Monday, May 20, 2013

R.I.P. Lotus Organizer+

Sad to see and hear that the end of the line, officially, is coming to Lotus Organizer, Lotus 1-2-3 and Lotus Smartsuite itself on June 11, 2013 with support ending September 30, 2014.

Organizer was so far ahead of us when it came out, easy links to guide you directions, call from a contact and straight to a web site with one link, an awesome calendar and scheduling tool, and it connected with Lotus Notes and some people still leverage it that way.

All from one UI! I can't get anything to be that useful, without coding it somehow. Can you?
Love Lotus Organizer
Picture from http://www.os2voice.org/VNL/past_issues/VNL0102H/Organizer_Day.gif


I still use it occasionally for various reasons and every time I think, if only we had a newer version. But no matter what we want, somethings must move on. The latest version does run on Windows7, I have not tried Windows8.

I still use SmartSuite sometimes because it still handles some web sites and various document translations better than MS Office. There is also some importing issues with a certain product that still only imports 1-2-3.

Me and Lotus 1-2-3 go back to 1.0 DOS version. I wrote some great macros back then, Wall Street banks asked for some, a Broadway Theatre ran their subscription database and nightly finances on spreadsheets I wrote and numerous other bits of work through the 80's and 90's.

If all good things must come to an end, then here is a list of Easter Eggs found in the products for those that never knew about them. See more eggs from almost everything here http://www.eeggs.com/

Lotus organizer 2.0
1. Type the text "Flame" into any wordprocessor(e.g. Notepad) 
2. Highlight the text and copy it to the clipboard(CTRL+C) 
3. In Organizer 2.x, you will see that the clipboard icon(left of 
4. Drag this picture icon to the trashcan. 
5. A list of developers will replace the main Organizer book.


Word Pro (Lotus) Easter Egg - 3D World by Spelling "Possum"
1. Start WordPro
2. Go to the Help/About WordPro... Menu
3. On the yellow Lotus WordPro banner at the top, click on the P in WordPro
4. Then click on either O in WordPro
5. Then click on the S in Lotus
6. Then click on the S in Lotus again
7. Then click the U in Lotus
8. When the possum comes out and sits down, click on it's butt right next to it's tail
9. If you did it in the right spot, it will poop out an M&M.
10. Click on the M&M and a screen will pop up, use the arrow keys to move around

3 comments:

  1. I couldn't agree more! I started in IT in 1987, I loved Lotus Organizer (as well as Lotus 123, and Boreland's WordPerfect). Lotus Organizer was well ahead of it's time. It's GUI was appealing and "made sense" so it was a pleasure to use. I wish someone other than IBM had purchased the Lotus suite. It may still be with us.

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    1. Thanks for the comments. I still run it but my phone does what it did. It probably could have become a great web app but like all good things its time has passed.

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  2. I have used this program for as long as I can remember...over 20 years for sure. I use it daily for our service related business and I have literally tried every other day planner type software out there and NONE compare in ease of use and powerful database . I hope to keep it going until we retire in a few years. Love this program.

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