Andrew Pollack's Blog

Technology, Family, Entertainment, Politics, and Random Noise

Document Archive

Further BackMore RecentJump to:
  1. 11/04/2008The disgusting dirty tricks are out in full forcePersonally, I think any new or changed advertisement of a political nature less than 72 hours prior to an election is highly suspect. Today is the first time I've seen the negative "Rev. Write" ads in months -- but they sure are prominent and as misleading and slanderous as ever. Its the same crap as every year. Save the stuff that's most ugly until the last minute when there's no time for it to be refuted or for the candidate to respond. There are robot phone dialers in key places making calls to mislead ......
  2. 11/04/2008Planning to stay up late and watch the returns come in? Join our chatI've set up a Skype based public chat for anyone in the greater Domino community that plans to stay up and watch the results come in. We've done this on other topics and it works fairly well. Get a skype account if you don't have one already, then join in: The Lotus Domino Election Eve Skype Chat Be warned, topics will range and may not always be ......
  3. 11/03/2008Structure Fire - Saturday; links to coverageSo Saturday wasn't spent on Lotus Domino much at all. After getting in at 2am from London and sleeping till 8, we had a minor call around 11am and then while I was raking leaves at around 2:30pm we had a call come in for a structure fire. The fire, on the part of town we call the "Foreside" was a really fast mover. We pulled in and the second floor was already heavily involved. By the time I had the truck set up and a pack on to go in we heard on the radio that the roof had self-vented (burned through so ......
  4. 11/03/2008Election Day - From a public safety perspectiveI won't get a chance to do much Domino work tomorrow. Voting tomorrow is expected to be at record turnout. I thought I'd take a minute to give you some insight into what that means from a public safety perspective even in a small town like Cumberland, Maine. First, with polls opening at 7am and a heavy turnout expected in the morning, we're going to have to staff the Town Hall with a fire watch crew. That happens because we expect the building to be over-capacity during that time. Next, since the town hall ......
  5. 11/01/2008Battery Killing Utilities -- Find them and shut them off.My flight back from London on a relatively old 767 that seemed (to me) to be configured for domestic travel rather than international wasn't too bad -- but only because there were enough open seats. The power supplied by the aircraft to some of the seats was barely workable. My Dell wants about 95 watts inbound to the block adapter and that's close to the advertised limit of the seat power. Add a little loss on the inverter and it gets iffy. Viewing a movie from the hard disk, the on again/off again ......
  6. 10/31/2008For those of you Europeans who don't care for how Americans do wireless services -- your system has fully pissed me off.Instead of paying $125 for a week of renting a pre-setup "Orange" subscribed cell phone as I have done in the past when I left the US, I decided to try doing the local thing this time. Once arriving in Germany, it took me a few hours but I was able to find an unlocked Nokia phone (a very very cheapo one without bluetooth or anything else) for 40 Euros -- I think it may have been used as a demo, but its hard to know with the language barrier and to be honest I didn't care a bit. Then I puchased a SIM -- ......
  7. 10/30/2008Why I have such a hard line on the risk of Portal being over-pushed at LotusphereEarlier today I posted a list of things I think should be closely considered in the planning for Lotusphere 2009.... In among that list, I was pretty strong in my caution against over-pushing WAS and Portal in the way it was done for 2004. Ed came in to the defense of the Portal team, reminding me of the current date and of how there are several hundred people who came to Portal conventions earlier in the year. A couple of others have decried the value of that platform, which I still contend is a niche ......
  8. 10/30/2008The Lotusphere Thread -- What should IBM pay attention to this year in the planning?Every year there are good things and bad things at the Lotusphere conference. If you've got anything in mind for what they should really be aware of, lets post it here. I'll start... Food & Food Tent -- Having just the one was really great last year in that you could meet anyone you wanted to have lunch with. The downside was that it was very far away from the Swan, where all the "Best Practices" sessions take place. That's where I spend most of my conference time. Late Busses -- Many people have mentioned ......
  9. 10/29/2008A few pictures from AdminCamp 2008 in Gelsenkirchen, GermanyThis is the view from the balcony here at my hotel room.The lead organizer of this conference is Rudi Knegt. His has been a well known name in the IBM Lotus Business Partner community for about as long as I have, but I've never spoken at one of his conferences until now. I have to say I'm very impressed. As a speaker I can tell you that Rudi, his beautiful wife, and his conference team have gone to remarkable lengths to make sure I've had everything I could possibly need ---- and beyond that, also had a ......
  10. 10/27/2008AdminCamp - Another succesful Domino conferenceThis is the first time I've spoken at one of the AdminCamp conferences, and I'm quite impressed. The turnout seems to be excellent, as is the facility. Our hosts have been quite gracious in providing everything we could possibly need to provide a solid presentation and also to be comfortable and have a good time. Its good to see such a thriving community in Europe dedicated to the Domino ......
  11. 10/26/2008A long week of travel - finally settling in for Adminkamp in GermanyThis has been a really long week, but at least for a few days I should be able to catch my breath. Take a gander and you'll see what I mean. Tuesday: Leave home 10:30am Leave car at Bus in Portland 11:30am Arrive at Airport in Boston 1:45pm Leave "big" suitcase at Airport Hilton Catch Flight to Phoenix via Chicago 3:30pmWednesday Arrive Phoenix and get rental car 11:30pm (local time -- 2:30am for me) Arrive at my Mom's house 12:30am (3:30am for me) Spend the dayThursday Leave Phoenix by car for Flagstaff ......
  12. 10/25/2008Never forget the first rule of holesWhile I've been traveling a lot this week and had a very hard time keeping up with the blogging community, a certain train wreck just continues. I'd say I was speechless but we all know that's unlikely to ever happen. Lets say I'm a bit surprised to some that there are people still out in the blogging world without the slightest understanding of when they're doing themselves more damage on a daily basis. I suggest to anyone who reads this that in many things - blogging included - you should remember this ......
  13. 10/20/2008I'm leaving the country.I'm getting on a plane tomorrow for Arizona, where I'm presenting about Second Signal to a regional Chiefs meeting up near Kingman, then flying to Boston where I'll pick up my other suitcase and catch a flight the next morning to London. From there its on to Germany and Rudi-Con. I can't say I'm going to miss the political ads for the week I'm gone. They, along with some of the conversations I've had, have been increasingly shrill and irritating. When I travel overseas, I feel distinctly American. ......
  14. 10/20/2008More annoying McCain campaign speeches. What a shame he's abandoned so many principles.[] Here's a test: Watch any McCain speech from the last few weeks, and count how much time is spent talking about McCain's plans, McCain's ideas, and McCain's beliefs while also counting how much time is spent talking about Obama. I'm starting to forget why I ever liked this guy. He seems to have pretty much abandoned any attempt to manage his campaign toward a discussion of ideas at this point. I'm seeing his stump speeches devolve into little more than name calling and character bashing. The thing is, ......
  15. 10/19/2008I see dumb people! -- And not just the ones with with the wrong political signs in their yards...I do a lot of security review work, I write a lot of software in a lot of different languages. I sit in meetings with I.T. executives arguing about security issues. Do you know how many people make the same mistakes? Nearly all of them. When I do penetration testing for a major company, about 90% of the time I end up with a whole category of findings that comes down to "big new lock on a rusty old chain." Essentially, it comes down to the idea that you should never ever halfway lock something. You're ......
  16. 10/19/2008An amusing and productive -- if slightly irritating -- weekendAs I get ready for a long bout of travel I always get a bit rushed with things not done. It is exactly at this point that extra work pops up. First it was Ari's laptop that sucked a day of my time from me in a way I'll never get back. Just when I thought that was it, we had a power outage yesterday and the generator failed. All this while for some reason, I wasted too much time trying to be nice to someone who didn't even realize it. I don't do "nice" very often, so maybe I'm just not that good at it. lol. ......
  17. 10/18/2008Obama in a landslide -- while most media claim its a close race, in the actual EC votes that count, it isn't at all.One of the most unbiased, reliable, and clearly presented sites is FiveThirtyEight.com. That site combines all the polls and produces actual data you can read and interpret for yourself. They don't make predictions with it. They show you where things stand, and what the trend has been. As you can see from this image, the way the Electoral College plays out, this election is in all likelihood going to go Obama in a landslide of epic proportions. [] Why does the media want to show you stats that make it seem ......
  18. 10/17/2008If you make a bad blog post and don't like the result, what's the best way to deal with it?First of all, those of you who know what inspired me to write this, please keep it to yourselves. I do not mean this entry to be a dig at anyone or to re-open an argument. There is a valid topic for discussion here though. Here's my take: 1. It is perfectly valid, as a blogger, to remove an entire entry -- the original post as well as all the comments. Its your blog, and if you've made a mistake by posting a topic or responding to comments in a way that doesn't look like what you want on your blog, it is ......
