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Notion.so - All-in-one workspace that can challenge Atlassian?

Notion.so is a relatively new product, but it is already making some waves and is often mentioned in comparison with Atlassians products. At first glance it has a good spread of functionality and a price that can really challenge the Atlassian giant, especially for small to medium companies.
 
"Write, plan, collaborate, and get organized. Notion is all you need — in one tool."
 
Notion.so started in 2016 in San Fransisco and it has already attracted many users to its simple, yet powerful features. On their website they have 4 areas that they see as their core: Notes & docs, Knowledge base, Tasks & Projects and Database. If we compare these with the Atlassian suite it is pretty much Confluence with Trello baked into one product.
The editing capabilities are not bad and Notion.so uses an inline editing function rather then the old click to edit function in Confluence. It is very nice and uses the "/" command to access the functions rather than a toolbar. The permissions system is a bit different, but seem pretty solid from what I can tell. Once you get the hang of things it is very, very easy to build content with Notion.so.
The capabilities for Tasks & Projects are very similar to Trello so if you know how to work with Trello you should have no issues with Notion.so. If anything I feel that Notion.so actually have a more capable feature set than Trello by allowing a ton of fields that can be customized to create some pretty sophisticated setups. While not nearly as powerful as Jira for development purposes, this is is more than enough for many other situations.

Databases follow pretty much the same capabilities as for tasks and pages. In fact tasks comes from a database by default. This means that you can create pretty awesome databases with multiple views, including tasks, lists and even a calendar view. Personally I love the feature that each row in my table can be edited as a separate page.
At a very affordable price compared to Confluence and Jira with pretty solid features this is not a bad alternative. There are some concerns regarding security as Notion.so do not have any ISO, SOC 2, HIPAA certificates, but considering they have passed reviews from companies such as Slack and Intercom that is probably not a big thing for it's user base.
I see Notion.so as a good alternative for small to medium non-development companies. It can work for smaller development companies as well as for large non-development companies, but I think the sweet spot is in the small to medium non-development area. The price also suggest that as it is user based and at the top tier with 20 dollars per user it is getting pretty expensive.

 
I like Notion.so and I think it definitely have a place in some organizations. It is clearly being developed with passion where the goal is not to make money, but to make people's life easier and more organized. As always they get an extra gold star for giving students and educators this awesome product for free.
Notion.so comes as an online cloud solution, a mobile app as well as downloads for mac and windows that even allow offline editing....and did I mention it has a dark mode that is simply amazing?
If you have not tried it, then go and sign up for a free account today and give it a go.
 
Jimi Wikman
💫 Jimi Wikman

The Mandalorian: one of the most pirated series ever?

Tomorrow Disney plus will launch and with it comes the much hyped series The Mandalorian. I am very positive to the Disney plus service that I will most likely get as soon as it is available. The fact that most of the world can NOT get the Disney plus service tomorrow however will probably lead to the fact that The Mandalorian will be heavily pirated as there is no other way to see this series.
I have never understood the concept of time gating movies or tv series based on geography. It is a strange practice, especially in the digital age where geography matters very little. It is a practice that has always been the source of piracy, even back in the days of the WHS and cassette tapes. While I am sure there are legal reasons for it, rather than simple greed, it does cause some interesting situations.
One of the strongest arguments when dealing with piracy is that illegally downloading a movie for example, or a tv show, is that by doing so you cause financial loss from the company that own the right to sell those. It's a logical claim, although the idea that everyone who download illegally also would have purchased the item is a ridiculous one. 
Now, with time gated content such as the exclusive content coming with Disney plus the question is if this scenario will be a bit different. If you take for Sweden where I live we supposedly can get access to Disney plus sometime early next year. So if anyone in Sweden download The Mandalorian tomorrow will that change any legal claim?
No one in Sweden can purchase a legal right to see The Mandalorian at this time. This means that until the Disney plus service is available no damage can be done to sales in Sweden. Any legal claim would have to be towards future sales. This can be difficult because Disney plus does not exist in Sweden and it would be a theoretical value on how much illegally downloading one or more episodes would impact potential sales.
That is a tricky claim to make and since there is no official statement that Sweden will even get Disney plus at any specific date it could make the case even weaker. That would mean that at the time of the illegal download there was no guarantee that The Mandalorian would be ever be available legally in that country. I am not sure if that would have an impact on the legality, but I am sure it is something that a good defense attorney would throw in to see if it works.
I think a more likely scenario is that a legal claim would be done after the launch of Disney plus in the countries not included in the first release. Again this poses a bit of an issue as without history in that country any claim of loss of income will be theoretically.  I know that all claims regarding illegal downloads are theoretical and, in my opinion, based on a flawed logic and a complete misunderstanding of basic consumption of movies and TV shows. In these cases however there are statistics going back decades to back those claims.
For Disney plus however it is a brand new service with no history to back up legal claims of loss of income. Sure they can look at other streaming services, but what other service are can Disney plus compare with? Netflix? HBO? None of those are really similar and even those services are very new with little history to back up a potential claim.
For me I am fine waiting a few months until Disney plus comes to Sweden, but a lot of people will not. Just like for many Manga lovers there are few if any legal means to consume The Mandalorian. This will unfortunately mean that The Mandalorian will be pirated a lot for the majority of the world that can not yet get Disney plus.
Hopefully this will not be a problem for anyone and perhaps it can even be a very strong selling point. Illegal downloads are not exactly very consumer friendly so if someone have the option to go through the hassle of downloading or just click on the TV, my bet is on the later.  I just wish Disney would stop using obsolete sales tactics where they divide content based on region and time. That way this would not be an issue.
There would be other issues however such as technical and legal issues that they probably hope to ease out with a gradual release schedule. There are of course financial issues also where they probably want to use a successful launch in the US as a way to increase prices elsewhere.
Still it sucks that I can not watch The Mandalorian tomorrow or enjoy what I suspect will be a great experience coming with Disney plus.
 
