{ Follow-up } Lotus Notes
OK - the email has started after my small blog on the future of Notes. And the first two emails came from two opposite extremes - one asking why even discuss Notes, "didn't it die three years ago?" And one (from a Notes developer and reseller), saying that not one of his existing Notes customers has plans to dump the product. But hey, wasn't that my point. Folks using Notes are not bailing in large numbers, but I think there are very few new, large installations.

{ Off Topic }   Baseball - Do some players actually have class?
Well, I had about given up on ever having a pro Baseball player as a role model. But today I read about a local minor league team here on the New Jersey shore - at their last home game for the season, the players came out 3 hours before the start, jumped into the stands (really!) and signed autographs and hung-out with the fans until the game started. Sure, these guys dont make $100 million (like the guys going on strike), but they do play baseball as an occupation. And they know why they get to play baseball for a living.. Because they entertain fans. Kudos to our Lakewood Blue Claws!

As an interesting side note, at that same game, the crowd broke the World's Record for the most people dancing the YMCA dance together (I cannot make this up!)

Data Refilling Stations - Fill it up regular, and download a traffic report
coming soon

E-Paper - What do you get when you cross a newspaper and a PDA?
Ever wish the screen on your PalmPilot was the size of a pad of paper? Or wish you could rollup your eBook like a newspaper? Well, your wish is on its way (well, in few years at least).

Actually, there are two companies using very similar technology to produce early versions of such flat-displays today. E-Ink is a spin-off from MIT, and Gyricon is a spin-off from Xerox's PARC research labs. Both companies use a technique by which millions of miniature, colored balls are packaged between two thin layers of plastic. An electronic charge applied to one side or the other of a spot on the e-paper (like a pixel)causes a display of black and white spots to be drawn. (The E-ink process uses positively-charges black balls and negatively charges white balls, and the Gyricon method uses polarized balls painted half-black and half-white (imagine a billiards ball painted half white and half black - shrunk to the size of a grain of sand). Kind of the way an LCD monitor displays either Red, Green or Blue.

But... the new approach requires no continuing power (once the balls rotate, they stay in place until a new charges causes the ball to rotate again). And, the sheets and balls can be much thinner than today's thinnest laptop displays. And, the entire display is malleable - you could theoretically roll the display up or even fold it!

Both companies are today marketing products which at as store sign replacements - near-paper signs which can be changed, like one of those Interstate billboads with rotating panels to show a sequence of two or three ads. But I think as the technology is perfected, the real interesting uses will follow in a few years. A small battery (maybe a re-chargeable like the Palms have), a lightweight processor, some memory and some way of hooking to the Internet, and you can envision a "newspaper" which I hook up to my cable modem for a few moments in the morning, roll-up, thrown in my backpack and then read on the train ride to work. Or how about a small version, which does what an e-book should do today - be robust enough to take the beach and cover in sand, and not require dead-on viewing angle or especially strong light.

A truly flexible, commercial-quality e-paper is at least3 years away, but Philips and E-Ink are preparing to jointly introduce a product based on the E-Ink technology for PDA's sometime in 2003. Rover - fetch my e-paper!

Blogging Services - Will the Portals Come Knocking?
OK, if you are reading this you can probably tell I use Blogger and Blogspot to create and host (respectively) the TechTomorrow blog. There are other similar tools and hosting services (like BigBlogTool) - frankly, Blogger is so easy, functional and stable I have not had much reason to look around.

The tools are nice, but what interests me are the hosting services. These remind me alot of the free email hosting services (like Hotmail) and then the free web site hosting services (like Geocities and HomeSite). And you remember what happended to most of those services? They've been acquired and integrated with the search engines / portal sites (Yahoo, Excite, and Lycos all offer free email and web site hosting). Why not the blog services?

Why shouldn't Yahoo provide a Blog hosting service? Its another on-ramp to the portal. And sites like Blogspot may be just the right size for acquisition - not too large to be insanely expensive, but large enough to have a robust environment and good user base.