  19. 10/15/2008Press Cancel to Continue -- A full day wasted on Windows VistaLast night, Ari's new laptop was issued a bunch of patches from Microsoft. This morning, the startup process ended with a blue screen. Every time. I started working with it at about 7am. I'll spare you the longest and most boring part of the story and just say that I was finally able to get a normal boot out of it by about 4pm. Here's a few things I learned: 1. If you start Vista in safe mode, you cannot use the Windows Installer to remove software. Brilliant. 2. Vista does have a better interface for ......
  20. 10/14/2008The C.U.L.T. Shirt preliminary design plan has been chosen!In a secret meeting held deep beneath the surface of the earth, protected from the sophisticated eavesdropping gear used against us, Lotus Geek and I met to discuss the shirts for Lotusphere 2009. We held a planning session with the aid of some good friends -- one of whom is a former candidate for the Nobel prize for fashion and design, another of whom is a graduate from the Sorbonne with a degree in humor, a masters degree in wit, and a PhD in repartee, and a third -- who's presence was unknown even to ......
  21. 10/11/2008Fair is Fair (thanks D.)I've had my share of problems with Dell Support, but today a representative did a good job for me and I figured I should point that out here, since I'd pointed out the problems in the past. My Dell D820 laptop -- now just over 2 years old -- has been getting some attention from me lately. The new drive is in, and I'm planning to keep this machine for at least another year. The keyboard is tired, though. One of the keys is loose, one sticks, etc. I decided I'd buy a replacement part and put it in. They're ......
  22. 10/10/2008Encrypting the new laptop drive - Truecrypt is free, incredibly secure, incredibly flexible softwareIf you have customer data, medical data, or anything confidential on your drive and you travel -- you owe it to everyone who counts on your security to encrypt your local data. Sure, your Notes databases can be easily encrypted but what about the rest of the stuff on your drive? Truecrypt - http://www.truecrypt.org/ -- is free, open source, and very powerful. Spend a few minutes on their site reading through the documentation and you can start to see just how paranoid some people are about their data. ......
  23. 10/08/2008Screen redraw problems with Firefox & Notes 8 -- or other big GUI apps? Here's a possible bandage...This is something that's getting increasingly reported in several forums. Among them are the Firefox Q&A forum, and some of the deeper tech Domino ones. Switching between applications -- particularly Firefox along with either Notes 8, DDE, Photoshop, Visual Studio, or other highly graphical applications -- seems to produce screen redraw problems after a while. The screen only partly re-draws, leaving the application that was last up "ghosted" on the screen. I've been searching and reading and testing, and ......
  24. 10/08/2008Ordered a birthday present for myself -- well, for my laptop anywayI've purchased almost no new computer hardware this year. The truth is, I've been focused this year on getting to zero debt (other than a reasonable mortgage which is about half way finished). To get there means not buying a new car and resisting the temptation to by a massive new desktop or really big server. It also means sticking with the Dell D820, now just over 2 years old. I like the D820 a lot though, so no real hardship there. Its a dual core 32 bit machine with plenty of battery life and RAM. What ......
  25. 10/08/2008Now, I'm really in my PRIME.[] No, not Optimus Prime. About a half hour from when I write this, my birthday comes around again. This year is a big one. No, not because it ends with a zero of a five. That's just silly. Those have nothing remotely interesting about them mathematically. No, this is a big one because its a Prime Number. The nice thing about making a big deal out of only PRIME number birthdays, is that the older you get, the less frequent they become. ......
  26. 10/07/2008What makes Vista so painful -- and why IBM had better learn from it.Microsoft Windows Vista hasn't been quite the glowing success they'd hoped. Despite years of effort, massive pre-rollout testing, and a marketing budget that would make MTV proud, it was met with a negative reaction by even those users who really don't understand what it is. Chris Linfoot's blog about Vista's problems happened to catch me with a similar subject in mind. Between that and a conversation with Volker yesterday, I decided to write about some of the things that IBM had best learn from the fall ......
  27. 10/07/2008Things I wish the client side rich text editor did in the Notes client.The more I write, the more I wish the classic editor in the Notes client would handle just a few more things in a reasonably intelligent way. Lately, these small annoyances have really compounded for me. Let me list a few here. If you agree, maybe someone at IBM who finds themselves in a role with some influence {*cough*edbrill*cough*} can pick up these and do something about it. #1. Let me use the control key with the mouse to select more than one thing at a time, even if they're not connected. For ......
  28. 10/05/2008What stops Linux from being a mainstream workstation operating system choice?Brad Linder over at Downloadsquad wrote an interesting little rant about trying to un-install something he didn't like on his Linux workstation. He's touching at the edges of the really important part of the problem. It takes a lot more than a stable kernel and some good packages of software to make a good end user desktop operating system. If you want to really understand how much work it really takes to turn Linux into a solid desktop OS, take a look at how much work Apple had to do on top of BSD to make ......
  29. 10/04/2008In light of Ed's promotion at IBM, I have some questions about how things work there. Maybe you have some too.As most of you in the Domino blogging community already know, Ed Brill -- long one of the strongest and staunchest supporters of the platform -- has been promoted to Director, End-User Messaging and Collaboration at IBM. That's a big deal. Its a big deal for Ed, of course, and its a big deal for all of us, as I believe Ed to have been very empathetic to the "right" side of many of the product battles you've seen referenced here and other places. I chose that word carefully, because I don't claim for a ......
  30. 10/04/2008Fantastic scenery today in Maine -- Twin Brooks Recreation Area and the Maine Pumpkin Festival - 30,000 pumpkins?Today was really beautiful in Maine. Caitlin had a soccer game this morning at Twin Brooks, so I took the camera along. Thanks to Photoshop, I made this 360 degree panoramic view from where I was standing. Click the link to see it much, much larger (500k). The rest of these pictures come from the Maine Pumpkinfest. This was held here at the Cumberland Fairgrounds today. Their goal was to break the world record for the number of lit pumpkins at something on the order of 30,000. I won't know until later ......
  31. 10/04/2008New Acronym: AYFKM -- Are You (Freakin) Kidding Me?I'm just back from a fire call not long ago. A fairly typical call. An alarm sounding at a home. No source of smoke. Homeowner has no idea why the alarm is going off. The 911 dispatcher instructs him to evacuate the residence while we're on the way. We get there, and he's out front. Though he's told dispatch that he's evacuated the house, as we're checking things out we come to find out that his wife and his young daughter are ASLEEP IN BED. AYFKM? True, this turned out to be a faulty detector. It happens. ......
  32. 10/03/2008Its time for C.U.L.T. Shirt Sponsorship Again! Don't ignore this then call me in November pleading for an open slot....Last year we gave away 1800 shirts. For those who don’t know, the C.U.L.T. shirt (Certified, Unofficial, Lotusphere, T-shirt) is a tradition that was originally started by Rocky Oliver (Lotus Geek) and Henry Newberry. In 2003, Henry decided to focus on other things, so for Lotusphere 2004 and ever since I’ve been doing that part of things. Generally speaking, Rocky and I – with help from our friends – come up with a theme for the shirts. The idea is to be somewhat topical, but mostly fun. Sometimes we make ......
  33. 10/03/2008Making Notes 8.x (including 8.5 beta) in Eclipse feel much faster.I've been reminded of this gem, given to me by skilled person I trust, which really speeds up the way Notes 8.x in Eclipse feels. I can't say if its actually faster, but it does feel much faster. I've heard some interesting stories about why this isn't set to a higher default, but since they're only stories I'm going to hold off repeating them. Use your file explorer to find this directory: UPDATED 10/12/2009 for Notes version 8.5.1 The file "jvm.properties" is now located in a new place. ......
  34. 10/02/2008SNTT: A very fast, very helpful reporting method from the Domino serverI don't do SNTT very often. When I do, its because I think there's some trick or other that you may actually find really useful. This week, a client needed a report out of a Domino application. There were a lot of ways I could have done this, but the one I chose ended up being very fast and made the client particularly happy. I thought I'd describe it here. The application is one in which files are posted for users of the site to download. Once made active, the system emails the users a special link. The ......
  35. 10/02/2008Speaking of office environments....here's mineI guess Paul started this -- or maybe someone else. I've seen other people's little work areas. All well and good if you don't need to ever put something down I guess. Here's my office from a few different angles. You can see that I've blocked or shaded the windows, made a ton of space around me to put stuff while I'm working, and generally created a cave environment. The office was built as part of the addition several years ago just specifically for use as my office. Its built so that it could be used as ......
  36. 10/01/2008The claim that these "Mortgage Backed Securities" (aka Mortgage Soup Cans) can't be properly valued is crap.How many times, when oil goes up over $150 a barrel, when home prices skyrocket to ridiculous levels, or for that matter when Disney charges you five bucks for a bottle of water, have you heard that "The Market Sets The Price"? Oil was worth $150 a barrel because that's what the marketplace said it was worth. A few weeks later it was only worth $90 a barrel. What changed? The opinion of the market on its value is what changed. The latest gem of a deregulatory ruling by the SEC (Securities and Exchange ......
