Andrew Pollack's Blog

Technology, Family, Entertainment, Politics, and Random Noise

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  1. 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 ......
  2. 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 ......
  3. 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 ......
  4. 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 ......
  5. 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 ......
  6. 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 ......
  7. 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 ......
  8. 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 ......
  9. 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 ......
  10. 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 ......
  11. 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 ......
  12. 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 ......
  13. 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 ......
  14. 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 ......
  15. 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 ......
  16. 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 ......
  17. 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 ......
  18. 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 ......
  19. 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. ......
  20. 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 ......
  21. 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 ......
  22. 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 ......
  23. 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, ......
  24. 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 ......
  25. 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, ......
  26. 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, ......
  27. 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. ......
  28. 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 ......
  29. 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 ......
  30. 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 ......
  31. 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 ......
  32. 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. ......
  33. 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. ......
  34. 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 ......
  35. 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 ......
  36. 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 ......
  37. 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 ......
  38. 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 ......
  39. 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 ......
  40. 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 ......
  41. 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. ......
  42. 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 ......
  43. 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 ......
  44. 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 ......
  45. 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 ......
  46. 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, ......
  47. 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 ......
  48. 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 ......
  49. 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, ......
  50. 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 ......
  51. 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 ......
  52. 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 ......
  53. 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 ......
  54. 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: ......
  55. 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 ......
  56. 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 ......
  57. 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 ......
  58. 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 ......
  59. 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 ......
  60. 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 ......
  61. 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 ......
  62. 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 ......
  63. 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 ......
  64. 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 ......
  65. 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 ......
  66. 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 ......
  67. 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 ......
  68. 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 ......
  69. 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 ......
  70. 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 ......
  71. 05/07/2008The Urban Dictionary definition of Borked.....is borked.I love this. Tech people use the term "borked" pretty freely now, but for those who actually remember it is a reference to nominee Robert Bork who's confirmation hearings were driven off the rails in the midst of partisan politics. No matter which side you agree with, it was clear that the process itself was totally broken as a result. The argument over the definition of the term, is suffering the same fate. Check out the use of alternate definitions to continue the very same argument. ......
  72. 05/06/2008Iron Man - Best. Comic. Book. Movie. Ever.I took my (nearly) 13 year old as an excuse to see Iron Man this weekend. What can I say that you haven't already heard? it totally rocked. The suit? it rocked. The house? It rocked. Pepper? She rocked. repeatedly. I do wish they'd have have played more Black Sabbath tracks during the film. There were a couple of spots where just a few really heavy guitar licks would have fit. In all other respects -- Awesome. ......
  73. 04/30/2008One of the best quotes I've ever read from "Quotes of the Day"I cant help but really like this quote: In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George ......
  74. 04/30/2008For the second time in as many weeks, Notes & Domino are getting positive commentary on Slashdot!This story in particular is a good one for the Notes community because it very publically points out how ridiculous the idea of an "Upgrade" to Exchange really is. I particularly like one comment that called the practice of moving to Exchange "Faith Based Computing". I didn't think I'd live to see the day when you could mention Notes on Slashdot and not get deluged with outdated complaints about the UI or whatever. ......
  75. 04/28/2008The part came from Hong Kong, finally, so I was able to fix Ari's Nintendo DS Lite screenAri had dropped her DS Lite a couple of weeks back. Thanks to the magic interwebs I was able to find a replacement part, and today I did the work of putting the new top screen in. It wasn't terribly hard, though some soldering was necessary and the ribbon cable is a pain to get routed through the hinge to the main board. How's this for some fine solder work ......
  76. 04/24/2008A busy week on the fire department side this weekAnother structure fire today. This time all the way in Freeport. That's two towns over. At 15:30 or so both Engine 1 and Engine 3 from Cumberland were dispatched to Yarmouth's North Street station for coverage. Yarmouth had an all hands brush fire going on (it is brush fire season here, from now until when things green up in a couple of weeks). We left our Central station with a crew of three and were almost immediately re-directed to the town of Freeport (one town over from Yarmouth) where they had a ......
