Customer Reviews

Building Intranets With Lotus Notes & Domino 5.0

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4 star:		(1)
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2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I'm sorry, but this is a very disappointing book in regards to Notes/Domino. It does a good job on a very basic level (what could a company do with an intranet (I hate that phrase, btw...), but it does not do justice to R5.

Also - the promised "special, members-only website" is a big disappointment as well.

If you're looking for a technical overview of the Domino Server and Notes Client, look elsewhere. This book was written for your pointy-haired boss, not for you.

No useful technical details are provided in the book or the website.

On the plus side: It does provide a nice overview of Intranets. The glossary might be useful for those who don't understand 'Intranet' from 'Internet'.

-= Stefan

First off, although I own this book, I never read it. I was ABOUT to read it, but flipping through it I noticed a table comparing Lotus Notes to 'traditional intranets' that was dated from 1996. Considering this book was published in 2000, that's completely unacceptable. That information is COMPLETELY irrelevant now. I noticed a few other references to information that seemed out-dated (e.g., 28.8 connection speeds, etc.) so I put the book down. I don't know how good the information is, but I'm assuming the date it was published has nothing to do with the date it was written.

I was expecting much more detailed information in this book, and was sadly disappointed. I'm afraid it's basically a marketing book that your boss would find useful to read to tell him the kind of things he can do with his Intranet, but it offers very little for the Intranet developer. Forget about the 'members only' web site it's a waste of time.

This book is a high-level description of building an intranet with Domino. No technical details are provided at all. The stuff that is there ranges from moderately useful to having no place in a book like this.

Some examples of why I feel the book is so bad:

The book's intranet rollout plan includes hiring a CIO, and explains what a CIO is.

Rollout also includes nearly three page description of a help desk, with a statement to the affect of "help desk personnel should treat callers with patience and respect." Are we building an organization from scratch?

Book is padded with a glossary of Internet/networking terms, most of which aren't related to context of book. Non-technicians won't be able to relate these terms to the topic.

If you're a technician, stay away from this book. If you want a high-level overview of Domino and its Web capabilities, don't go here either. While non-technical people might get something out of this book, there have to be better books out there.

The title is misleading. This book doesn't show you how to do anything. It is a very brief overview of what "can" be done. More of a marketing book for Domino than a technical book.

I have seen her name frequently in marketing briefings from Lotus, so as I suspected before reading the other reviews (I do not have the book), it is a marketing book, not a technical book. For some reason, even now in late June, there still are not any good R5 books out yet.

This book is comprehensive, yet easy to read, with enough information at the layman's level to provide even a novice system architect or planner with a solid foundation for building their own communications network based on Lotus Notes/Domino. The noteworthy characteristic of the book is that it is based on real groupware environments set up in real companies. The authors have given readers the benefit of learning from others' successes (and mistakes) in a lighthearted and often humorous way. This book imparts a lot of knowledge without being dry or stuffed with technical arcania. I think it is a must-read for anyone who will be participating in Lotus Notes/Domino system design or technical roll-out because it was written by someone who has "been there, done that."