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Eric Mack — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 09:39:57 -0700

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Eric Mack's personal blog

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

Does your employer allow you to use productivity Apps on your Blackberry, iPhone or Android?

Eric Mack — Sat, 7 Aug 2010 12:42:20 -0700

With the recent discussions about Apps and how consumers want the freedom to find, evaluate, and purchase Apps for their Smartphones, I wonder how many users are able download and use a productivity application and how many have policies that prevent them from doing so.

If you found a productivity application for your mobile device that was proven to increase your performance, would you: a) be allowed to install it? b) encounter resistance (or refusal) from IT to allow you to install it? c) make a business case to management for why this App should be allowed?

Please take a moment to vote in one of the two quick polls below, then visit the Notes on Productivity blog to share your comments.

Poll Creator Progreat free widgetsWidgetboxMore info

I'm not asking whether you think Smartphones connected to enterprise systems should be locked down or not - there are many valid arguments for both sides of that discussion. What I most want to know is what the current climate is like when it comes to productivity applications on mobile devices and what organizations are doing to encourage/permit or discourage/restrict users from downloading and using productivity applications on their mobile devices.

Update: I split the question into two separate polls because otherwise the results could be skewed in favor of the iPhone/Android as these devices are often unmanaged/uncontrolled in the enterprise.

Please continue this discussion on the Notes on Productivity blog.

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

How I embed polls in my blog with WidgetBox

Eric Mack — Sat, 7 Aug 2010 11:38:00 -0700

A few days ago, Patrick Kwinten, asked for help on his blog. He wanted to find a polling/survey application that he could use with Notes & Domino to embed a real-time poll into his blog. One person responded with a mention of a free voting xPage custom control available on OpenNTF.

Today, I had a similar need for a quick poll that I wanted to post on my Notes on Productivity blog. I took a look at the OpenNTF Voting custom control and liked what I saw. Unfortunately, I did not have the expertise to integrate it into my blog so I turned to Google for help. What I found was WidgetBox. Using WigetBox, I was able to quickly define my polls and embed them into my DominoBlog site using HTML. Once I had everything working I paid the $3.99 to sign up for the monthly service, which allowed me to disable the annoying ads and download links. It works.

I would really prefer to find a Notes/Domino solution to manage my web polls and surveys - I don't like having data floating on (and dependent upon) third party sites. Also, I really like being able to manage everything in Notes. But, WidgetBox did the job.

I'll keep looking for a Notes/Domino solution that I can use to create polls/surveys and embed them into my blog. Meanwhile, here's a link to my first on-line poll created with WidgetBox.

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

Want to migrate to Exchange? IBM Can help with that!

Eric Mack — Thu, 5 Aug 2010 10:51:00 -0700

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

Weakness Matters

Eric Mack — Tue, 3 Aug 2010 16:06:18 -0700

We're going through a sermon series entitled, "Weakness Matters" based on the 12th chapter of 2nd Corinthians. We are looking at where our strength comes from. I found this quote from John MacArthur particularly relevant:

It is when believers are out of answers, confidence and strength, with nowhere else to turn but to God, that they are in a position to be most effective. No one in the Kingdom of God is too weak to experience God's power, but many are too confident in their own strength. Physical suffering, mental anguish, disappointment, unfulfillment and failure squeeze the impurities out of believers' lives, making them pure channels through which God's power can flow. - John MacArthur

Eric Mack's personal blog

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

The man with the grades yours could be like

Eric Mack — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:00:30 -0700

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

Java Forever

Eric Mack — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 02:22:18 -0700

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

An awesome memorial service for Linda Reece

Eric Mack — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 21:37:41 -0700

Because of where we live and the programs our children are involved in, we have two church families, one on the mountain and one off the hill. We have very dear friendships at both.

Last week, our pastor's wife passed away, leaving a heartbroken husband and congregation. Yesterday, our family attended the memorial service for Linda Reece, wife of Pastor Roger Reece. Linda and Roger came to serve at Pine Mountain Christian Community Church just three years ago and in a very short time they endeared the hearts of the congregation and the community. Evidence to this was the fact that the church had standing room only as people came to celebrate Linda's life and to show their encouragement to Roger and his children.

In the program, there was a poem by T.R. Buzzard, that sums up the Linda Reece we knew, loved and will miss until we see her again one day:

Our Pastor's Wife
In the shadow of the parsonage stands a figure of obscure.
Just behind the faithful pastor is his wife, devout and pure.
She is with him every moment helping make his work progress,
and you can't discount her portion in the measure of success.
Oft behind the scene of action, often never seen or heard,
yet she stands forever ready just to give a helping word.
It is not in active service that her worth is really shown,
but in the bearing heavy burdens that to others are unknown.
With encouragement and vision she must urge God's servant on,
when the shadows are the darkest and his courage's almost gone.
With her home forever open and her work quite never done,
she is ever his lieutenant in the battles fought and won.
- T.R. Buzzard

The poem is a fitting tribute to Linda as were the many kind words shared by friends and family during the service.