  77. 04/24/2008HBO Films John Adams - AmazingI've just finished watching the final part of the HBO Films production "John Adams". What a fantastic mini-series this has been. Though I studied American History (I realize to many of you in Europe this would seem a fairly short course) in school, my understanding of the events immediately surrounding the American Revolution always felt very distant and out of touch. Since moving to New England - and particularly since joining the fire department here in Maine I've gotten to know the places where these ......
  78. 04/21/2008Too many emails makes me rescind permission to send.There are two sites I do business with that I've given permission to email me from to time with updates that I may find of value. Unfortunately, these two sites have confused this permission with what they seem to perceive as a desire to get these emails daily -- or sometimes several times a day. As a result, I'm removing this permission from both sites. The idea of "opt-in" email updates is a good one, but companies need to understand the difference between "Yes, send me an update if something good comes ......
  79. 04/17/2008Speaking Nightmares -The old Water in the Laptop trick...The biggest nightmare I can foresee would be to immediately follow Paul & Bill’s flying circus. Fortunately I’ve never had to do that. I have had some….challenges, however. At the H&T Verlogs conference in Munich a few years back, about 3 minutes into a presentation that included live demos on integrating IBM DB2 with Lotus Domino, I managed to knock a 5 ounce glass of water directly into my Dell laptop’s keyboard. The laptop shut down, and when it tried to boot came up with the fantastic error message ......
  80. 04/15/2008Playing with fire -- and learning to not like CAFSCAFS (Compressed Air Foam System) is a fairly new technology for the fire service. Some people swear by it, and other people don't like it at all. Until today I held no real opinion as I hadn't used it, though I'd expressed some trepidation. At just after 4 this afternoon, Cumberland toned out for our RIT to respond to the next town over, Yarmouth, for a possible structure fire. By the time we were on the road, Yarmouth had gone to the All hands, and about the time we got there they went to a 2nd Alarm. ......
  81. 04/12/2008How many times a week does having access to the internet save your bacon or change your life?My oldest daughter, Ari, tripped and fell while carrying her Nintendo DS-Lite. This is something she saved for for a long time. A broken top screen led to tears. Because we all know that I'm way too soft when it comes to such things, I told her I'd see if it was something I could fix. Enter the Internet. Within seconds I'd found multiple sites with instructions for replacing the top screen of a Nintendo DS-Lite including a full write up at Instructables. The instructions even recommended getting the ......
  82. 04/11/2008Cars left out of the sunshine for too long burst into flame in Portland, Maine!Early this morning, the city of Portland, Maine was busy. Within a few minutes and all within a few blocks of each other 8 or 9 cars burst into flames. Three buildings -- at least one apartment building -- became involved and more than 20 people are left without their home and belongings. Fortunately, there are no reported injuries. At 4am my fire pager went off with a Box 700 for Ladder 7 and Squad 1 (our heavy rescue) to cover Portland for their 3rd alarm fire. This happens a couple of times a year. ......
  83. 04/10/2008Scary Fire Stuff -- probably the scariest blog entry I've ever posted.At last night's officers meeting, one of our deputy chiefs presented a follow-up from a fire in Price William County, Virginain which a firefighter was killed. Its something we do as part of training, so its not that it was unusual but this one really hit home for some of us. This was presented in much the same way as the last one we did (the tragedy in Charleston, SC). We listened to the audio recording timed with photos showing the fire's development and some 3D models showing the layout and the heat ......
  84. 04/07/2008Ok. Memes being what they are... How the hell did I ever get into Lotus Notes?It's always been about the collaboration for me. I'm a geek, but it isn't what I'd planned to do for a living. I'd gone off to University of Arizona to study a program that I hoped would eventually take me to veterinary school so that I could take care of horses. That was, I admit, a vague idea at best. Mostly what I was studying was living with my girlfriend. School was a distant second. Although I'd been into computers for a while they weren't more than tools and toys at that point. Then my cousin's ......
