Ingensys

Lotus Symphony is Released

IBM Lotus is playing a new tune . . . . Lotus Symphony Release 1 is available today and is FREE.

Lotus Symphony

Those of us that have been around long enough will remember the Symphony product name being used many moons ago when Lotus 1-2-3 was king of the spreadsheets and Lotus Notes was making a splash.

The new product is based on Openoffice, and is also available within the Lotus Notes 8 standard client as the Personal Productivity tools. Lotus Symphony is the stand alone version of the tools without Notes. The product is however, powered by the Eclipse Framework and runs as a plug-in sharing the new interface of Notes 8, being based on Eclipse we should see the product on Windows, Mac and Linux.

If you do go and download this, be prepared to only get a Windows version. Due to a pre-requisite of OS X Leopard for the Eclipse stuff to work on the Mac properly, there is a delay in the Mac version . . . . but it is coming, really, honestly :-)

Now this is product demand

I saw this and it made me laugh. Here in the UK we love to queue or stand in line, I dont know why we do it but its inbuilt we just do!

So, see this . . . a line starting outside the Apple Store in New York, rumour has it for the 3g iphone (not even announced) - but also according to people on the scene, some people didnt know why they were standing in line! Now that is the sign of a sexy brand and public demand for product.

Apple

3g iPhone fever

I am primarily based in the UK, but also a frequent visitor to the United States. As you will see from previous posts, I am a huge lover of Apple technology, and I watch and read with great excitement currently every day about the 'iPhone 2'.

It seems with the price reduction to move iphone stock - which worked!, supplies running out, new global provider contracts being quietly announced and of course a year on from the original iphone then iphone 2 seems to be soon amongst us.

So what will this new must have object of Appleness desire have?

Well, it seems a given that the new iPhone will have 3g support, certainly here in the UK, the O2 network although having EDGE technology, it only has this in limited places, probably just enough to get the iPhone deal and also help Blackberry sales too.

We are fortunate here though to have free access to 'The Cloud' with O2 iphone contracts - who provide public wifi hotspots, which works really well with the iPhone - where you can find them.

This combination in my experience compared to the availability of EDGE in the US on AT&T does not give a consistent end user experience with decent speed comms as the iphone does even today in the US.

If Apple wants to compete with Blackberry (as the Microsoft Exchange push email feature previewed for firmware 2.0 suggests) then 3g has to be added - why? Well look at the current situation. My iphone gets my mail every 30 mins, however whilst doing that on normal GSM, voice calls cant get through as the data stream is using the comms channel - not exactly an acceptable situation for corporate users.

So 3g comms and hopefully some new battery technology to support this seems on the list. Given 3g built into the new iphone, its not that much of a stretch to see a new second front facing camera on the device to support 3g video calling and perhaps even iChat support with video- which could potentially be a cool USP for the new iphone.

New screenshots from the lastest firmware 2.0 builds also indicate GPS support for maps and photo geotagging- so is this an onboard GPS - would make sense and also put a tick in the comparison box to Blackberry.

In the sneak preview keynote we saw the Microsoft Activesync push email, contacts and calendar sync over the air - so again, the question is battery life?

Also if I can do an over the air sync of contacts, I presume I can connect with cable and sync with Address Book on the mac too - will it support contact photos, which appear on the iphone?

Or even better no cable but a wireless sync with .mac as well as Exchange which can then sync calendar and contacts down to the mac with the .mac sync support.

And of course cut and paste and search - the two glaringly obvious omissions from the current iPhone, and if its to compete in business users pockets with Blackberry then has to be added.

Finally, as for the mock up pictures of the glossy black iphone 2 - does that really make sense? All Apple pro products are aluminium, the iMac is now aluminium, the new mac books are rumored to be ... aluminium, the current iphone is aluminium - so the new iphone 2 is going to be 'glossy black' - oh please.

These are all of course fairly common sense, much rumored features, but as we all know . . . . 'there's just one more thing' - what will that be?

Apple

Very Cool Application

In my work and also my personal life, I use a mac and many different applications, our company likes to think about IT differently (guess who came up with that tagline!). We are always looking for new pertinent solutions which are truly cross platform.

As many people who know me will tell you, I love all things Apple, I just cant help it. The attention to design, the technology, the 'sexy' factor is so carefully woven into everything the company does, even down to the packaging! Now before I go any further at this point, one thing I want to say, I am not one of these 'new' Apple fan boys, I have been actively using a Mac for work since 2000 - and yes it was possible to live in a Windows world with a Mac even with a PowerPC processor Mac.

Its not often, that I come across something that's truly different in the software world - the first time I did it was many years ago with Lotus Notes, which ran across multiple platforms and indeed still does today. Notes was something completely different that still ticks so many boxes relevant today . . . .

However, I am getting off the point for this post - I have been playing around with a new product called Evernote, its VERY cool, it runs on anything and best of all its FREE.

Essentially, this software allows you to capture snippets of information, text, web page, sound, video, pictures and then store these random pieces of information in a web service in the sky which is accessible through a fat client on Windows or Mac, a browser, or even a mobile device like a phone - it looks cool on the iPhone! Check out the demo introduction video and see some of the stuff it can do. I have been totally impressed with it.

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