When I went to school our teachers use to tell us that “when you leave school computers are going to do everything so you will actually have more time for relaxation”. Now, I know some of you folks that read my Blog and I can see a few of you grinning from ear to ear at that statement. I wonder if that will ever actually come true? I know that there is the potential.
One of the things that people don’t think about when buying a computer, is the associated costs involved in running it. Over the years, we have seen all sorts of convincing charts that outline that catch phrase “Return on investment”, however, from what I have seen computers have actually created more work for most people and also a hang of a lot more paper. The problem lies in the fact that an employer will buy an employee a computer to use. Herein lies the problem, “to use”. The person spends most of their time working the computer instead of the computer actually working for that person. I think that this is a mind-set which employers need to get their head around.
As you may know from recent posts on my Blog, I have been using Eric Mac’s eProductivity for Lotus Notes which is an application, that, works in line with David Allen’s methodology for getting things done. Eric, has offered me a free copy if I would share some of my experiences with it, the good, the bad and the ugly!
Firstly, I ran out of days to trial the product and therefore had to ask Eric for an extension on my activation code. While I was setting up some actions a message appeared saying that my trial had expired. My reaction to this was, I need to be able to keep using it as it has completely changed the way that I am going things. I cannot live without it now! So I got hold of Eric and he gave me an extension.
Right now I am still in the early part of the process of learning about “Getting things done” (GTD) so I am having to learn as I go. What I have found is that eProductivity gives me the ability to have a trusted central basket where I can store all of the things that I need to do. Not only that, but it also allows me the ability to be able to sort those actions into the context of what I am doing at a particular time. This may include, when I am at my computer, when I am doing errands, when I am on the phone. For example, when I leave the house to do a few errands I can bring up a list off all the actions that I need to (or could) be doing while I am out. There has been many occasions when I have been out to get something from the local shops only to find that when I have arrived home I had forgotten something and had to go back to get it. Those of you who know me will know that I have a bad memory and it drives me crazy when I forget things. It can be such a time waster.
So what relevance does this have with “computers working for us”? One of the things that I like is how the functionality of Lotus Notes, Lotus Traveler and eProductivity works together. eProductivity acts as a basket which I can store all of my actions in. Not only that , but Lotus Notes give me a stable platform which allows me to be able to trust that the information is going to be there when I need it. Lotus Traveler makes the whole system portable so that when I am out and about and I have a new action which needs to be done, I can record it using my phone, when I am back at my computer I am able to go through the actions which were recorded, out in the field, and can work out what I want to do with them.
It gets even better than that! Because of the ability to replicate databases in Lotus Notes, I am able to replicate a copy to my laptop which gives me the ability to use the application with full functionality when I am not on-line or in the office.
During this last week, I needed to take my Apple MacBook into Apple to have the screen repaired, an Action which I have put off doing for months as it is so hard to go without it. Because eProductivity is on my Lotus Domino Server I am able to keep working with it with Lotus Notes on Linux and as a result am actually doing quite well without my laptop.
The thing, that is really of interest to me, is that eProductivity is a very powerful application, not just because of what it can do, but also because of the way in which it embraces the power of Lotus Notes, Lotus Domino Server and Lotus Traveler.
I want to mention one thing that I don’t like as I am also able to provide a solution for it. As eProductivity makes changes to the design of your mail file, the web access to your mail is in an older format to some of the more recent templates we have seen from IBM. However, I don’t use web mail a lot, but I do want to know that I am able to use the latest features when I need to access it. Firstly, when using Domino Web Access for your mail, you should never be accessing your home mail server directly from the internet, rather you should be accessing your mail on a server in your DMZ which has a replica of your mail file. This is a basic security measure to ensure that you are not exposing sensitive information to the world wide web. On that server you can apply the normal Lotus Notes 8.5 mail template to your mail file, then in the advanced replication settings you can disable to ability for the design changes to be replicate between the databases. Therefore, you are able to have the best of both worlds!
I have spoken to Eric about supporting more recent mail templates and he has told me that they are currently supporting the “masses” and that support for more recent mail templates is on the way! To be honest, I have been so impressed by eProductivity for Lotus Notes that I really have not missed using the most recent mail template. It just goes to show that sometimes functionality outweighs look and feel (just another dig at all those Microsoft Outlook supporters hehehe).
Related posts:
- eProductivity has got me thinking about turning some inefficiencies into efficiencies
- My first podcast on Getting things done and eProductivity for Lotus Notes #GTD
- Anti-Spam for Lotus Notes stops SPAM like you should be able to expect
- I get surprised everyday as I use Lotus Notes with eProductivity
- Lotus Notes NOMAD and Apple Mac