  37. 09/30/2008The US House of Representatives has to limit inbound mail. Anyone remember what mail system they're using?The excessive load from actual non-spam email from constituents is more than the Exchange servers at the House can handle, apparently. They've announced that they've had to limit inbound mail. You may get an auto-response back indicating that you should try again another time. ......
  38. 09/26/2008Limited time: A usually private torrent tracker of which I am a member is accepting open referrals.If you are at all into torrents as a means of gaining access to content, you'll want to use this link: [ FYI: As this site has now announced its going to be private again, you'll need to ask me for a link ] This torrent site is quite good (stunningly so, actually). Membership is ranked and there are some rules to follow. Please make sure to read the rules and the faq. They're short, but you'll get the point. The most important thing to remember is that if you download a torrent, don't immediately shut off ......
  39. 09/24/2008My submissions for 2009 Lotusphere Best Practices - Come tell me which you would go to or suggest to others -- please...These are the sessions I've submitted for Lotusphere 2009 in the Best Practices track. If you are a player on the IdeaJam game, click on these and promote them please. ...please wait while they load from IdeaJam.... inwidth = 500;inheight = 320;id = "78C187F92050B897862574BF0004C15F";//-->inwidth = 500;inheight = 320;id = "E5AACB4D686CAE4F862574CE0067CBB1";//-->inwidth = 500;inheight = 320;id = "1AB8F22D926817F4862574CE006805C1";//-->inwidth = 500;inheight = 320;id = ......
  40. 09/24/2008Are you a fan of the original Star Trek series? Did you know there is another season?The original Star Trek series only ran for 3 seasons, from 1966 to 1969 and produced less than 80 episodes. After 42 years from its original air date, it can still be found playing on re-runs and can still be ordered in collections on DVD. The series is an icon for generations of idealistic science geeks, but its also so saturated through pop culture that references to it are still made in nearly every other genre. There are hundreds of Star Trek references in popular shows like Heroes, The Office, ER, The ......
  41. 09/24/2008Adobe Acrobat Reader has been DROPPED from all my systems, in favor of FoxitNot just good enough, its better. Foxit Software has a free replacement for Adobe Acrobat Reader for download. They offer a "Pro" pack of additional tools and utilities which are quite good as well, but the free reader is not only good replacement, it is better in many respects. How is it better? To begin with, its much faster to load. The difference is immediately noticeable. Adding to that, it doesn't bug me with updates every time I load it, then fail to properly install those updates. It doesn't load a ......
  42. 09/23/2008I have received a copy of the letter from Mr. Paulson to a state Senator, asking for funds. I post it here for your interest.DEAR ESTEEMED SENATOR; REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP FIRST, I MUST SOLICIT YOUR STRICTEST CONFIDENCE IN THIS TRANSACTION. THIS IS BY VIRTUE OF ITS NATURE AS BEING UTTERLY CONFIDENTIAL AND 'TOP SECRET'. I AM SURE AND HAVE CONFIDENCE OF YOUR ABILITY AND RELIABILITY TO PROSECUTE A TRANSACTION OF THIS GREAT MAGNITUDE INVOLVING A PENDING TRANSACTION REQUIRING MAXIMUM CONFIDENCE. WE ARE TOP OFFICIAL OF THE UNITED STATES TREASURY WHO ARE INTERESTED IN EXPORTING OF LOANS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY WITH FUNDS ......
  43. 09/19/2008Thinking about the current real estate crisis -- what's being done, what's not, and maybe what should beAs a result of the most recent abuse of good sense and lack of feduciary responsibilty, a lot of banks and a investment houses are stuck with a lot of houses that aren't worth the money they've loaned out on them. The problem then, is that the houses aren't good investments for the short term. We also have a need for housing for many people -- good people. It seems to me that what's missing is two things, not one. The first one is being tackled by the Fed -- spreading enough money into the credit system ......
  44. 09/16/2008The Completed Snowthrower Rebuilding ProjectI find it much easier to work on and repair a snow thrower on warm September evenings and weekends than on cold February mornings when I'm trying to get the car out. This year will be the 13th year of service for this MTD 8hp snow thrower. MTD products fill the lower cost market niche in equipment but my experience with their products has always been extremely positive. There are more expensive machines that are built to supposedly last longer -- and maybe they would. Would they last twice as long? They ......
  45. 09/15/2008The big "Mass Casualty Drill" on Saturday. I got to apply some cool tech proof of concepts.On Saturday, Cumberland Fire Department held a big "Mass Casualty" drill at the fairgrounds. More than 8 months in the planning, we invited dozens of agencies to take part including hazardous materials teams, the Red Cross, rescue departments from several towns, and of course victims volunteers. [] The scenario was fairly straightforward. An accident during the fair involving a school bus and a tanker full of gasoline in which the tanker began leaking product all over the place. It could happen. If you'll ......
  46. 09/09/2008Intel's new ATOM chip + Asus EEE PC 901XP - FTW!Before deciding on the new ASUS EEE PC 901 XP, I read as many performance reviews as I could find. I was trying to compare it with the VIA thin client chipset or even the Intel Celeron but none of the tests really gave me what I was looking for. See, the clock speed (the mhz or ghz of a chip) doesn't tell the whole story. [] If a chip has fewer base instructions, it needs a higher clock speed to do the same things. At the same time, chips with more complex instruction sets can run fewer cycles and get the ......
  47. 09/08/2008Hundred Pushups Challenge: Day 0 - The initial testI saw a couple of other people giving this a shot and I thought it might be a good, simple way to improve my strength so I've started their simple (free) program. Take a look at the [Hundred Pushups Challenge] for more information. The initial test is just as simple as doing a series of good, honest pushups and counting them up. Compare this on a chart for your age, and you get the initial ranking. For my age, I come out in "Rank 3" to start with -- so that's got me starting about a third of the way ......
  48. 09/08/2008Do you care about Domino performance in a way you can do something with? Say so on ideaJamMac has asked that if we're planning to submit a session in the BP track that we post the idea up in IdeaJam to see what kind of support its got. I want to do a Performance session in the BP track this year. I usually do security, admin, mail routing, and linux -- and I'll probably post those as well -- but this year I want to do "Performance" in a way that makes sense in the real world. You see, real world Domino performance issues aren't all about the simple stuff like memory and number of disks. There's ......
  49. 09/08/2008Could we finally be seeing a good E-Ink product hitting the streets?Imagine if the newspaper organizations could get back to spending their money on reporters and research in depth instead of the materials, infrastructure, fuel, and overhead associated with distribution? []Plastic Logic] seems to be one of the first to actually near market with a reasonable E-Ink alternative. Their product is about the size, shape, and width of a magazine – and is at least somewhat flexible. It also has a long battery life, and can display several standard formats – including PDF. Best of ......
  50. 09/07/2008Saw a pretty cool bit of tech on Discovery Discover Channel (http://www.Discovery.com) has a new series called ["Project Earth"]. The series seems to feature each week a new experiment aimed at solving some aspect of the energy or climate challenges we're told we all face. It looks like some of the shows in the series are pretty oddball -- I saw one that involved giant rotating balloons that were supposed to float all the way up at altitudes where the wind is fast and constant. It looked kind of crazy. I watched one tonight though, via the DVR, ......
  51. 09/04/2008If you could pick the topic you wanted from me at LS09, what would it be?Fall is here. Lotusphere 2009registration is open now, as is the call for abstracts. If you could pick my topic, what would you want me to cover? In the past, the Security Jumpstart I do with Gab has been very well attended with a repeat and both sessions really full, so we'll update that with all the new 8.5 stuff and submit that one for sure. Other than that, there's a ton of stuff I'm thinking about. Is there one you've seen me do that you think is worth repeating? Is there a new topic you think I ......
  52. 09/03/2008Trendspotting: What Google is really starting with ChromeAside from being a fairly cool -- if a bit undercooked -- new browser, Chome has another lesson for us. Google has very specifically NOT created an incremental bloatware version of existing code. They've built something new from nearly the ground up, embedding the proven technologies they needed -- javascript by V8, and rendering by Webkit. Only by starting from scratch were they able to get some of the size, memory management, and security enhancements that form the core of their promising new ......
  53. 09/03/2008Using the management of their campaigns to learn about the candidatesSome things about these two political campaigns have struck me recently as glimpses of what to expect from an administration led by either candidate. It isn't a perfect picture, but it is telling in a way. It also matches what I think about these two men so clearly my own viewpoint is mixed in richly in the interpretation. To be clear about that bias, I should state here that I am currently planning to vote for Obama, though will not vote an entirely Democratic party ticket. We have some very good ......