  85. 04/03/2008Lotus - The Mike Rhodin YearsBy now, if you don't know Mike Rhodin is leaving the Lotus organization and being replaced by Bob Picciano from the DB2 side of the house, you probably aren't someone who cares and will want to skip this posting. I don't know anything about Mr. Picciano other than what I've read on other people's blog posts, but it seems he comes from a technical sales and executive background and has very high credibility within the IBM organization. Those are good things. While I didn't agree with Mike Rhodin in some ......
  86. 04/01/2008Happy Birthday MomThis isn't an April fool's joke. My mother's birthday is in fact April 1st. I also know that she tends to follow this blog -- probably because I am otherwise absolutely terrible out getting pictures and letters about the kids out to her and she lives a very long way from here (in so many ways). If I'm following correctly, she is now 39. Still. I realize that's odd given that I'm 40, but one doesn't question these things. By the way, if you think its unusual to have a one parent born on April 1st, consider ......
  87. 03/30/2008IdeaJam Remembers You! Now powered by NCT Remember Me! To celebrate, I've made it cheaper.It's finally happened! NCT Remember Me! is now up and live on IdeaJam! You won't have to re-authenticate just to vote any more. Just check the box. The product, NCT Remember Me! provides true Domino session based authentication credentials. Its not a trick where an anonymous user is recognized and their name pops in. Reader Names fields, Database ACL's, and the other things you associate with being logged into Domino on the web are all supported. NCT Remember Me! is for sale. You can use it on your own ......
  88. 03/30/2008Lotscript Error Handling LibraryThis is a cleaned up version for your use -- in my own case, its a bit more complex as I use a logging database to log much of the agent activity I do. In that case, the script library opens that database and automatically creates a document with fields for database name, agent name, start time, end time, etc. It also writes logging output to that file in any agent using with a debug_print() function used instead of "print" or "msgbox" throughout the agent. My version also handles the functionname as a ......
  89. 03/29/2008A shout out to Kohler - yea, them.A bit of a plumbing job that I had to do went much easier thanks to some good support from Kohler. In our master bathroom, we have faucets and valves from the Kohler Fairfaxfamily. The bathtub valve was dripping, but I couldn't find a replacement cartridge at any of the hardware stores I frequent. When I called Kohler, I found out why. They don't sell replacement cartridges. They give them away. Simply through my call, within 5 minutes I was talking to an expert who agreed with me that it needed ......
  90. 03/27/2008A couple of comments on some recent teapot scale tempests in the Domino communitySorry I've missed playing in the latest round of who has the biggest ego. I've been working hard lately -- mostly to make up for a dreadful second half of 2007 while I worked on Second Signal and therefore didn't do enough consulting. It wouldn't be a good meaningless argument however, if I didn't weigh in. Here's an invoice for my two cents.... Grand Ruckus #1: Volker Weber posted a carefully aimed groin-kick of truth in the form of his "10 common beliefs in the Domino community", to which Nathan ......
  91. 03/27/2008Spring? I suppose.I took this picture today, March 27th at 07:39. As you can see, the pool's location can now be accurately determined beneath the remaining snow cover. The diving board is poking out just a bit, and the slide is almost fully visible. No sign of the pool cover yet, however. This is obviously in an area fully exposed to direct sunlight most of the day and not impacted by snow plows or anything. Its just natural snow pack. Just think, only 5 weeks till this is opened up and ready to swim ......
  92. 03/24/2008Where have you been? I haven't heard from you in days! This post will ramble some, but I'm in a good mood so I'll share.Has it really been 10 days since my last post? Wow. Its been busy around here. To begin with, spring is trying to sneak its way in. Its less than 20 degrees (Fahrenheit) tonight, but during the day its been up around forty and little by little we're getting rid of the snow pack. There is still upwards of two feet of icy remnant left in many spots, but in sunny places in the center of the yard there's ground showing through. We had a white Easter. We had a white Christmas. We had a white everything else in ......
  93. 03/14/2008Some good old back to basics Domino code this weekThe nature of my practice is that I focus on the real specialty stuff and don't really get to do basic web apps very much. The last few days I've enjoyed working on classic Domino web app though. With all the time spent focusing on Javascript fanciness, AJAX, and pages that don't look like pages you can forget what a joy it can be to just let the server do the work. Some of the built in features have come a long way since the last time I used them. Embedded html views with selectable entries and buttons ......