While there was sadness at the loss, to be sure, there was also great celebration and rejoicing as Linda is with her savior and pain free. I'm thankful for the Scriptures which provide this assurance. Before she died, Linda asked Roger to be sure to share encouragement from God's Word. Roger did an awesome job, talking to us as a friend, a grieving husband, and as "Linda's pastor", shared from the scriptures:

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. or the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words. (1st Thessalonians, 4:12-18 NIV)

I thought it remarkable that Roger could even speak, yet I know he drew his strength from the Word and his love for Linda. I left sad but greatly encouraged. I hope that someday my own memorial service will have an equal impact on others.

Linda, we'll miss you. Roger, we love you and hold you in our heart.

The Mack Family

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

I could really use some help with Safari on a Mac

Eric Mack — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:02:22 -0700

Update 6/22/2010: Problem resolved thanks to a few helpful people. Please see comment thread for details

I'm stumped by this problem with Apple Safari; perhaps you can help.

Here's the situation. I have a file that I make available for others to download. The file happens to be a Notes template but it could be any file with a non-standard extension.

The file is on a hosted web site at GoDaddy. I upload files there to make them available for download.

Here's an example:
http://download.eproductivity.com/thisisanemptynotestemplate.ntf

On a PC, if you click on that link from IE, FireFox, Chrome, or Safari, the browser will prompt you to Open or save the file, like this:

On a Mac using the Apple Safari browser the experience is completely different. If you click on that same link in Safari the browser tries to open the file, which results in a screen full of garbage, like this:

It appears that Safari on the Mac is trying to open and display the file, which of course is not want I want.

Bruce Elgort, (creator of IdeaJam - there's my shameless plug) tried to help today by running the same tests in various browsers on his Mac and it worked in all but Apple Safari.

On a Mac, if you click on that link from FireFox, it works fine:

On a Mac, if you click on that link from Google's Chrome browser, it starts downloading immediately:

Any ideas on how I can get the Apple Safari browser to successfully download this file? I'd hate to have to tell Apple users they have to use a different browser or buy a PC. ;-)

Thanks.

Update: I don't think it should matter, but I do not actually give the user the direct URL. Instead, we have a button with some script behind it that redirects the user to the URL. I simply posted the direct URL above for testing purposes. This feels like either a mime-type issue or more likely a bug in Safari. Any help would be welcome.

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

Dad, I’m watching you

Eric Mack — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 18:44:01 -0700

I was humbled to see my daughter's blog tribute this Father's Day. Clearly, things I did not think were important have impacted them. It's a sobering and welcome reminder that they are watching everything I do.
Eric Mack's personal blog

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

No post vacation e-mail woes for this GTDer! I’ve got a time machine - and a very special offer for bloggers

Eric Mack — Mon, 7 Jun 2010 11:18:23 -0700

IBMer Amanda Bauman of the Lotus Technical Information and Education Community Blog recently shared her experience implementing GTD in Lotus Notes with eProductivity. It's a great post and worth reading. I'd like to share the comment I posted on her blog in response:

Hi Amanda, thanks for continuing to share your experience getting things done with Notes and eProductivity. As the creator of the software, I was tickled to read this:

"This made me think of using GTD and eProductivity as having a time machine. It gave me back hours if not days of time I might have spent getting a handle on all the things I had to do. It also gave me confidence that I hadn't dropped the ball on anything, and who doesn't want to feel like that?."

Amanda, that pretty much sums up the 'Successful outcome" we had in mind when we set out to create the ultimate productivity solution for Lotus Software. You are not alone; we routinely hear from users that they are saving 30 minutes to an hour or more each day.

At the end of my comment, I reiterated an offer I have extended to other technology and productivity bloggers:

As far as getting a license key, my open blogger offer remains: all I ask is that you give eProductivity a try for a month and blog your experience in at least four posts on topics of your choosing. At the end of your evaluation, if you conclude that you would like to keep eProductivity, I'll send you a free activation key, no strings attached. If you decide that you would prefer to go back to your old way of working, you can simply remove eProductivity. In either case, all of your projects and actions will remain in place, so you won't lose anything. I do hope you will continue to share your experience along the way and let me know if there is anything I can do to help. Reading your blog post and the feedback we receive weekly from customers is great validation. Thanks.

If you are a technology or productivity blogger and you'd like to evaluate and blog about your experience with eProductivity, let me know. If you end up agreeing with thousands of others that eProductivity is the ultimate productivity application for IBM Lotus software and you want to keep using the product, let me know and I'll send you a complementary license key. You have nothing to lose except the time you waste each day being less productive that you could be.