  54. 09/02/2008Chrome - Google's new Web Browser. Super tool, still needs a few things.Google's new browser, called "Chrome" made a rocking debut today. Its got a lot going for it, and a few things to catch up with. First, what's great: 1. Fast. Damn fast. Really really fast. The more AJAX on a site, the faster it will seem. 2. Tabs turn into windows - just tear them off. You can do it with an add on for Firefox, but there you go. 3. Much better "sandboxing" for security. 4. Each tab is its own operating system process. That makes for way better memory management. 5. One tab that's hung or ......
  55. 08/30/2008Notes 8.5 Public Beta 2 - First impressionsNotes 8.5 Public Beta 2 came out the other day and its now running as my production working environment. ......
  56. 08/28/2008Have you used the Asus EEE PC? I've got a couple of unusual questionsI'm considering the Asus EEE PC as an option for Second Signal base station units. The 900 looks fast enough by specs, and in all other regards is more than sufficient. I do have a few questions about the units though, that can be answered by people who have owned one. 1. Is there a fan? Is this unit passively cooled or is there a cooling fan that comes on? 2. Can the unit run in an "Always On" state reliably? 3. Can the unit run with the laptop screen closed without overheating? Did you have problems with ......
  57. 08/28/2008Blogging Respite - A long couple of weeksJust a heads up. Its been a long week or so between the unexpected kitchen remodeling, and some other things that took too much of my time. On top of all that, This week the kids are home from all summer programs but school hasn't yet restarted. That's been true for two weeks but this week is my turn to "stay home" from work to watch them. Ari made her Junior Varsity soccer team and has been having either two practices a day or a practice and a game every day for two weeks -- and she needs a ride to and ......
  58. 08/23/2008The disturbing case of the Fridge, and cabinets built by Dr. Seuess. * Updated with picturesAfter 20 years of wanting one, I've finally got a fridge that has an ice maker. Unfortunately, that's the beginning of the story not the end. You see, our kitchen cabinets where built by Dr. Seuess. When I measured for the width of the fridge, I checked the measurement at the floor, at counter height, and then again with the upper cabinet. All were fine. Tight, but fine. Then the fridge came. Although all the widths were fine, they were unfortunately offset from one another by as much as half an inch. I ......
  59. 08/17/2008From Caitlin: "Dad, are the Olympic medals solid gold?" The answer is interesting...Gold is not a practical material to make solid objects from. They won't tarnish, but they will not last either. The first and second place medals are solid silver, while the first place medal is plated with at least six grams of gold. This year's medals also use Jade in their construction and are quite special. The host nation has some flexibility in how the Olympic medals are made and their materials, without strict standards of the IOC (International Olympic Committee). Here's a brief article that talks ......
  60. 08/12/2008The mis-use of Twitter as a chat room - and what to do about itTwitter has ripped through our community like a wave, capturing the time wasting cycles and a few more than that from quite a few people. The problem is, its totally the wrong tool for us. Twitter is meant to be a tool to tell your friends and followers "what you're doing" so they can meet up with you. It isn't meant as a chat room at all. Most messages should be one line saying "I'm here, doing this." Twitter has become -- for many in the Domino Blogger community -- a kind of limited chat room. Why? ......
  61. 08/12/2008Olympics Coverage Chat Room - Will continue for the duration -- and a side question: Did the Mongolian Team have to breach the Great Wall to come play?The skype based Olympics coverage chat room was reasonably cool last night. I'm going to leave it "Open" for the duration. Just follow the link here: http://bit.ly/3A23oV And you can join or leave at will. You do need skype, but that's free and quick. You do not have to exchange details with others in the chat. Its public. It seems to be most active during the East Coast Prime Time coverage on NBC, but since there are like fifty different channels and online streams feel free to us it whenever and however ......
  62. 08/11/2008The Smarmy Comments Public Olympic Chat RoomI've set up a Public Chat on Skype. Its new functionality so you need a recent copy of Skype -- just follow this link, download Skype if you need to, and join the sarcasm fest. ......
  63. 08/11/2008Cumberland Explorer Fire Academy 2008Cumberland Fire Department Explorer Academy 2008Explorers and Junior Firefighters from several towns were invited to participate in this year's Academy. The students lived at the station for five days, training in all aspects of firefighting. They ran calls with the fire department and were able to do nearly everything firefighters do.These pictures were taken at the Yarmouth, Maine training site. This structure has three floors and a basement and has been made safe for training. It has shutters for the ......
  64. 08/09/2008Running OSX in a Virtual Machine under Windows XP - Blasphemy?Behind me as I sit at my desk, there currently sits an Apple eMac G4. It has only one purpose - testing web pages with a real copy of Safari running on OSX. I realize there's a Safari for Windows now, but I don't trust it to always give me the same results. What I really hate most about it is the size of the thing. I never should have gotten one with a built in screen, but all I can say is that it seemed like a good idea at the time. That was a few years ago. I've wanted to run OSX in a VMWARE session for ......
  65. 07/29/2008Major software switch - Dropping Grisoft's AVG and trying out Avast!I used to love AVG, the free anti-virus software. Each version has gotten worse however, not better. The latest changes have it so intrusive that I've decided to drop it. On recommendation, I'm trying Avast! and from what I can tell, it is much more powerful, much less obtrusive, and seems to use less system resources. I was able to quickly configure it to watch my P2P connections, instant message session, smtp & pop mail sessions, and of course in memory viruses -- but also to leave my Notes data alone. I ......
  66. 07/25/2008What image to project in a professional photo?I've been asked again for a suitable photo to use in publication. This happens from time to time if you speak and write and isn't that big a deal. The problem is that the last one I had done by a pro is now something close to seven years old. That's it on the left. It was taken by friend who is a professional photographer. You can see that he did a hell of a job making me look better than I should. In fact, my favorite comment ever about this photo was from someone who said "He did a great job. It really ......
  67. 07/25/2008The most fundamental things missing from web browser standardsDeveloping content for the web is frustratingly limited. That's no secret. What are the top must fundamental missing features that should long ago have been fully and completely solved? Here's my quick hit list: #1. Fonts. Any font should be able to be easily referenced on a web page universally. I know you can embed fonts for some browsers but there are no good ways to really embed a custom font that everyone will see. As a result, we spend all day looking at boring (though readable) fonts. Now, I know ......
  68. 07/21/2008Favorite Tools #4: MagicDiscIts all about the Magic. MagicDisc (aka MagicISO) is another of those tools you won't be able to live without once you get to know it. Remember when software used to come on CDROM and later DVDROM disks? Back in the days before you downloaded everything? Well, it still does. Many of the downloaded software you get will be in "ISO" format or one of a dozen or so other "virtual drive" formats. These files are meant to be burned to CD or DVD and then used as a disk in the drive. MagicISO sits in your system ......
  69. 07/21/2008Extended Validation Certificates -- Or "How can top level registrars screw you even more?" (already hacked, btw)It isn't enough for Verisign and their ilk to suck a hundred bucks a year from every mom and pop internet shop on the market. Now they've created a new standard with the purpose of turning that $100 cost into $500 a year. By paying for this "Extended Validation Certificate" you get a new special certificate that turns the address bar "GREEN". The browser makers have been talked into supporting this apparently. Next comes the big advertising campaign that tells all the shoppers out there that if it doesn't ......
  70. 07/20/2008Lots of Fire stuff this weekend. Fireworks detail, and a bunch of people who just don't think.So this weekend, between working on Domino and Asterisk, I had a lot of firefighting stuff to do. First, on Saturday afternoon a down power line call came in literally 500 yards from my house, just over on the next street. I went direct and had someone toss my gear on the first due Engine. It turned out the line was a high voltage service line that feeds the transformers which then feed the houses a few at a time. This line had come off the pole and was laying across the grass and driveway of someone's ......
  71. 07/19/2008Data Dashboard challenge in Notes - Better sometimes, than using an RDBThis challenge is about dealing with a significant volume of raw data, and reporting on in a useful way. The fundamental difference in working with data in Notes versus working with it in a relational database, is that while typically an RDB can handle more raw data, viewing that raw data through reports only gives you exactly what you ask for. Notes on the other hand presents data in "Views" which are much more organic -- particularly if you've designed them well. You don't just see what you're asking ......
  72. 07/17/2008The hunt for a laptop for Ari - What is the perspective of a 14 year old on this purchase?The middle school here has a laptop program so for the last couple of years, Ari has had the use of a little Mac laptop. She also has a PC in her room that she's had for some time. Its not a great one, but its sufficient. As we're getting ready for High School this year, we've been looking to get her a laptop. We're willing to pay for what she needs -- enough that it will be a good machine -- but we're not paying for extras. She'd have to make up the difference. I think manufacturers could learn a thing or ......
  73. 07/17/2008Favorite Tools #3: Desk PinsContinuing my recent theme of talking about the little tools that I use on constant basis to make my work more efficient, this one is called "Desk Pins", ......
