IBM Notes

IBM Notes is a powerful email messaging client that allows you to connect via IBM Domino servers, which include design and developer tools and server run time. It also provides support for a rich suite of tools designed to help you organize your daily tasks, such as calendar, contacts, to-do lists, feed reader, widgets, instant messaging service (Sametime), web browser, as well as other collaboration utilities.

The program lets you choose the components that you want to install, namely Notes Client (e.g. Notes Browser Plug-in, Client Help Files, Domino Enterprise Connection Service, Spell Checker), IBM Connections, Feed Reader, OpenSocial component, and Sametime. It provides short descriptions about each feature and size needed on the disk.

What’s more, you can make IBM Notes your default email, calendar and contacts program. The tool deploys a pretty large package on your system so it needs several minutes to finish the process.

Several prior configuration settings are needed for accessing the program’s GUI. You are required to enter your name and Domino server that you want to use (e.g. Maple/IBM).

The tool integrates a built-in wizard for helping you configure several services. You may connect to the Domino server and pick the connection type, Internet mail servers (POP or IMAP, SMTP), newsgroup server (NNTP), Directory server (LDAP), or Internet Proxy servers.

IBM Notes provides several flexible solutions for helping you customize the GUI to fit your working needs. The multi-tabbed environment enables you to easily work with different utilities at the same time, namely email client, calendar, to-do lists and web browser.

The Sidebar integrated in the right part of the main window lets you access several tools, such as Sametime Contacts, Sametime Primary Contacts, Sametime Meetings, My Widgets, Feeds and Day-At-A-Glance. You may close the sidebar, opt for a small or large view, or manually resize it.

You may place shortcut buttons in the main window for opening your favorite tools with the aid of a single click, namely Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Home, Workspace and others.

The Workspace gives you the freedom to create multiple pages with different names and colors and include several features using thumbnails.

The clean feature lineup makes it easier for you to check your Inbox, Drafts, Sent, Junk or Trash messages. Plus, you may filter info by date or size and mark messages as read or unread.

The email client comes with a rich-featured pack of settings that allows you to pick the mail format (HTML or plain text), spell-check messages before sending them, ask for permissions upon deletion, choose between several letterhead styles, add signatures, apply default settings when you flag a message for follow-up, and assign unique colors to important senders so you can easily spot them in the list.

What’s more, you can make the program look for new emails at a custom time and play sound notifications and popup messages when new mail arrives.

The Calendar feature allows you to switch between different view modes (e.g. one day, two days, one week, one month), add entries and work with multiple calendars (iCalendar feed, Google Calendar, Notes Teamroom calendar) that can be grouped.

When it comes to creating a new to-do task you can specify the subject, date, category, description and custom files. You may sort them by incomplete, personal, complete or category.

The contact manager comes with power features for helping you add contacts by providing detailed information about email addresses, phone numbers and addresses, and assigning images, view contacts displayed in an alphabetical order, sort them by category or company, as well as keep track of birthdays and anniversaries.

IBM Notes brings to your desktop an advanced feature pack for helping you send emails, work with calendars, create to-do lists, manage contacts, install widgets, reed feeds, and chat using the Sametime messaging service. The rich suite of tools makes it suitable especially for business users.