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The nifty-fifty unearthed

Catching up on my Blog reading I came across a post from Tony Austin ranting about rants about Notes 9.0. In that post is a gold nugget (cat's gold I suppose): a link where you can download the original nifty-fifty (for the uninitiated: the nifty-fifty were 50 sample applications Lotus published ca 1999 1992/93 together with Notes R3/R4 in the early days of collaboration, where people would use groupware for a wide range of tasks and hadn't turned into eMail junkies). Looking at these applications I can't starve off that feeling that all the new web2.0 hype is pretty much the same old wine in, admitting very pretty, new barrels. These are the applications:
  1. Things to Do
  2. Requisition Approvals
  3. Application Tracking
  4. Book Reviews
  5. Budget Planning
  6. Call Tracking
  7. Clip Art Gallery
  8. Contract Library
  9. Correspondence
  10. Customer Service (five databases -- Product Design Problems, Customer Suggestions, Knowledge Base, Data Dictionary)
  11. Call Tracking -- as well as a sixth database with documentation)
  12. Demo Room Reservation
  13. Employee Records
  14. Event Calendar
  15. Executive Briefings
  16. Expenses Reports
  17. Formula Catalog
  18. Forms Routing
  19. Electronic Library
  20. Icon Catalog
  21. Job Candidates
  22. Job Posting
  23. Sales Management
  24. Library Tracking & Training
  25. Purchasing Item Tracking
  26. Litigation
  27. Lookup Keyword Library
  28. Meeting Tracking
  29. Monthly Financials
  30. Engineering Notebook
  31. Patient Treatment Signoff
  32. People and Facilities
  33. Phone Book and Yellow Pages
  34. Presentations
  35. Race Results
  36. Real Estate Management
  37. Recipes
  38. Relocation Expenses
  39. Routing Tracking
  40. Reservation Scheduler
  41. Sell-through Sales Reports
  42. Shotgun E-Mail Communications
  43. Conference Suggestions
  44. Support Conference
  45. Support Center Call Tracking
  46. System Equipment Inventory
  47. Team Consolidate
  48. Team Room
  49. Tech Services Call Tracking
  50. Technotes and Tips
  51. Telemarketing
  52. Travel Authorization
  53. Values and Goals
  54. Wholesale Customer Tracking
Tony of NotesTracker fame lists 3 locations (2 of them his) where you can obtain a single zip file with all these databases: All of these applications are vintage and look like 1999, some are outdated but the rest could be a nice foundation for an XPages feast. Xifty-Xifty anone?
[Update]:The databases are in R2's ODS13 format, to save you the trouble of conversion they are now available in ODS51 of R8.5. Still the design hasn't changed, but there is hope (Do you now understand what a circulare reference is ).

Posted by on 07 February 2009 | Comments (4) | categories: IBM Notes Lotus Notes

Comments

  1. posted by Ian Scott on Saturday 07 February 2009 AD:
    Nearly brought a nostalgic tear to my when I saw them.

    When I got started with Notes back in 1992 I learned about the thing by taking some of these apps apart and cobbling pieces of them together to make other apps.

    We never used any of them as is because our requirements were more complex but they helped create mindshare and inspired the creation of apps that did get built and used.

    Even the list on it's own has value as an eye opening exercise but I think you have hit on a good idea.

    Given that they are all so simple and that we all need to learn xPages why not turn them into equally simple proof of concept R8 apps.

    This community could turn the lot around in a week - and that would tell a great story too!
  2. posted by Vince Schuurman on Saturday 07 February 2009 AD:
    @Ian, that is more or less what Steve and Niklas plan to do on OpenNTF, although they will create a new list of course :) Emoticon cool.gif
  3. posted by Betty - Purse Party on Wednesday 16 March 2011 AD:
    This is a wonderful list! It is compatible with iPhones? If not, perhaps it is a great idea to create apps for them.
  4. posted by David Hablewitz on Monday 30 September 2024 AD:

    The link to the downloads is no longer available. As brilliant an idea it is to have such a strong list of apps for small businesses all available in one server, it appears HCL isn't interested in small to medium businesses.