Lotus Dr.

IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1 - The Upgraders Guide; My Review

Denny Russell   January 31 2010 08:47:27 PM

I was approached by Packt Publishing to write a review on their new book, "IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1 - The Upgraders Guide".  I thought it was a new opportunity and a chance to learn something new about version 8.5.1.  The more I read the book, the more I'm glad I took this on.  I will say, getting an electronic copy of the book has been somewhat of a challenge to read 336 pages on line, but happy that I've done it.

The book is extremely well written.  The authors have taken a lot of time to plan out the details and layout of the book.  It's written in a manner that's not overwhelming and very easy to read.  Each chapter shows a preview of what's to come and has a nice summary at the end.  The topics are discussed in detail and I especially like the notes of warning when talking about a topic that has some prerequisites or areas that may be confusing.  As they talk about new features, they do a nice job of letting you know when the feature was originally introduced and then telling what is new in this release.  

There is a chapter dedicated specifically to upgrading. They even help detail and plan out your upgrade process.  I also loved the section talking about installing multiple notes clients on the same PC.  Even though it's not a supported feature, many of us do it.  It was nice to see someone else showing how it can be done.

There is a chapter dedicated to what's new in the Domino Designer client that I highlighted in my previous post and you can preview it here.

When I saw the section talking about the blog, I was excited to see what new tip I could learn.  I was disappointed to see that it simply stated that you could create one and I'm not even sure they used the correct template as the screen shot was that of the original blog, not the current 8.5.1 template.  The only other thing that surprised me in the book, was their talk of the inbox 'view'.  Just goes to show that the whole view/folder thing in Lotus Notes is confusing to many.

Overall, I found the book to be a good read and full of knowledge.  I'd suggest adding it to your desk as a reference for your current 8.5.1 environment or as a resource as you prepare to move your system to 8.5.1. To get your copy now, click here or the link on the right side of the page.

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