Found this inspiring.  Guy owns a custom furniture store and has an interesting sideline.  I found the commentary quite interesting, especially the part about doing what you love to do.

">Check it out.

Limited time offer -- Download the full version of DLI.Inspector for free.

Want to know how many users have updated to Notes 8.5? Need to see what software versions are running within your organization?

DLI.Inspector automates the tracking & reporting of software licenses and assets. Quickly determine the quantity of licenses being used or the version running on a user PC --- all for no charge.

This full license of the DLI.Inspector will not expire. This special offer is open until March 31, 2009.

Download the free license at: http://www.docova.com/www/Docova.nsf/eng/Inspector_Offer

We host our first Docova User Group online on March 10, 2009.

Docova customers are encouraged to attend this interactive event., which will focus maximizing your Docova investment.

Topics include:

- Discuss upcoming design feature enhancements
- Share various customer applications developed in Docova (with code samples)

Register at: http://www.docova.com/www/Docova.nsf/eng/Docova_User_Group

We'll be presenting at two upcoming web events in March:

Lotus Document Manager Migration Options
March 17, 2009
Cost: Free
Details here: http://www.docova.com/www/Docova.nsf/eng/Dom-Doc-Migration-Webinar
Summary:
IBM will discontinue Lotus Document Manager (Dom.doc) in May 2009. Customers are encouraged to migrate to Lotus Quickr with FileNet
-- but is this the best option for you?

By the end, you will have a better understanding of your potential options before embarking on any migration effort.

Topics include:
1. The IBM migration offer
2. Concerns around the offer
3. Lotus Domino-based alternatives


The Evolution of the DLI.Uploader & thingFactory
March 24, 2009
Cost: Free
Details here: http://www.docova.com/www/Docova.nsf/eng/Event_Framework
Summary:
This one hour web event will explore how this integrated platform can reduce application development time by 80% and end user time-to-complete tasks by 90% through integrated workflow, Lotus Notes or Outlook mail integration, and a common UI.

There.  I said it.  Being a typical guy the "L" word is not something I give up easily.

I know she is not perfect.  She is basically flat, and for that all of the other girls make fun of her.  To say her fashion sense is lacking is an understatement.  She has been pretty much wearing the same getup for the last decade.  When the web came along for a time she had nothing to wear at all.  When she finally did get dressed she just did not look right, with twisties and other things that nobody else was wearing.  Finally she has XPages. None of us have the heart to tell her that the others have been wearing something similar for years now.  Although I liked it at first, some days I wonder if blue and yellow go that well together.

It has been almost 15 years ago since I first met her.  She was only 2 at the time, but even then I knew she was different.  She was easy to talk to, was as at home in a group as she was talking one on one, and she could do things faster than the other kids.  She spoke several languages, and what she said was so obvious, it seems odd that some people just did not understand her.  They would talk behind her back, saying she could only do this or that, was not dependable, and could not do any  any kind of heavy lifting.  

She is getting on in years.  She has had some work done on her backend recently.  In some ways it looks better,  but its fatter than it used to be.  Even still she still moves better than most of the others. She puts a web server, application server, security and workflow engine, and a full development environment in one small package, and takes it everywhere.  Some of the girls would need a flatbed truck to do the same thing.  She may be a bit of a cougar, but I still think she is hot. Full of Barcardi and Botox, I still think she is hot!

I thought about leaving her a few times over the years, but I have hung in there.  A lot of her old friends are gone now.  They have moved on to the younger girls, the ones that tell you they give it away for free.  I have talked to them too, but it does not take too long to realize they can only promise what NSF delivered years ago, and if you want anything but the basics, its going to cost some serious cash.  

In some ways I feel sorry for her.  Her parents sold her, and the new ones have treated her badly.  Whenever someone would come calling for NSF they would make sure they introduced them to her step sister first.  Once they even dressed the step sister in NSF's yellow dress, hoping people would not notice the difference.  We all recognized it was not her, but for some reason, maybe because we did not want to piss her parents off, we never said anything. I felt bad about that. Still do.  They recently had another  big birthday party for her, and seem to be giving her a lot more attention, but I wonder if they have some hidden agenda in mind.

Time has really flown by, and I am realizing that we have grown old together.   I guess we will continue to do what we do until one of us is gone for good.

Pardon me. "Yellow" by Coldplay just came on www.last.fm.  I need a moment.  

