Very good release so far. I have not seen any crashes and only a few minor error messages.

The Google offline calendars is working fine and syncing to my Blackberry. The APPTUNID field which can be used to filter them out programmatically at they contain the string ICALENDAR.

Traveler for the iPhone is working fine. Very easy to configure. I just need to work out how to switch iPhones to use a private APN and still have full Internet access.

One small issue is the Administration client stealing focus when switching between the Designer client and the Administration client. A workaround for this seems to be if you minimise the Admin client before switching to the Designer. This may be my machine as I have not seen this issue reported anywhere else.

Another problem is the setup program is not quick. It probably takes similar times to the previous client installs but on an older machine this does take some time. Fine if you are upgrading a low number of clients but resource intensive if you are upgrading thousands. I am looking at 3rd party tools to help automate this process.

RIM have released version 5 of the Blackberry Messenger software. This application allows Blackberry devices to Instant Message each other directly without bothering with PIN messages. Below is a list of improvements over the 4.x app.

• Avatars for yourself and your contacts
• Backup of settings to Blackberry servers (remote) or using the Blackberry Desktop Manager (local)
• Improved UI to improve the applications looks
• Setting subjects for conversations
• Barcodes – generate one for your device and scan others barcode to add them
• Displaying time zone information
• Displaying What I am listening to
• Displaying Status updates

Apart from those differences it seems to work pretty much the same as the previous version. This is a useful free app, if you know anyone with a Blackberry, it is definitely worth downloading from the Blackberry App World.

Now, hopefully RIM produce similar improvements, for the Browser and other core apps, in version 5 of the Blackberry OS.

It was another great UK Lotus User Group in Edinburgh. Very well organised, by some great volunteers, and excellent value as it was free to attend.

Highlights included Bob and Ron’s opening keynote, Mary Beth’s session, Rob Novac’s free whisky session, Warren and Gabriella’s stand-in Traveler session, manic Speed Sponsoring, the free beer and Scottish ‘dancing’ in the evening. It was a shame that so many interesting sessions run concurrently making it impossible to attend them all.

I thought that Mary Beth Raven’s Collaboration Strategy session was my favourite. It was interesting to see that Lotus are trying to improve the integration between the Notes client and other products - Connections/Sametime/Quickr. Almost none of those present were using Connections and I am sure it would improve it’s sales if it provided an entry version, bundled with Notes, as it does with Quickr and Sametime. The offline inclusion of Google calendar's looked very cool as Google Sync causes real problems when used with my Blackberry. Her upside-down text on slides, crashing Notes client, and stories/news that we are not allowed to blog about were all very amusing to the packed session.

It was nice to hear about the news that the Designer client was free to all. I still think that the Notes client should be free for non-commercial use and the whole product range free for Educational use.

I am looking forward to downloading the gold version of 8.5.1 when it becomes available, on the IBM Passport site, on Monday 12th October. It is unclear what time it will be available but hopefully we will not have to wait for US time.

Thanks to Warren and all the other great volunteers, speakers and sponsors.

While Traveler now supports a large range of mobile OS’s (Windows Mobile, Symbian S60, Iphone), and is not needed for Blackberry’s, it is missing support for the increasingly popular Google Android.

I do not know how difficult it would be for Lotus to write a Traveler App for this OS (would the API’s support it?) but it does restrict Lotus Notes users options, for buying a mobile phone, which is never a good thing.   more »