John M. Wargo

I'm already much happier with the new comments component I added to the site. I'd been using the yvComment add-on for Joomla, but it was hard to install, difficult to use and buggy. I'd had nothing but trouble with it from day one. Not that I get many comments on this site, but the comment module shouldn't be hard to use.

I switched to JComment, and it was a quick, seamless install and provides me with a quick way to approve comment posts directly from an email notice I get that a new comment has been posted.

I had to add an approval process to comments because often someone posts a comment just so they can show a link to some spammer or phishing site. Even though I turned off display of URL's in the old tool, people still tried to do that, so I was constantly whacking comments that were nothing but spam. With the approach implemented in JComment, I receive an email message and can approve or delete the post just by clicking on a link in the email. Nice!

I'll be posting some articles about Drupal in the coming weeks. I'm building two sites using Drupal and so far I'm very impressed. More on that later.

I had to whack the comments component from the site this morning. I was using a Joomla extension I was never really happy with and I'd been having some problems with the component for some time now. I uninstalled it and installed a different one, so comments are now back up and running. I'll monitor this one for a while and see how well it works.

Unfortunately for those who'd posted comments previously, they are no longer available. I'm sorry. I still have the content, so perhaps I'll be able to show them or import them into the new commenting system.

Postscript:

I looked back and there were 70 comments posted to the site (using the previous comments tool) over the last 2 years or so. I feel bad about removing them from the site, but I'm not sure what to do with them. I can display them all by themselves in a view, but then you'd lose context by reading them. Many of them were useful comments about particular articles or kudos for a particular solution I wrote about here. I think I'm going to have to just delete them and get on with my life. Sorry again to those of you who'd posted comments.

For the first time in 16 years, I'm not going to be in Orlando for IBM Lotus Lotusphere. I've attended every Lotusphere but one and presented at many of them. It's been a wonderful experience for me and I'm sad for it to end, but I couldn't justify going this year. I hear from others, more and more people are in the same boat as me.

Too bad. A lot of really great things happened to me at Lotusphere. Let's see:

I met my wife at Lotusphere. I met her briefly at Sea World at Lotusphere 1999 then connected with her again the following year at Lotusphere. We kissed for the first time at the Copa Banana bar at her company (Interliant) party. Less than nine months later we were engaged and three months after that we were married.

I was responsible for applications that won two IBM Beacon Awards: 1997 for Biggest Business Impact for an application I helped design for Key Bank and 2001 for Best Tool or Utility for a software package I created which is, I think, still sold today (http://wolcottgroup.com/adt).

I presented a lot of great sessions there (in my humble opinion, of course).

I met a lot of great people there.

I made quite a few friends there.

I drank an awful lot of alcohol there.

I sat through a lot of keynote sessions – my favorite was John Cleese, my least favorites were the every one in the last five years or so.

I manned booths there working for three different companies over the years (Realogic, Wolcott Systems Group and RIM).

I was doing some thinking about Research In Motion today. I was sadly disappointed (is that redundant?) when I heard RIM was delaying the release of the new QNX-based devices until late next year. That's a truly boneheaded move after a series of boneheaded moves.

First they announce that future devices will be running QNX. 6 months or so later, they give the new OS a name – BBX, only to find out LATER that that name was already taken. What? Nobody thought to do a trademark search? Apple's pretty pigheaded about that particular topic (Apple was taken by Apple Records when they opened their doors, Macintosh was a very prominent high-end stereo component manufacturer and even one or more of the iNames were infringed upon), but they always seem to get away with it. RIM's failure to recognize the conflict in using BBX was an arrogant, clueless mistake.

When they announced they were changing the name to BB 10, I was surprised. Considering that we're on BlackBerry Device Software 7 right now, making the leap to 10 seemed...misguided. Of course the press grumbled about the name never seeming to get how they probably chose it. BBX becoming BB 10? Of course, converting the Roman numeral X into 10 makes perfect sense. Why are so many other people missing that?

Anyway, as I tweeted about this the other day, this particular market moves in months, not years. Samsung, Apple, HTC, Motorola and many others release several new phone models a year, often one or more every three months or so. It's a fast moving, dynamic market and RIM just doesn't seem to get it. Announcing a completely new platform then expecting people to wait 18 months or more to see it just doesn't make sense. It's arrogant and clueless. The solution to RIM's problems is to get a smart, new, sexy device platform to market as quickly as possible – no later than early this year (January or February of 2011). RIM's completely capable of doing it, but they just don't seem to be able to actually do it.

It's possible that they ran into some issues and that's the cause for the delay. Staking a brand new product line on a series of chips that won't be out until a year after you need them doesn't make sense. If they have the OS, Apps and features locked down, move on and don't wait for that super-duper, special chipset. If you truly believe you can change the market with these new devices, then get it done.

Ugh.

I'm trying to figure out what's going to happen to them in the next 6 months:

1. No new devices till late in the year (they've already announced that)

2. Unbearable pressure to get rid of Mike and Jim

3. Acquisition?

They're going to be acquired. So many pundits believe it will be Microsoft, but that makes absolutely no sense. I just can't figure out who'd buy them and why. On top of that, what would be left when the purchase completed? The best and brightest minds are leaving en masse, my former colleagues at RIM are Linking In to me in great numbers lately. RIM is Mike L, but I can't imagine Mike staying after any acquisition, so how great can BlackBerry be with Mike at the design helm? Time will tell.

I'm not even going to ask if I can attend BlackBerry World and the BlackBerry Developer Conference next year.