  74. 07/16/2008One form to rule them all....I've just completed a major piece of automation work for Second Signal. When I add a new department, there are quite a few things that have to get set up. Asterisk has to be configured with connection information for the remote software. Access groups have to be created. Time zone information looked up and entered in. Scripts for managing audio files need to be updated. Directories on the Linux file system have to be created, telephone numbers have to be linked to the right audio data locations. Pager ......
  75. 07/15/2008Favorite Tools #2: MWSnap! Fantastic tool for taking partial screenshotsWhen I'm speaking at conferences, I try to put plenty of screen shots in the presentation. I do this so you can take my presentations and print them out to work with as guides. The tool I use for taking screen shots is "MWSnap". ......
  76. 07/14/2008Great free file degragmentation tool -- from the same people who make CCLEANERI was updating my copy of CCLEANER this evening when I saw they same people have a new tool out. Defraggler seems to work very well, its very fast, and its free. I've used other tools by these guys with good success. One of the things I like most about Defraggler is that you can see what files are fragmented, sort them by pathname, and select which ones you want to bother defragmenting. I couldn't care less if a bunch of temp files are fragged. CCLEANER is going to delete them anyway. Instead, I degragged ......
  77. 07/14/2008Critical Security Patch - Did you miss this? Update your DNS servers immediately.Several days ago a major announcement was made about a fundamental flaw in the DNS protocol -- one of the most important underlying bits of infrastructure that makes the internet possible. This is not a flaw in the implementation by any specific vendor. This is a fundamental flaw in the protocol itself so: Nearly every single operating system and appliance that provides name service caching is susceptible This Network World article has details, as does this CNET "D3F3NS3 1N D3PTH" feature. You'll find a ......
  78. 07/14/2008Project Atlantic is the Killer App if you're an SAP shop - Updated IBM Website has examplesIBM's project "Atlantic" is a joint work between IBM and SAP that is going to blow the doors off any previous integration with SAP by IBM, Lotus, or Microsoft. To make it even better, No Portal Server Required. This is a Notes solution at its very core, and the work is done very well. I think this is going to stop a lot of migrations away from Notes in their tracks, and drive many customers who may have been on the fence about a client side upgrade toward the 8.5 client very soon after it is ......
  79. 07/14/2008What is the best data plan for roaming laptop access when I'm in the E.U for a week this fall?The only real down side I have with the Verizon Wireless laptop card I use is that because it is CDMA based it won't work when I go to Europe. In the past I've always just rented a cheap phone and that's been good enough. This year, I want to do better. I've gotten very very used to the idea of my laptop being able to get a decent speed connection to the internet pretty much everywhere whenever I want. I'd like to be able to do the same thing in Europe. I've found data connectivity in hotels there isn't ......
  80. 07/12/2008IndyMac bank failure - Does this mean my mortgage payments are over?I realize the news reports all seem to make it look as though these failing financial institutions were all spending their time defrauding each other and their investors, bilking innocent unwed mothers out of their savings, and stealing houses. Clearly that doesn't tell the whole story, because our experience with IndyMac has been positive. ......
  81. 07/11/2008Updated Blog Template - Finally on-lineThis is a new template applied to the existing data, so all your comments and feedback should still be here. I plan to extend this template to the main NCT site very soon, and then the links across the top will make more sense as the whole of the "NCT" site and the "BLOG" site will finally be a single integrated user interface. Let me know if you see anything that isn't working. Try using the site search, that is the biggest change I've ......
  82. 07/10/2008To our shock and amazement, Nathan T. Freeman.......is no longer a candidate for the Darwin award. His wife (and what a saint she must be!) has been able to summon the patience to provide him an heir. Soon, the first of Nathan's progeny will begin its own exploits. Now that the Freeman genetic transfer project has forked, one can hope for a better result with the new code. Having briefly met Nathan's wife, we can at least look forward to a much improved User Interface on the new model. Best of luck to Mother and Child. They're going to need ......
  83. 07/10/2008Insane pictures from the July 5th tanker fireIncredible pictures from the July 5th tanker fire in Golden Valley, Arizona..... Here is the story on CNN's ......
  84. 07/10/2008Long term Notes success and interesting Sametime traction at a new SMB client siteI don't normally pitch product in the kind of engagements I take on. Usually, I'm there for quick and specific purposes and then gone again. It may be a security review, some help on performance, or a project in trouble -- but in most cases its not a "sales" kind of engagement. That's why yesterday's call was so interesting. There's a company here in the Portland area that we consider to be fairly big in Maine, but most of the you would put in the SMB market. They've got a few hundred mail users in four ......
  85. 07/06/2008Surprisingly good zombie movies seen from my comfy chairHere's the thing - I love movies. I don't actually go to the movies very often. There are a number of reasons for this, including the fact that I've got two businesses I'm trying to run, three children, a second career as a firefighter, and I live in a place where there are almost no modern theaters. The closest stadium seating theater is a half hour drive away, and the next one after that is about forty five minutes drive. The nearby theater is in what used to be a K-Mart and its like watching a big TV at ......
  86. 07/05/2008Breaking News: Gasoline Tanker fire on US 68 near Kingman, AZ -- Second Signal Audio from the call here!The audio below is taken directly from the Second Signal system. The incident is still ongoing as of the time of this blog posting. There is at least one, possibly two semi-trucks on fire. At least one is a gasoline tanker. US-68 is currently closed near Kingman, AZ. http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-42978 Golden Valley Fire Department is one of the first departments in the country using Second Signal to provide information to call-responders in real-time. For more information about Second Signal, click this ......
  87. 07/05/2008Setting / Changing the UNID on documents - a fantastic hack for fixing problems or creating development copies of databasesCredit where it's due, Nathan brought this one to my attention. He's using the technique for something else he'll be blogging about later with a great deal of excitement. When he told me what he was doing, I wasn't as interested in how he was using it as he was (have to keep that part a secret) but I was pretty interested in the little hack he's taking advantage of. You can set the Universal ID on a Notes Document. I wasn't aware of this, but in lotusscript, NotesDocument.UniversalID is not a read-only ......
  88. 07/04/2008Geek move review! "Untraceable" -- Does it pass the geek test?I watched this one while doing some other things, but what caught my attention was the effort they went to in making the tech stuff at least close to plausible. They actually went overboard a bit explaining that right near the beginning. The idea is that this serial killer uses a website to stream live video of captured people being slowly killed. The gimmick is that the more people who watch the video the faster the death. The site can't be traced because (and they go to great lengths to explain this) the ......
  89. 07/04/2008A must watch video for CSS developers - Even if you don't use YUIMost of you know that by this time of day (7pm as I write this) I have the attention span of a gerbil on crack. That should add some weight to the recommendation I'm about to make. I just watched (most of) a 42 minute presentation on CSS that is geared toward jumpstarting the viewer on using the YUI tookit. The presentation is by the author of the CSS files themselves, and manages to include some fantastic background and detail about exactly how different browsers calculate fonts widths and scaling. By ......
  90. 07/04/2008Config driven CSS websites in Domino - What do you tokenize?I'm soliciting ideas & best practices on building configurable "theme like" CSS for a Domino site. I'm in the midst of a design refresh for this blog, as well as the main NCT site. They are both functional but truly ugly. I've decided to merge the two into a much more integrated self -- but more on that later. As part of the redesign work, I've been hand crafting a bit of HTML and CSS that will eventually become the framework into which all the active content will be placed. Every time I do this, I try to ......
  91. 07/03/2008Declaration of Independence - Take a minute or two, and read itWere it not for the events leading to, and following from this document; we in this part of the world would be speaking English, would be disliked by the French, and would...oh, heck, just read the thing. It's a great work.#dofi {xwidth:100%; color:black; margin:15px; padding:25px; background-image:url(/apblog4.nsf/0/0734560CA88260728525747C000F479F/$file/parchmnt.jpg) ; border:solid 1px black; #dofi p {INCONGRESS, JULY4, 1776A DECLARATIONBy theREPRESENTATIVESof theUNITED STATES OF AMERICA,INGENERAL ......
  92. 07/03/2008All your YouTube viewing history will now be available to ViacomAs if my post earlier today wasn't enough, here's some further emphasis. According to Wired, a judge has ordered Google to turn over its entire history of user viewing data to the media giant. The ruling is based in part on the idea that IP addresses which are tracked don't constitute sufficiently identifying information to be considered a privacy problem. IMHO this is a massive hypocrisy. If the data isn't revealing enough to be a privacy concern, then it has no value as a proof of violation and thus ......
  93. 07/03/2008Designer in Eclipse (Domino Designer 8.5 Beta) "Error creating new project" Dialog BoxIn Domino Designer 8.5 Beta 1, you may have seen this dialog box when attempting to view the design of a database: The "Project" it is referencing is an Eclipse project that is part of the Eclipse workspace. Your NSF database is being presented to the Eclipse framework as a project. The problem appears to be the result of already having a project with the same name. This happens if you already have used Designer in Eclipse to look at the design of a database with the same name on another server. To resolve ......