Jimi Wikman
💫 Jimi Wikman

Atlassian Cloud changes Nov 4 to Nov 11, 2019

Atlassian Cloud
Your cloud-hosted products are supported by the Atlassian Cloud platform. This section usually includes changes related to multiple Atlassian Cloud products, site administration, and user management.
Email users with suggested account changes
ROLLING OUT From the Change details button, you can suggest that a user changes their account details to make their profile more consistent and easier to identify. Read more about administering Atlassian accounts.
 
Give your users a Trusted permission
ROLLING OUT From a user's Permission options, select Trusted to give certain users more responsibility. These users will be able to install and configure new products on your site and invite new users themselves.
 
Claim accounts after verifying a domain
ROLLING OUT To start managing accounts on your domain, we’ve included an additional step that requires you to claim accounts after verifying that you own the domain. From the table on the Domains page, click Claim accounts next to the verified domain. Read more about verifying a domain.
 
Jira platform
Changes in this section usually apply to all Jira products. We'll tell you in the change description if something is only for a specific Jira product.
New user profile cards
ROLLING OUT When you hover over someone’s name in directories, on dashboards, and in user picker fields, you’ll now start to see rich profile cards with more information and a link to the user’s profile (if you have permission to see it).
 
New issue view: Rich user profile cards
ROLLING OUT Get to know your team even faster. Our new user profile card provides more user information and a link to the user’s profile (if you have permission to see it). You’ll see it when you hover over someone’s name in user-picker fields (assignee, reporter, and other custom fields) and in issue activity feeds (comments, history, and the work log).
 
Jira Software
We're rolling out a new type of project known as next-gen. By default, any Jira Software licensed user can create their own next-gen project. These projects don't affect existing Jira projects, shared configurations, or your schemes. You can manage who's allowed to create next-gen projects with the new Create independent projects global permission. Read more about next-gen projects.
 
New issue view for Jira Software
ROLLING OUT Get a consistent view and edit experience with our new issue view for Jira Software. Click an issue to see its details, edit any field with a click, and add content with the quick-add buttons (under the issue summary). Take a look at the documentation for more info.
We're adding new features and refining the design all the time, so click Give feedback on the issue view to let us know what you think.
 
GitHub app on the Atlassian Marketplace
ROLLING OUT We've partnered with GitHub to build a new and improved integration, which you can install at the Atlassian Marketplace. This replaces the DVCS connector in Jira's system settings. Current GitHub integrations set up under the old method will continue to work, but new integrations must be set up using the app on the Atlassian Marketplace. We're rolling out this update gradually, so it may not be on your Jira Cloud site yet.
This won't affect GitHub Enterprise integrations, which must still be set up via the DVCS connector.
 
Jira Service Desk
Issues with the customer organizations field now use the organization name instead of ID when exporting to CSV
ROLLING OUT NEW THIS WEEK When exporting Jira issues to CSV from the Jira Issue Navigator, the Custom field (Organizations) now contains the name of the organizations linked to the issue. The field previously contained the organization ID, which was not valuable for exports used for reporting.
As part of this change, a CSV import can now match organizations by both their ID and their name. No changes are needed if you use CSV export files for import.
 
Maintenance complete on the Request and Approvals pages
ROLLING OUT NEW THIS WEEK We've completed some maintenance to the customer portal, you may notice some cosmetic updates to the Request and Approvals pages.
 
New issue view for Jira Service Desk
ROLLING OUT The new issue view groups key actions and information in a logical way, making it easier for you to scan and update requests. Learn more about the new issue view.
Use keyboard shortcuts in your queues
 
ROLLING OUT
Use keyboard shortcuts to navigate around your queues and get your work done faster. You can now move through issues, select their fields, and go to the issue view from your queues just by using your keyboard!
 
Customer portal request details page redesign
ROLLING OUT We have redesigned the customer portal request details page to make it easier to use. You’ll notice we have added a rich text editor, sorted the activity stream from old to new, and have moved the location of the request fields, share button, approval and comment boxes.
 
Easier configuration for the new issue view
ROLLING OUT If you have the new issue view, you can now easily configure how your issue view looks for each request type.
From your service desk project, go to Project settings > Request types and you'll find the new layout for making changes.
 
