tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69663882008-08-27T12:04:25.078-07:00Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comBlogger104125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-85151105842801822302008-08-27T09:28:00.000-07:002008-08-27T12:04:25.091-07:00

In my last post I talked a bit about how it's our fault as programmers if users are confused by the user interface metaphors we use. We do use a lot of metaphors in programming, and mangle and mix most of them. Last post it was using "print screen" as a metaphor for copying the screen rather than as a literal command to print the screen. Users are understandably dumbfounded by the nonsensical

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-29370676107146894852008-08-27T01:50:00.000-07:002008-08-27T10:54:05.084-07:00

In the "Shark Bait" forum of ComputerWorld I found this interesting item: Topic(s): Floundering Users Submitted by: jeitzen – Mon, 08/25/2008 – 08:45 Got in this morning and found a message waiting for me in the support inbox. When I push the print screen button on my keyboard to get a screen print to attach to a document, the print screen never prints. Please advise Thank you Like I

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-7180723762949755142008-08-15T17:11:00.000-07:002008-08-15T17:55:14.640-07:00

I've been EXTREMELY busy. Unfortunately, I haven't been busy with VIC CRM... I've had some bills to pay. As for details, you're not getting any. But I expect to be able to have a nice update for VIC CRM by Halloween. For now, I've done a bit of a bug fix for some annoying errors with VIC's email. WARNING: This is for Lotus geeks. For everyone else, I'm putting together some new templates.

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-84165077989838656192008-07-10T08:42:00.000-07:002008-07-10T12:44:22.990-07:00

To my post, How to Configure Lotus Notes for GMail, I received the following comment from "Stephanie". The answer is a little long for a comment, so I'm posting it here. Who knew you'd still have comments about a 2 year old posting :) My team is testing the Google Apps, gmail service. So, essentially, I can send e-mails through the web-based gmail client from my work domain name. Google Apps

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-80619510459039211482008-07-01T14:40:00.000-07:002008-07-01T15:05:04.375-07:00

On the last day of June Microsoft quietly announced that they would be releasing the technical specifications of the binary formats for Microsoft Office. This includes Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and the Drawing specifications for Office 97-2007. It is licensed under the "Microsoft Open Specification Promise" (OSP) which may (or may not) be compatible with software licensed under the GPL. Opinions

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-27247919807542503942008-05-24T07:51:00.001-07:002008-05-24T09:34:57.785-07:00

As reported by David Worthington in the SDTimes, Office 2007 won't support ISO's OOXML. That's the XML format that Microsoft spent so much time and lobbying effort to "fasttrack" through the standards process, and which is based upon the XML formats of Microsoft Office (MS Office's XML formats are similar to, but not compliant with, OOXML). Citing lack of demand, Microsoft will forego support

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-66662894952929247512008-05-17T13:15:00.000-07:002008-05-17T13:31:51.754-07:00

I participate quite a bit on ZDNet (time permitting, and assuming the current crop of bloggers there have anything worth commenting on). However, posting on the Talkback forums stinks, mainly because of the lack of a Preview option. Firefox and Greasemonkey to the rescue! Download and install them from the two links if you don't already have them. Then, if you have Greasemonkey installed,

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-75908945097671276362008-04-23T21:20:00.000-07:002008-04-24T06:38:21.908-07:00

On his blog, Michael Robertson reports, "A New York Judge has denied a request by EMI to force MP3tunes to turn over all music files for its 125,000 users. For now, this means the contents of personal music Lockers will remain private. " This is is great news. MP3tunes rightly argues that the contents of the online Lockers are private, much like a safety deposit box at the bank. They also cite

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-25360358076173732732008-04-08T17:32:00.000-07:002008-04-08T18:04:15.239-07:00

As reported by Mary Jo Foley today, Microsoft is adding the "Genuine Advantage" nags to Microsoft Office. In case you've been living under a rock, "Genuine Advantage" is the anti-piracy measure that debuted in Windows XP. The one that mistakenly tagged large numbers of users as pirates and cut off access to their machines. Now it's a kinder and gentler "Advantage" that just sits there and nags

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-56012634967590747562008-03-29T10:38:00.001-07:002008-03-31T05:19:41.236-07:00

As reported on SlashDot and elsewhere, Creative Labs has issued a C&D (cease and desist) order against a user, "Daniel_K", who modified the Creative drivers to work under Vista. (I kind of like Reddit's take on it: "Creative launches "Don't Buy Our Sound Cards" campaign; puts legal screws to 3rd party Vista driver modder") Just so you get it in context, here is the post on Creative's website.

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-79548874891235106292008-02-11T15:53:00.001-08:002008-02-11T16:49:39.636-08:00

I've been up to my eyeballs in work, but I wanted to take a few minutes off to mention this before the news was completely stale. Too late. I'm going to comment anyway. As of about five hours ago, the Associated Press (AP) is reporting that repairs are complete on the two undersea Internet cables that were cut last week. Earlier they reported that the cause was an abandoned anchor. They

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-35190074115311426052008-02-04T08:53:00.000-08:002008-02-04T09:20:28.088-08:00

Running through my SpamTrap, I noticed a couple of messages from the "Internal Revenue Service". It seems they owe me money and want me to update my information. Here's the text of the shorter of the two: After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $188.40. Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-81561807729273581202008-02-01T20:35:00.000-08:002008-02-01T20:37:41.620-08:00

It's all over the news. Microsoft is offering over 44 Billion USD for Yahoo! ...and I couldn't care less.