  94. 03/12/2008Follow-Up - My take on Open ID - It takes us the wrong way. This is a problem that already has better solutions.Open ID is an attempt at the concept of an ID Vault for browser based access to web sites. As a vault, it gets fairly close. Unfortunately, it's storing credentials that are themselves inadequate. If the open ID method of sharing credentials could be applied to the storage of real credentials, it would be much more powerful. I've looked into Open ID a bit more since I started talking about it in a previous blog entry. I've come to a few initial conclusions about it that are fairly disappointing. It isn't ......
  95. 03/08/2008Is there any interest out there in an Open ID implementation for Domino?Open ID (http://openid.net) is an attempt to allow you to use the same credentials to log in on many web sites without having to remember different id and passwords. The idea is that you authenticate with any site that accepts Open ID based on credentials that you control. Your AIM address, for example, can be used as an Open ID. You may have many Open ID's, but a single Open ID can only be owned by one person. This site explains it better, I think: http://janrain.com/openid/ Anyway, I don't think it would ......
  96. 03/03/2008Creating an SSL Certificate for IBM Lotus DominoA great many people have asked me for a simple How-To on creating an SSL certificate for your Domino server. Here's a very clear step-by-step guide that should do the job for you. ......
  97. 03/02/2008Guess what's getting added to IdeaJam?Bruce posted this on hisideaJam blogtoday. Who else needs to automatically re-authenticate users when they return to a secure web ......
  98. 02/27/20086 More inches of snow tonight. This time, the heavy kindIt doesn't sound like much, but you have to understand different kinds of snow to get it. I'm glad the key remaining parts for the snowthrower came in today. It took me about 90 minutes to install the new friction ring and plate, drive clutch spring, and drive clutch cable. The machine performed like a champ with tonight's 6" of new snow. I know, 6" doesn't sounds like very little compared to the snowfalls we've had this year. Those were mostly lighter, more powdery snows that you get in really cold ......
  99. 02/26/2008SmashLab == Cool Technology, Juvenile ImplementationsI've been watching Discovery's new series "SmashLab". I've watched enough now to give it an official Geek Review. The concept is simple enough. Take some gifted people with complimentary backgrounds, give them some new technology and a safety problem to solve with it, and see what they can prototype to try out the idea. Now, lets break down how the show stacks up: 1. The Technology. Extremely Cool. In the shows I've watched they've used Aerated Concrete in an attempt to show down runaway cars, a kind of ......
  100. 02/25/2008A Happy DaySome good things grace my desk today. To begin with, I got the letter from the bank today with the title to my car. I'm finished paying it off now, and it still has a few years of excellent driving. Those who've read this site for some time, may recall that my last car burned up in the garage in February of 2005. Since then, I've been stuck with a car payment. Once again, I am car payment free. Oh happy day. If I were a good planner, I'd keep making that payment into savings for the next car, but it ......
  101. 02/24/2008- CORRECTION - Having just wasted a good bit of the afternoon, here's a technote on setting cookie expiration dates for IE* Corrected on Feb 24. Many of you super JavaScript programmers already know this, but since I didn't have it quite right I thought I'd post it here so that if someone else is searching for information they'll have an easier time of it. When you set a cookie in JavaScript, you make it 'permanent' (make it last through browser restarts) by setting a parameter called "expires". There are web pages all over the place that will tell you about lots of different formats you can set that expiration date in. Many ......
  102. 02/23/2008NCT Remember Me! Just got even easier to useDrop two html tags onto any page on your server, and your users can Auto-Login to Domino when they return to your site. I've been playing with the code for NCT Remember Me! today, and I came up with the easiest deployment method you can imagine. Here's the code you can add to any web page: Or you can get fancy, and do it this way:' cellStyle='border:solid 1px black; background-color:black; color:yellow; padding:1em '>The optional parameters in the second example, will result in a "Remember Me" checkbox ......