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

Visualizing the Evolution of Facebook Privacy

Eric Mack — Sat, 22 May 2010 10:17:34 -0700

I've blogged about different forms of visualization tools that can be used to help people understand a concept better. (Graphic example). Matt McKeon has put together this awesome chart which helps visualize the Evolution of Privacy on Facebook. It's worth studying for the privacy implications as well as the method of display.

Source: The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook by Matt McKeon

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

Visualizing the consequences of sugary drinks

Eric Mack — Sun, 16 May 2010 12:30:40 -0700

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

The Unpardonable Sin

Eric Mack — Mon, 10 May 2010 23:23:15 -0700

Each Sunday, our pastor provides two sets of sermon notes which the ushers hand out as we enter the church. The first is what you would might expect - a brief outline of the sermon and related scripture references. The second is for children and has a few multiple-choice questions, a family discussion topic, and room to doodle.

Yesterday, Kelly brought me the her sermon notes and pointed out what my friend Michael Sampson has been telling me for years. (See image)

I'm a sinner.

I must

repent

and

buy

a

Mac.

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

The GTD & Lotus Notes Web event was a huge success - even bigger than the IBM event!

Eric Mack — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 12:45:48 -0700

I've just finished a debriefing meeting with my team following this morning's "Getting Things Done with Lotus Notes" web event with David Allen.

We're still trying to wrap our head around the overwhelming response to this event. Clearly, there are a lot of people using Lotus Notes who want to be more productive at what they do.

We had over 900 pacesetters from over 400 organizations, asking over 500 questions, and a very high level of engagement in the discussion. That's even more activity than the very successful GTD web event for IBMers three weeks ago. Apparently, the #GTDLN Twitter feed was also quite active as well.

I was also surprised at the number of people that do not use Lotus Notes who attended in order to learn more about Lotus Notes. In fact, a few people wrote to ask if we would spend more time on Lotus Notes itself. Glad to see that interest. (Perhaps IBM should consider scheduling some live events like this for people new to Lotus Notes?)

As often happens in a live event, we ran out of time and I apologize for that. I had to skip many slides and a live demo. I know we could never have answered every question that came in, but I would like to have more time for Q&A. I'll have to improve that for the next event.

There were many popular questions (I'm still processing) including:

"How can I watch a replay or get a copy of the slides?"
We're working out the details but be sure to subscribe to the newsletter as we will share links to the replay events and downloads there. Or, you can visit the eProductivity web site.

"I don't use Lotus Notes yet but I want to. How do I get started?"
Good question. There are many excellent Lotus Business Partners out there than can help. Many of our first-time Notes customers (people that purchase Lotus Notes just so they can run eProductivity) have reported great success with Phase2. They have a hosted Notes solution that seems to work well for our customers. (I will blog about this, soon.)

"Is there a version of eProductivty for Outlook?"
I wish I made $ every time sonone asked that question. Sorry. Currently, eProductivity is for IBM Lotus Notes only. Outlook users may want to look at the NetCentrics GTD Add-in for Outlook. I have no plans to make eProductivity for Outlook. I'm much more interested in bring eProductivity to mobile devices rand the Cloud.

"How can I try eProductivity for myself?"
Easy. go here to get started with a free demo (simply download, open, and go) or a free 21-day trial

"What's the special offer you made on the webinar?"
It's great deal. Sorry, that's for registered webinar attendees only. Consider signing up for the next webinar.

"When is the next webinar"
Tomorrow. See the upcoming webinar event schedule for details.

I want to give a big shout out to the tech team who had their hands full trying to handle the volume of incoming email, skypes, questions, and twitter feeds. Great job!

Looking at the incoming email, which is now filling up, it looks like it will be a few more hours before I can mark this event "completed."

Thank you to everyone who attended. I'll try to post more information once I have time to process the day's event.

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

Over 500 people have signed up for the Webinar this week

Eric Mack — Tue, 6 Apr 2010 13:14:32 -0700

Several weeks ago, I had a conversation about Lotus Notes and one of my takeaways was that I should explore doing more webinars to help people get more from Lotus Notes. Webinars were always a part of my agenda but had often been placed on the back-burner to projects like grad school, my speaking engagements at KMworld and Lotusphere, launching a new product release for Lotus Foundations and planning for the BlackBerry application. Several people encouraged me to move webinars from 'Someday/Maybe' to 'NOW' and they offered to help spread the word.