  94. 07/03/2008George Orwell would have been so proudWell, actually I doubt he'd have been "Proud" as it were, given that his work was meant to be a warning as much as a predictor. It may be that instead of "Proud" I should say he would have been dismayed by our inability to avoid so much of his forewarning. Stories today by Mike Gotta and Ian White (writing on the Collaboration 2.0 blog at CW) have got me thinking again about how much data is being compiled every day about us. A great deal of what we watch, read, write, and who we talk to is logged and can ......
  95. 07/03/2008Bush Administration ends up supporting the Internet Porn industryIn a recent press release, an independent organization of the Adult Entertainment industry is reporting that on-line memberships had a significant jump in volume as a result of the Bush Administration's economic stimulus package. The story can be found in many prominent locations and was referenced today in The Huffington Post. It appears that for many Americans, it wasn't the economy that needed stimulating. According to Kirk Mishkin, Head Research Consultant for AIMRCo, "Many of the sites we surveyed ......
  96. 07/02/2008Extremely frustrating problem with Domino Directory "Global Domain" document - Causes you to waste hours looking for the problemDo you see anything wrong with this? I'll give you a hint: The server accepts mail for three of the four listed domains just fine. The fourth one fails. Why does it fail? Because there is a SPACE character after the end of the the domain "thisoneisbroken.com " Unlike the "Members" field on the "Group" form, which has a translation formula as so: @Trim(@Unique(Members)) The "LocalInternetDomainAliases" field on the "Domain" form has no translation formula. If you have a space there (from copying a domain ......
  97. 07/02/2008XPages: Is this a show stopper for you?There's a control missing from XPages in Beta 1. I honestly don't remember (if I was ever told) if its in the plan or not because I never thought to ask about it. I guess it never even occurred to me that it was missing until I tried building a version of this blogsite using XPages. At present - speaking of Domino 8.5 Public Beta 1 - there is now way to drop a Rich Text control onto an XPage, bind it to a rich text field (e.g. BODY) on a document you've bound as a data source, and have it render the rich ......
  98. 07/02/2008XPages in Beta 1 -- Not done enough yet for me to use in productionI've spent 20 or so hours working with XPages now against my local server and have come to the conclusion that as excited as I am about them - its going to have to wait. There are a number of features not yet complete, a few bugs, and a lack of help that leaves me looking in anticipation for a next beta. It's frustrating that I can't talk about what isn't there that I'm expecting, because that would be breaking NDA. It's even more frustrating that I have to wait before I can go live with some of the things ......
  99. 07/02/2008Killing Spree!This morning I've had to go on a bit of a killing spree. Relax, its not about people. I've had to use various pesticides and herbicides to reclaim the area around the pool from the rapidly encroaching wildlife of Maine. Where I live, summer is short but the soil can only be described as 'fecund' and we've had plenty of rain to keep things healthy. The result is a riotously fast growth of every kind of weed, bug, amphibian, and rodent you can imagine. ......
  100. 07/01/2008DAOS (Attachements stored outside the NSF in a pool) after 1 week - The VedictIt's a winner! After one week, the most important thing I can say about using DAOS on my mail file, is that I'd totally forgotten about it. DAOS enabled servers use a file system data store as a shared pool for file attachments across many databases to prevent duplication, drastically reduce file storage space requirements, reduce disk fragmentation, and improve NSF file performance and reliability. After one week of using DAOS, my mail file remains about half the size it was before, but otherwise I'm ......
  101. 06/30/2008Mixing @Formulas and Lotusscript on Web Pages? Now that XPages are set to take over the world, did you think your Lotuscript skills were wasted? The short answer is absolutely not. As you can see from this image (taken from another fantastic XPages example by John Mackey), there's something funny going on here. This looks an awful lot like Lotuscript. It isn't really Lotusscript, but instead it's JavaScript with objects created to do most of the same things you can do with both Formula languages. Most people who program in Lotuscript mix up two ......
  102. 06/29/2008Free the Bookmarks! (or "What we should learn from the OSS movement")Firefox 3.0 has been out for about 1 week. There are more than 280 community created "Themes" -- color and icon sets. There are over 475 add-on tools for it which make managing bookmarks better for people. There are nearly 150 add-on tools just for better handling the tabbed interface. Why? What's the deal? Do the thousands of contributors to the Mozilla project all just suck at creating user interfaces? No. It means the open source movement recognizes that no matter how good their UI skills are, a huge ......
  103. 06/29/2008Wanted: Guest Bloggers - Looking for a few good lurkers willing to try their hand at one or two brief storiesI'm moving toward an updated and much move community focused kind of venue for this site. One of the features I'd like to add is a place for those in the community who don't blog, but may have one or two hot button topics they'd like to hold forth on. Initially, I'm going to ask for people who want to talk about something related to Domino. I'd love to get perspective pieces talking about what's important from corporate I.T. people involved in the data to day business of Domino & Notes Admin, Security, ......
  104. 06/29/2008Nearly 5 years of blogging -- with comments -- as a wordleNot content with just Cut & Paste, I exported this entire blog -- every subject and body field in it -- to text. I stripped the HTML tags and frequently re-used URL links (like the links to where I store photos) and then took the entire text over to http://wordle.net/create Its less interesting than I'd ......
  105. 06/27/2008I'm thinking about packaging up some services around security, court ordered mail search compliance, and performance.I've been considering taking some of what I've been doing around security and compliance and creating some packaged offerings. They would all be priced under $10,000 and would be soup to nuts offerings targeted at the following: 1. Response to court or lawyer requests for document search across mail, discussion, and other Notes databases --- The idea would be to bring in my tools to do a comprehensive, unbiased search across an entire mail domain, putting together in place all of the uses of a term, ......
  106. 06/26/2008Gab & Tim go on a fire call! A short story in pictures...Good friends Gab & Tim Davis came to visit The North today. The got a bit more excitement than they bargained for when we went down to the fire station. With the idea of just a bit of tourism, I brought them in to our Central station to show off the trucks and gear before we went for lunch with Barb. After getting Tim all decked out in bunker gear -- fully encapsulated, breathing off a bottle -- we went for a ride in Engine 1 for a few minutes. The surprise came when just as we were getting ready to leave, ......
  107. 06/25/2008What is the root of your application?I got stuck a bit today. It took me getting out of the programming tools and back to paper to get myself unstuck. By diving into code too soon, I'd painted myself into a corner without understanding the nature of the problem. It took more thought and less code to solve the riddle. Now that I've got some really powerful tools to play with, I'm having to think about things I never did before. For example, where does an application's data begin? A user hits my XPage and that user is new. There's no profile. ......
  108. 06/24/2008Meta-Blogging: What can be learned from watching Planet Lotus hit countersI've been chatting a bit with Yancy and others about Planet Lotus. The site has really become a great resource. I've been watching the stats. Here's a few things of note: 1. Interest in XPages massive. Any good story about them generates a ton of hits. 2. Admin stuff is under represented. Admin posts generate a lot of hits as a result. 3. More and more people are contributing real value. 4. It still pays to be famous for just being famous. What else can you ......
  109. 06/24/200850 Percent Reduction in mail file size with no loss of data or functionalityThis morning, I set up DAOS on my Domino 8.5 Beta server. Its a Win32 machine running in my office. My customer facing servers are not upgraded yet. Since my mail file is replicated onto more than one clustered server, I saw no danger in giving DAOS a try today. So far, everyone I know who's been testing it is increasingly comfortable with its ability to handle problems as well or better than data stored in the NSF natively. DAOS pulls file attachments out of the NSF and stores them in an arcane file tree ......
  110. 06/24/2008Enough theory! Here's how my first real foray into building something with XPages is goingAfter all the time at the workshop doing walk throughs, all the demos, and all the talking -- I decided to try building something useful with XPages today. Even with all the background information, I'm finding my knowledge to be a little too theoretical and when it comes to practical code I'm really having to work for it. The idea is simple enough -- but revolutionary from a pure old-school Notes perspective. I have two forms. One has company data, the other has record data. The records have a many to one ......
  111. 06/24/2008XPage - Quick Example: Save Time adding view page controls to a view on an XPageThis screenshot shows a quick example of how easy it was to add view paging controls to a view container on an XPage. I'm creating a custom control, which is really like a sub-xpage. You create custom controls to tie blocks of user interface together that work with specific data or functionality. You can then use them on your top level xpages, on other custom controls, etc. Unlike subforms, they're not limited by not being allowed to have the same field names, or by having some functionality that only ......