  103. 02/21/2008Does anyone believe that this was the only anti-satellite trick up Uncle Sam's heavily armored sleeve?If you haven't seen the newsyet, the U.S. Navy used a "standard" missile launched off a navy cruiser with a special 3rd stage which is effectively a self-guided hunk of mass (a big rock) designed to home in on the target in an airless environment and simply slam into it using the differential in speeds between an orbiting body and the missile itself as the kinetic energy to cause the destruction. Does anyone believe that plans for this sort of thing haven't been in place for quite a while, and that the ......
  104. 02/17/2008Imminent unplanned satellite re-entryHave no fear, FEMA is here. Our government is protecting us from the imminent unplanned satellite re-entry. Here you'll find the documents forwarded through our incident management chain of command. For those of you reading this story from outside the U.S., you can likely follow the same procedures. Guys, I've seen this in the movies a dozen times and I know just what happens. You may wish to acquire this critical information to supplement your skills if the worst happens. ......
  105. 02/16/2008A few days of sunshine, then back to workFor the next few days, I am on Captiva Island in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida. What a difference 12 hours makes. Thursday night I was in 20 degree weather lighting a scene for the town of Falmouth where they were dealing with an overturned oil truck dumping 1700 gallons of Kerosene into a river. The coast guard, epa, everyone got to play. Now, I'm in 80 degree sunshine with a beach and pool within eyesight. Forgive me if I hold off the blogging a ......
  106. 02/11/2008Snowthrowers age at about the same pace as dogs.We had three snowstorms last week. During the first, my old snowthrower (which at one time looked a lot like the one pictured), broke just as I was finishing my driveway. It took me about an hour or so to disassemble the drive system and make a workable repair. The repair held for the next driveway - a neighbor's as he's injured his shoulder, and the following two storms as well. It won't hold forever, but I've got replacement parts on the way that should put it to rights again. When I went to order the ......
  107. 02/05/2008NCT Remember ME is official!Automatically log-in returning Domino usersNCT Remember ME!True Lotus Domino CredentialsInstalls in Minutes to existing or new web pagesDoes not require a DSAPI filterFully Supports ACL's, Reader Names, Groups, etc.Fully Supports Multi-Server Session Based AuthenticationFind Out ......
  108. 02/03/2008Congrats to the NY Giants - What an amazing football game.I don't watch football that much (not the American kind with an odd shaped ball anyway) as I prefer the other kind -- played with a FOOT and a BALL. Still, even though being in Maine I'd have loved to have seen the Pats win, I can't begrudge New York that win one bit. They managed to shut down Brady's offense so consistently that he almost never had time to do anything. I've never seen him so hammered. Credit where due, the man continued to use every opportunity given him until the end -- he just didn't ......
  109. 02/02/2008NCT Will be announcing a new product on Monday, and many of you will want it.Consider this a pre-announcement and offer via my blog since I have yet to integrate the blog with the home page. The official announcement will be on Monday, for a product called simply "NCT Remember Me". This will be a "nearly instant" drop in solution for Domino based web sites that allows you to add "Remember Me" functionality to your site with almost no effort. Users who return to your site will be recognized and re-issued valid Domino session tokens. They will actually be logged in users -- this is ......
  110. 01/31/2008What if it all just goes quiet?On February 17, 2009 all the analog TV signals transmitted in the US are scheduled to go dark. After that time, its digital or nothing. Just consider for a second, how few of us have ever lived in a place where we were not under constant full time exposure to transmissions measured in thousands or even tens of thousands of watts from the analog TV stations at VHF radio frequencies. Just consider this for a second. What if they shut all the stations down, and a whole bunch of stuff that we had no idea was ......
  111. 01/31/2008Nuclear Duct TapeFrom the department of "I gotta get me one of these!" (Will Smith, Independence Day) Hillas Packaging, Inc. offers the followingproduct:Item Number : Nashua 357 Red Nuclear 3" x 60Yd ETDescription: Duct Tape, Nuclear Grade, 3" X 60 Yard Et, RedProduct SpecificationsMSDS (Materials Saftey Data Sheet)Presumably, this is for HAZMAT response but if you're going to get some serious duct tape, why not get Nuclear Regulatory Agency specification approved duct ......