Improved interface for your customer portal settings
ROLLING OUT We’ve given the customer portal page in your project settings a visual overhaul. Settings are under suitable headings, text sizes are aligned, and overall, the page has a cleaner interface. Don’t worry, we haven’t removed any functionality.
To see the new design in a classic project, go to Project settings > Portal settings.
To see the new design in a next-gen project, go to Project settings > Channels > Customer portal.
 
Confluence
Portfolio for Jira plan macro
ROLLING OUT NEW THIS WEEK The Portfolio for Jira plan Confluence macro lets you embed a Portfolio for Jira Server and Data Center plan in a Confluence page. Join key stakeholders in the spaces where business goals are built and tracked, and share how work is progressing across multiple projects and teams.
 
Blogs are getting the first round of editing improvements
ROLLING OUT If you've ever thought 'I wish it was easier to read blogs on mobile.... or on other devices', then this change is for you. Blogs are getting fixed-width layouts to improve readability across all devices. We're making a bunch of other updates to improve editing reliability and clean up your editing experience, so some macros may be temporarily unavailable while they're under maintenance. You can read more about these changes on our docs site.
 
Teams have arrived in Confluence retrospectives!
ROLLING OUT Instead of having to individually add each member of your team to a retrospective, Confluence now lets you assign people to Teams, so you can bulk add everyone at once.
Use the retrospective template to see Teams in action. You can edit Teams through the retrospective-creation process, and add or edit other attendees for each retrospective you create.
 
We're extending editing improvements to all pages on Android
ROLLING OUT The editing improvements we made to blogs a few months ago are coming to the rest of your Android mobile pages, too. In addition to being faster and more reliable, your new pages are also responsive, optimized for readability, and have advanced tables. Some macros are still missing as we rebuild them, but you can check the list of changes and track updates to macros on our docs site.
 
Confluence Cloud recent pages drawer
ROLLING OUT We’ve made it easier to get to the pages you visited or worked with most recently. A new action has been added to the global sidebar that presents you with a list of your recent pages; interaction-specific tabs help you narrow the list based on your actions, like visited, edited, or saved as draft.
 
Share pages directly with your team
ROLLING OUT It’s now easier to share pages with everyone on your team, all in one go. When you click Share on any page or blog post, Confluence now lets you add a team – no need to enter each person individually. Learn more
 
Bitbucket
Retarget stacked Pull Requests
ROLLING OUT NEW THIS WEEK Bitbucket will retarget the dependent pull requests to the branch that you're merging into, before closing the branch of the pull request you're merging. Previously, if there were dependent pull requests, you needed to update them manually with the new target branch. You will now see a checkbox with a link to the affected pull requests that will be retargeted.
Jimi Wikman
💫 Jimi Wikman

People are amazing and it is (almost) time to show that.

I have always thought that people are amazing. I love meeting people from different cultures, religions, gender and political views. What I find is that if we look past the stereotypes and generalizations you find that all people have something valuable and amazing inside them. This is something I want to bring into this site and I am building a section for just that purpose.
In my daily work I meet so many amazing people. People that not always get the attention they deserve. People who enrich this world with hard work, but also with dreams and very often with a seed of awesomeness inside them. This is something I want to nourish and hopefully make blossom. I want to help connect people with others that are amazing so they can grow and take a few more steps towards their inner potential.
It does not matter to me if you are just getting out of school or if you come from another country. It does not matter if you are changing your career or take a bold step to start your own business. If I can help you just a little, then maybe that will be enough for you to  make your dream come true and nothing could be more fulfilling than that.
This is why I am creating a section called simply "People". It is a section where I present people and give them visibility here on my site. I will interview them and link to their websites and linkedin profiles. This new section will soon show up and I have several amazing people already prepared to show you. I want to show the world who you are and why you are amazing.
Because you are amazing.
 
 
Jimi Wikman
💫 Jimi Wikman

Diablo 4 announced

Diablo 4 has finally been announced at Blizzcon 2019. Not only have we been waiting for this for so long, it also looks amazing. By the look of things it is everything we wanted Diablo 3 to be, and then some. This is indeed a great announcement, even if we have to wait a while for the game.
 
 
Three classes is presented at this time: The Barbarian, the Sorceress and the Druid. We will probably see a ranged class as well and perhaps the Necromancer as well. This would tie well in with the homage to the Diablo 2 legacy this iteration of Diablo seem to do a lot.
Game play is fluid and looks amazing from the live streams and the demo. Character customization is returning to the Diablo 2 style with a mix of talent tree's similar to Path of Exiles (but much more manageable). Rune words are back and a wide range of items where they add a new level called Mythical on top of legendaries.
The world is huge and based on an open world with random generated dungeons in the hundreds. Massive world events are mixed with social spaces for trading and even the long awaited PVP zones.
It is indeed good news, but unfortunately it looks like it will be a few years at least before we can get our hands on it. I am fine with that and I look forward to follow the development to see how this very promising Diablo 4 will turn out.
It is more than 20 years since I started my Diablo journey and I am happy to add some extra years to that based on what I have seen so far.
Feel free to join me in the Diablo 4 club.
 
Jimi Wikman
💫 Jimi Wikman