I got this from Paul Mooney's blog.  Good example of viral marketing.  I am betting Sony paid the Onion guys to do this...or at least gave permission to use their name.   14+ rating...as the language is pretty rough.


Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn't Fucking Work

The DLI Uploader is currently being used by hundreds of companies worldwide, with tens of thousands of users.  We now have a download package for Non-Domino developers available from www.dlitools.com, so they can embed this versatile programmable attachment manager control in their environments.

Imagine being able to log when users edit, view or download a file, to limit the number of files they can upload, or the total file size.  This is a small subset of the almost 200 features available to developers who use the Uploader.

 The package includes several examples to how the Uploader can be used.  We already have several companies that do not run Domino as their web server using it.  Check it out.

Sitting in my office way from home. That is a William's coffee pub. Brilliant marketing. Offer the internet for free and sales people gather, and buy things while they work.  Beside me are two guys, one obviously the sales manager, the other obviously the sales rep, who obviously is not hitting his sales target.  Not a pleasant conversation, and not a lot of love being flowing from either side.

I remember when I decided the oil patch was not where I wanted to be.  It was the middle of a recession, 1984 I think. Not a lot of jobs to be had in the tech sector for a guy that worked on oil rigs.  The only job I could find was sales, and I did not want to be a sales guy.  I associated sales with the guy who followed you around the car lot nattering on and on about the shiny car you happened pause by.

Finally out of desperation I held my nose and took a sales job with Microage Computers.  I thought sales support was a better place to be, maybe I could move to a bigger firm once I got some experience.  It was there that I ran into Ed Belitzki.  Ed was a professional sales guy, and I made a comment about his chosen profession that got his back up. He told me "nothing ever happens till someone sells something.  No training, no support, no shipping...nothing."   It was at this point I started to understand the role sales plays in business.  I made up my mind that if I was going to do this, then I would only sell something that made sense.  I got onto the Computer Aided Design bandwagon, and helped a lot of companies out of the dark ages of drafting and design. It felt good. Notes came along, and it made sense too.

Fast forward many years.  I am not sure if it is the times, greed, or what.  I see time and again sales reps calling customers or reseller and resellers because it is the end of the quarter, and they want you to sell something, the customer to buy something.....anything.  We stopped being a software reseller for that very reason. I could not take the constant pestering to push the sale through, to make the number, regardless of the value to the customer.

Lately I have had some of our own partners tell me that they demonstrated a product, and it lacked in many areas in comparison to ours, but the lead came from ABC and they felt they had to pitch that product to make their numbers and keep people happy so they would feed them more leads.   Man...how can you do that?  How do you face your customer?  How can you stand yourself.  You should be ashamed.   Sales needs to be more than that.  You are lucky Ed is not around.  

Sigh...my rant for today.

Rewind the clock about 4 years.  Youtube was created by some ex Pay Pal folks.  If a picture is worth 1000 words, how much is a video worth. Well, Google figured about 1.6 billion, buying Youtube when it was a little over one year old.  Want to learn how to use a band saw, takeoff in an airplane without starting the engine, play the guitar....it is all a mouse click away.

I have always been a big proponent of multimedia.  I used Macromedia Authorware years ago when I worked for the Microage franchise.  The concept was good, but the labor was much too intensive to make any kind of sense.  At DLI, I grabbed onto Camasia when it was version 1.0, and began using it screen capture and flash rendering to quickly create video overviews to demonstrate our web development tools.   We did the same for Docova, building a library of over 100 clips to show how to use our powerful web development/doc mgt framework.  



I have often wondered why Lotus did not do the same.  Turns out they have, and they unveiled it at Lotusphere 2009.  The Lotus Multimedia training library.

I have seen a trend of late.  Companies that are reporting good earnings turn around and lay off staff claiming the recession is to blame. In some cases, I think they are taking advantage the situation, a chance to improve earnings on the backs of their employees.  

Case in point is IBM.  At Lotusphere we hear once again how the software group has achieved X quarters of solid double digit growth.  Lotusphere numbers are up  (which is sort of weird, cause there were visibly less people than last year) and all the curves are pointing up.  Then you see in the news that they have laid off thousands of people from the software group.  We are not talking clerical here, some of these people are the well paid, and well producing.  Maybe an opportunity to cut costs, drive up the stock price...hmmm.