  112. 06/23/2008George Carlin - A place for my stuff; Was he talking about Notes? Link to the routine on YouTubeIt may not have been about Lotus Notes, but one of the things that always makes me think of George Carlin is how much Lotus Notes has become a place for my stuff. As my little tribute to Mr. Carlin, take a look at this few minutes of video. ......
  113. 06/22/2008Introducing Skippy! Ari gets a new puppy. I would say it was cute, but that would be redundant. Ari has wanted a puppy for a long time. She's saved the money needed, gotten good grades, been helpful around the house, and done a huge amount of research into understanding the different breeds. We ended up adopting from a local shelter. Skippy is 5 months old and some kind of Corgi/Lab/Other mix. He's good tempered and seems to learn very fast. ......
  114. 06/21/2008Gaming Planet Lotus is juvinile and destructively arrogantSomeone pinged me on IM today and pointed out that it was very likely someone had used a hack similar to one I pointed out to Yancy a few months back that could allow someone to "game the system" as it were and rack up endless link count numbers on Planet Lotus. It's not a difficult hack to accomplish and fairly tricky to defend against (though not impossible). I don't really know if the post in question is actually being manipulated that way. I'm told it has more link hit numbers than there are daily ......
  115. 06/21/2008IBM's Project Atlantic -- SAP Integration with Notes that's compelling and approachable on day 1I got a preview yesterday of IBM's new Project Atlantic. Since I don't do much SAP integration myself, I expected another hour or so of slow, painful, death by slideware. Boy was I wrong. I'm still working out just what was disclosed under NDA and what was public information, so I'm going to post impressions here, and ask you to follow the links for details and to see aProject Atlanticlive demo.Here's what made such a great impact on me: 1. It's a real integration, not a database driver. IBM and SAP have ......
  116. 06/19/2008Themes in XPages - More insane powerSo for now they work just against elements (components) on XPages - but its what they do that's cool. Imagine if you could say that anywhere you place a "Button" in your application you want to make sure that an html class type is set to "styleButton". A couple of lines in your theme, and now all the buttons on your XPage have a class set that will let you identify them in your CSS. It isn't just CSS properties or even just html properties. STYLES can change, replace, or append to the default settings of ......
  117. 06/18/2008A somewhat hidden gem in 8.5 beta - Make your Workspace look better!I saw over the shoulder of an IBMer today that his workspace was much nicer looking. I wasn't peaking at what he was doing, just happened to be sitting behind and to the side and it caught my eye. I asked him about it, to see if this was a "what's next" kind of thing on a private build. "No," he said, "it just turned on like that one day in the Beta." We spoke a bit, showed Maureen, and eventually one of them suggested it could be related to the use of "Textured Workspace". His was turned off and mine ......
  118. 06/18/2008Tabs, tabs, tabs, tabs ....wonderful tabs... -- Will most XPages sites use tabbed navigation?XPages provides a really natural way to create tabbed interfaces for web applications. You drop a tab control onto the XPage, then drop a custom control (remember, that's just another XPage built to be use-case specific) onto the various tabs. My application has four interrelated forms so it makes perfect sense to create a custom control for each as well as a custom control representing the access method for each (e.g. for those with multiple documents, a control which displays them in a view or a fancier ......
  119. 06/17/2008XPages continues to impress the heck out of meSo today I'm taking a pretty deep dive into XPages development as it currently exists in the Domino Designer 8.5 Beta. What continues to impress me is the success of Phillipe and Maureen -- and of course their entire teams -- at integrating the things learned in the process of building newer things like Portal with Maureen's unrivaled depth of understanding when it comes to the root core problems we struggle with in Domino and Notes development. There are dozen or so places as you get deeper and deeper ......
  120. 06/17/2008So a bunch of Notes guys walk into a bar.........Actually, its not a bar, its a conference room. It will probably end up being a bar later. I'm sitting here with - among many others - Nathan, John, Rob (Captain Oblivious), Howard, George, and many others. Its a hands on seminar environment. Do I need to go into much detail before you start to imagine just how fast the actual conversation is diverging from the planned ......
  121. 06/13/2008Pluto - and Notes - get the last laughPluto finally gets some love from the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Two years ago the long running battle of Pluto's status as a planet looked to be over. The IAU declared Pluto to simply not be a planet. Pluto, they said, was more like a comet with a relatively round orbit. Terms like dwarf planet and planetoid were used. In 2003, at the IBM Business Partner Day opening session, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson (who later returned as the Opening General Session speaker) declared "Pluto is not a planet. ......
  122. 06/11/2008It isn't necessary to run down some features to make the point for othersI've enjoyed watching the reaction to the Notes 8.5 beta. As a member of the "Design Partner" group, it is very easy to loose perspective when we're discussing things over time and making predictions of how this feature or that lacking will be received. I've been right in my predictions but wrong in the volume and criticality of those reactions. I'm glad about that. What has me a bit concerned though, is that I'm hearing some otherwise rational people being critical of some fantastic features just because ......
  123. 06/09/2008One heck of a weekend. Fire hose failures, 9 year old birthday party, Car Crash Calls, etc. etc. etc.I didn't do much Domino related work this weekend. There was too much else to do. When summer finally comes to Maine, there's no mistaking it. Everything is completely lush and green. We had a few days of rain during the week, but Saturday was in the 80's and Sunday was well into the 90's -- that's a rarity up here. Saturday morning I started out getting the pool area cleaned up and the last of the work done to make it ready for the swimming season. That means bolting in the stair rails and ladder, running ......
  124. 06/05/2008Notes Client and Designer -- My list of comments after a week of useOverall, for a BETA 1 version its been a good experience. Its been at least as stable as 8.0.1 if not more (which is a bit sad, really, for 8.0.1). There are a few annoyances however. I've been keeping a couple of notepads open while I work so I could toss in comments. Here's the list as this weeks nears its end: Notes 8.5 Client feedback Workspace got uglier - unread mark window is odd Its not inset any more. Its a border that changes color with mouse over. It looks like something someone did to test ......
  125. 06/05/2008Building and managing a hot failover server for DominoA pair of clustered servers behind a network dispatcher in your building is easy to manage. What about failover machines that aren’t located in the same city? I may be a day late and a dollar short, as they say, but I’ve spent a good bit of the last couple of days implementing a new server at a data center in Dallas. The new server will act as a hot standby. While Domino has built in cluster replication to keep itself up to date, there are many other aspects of a complex system to think about. Here are ......
  126. 06/04/2008The Birth of a Conspiracy -- I love this and hate this at the same timeGet out your tin foil hats, people. You're witnessing the birth of a new conspiracy. According to a few people who mostly go nameless, rather than a fire and explosion at the Houston data center, the whole thing has been some kind of bit theatrical exercise to cover up for.....here it comes.....a government raid. http://tinyurl.com/5hm7hw Now I'm all in favor of some creative writing, but c'mon people lets get this right if we're going to do it. Depending on your favorite brand of government evildoers, ......
  127. 06/04/2008The Planet's H1 Datacenter -- Still having issues on 1st floor. Secretaries, Janitors, and Accounting staff helping physically move servers off siteOf the 9000 servers in the H1 datacenter, about 3000 of them were on the first floor. The 6000 second floor servers are pretty much back on line but those on the first floor have taken much longer. Replacement generators had to be found, parts replaced, and frantic electrical from very tired people have all led to more down time. Because restoring power to the first floor was taking so long, the offered to physically move anyone's server who wanted it moved to another data center. About 500 servers were ......
  128. 06/03/2008Data Center explosion in Houston takes down 9000 servers - what happened, and what you should consider about disaster recoveryHaving been impacted by the outage at The Planet, obviously I followed it closely. Through many telephone calls and chats with staff there and with people I know personally in the area with professional relationships on staff at The Planet, here's the best take I can give you on what really happened. What Happened? At about 17:45 CST on a Saturday, a fire and explosion took down an entire data center in Houston, TX belonging to hosting provider "The Planet". The state of the art facility manages more than ......
  129. 05/31/2008Downtime here - a fire at the provider data center took us outIf you're reading this, of course, the incident is over with - I'm writing it on my local server and it will replicate when it can. My public facing servers are at The Planet. They've been an excellent provider, and I've been happy. Right now though, the servers are down. According to the reports at The Planet, they had a fire in a transformer. Word is, none of the networking gear or servers were damaged, but the fire marshal in Houston made them shut down the generator standby systems. Now I'm waiting, ......
  130. 05/30/2008Lotus Notes 8.5 Beta 1 - The Verdict after 1 DayI've been running 8.5 Beta 1 as my production client and designer all day on my desktop. It has proven stable and fast enough for me to decide to switch the laptop as well. I'm going to go into test mode on the servers next week and if all goes well I'll be using the servers in production -- including DAOS (file storage outside the NSF, without duplicates). There are some oddities, but hell, 8.0.1 isn't all that stable and so far 8.5 Beta 1 isn't any worse -- and in some respects its better. The Designer ......