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-28899936996311974932008-01-11T05:05:00.000-08:002008-01-11T19:33:31.346-08:00

Last night my kids wound up getting me involved in a "last minute" assignment... a historical report about the Romans and the Greeks. Rather than do this as a traditional report, they decided to produce a video using a technique called "machinima" (using video game characters as their actors). The game they chose was Runescape, and they used CamStudio (open source) to capture bits of the game. (

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-80151246391065738352008-01-03T09:37:00.000-08:002008-01-03T09:51:42.777-08:00

I've recently moved my Wiki to a new server, so the links that were previously broken on my navigator pane should now be working. I'm in desperate need of some assistance in putting together documentation for VIC CRM, and the Wiki si the best way to share this work. So please, if you're using VIC and you've got a moment, give this a go. Also, I'd like to take a moment to send a heartfelt thanks

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-41690906345332041562007-12-27T13:09:00.000-08:002007-12-27T13:28:06.328-08:00

I don't make a whole lot of predictions. It's always tough to go on the record with a hard prediction. Some of those that I have made in the past are: I totally missed the boat on paperless medical software... actually it was more like the boat wasn't built yet. I designed and pushed a paperless medical office a full fifteen years before the market was ready for it. I couldn't give the stuff away

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-88142050277149130522007-12-21T13:34:00.000-08:002007-12-21T13:56:39.740-08:00

I've been working on a "stealth" project for a while now. While TicketDemon is a GPL project, I have pretty much developed it behind closed doors up to now. TicketDemon is simple management software for the trucking industry, particularly in the delivery of bulk materials by weight. This would be the bulk hauling of earth, ash, bricks, concrete, scrap, feed... anything that's weighed. It gathers

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-65055376315860733682007-12-21T08:59:00.001-08:002007-12-21T09:10:36.106-08:00

By way of SearchDomino.com here's a great tip for globally adjusting your font sizes in Lotus Notes. As it turns out, Notes can do that, and has been able to for a long while... I tried it in R6.5 and it works great. As screen resolutions get huge it's nice to know that we can adjust accordingly to keep things readable without having to re-design every design element in a database. I like the

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-35537450807363516642007-12-14T17:48:00.000-08:002007-12-15T08:35:46.639-08:00

By way of Ed Brill's blog, I stumbled upon this from David Gurteen, entitled "Don't let the IT Departments stifle Social Computing as they did Lotus Notes!"Gurteen's premise is that "it was the IT dempartments that effectively stifled Lotus Notes," and warns of the same fate overtaking social networking (wikis and blogs). Just click through and read it... otherwise the following commentary won't

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-18035818876670275202007-12-13T09:32:00.000-08:002007-12-13T10:31:46.596-08:00

I was offered the most interesting whitepaper today. Entitled, "Efficiently Migrating Lotus Notes Applications to Modern Platforms " and sponsored by the Unify Corporation. The blurb goes like this: "As businesses move into the era of highly scalable architectures, SOA, rich customer-facing applications, and mobile workforces, they are discovering that previously satisfactory workgroup and

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-43118292497568592992007-12-09T20:21:00.000-08:002007-12-09T20:34:16.591-08:00

Marc Orchant died today. You may not have known him, but I did, after a fashion. As is often the case in this age, we've never so much as talked in person, but have conversed in blogs, forums, and email. Marc was only 50. His passing reminds me how tenuous our hold on life is. Please make every day of yours count.

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-83765690180719226992007-12-06T16:51:00.000-08:002007-12-06T16:59:01.619-08:00

There's a new VIC CRM release on OpenNTF.org. It's short of a couple of features I was hoping for for this release (I'm behind in other work), but I wanted to get something out before Christmas. There will be more posts on this soon.

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-17846046937266352892007-11-11T13:34:00.001-08:002007-11-11T14:25:16.815-08:00

I haven't forgotten about this. I've just been swamped with paying projects. Nevertheless, I've gotten to many of the new features I wanted to include for the next release, and have only a few more to go, mostly in Projects, and in making things a bit better for users operating directly off the server rather than a local replica. (VIC has been geared toward replicas since... well, forever, but

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-61003548901769585052007-10-16T12:18:00.000-07:002007-10-16T12:33:37.509-07:00

Before I turn back to the ethics discussion, this bit of breaking news: As reported at ConsortiumInfo.org, ALL document standards work at ISO has ground to a halt. Why do you think that is? Because the Microsofties are blocking the work? No, not exactly. You see, leading up to the failed OOXML vote, Microsoft cronies flooded the technical committee dealing with document standards with a

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6966388.post-77315658573052052722007-10-09T21:48:00.000-07:002007-10-09T21:57:18.698-07:00

Over at ZDNet, Ed Bott's got a rather interesting discussion going on about Digital Media Ethics. He's asking some thought-provoking questions, and I invite you to go check it out. What intrigued me more than the article, though, was some of the comments in the TalkBack forum. There were the usual opinions, most of which boil down to, “I want to pay for the [song | video] once and do what I want

Dave Leighhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08617556290378317379noreply@blogger.com