and methods and all kind of goodies related to usability.

Bad Designs (http://www.baddesigns.com/): A website with examples of many designs of everyday things that have poor usability. Sometimes it is just as important to learn what NOT to do as it is to learn what to do. happy

Interface Hall of Shame (http://homepage.mac.com/bradster/iarchitect/shame.htm): Another collection of poor UI design in action. Lots of great examples to learn from.

and finally, how could I leave out

Lotus Notes Sucks (http://lotusnotessucks.4t.com/index.html): While I certainly don´t agree with the title and although much of this site refers to old versions of Notes, there is still material of value here. Much of it comes from the user not understanding how to use Notes, but that´s exactly one of the problems isn´t it? Some of the content here may give you ideas on how to improve your application interfaces to work around some of Notes´ shortcomings.

Interface Matters

One of the great Developer sessions at Lotusphere this year was

BP101 Designing the User Experience: Why your Interface Matters

Presented by Chris Blatnick & Nathan Freeman. Rather than try to explain their expert work, go check out their blogs at: Chris's InterfaceMatters Site and Nathans Notes911 Site.

They also had a very excellent podcast with Bruce and Julian over at the Taking Notes Podcast (Episode 49).

(Haven't listened to the one's at LotusUserGroup.org ... more on that later.