  131. 05/30/2008The LS editor is only MOSTLY dead in 8.5. If it was TRULY dead, could I do this.....So, how is it done? In desiger, right click on File Resource to create a NEW file resource. Name it something.lss -- anything with an LSS extension. The editor will come up. Be warned, however -- there is probably a good reason why its NOT supported yet. As John puts it, it is probably "Crashtaststic". On the up side, I grabbed an LSS file I had on disk and popped it in there, and the class browser ......
  132. 05/30/2008Designer In Eclipse - The first impact on my designs it will makeIt's no secret that the IDE you use will change the way you write code. Down the line a bit, I'm sure XPages will have the biggest impact. The first impact however is a bit of surprise. Right now, I frequently use "PAGE" elements as CSS, Javascript, or HTML content. Editing them is weak but it works out fairly well. Along comes Domino Designer in Eclipse. I had hoped that the editors would work against regular "Page" elements just by defining them as one kind or another. Instead, the new editors for ......
  133. 05/30/2008What's your first impression - one sentence - of Designer in EclipseI think there's a lot to say about Designer in Eclipse. There's some great potential there, and there is some massive user interface work needed. There are things missing, and there are new features added in that are great but not fully usable against existing applications without serious re-work. My one sentence first impression: "DDE in 8.5 Beta is a giant bucket full of features blended in a mixer and poured into an eclipse bowl that someone forgot to clean out first." Some of the user interface -- like ......
  134. 05/30/2008Bleedyellow chat room for beta 8.5 random chatterNathan has set up a chat room at Bleedyellow for the sort of random stream of consciousness observational stuff we're all chatting back and forth about with regards 8.5 Beta. To get in, open a browser and go to: http://imadv.bleedyellow.com Then log-in (you need a BleedYellow.com account). Once you're logged in, go to: ......
  135. 05/30/2008If you're trying to get the 8.5 Domino/Notes Beta - Keep tryingThe web servers IBM is using seem to be overwhelmed but once you get through the transfer is still very fast. IBM isn't having a bandwidth problem (see the 900KB/sec transfer rate below). Just a scalability one with their choice of servers for this task. They probably should have used ......
  136. 05/30/2008Today should be an interesting day on the blogs. Eyes open Domino bloggers - I can't wait to hear what people have to ......
  137. 05/28/2008Zero-Day Exploit in the wild today, and fairly widespread. Exploits FLASH browser plug-ins. Today is not a good day to go to web sites you don't know well. Even many known sites are being used as exploit redirects. http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/29386/info Adobe Flash Player SWF File Unspecified Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Symantec has observed that this issue is being actively exploited in the wild. Continued investigation reveals that this issue is fairly widespread. Malicious code is being injected into other third-party domains (approximately 20,000 web pages), most likely through ......
  138. 05/24/2008Properly using GPS is very much like religionI'm down in MA today at a soccer tournament being played on 38 fields in about ten different towns. Finding all these parks and schools isn't always easy. The GPS is a real help for team parents. A few people who have them have still had trouble though. They see the written directions and try to half follow those and half use the GPS. It doesn't work that way at all. To change from using maps and directions to using a GPS requires a conversion of faith a bit like a religious conversion. You must stop ......
  139. 05/22/2008Am I ignoring XPages?In a conference call yesterday, where I was continuing to advocate for a few points that quite frankly aren't going to go my way, I was told that I shouldn't ignore all the new things going in to the 8.5 release like XPages. (XPages are not a secret, and have been fully announced and committed to so I'm not breaking any rules there) Hello? Is there anyone out there reading these pages who does not feel I have been supportive enough of ......
  140. 05/22/2008American Airlines makes a singularly stupid move in the ever escalating "war on customers"In 1993 when I was just starting to travel frequently on business, my preferred airline was American. Later that year, when my wife and I went to take my first born to Arizona, the gate attendant in Chicago hit is with a $40 on the spot fee for gate checking our stroller. Over the next ten years I spent well over $100,000 on Delta -- most of it in Full Fare Coach, last minute business travel (the highest profit margin seats on the plane). Welcome to 2008. American has decided that they'll now charge ......
  141. 05/19/2008Some parameters that I have added which have really help out an ailing server or two.I'm not a big fan of making changes to your INI files to tune up your Domino server. Most of the time, I've seen servers in worse shape due to excessive use of everyone's favorite parameter changes. It goes without saying that there is no such thing as "RunFaster=1" -- there are not universal "always set this" parameters. If there were, they'd be set that way by default. That said, here are a few I've found that have helped me deal with some issues lately. -- And a shout out to Gab Davis, the top Domino ......
  142. 05/19/2008Thank you for your feedback. I don't know if we accomplished anything grand, but.......I can say with certainty that it was read and discussed by the people you would hope are reading and discussing these things. In the last two weeks, the IBM Lotus team has had an earful about what the community wants, needs, and expects out of the next release and the ones after that. They've heard it here, and they've heard it much louder in private. Now its time to get back to work, because at the end of the day, where are we gonna go? Microsoft? Not until they come up with something that can ......
  143. 05/15/2008What are YOUR expectations from a Notes & Domino 8.5 Release?When Notes & Domino 8.5 comes out, what are the "Must Address" or "Must Have" features you demand in the three major components - Client, Server, and Designer? It isn't a secret that I'm in the Design Partner program. Because of that, I can't (and won't) talk about what is or is not getting done in the pre-beta releases and information we're seeing. I won't even hint at it by telling you what my expectations are for the release. I don't want you to glean from me what I think is good and bad in the current ......
  144. 05/14/2008A few life lessons that first-responders learn quicklyFirst responders, medical interns, and all such learn a few things that translate well as good advice for everyone. Some require a little more imagination to adapt as regular life rules, while others are going to click right away when you read them. 1. It's not your emergency. Calm Down. 2. Calm and Panic both spread quickly. Which will you be? 3. Don't skip meals. The alarm goes off when you're least ready. 4. Don't hold off going to the bathroom - see rule #3. 5. Slow down. Don't create your own ......
  145. 05/14/2008The secret ingredient in most of these Web 2.0 social applications is EgoWhere is the real force that pushes people to Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, and other such things? The answer, I think, is made clear in examining how Twitter finds a niche between IRC (Group Chat Rooms), Mailing Lists, RSS Blog feeds, and Instant Messaging. Surely RSS is capable of doing what Twitter does without the need for expensive infrastructure if keeping track of your friends is all you're after. So, what does Twitter add to the mix? Twitter offers the competitive ego a platform that COUNTS how ......
  146. 05/12/2008Ok., I guess I have to give Twitter a try.For those of you who want to, I'll start updating the thing tomorrow. If you are interested in following me, I may follow you back. I do plan to have twitter automatically updated with fire call status from Second Signal. That should be interesting. Who knows what else will get put in there. An auto feed from my calendar could be interesting. http://twitter.com/firefightergeek If you have suggestions on who or what I should follow, send em over. I'll pop Twitter over on a second monitor and see if its ......
  147. 05/12/2008When is it the responsibility of leaders to do some following?Imagine our leadership taking polls, talking with important people, and building support for something big. The big thing is expensive. Its going to be controversial. If all goes well it will change the world. What if it doesn't go well? Of course it will go well. We're big and powerful. We have the best technology and we have the best force for deploying that technology. We know things. Sure, there are dissenters. They don't matter. Our constituency really likes our Big Idea. We'll even bring in some of ......
  148. 05/10/2008At this point, even Hillary Clinton's supporters have to know how bad for her party it would be if she somehow pulled off a win.Imagine for a second the impossible happens, and Hillary Clinton wins the nomination. The unlikely event could only happen through a back room deal at this point that either suddenly convinced most of the "Super Delegates" to vote for her or else she talked the credentials committee into counting the unauthorized primary data from the two state in dispute. I can't imagine it happening, but if it did -- tell me that an entire generation of his supporters won't feel completely blown off. Now tell me she ......
  149. 05/10/2008Place like this really do exist - and I live where I can enjoy them as part of every day livingAri had a soccer game today at Fort Williams Park. It happens there is a field there. It is a park after all. It is also the home of a classic New England lighthouse, breathtaking shoreline cliffs, and an unbelievable view of the Atlantic Ocean. Click any of these links to see the pictures in a larger resolution. For more information about Fort Williams - click here. img.linkImage { margin:.5em; border:solid 1px blue; a { text-decoration:none ......
  150. 05/08/2008What should the Notes desktop really look like?Are you still using the same desktop workspace in Notes that you were 10 years ago? Truth be told, it is a desktop paradigm that even looks ugly when compared to the Mac Finder interface in 1991. Although there have been attempts at a replacement, most of us still use this dog of a UI with 32x32 pixel 16 color icons set into square blocks about 3 times that size. We can organize these application icons any way we like - as long as we like gray on gray in a grid pattern. We can even have folder tabs to ......
Further BackMore RecentJump to:

Site Links

Useful Links