Who knows. But I wish I was here a year ago!

Surfing at Starbucks - 'Net access with your latte?

I love the idea of being able to pop-in to my favorite coffee shop, whip open my laptop and do anything I need to do on the 'net (like update this blog), while sipping a Caramel Machiatta. Starbucks and T-Mobile are kicking into high gear deploying T-1 access in a large number of Starbucks shops. (If you are in New York or New Jersey, almost all shops are included. I was surprised to see a couple local Starbucks in the NJ suburbs, which I frequent, already have the access up and running). Look here to see if your favorite Starbucks is wired.


My first reaction when I heard about these plans (over a year ago) was great - a win-win. I get to surf as needed in a comfortable place, and Starbucks pulls caffeine-deprived surfers into its storefronts. I get my latte - Starbucks gets my money. Everyone is happy.But...


Not so fast. My assumption was the access would be free - after all, like the comfortbale couches and New York Times, net access would make me hang out a little longer, have a second cup o' joe, maybe buy one of those nice, oversized muffins. But, want to guess the cost of surfing at S-bux? (Hold on to your WiFi card!) $12 per hour! (OK, you can prepay and get it down to $10 per hour - or buy an all-you-can-eat plan for $50 per month. More plan details are on the T-Mobile web site.). Ouch!


The good news - at least, from my perspective, is that this will not last. Who is going to pay more for net access at Starbucks (and a few other locations, like airport lounges) then you pay for broadband at home? And it seems the fees do not factor in any benefit to the store, in terms of increased traffic and the potential use of the unused bandwidth by the stores themselves (look at what Walmart does with constant communication between local stores and HQ to update inventories, etc). My suggestions (as if you care):

• Make one hour of net surfing cheaper than one Grande Cappucino - at that price point, it feels like I treated a friend to a cup of coffee. Not a big deal. At $12/hour, it feels more like buying a round at a pub.


• Tie in coffee sales and net access - today, purchasing net access is done from your laptop after you boot, or ahead of time over the net. Let me walk up and say "gimme a double-latte and half-an-hour on the net". And create some price bundles so I think I am saving money.

Business 2.0 has a brief story on how the Starbucks rollout may impact smaller "WiFi" infrastructure players. Maybe the competition will force realistic pricing?

Great Collection of Tech Resources

If you have lots of time, my friends at Asia / Pacific Computer Services have put together an incredible listing of Resources for IT Professional. The page links out to great content sites, particularly useful for technology managers and those who just like to keep an ear to new technology industry developments. If you are a Management Consultant / IT Consultant, they have linked to a large number of industry news and commentary sites. Though based in Sydney, their resource list seems to be very global. Nice job, Tony!

Lotus Notes - Where, o where, are you heading?

Well, as someone who has spent time as a Notes / Domino developer, the question of where Notes will be in a few years is one that hits home. Notes is not dead - its just not going anywhere. R6 (the Notes release due out in Fall of 2002) may very well be the final "independent" release of the product. IBM will continue to integrate the product into its Websphere offering, and eventually I can see the Domino engine being a well-integrated Websphere component. Probably good news if you are in a shop on or moving to an IBM / Websphere / AS400. Not as good news for shops (mainly smaller firms) which are all Microsoft, plus Notes. Which, by the way, probably includes 90% of my clients. (E-Pro Magazine had this good summary of the Notes/Domino evolution into Websphere.)

For the past few years, my firm (Easy Access Software) has offered a tool for Notes developers and administrators for automating the validation of database designs. In the past 12 months or so, new client purchases have dropped off dramatically. But, sales into existing customers continues to rise. This seems in line with the understanding that large shops continue to support, and even build upon, their existing Notes investments. But I doubt there are many new converts to the Notes world. If you have not built "groupware" - type applications yet, and are starting now, you are probably looking at more Web-centric platforms. Similar to COBOL in the 80's and 90's, we may not be building new applications in Notes, but we have a heck of a lot to keep running.

Notes is not dead - its COBOL.