Because I wasn't sure how much interest there would be, I decided to look at my web logs and databases to look for potential groups of interest. Seeing that I have a large number of IBMers that follow my blogs and some who use eProductivity, I decided to make the first webinar a private webinar and, based on the interest coming from IBMers, I decided to make it specific to that audience. I then asked people I know to share this event with their coworkers so that we could see who might sign up. I told them that if there was sufficient interest in a webinar, I might invite David Allen to copresent with me. This would allow us to cover methodology as well as technology.

The response was overwhelming

As of today, we have well over 500 IBMers signed up and a growing list of people that have expressed interest in follow-on events. I'm still working on the agenda, but here's a quick overview as it stands now:

AGENDA: Getting Things Done with Lotus Notes
•Your Personal Productivity Equation
•Overview of the GTD� Methodology
•How to implement GTD in Vanilla Lotus Notes
•How to use eProductivity™ for IBM Lotus Notes
•What's in Eric and David's Productivity Toolkit
•Your Roadmap to Making It All Work
•Resources and Tools

IBM-only Event, April 8, 2010 10:00-11:30 AM PST
Public Event, April 28, 2010 10:00-11:30 AM PST

I think this agenda will provide value for most anyone that chooses to participate. Following my overview of the productivity equation, David will cover the methodology part with a high-level presentation on GTD. Then, we'll show how to set up vanilla Lotus Notes to better support the GTD methodology. In other words, we'll give you information you can put to use immediately -- no matter what version of Notes you may have and without the need to purchase anything. Following that, we'll give an overview of eProductivity, the software application that makes getting things done in Lotus Notes easy. Then, we will share what's in our own productivity toolkits -- this is where we will talk about some of the other tools we use to make our use of Lotus Notes and GTD even more productive - things like ActiveWords, GyroQ, and time-permitting, Mind Maps. Finally, we'll offer a roadmap for people who want to get started with GTD and Lotus notes (with or without eProductivity) and some resources contributed by The David Allen Company. I will package all of these resources in a free eProductivity Reference database so that people will have an efficient way to store and organize personal information in Lotus Notes.

That's a lot to cover in 90 minutes and still leave time for Q&A, so I'll support this with a follow-up list of resources.

If you haven't already signed up for the event, IBMers can sign up here and everyone else, can sign up here.

If the times of these events do not work for you, consider signing up for the eProductivity newsletter to stay informed of tips and tricks and upcoming events.

If you have any ideas for things you'd like to see covered or questions you hope we will address, please let me know and I'll do my best to cover them.

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

20 years ago, on Palm Sunday, I was baptized

Eric Mack — Sun, 4 Apr 2010 15:45:00 -0700

Twenty years ago, I was baptized by immersion.

On Palm Sunday, we had a baptism celebration for those that wanted who make this public demonstration and I signed up to get wet. Nothing changed for me that day - and yet everything did. Baptism itself does not change a person or guarantee a spot in heaven; it is only an external symbol of an internal transformation. You see, my baptism was an outward demonstration of an inward change that had been made years earlier, when I understood and personally accepted responsibility for my sins and the realization that there was a better way for me to live than apart from God's plan for me. My testimony then - as today - is that of a changed man.

Though nervous at the time, I was delighted to share the story of that change publicly through my water baptism 20 years ago. I wanted everyone to know what the Lord had done for me. Those who knew me saw the transformation unfold. Today, as I sat in church to celebrate Resurrection Sunday I am again delighted and thankful for what the Savior did on my behalf. That redemption is available to all who repent and believe. I know, it sounds too easy. In fact, that simplicity took me a long time to get over. Now, as a parent, I understand it better: Our heavenly father, the God of the Bible, loves us so much and desires a personal relationship with us. Yet, our rebellion causes us to be separated from Him - but not from His love. Yet, while we were in a state of rebellion, (much like an unruly child), He provided a way for us to be reconciled, the relationship restored, and hearts healed.

It's not about religion. Religion is man's futile attempt to please God. It's about Love, God's love for us and the willingness to accept the gift that He offers His children. A gift He offers you.
Eric Mack's personal blog

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

Happy Resurrection Sunday!

Eric Mack — Sun, 4 Apr 2010 12:45:00 -0700

Grace and peace to you from the Mack family as you celebrate this Resurrection Sunday.

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

GBC Passion Play 2010

Eric Mack — Fri, 2 Apr 2010 23:45:00 -0700

Tonight, our family attended the Passion Plan presented by our church. It was a powerful portrayal of a life-changing event, presented by a cast and crew of close to 300 volunteers in the choir, orchestra, and drama ministries who worked tirelessly to share it as a gift to the community. These two photos begin to depict the detail of the costumes but do not begin to convey the sense of realism as these talented people brought the biblical record of these events to life.

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online

The Evolution of Productivity Management - SECR

Eric Mack — Fri, 2 Apr 2010 11:11:00 -0700

Originally posted on Eric Mack Online