  112. 01/30/2008Please jump in here - A debate question about an XPages concernPlease chime in on this one, as I know it’s a heavy topic in Westford as well. A very smart friend of mine has a concern about XPages. I think he’s wrong. More specifically, I think he’s making an origami mountain out of a map around a molehill. Even if you normally just ‘lurk’ here, I’d like to see as many people chime in here as possible. Here’s the issue as my friend sees it: There is not any 1:1 relationship of an XPage to a specific document. There may be zero, one, or many data notes or other kinds ......
  113. 01/28/2008XPages: The Most Important New Feature You Didn't Know You NeededHint: It isn't all about the UI features. XPages are not a secret any more, but I think you'll find a perspective here that you may not get elsewhere. XPages: The Most Important New Feature You Didn't Know You NeededWriting anything in conjunction with the IBM Lotus people can be a real exercise in frustration. This is the third or fourth time I've done it, and will likely be the last attempt.this ugly page.Back in mid 2007 as part of a design review team I was given the opportunity to see XPages for the ......
  114. 01/28/2008Too Much Availability; Follow-Up from Lotusphere; Plans for the next few monthsA good Lotusphere this year. Despite some minor disappointments with the priority on announcements this was a great Lotusphere. The message, for the first time in many years, is all about the core products and their various accessories -- which is how I still think of Sametime, Quick'r, et. al. I realize that bothers some, but I can only call it like I see it. Best of all this year, as in almost every year, was time spent with good friends. There's always a bit of a let down after Lotusphere for me. It ......
  115. 01/22/2008Why the Opening General Sessions fall flatI've been thinking about what happens in the planning process that lets this happen. Particularly in a year like this where there is so much to get excited about, it left me slack jawed to see how badly stepped on the excitement was. In years past, they built excitement only to step on it hard at the end. This year, they avoided the problem by building little or no excitement. So what happens? You bring in a production company to help you may a big exciting event. They don't have ANY idea what the stuff ......
  116. 01/22/2008Some things done right in the LS2008 Opening General SessionComplaining about the OGS is like a favorite sport, and while great fun, isn't all there is to talk about. There were a few things done pretty well so I thought I'd talk about them. Kudos #1 - To begin with, Mike Rhodin's talk was much better done than in years past. Sure, if you're a geek it wasn't what you wanted to hear so it seemed long and boring. That's his job, to say long boring things to geeks that the money people care about. What he did right, was to keep it reasonably brief and not jump back in ......
  117. 01/21/2008What a shame. The OGS compressed Maureen's content into a few minutes that should have been the lead. 4 minutes for Designer in Eclipse. 15 minutes for F'ing Portal.This year's OGS leaves me a bit sad for the missed opportunity. Anyone within range of this text needs to get to the Designer sessions at LS to see the exciting things that just didn't get shown at the OGS. Apparently, the people organizing this thing still haven't learned how to decide what is and isn't important at all. I get angry most years about the OGS. More so this year when there is SO MUCH NEW and LONG AWAITED being built and ready to show in Designer now that its in Eclipse. All the editors, all ......
  118. 01/21/2008What ever happened to Lotus/IBM and their big Second Life Plans? Lets take a look. It isn't pretty.I'm in the second Opening General Session. As I had nothing better to do while Bob Costas was speaking to the 20% of the room who both know who he is and also care, I decided to pop in on Second Life and see who was watching from the Lotus venue on IBM's island. Remember that from last year? Well, after downloading the updates to Second Life, I 'flew' over to the Lotus venue from last year. It was nearly empty. There was one person outside -- not from IBM of course, and fast asleep. An abandoned avatar. I ......
  119. 01/21/2008Impressions from the "Salon" at LotusphereThe conference is big enough that the opening session -- the big draw -- is being split into 2 groups. The "Salon" is a demo and panel discussion led for the other group as a side show. They've got these "artists" and "thinkers" in the "web 2.0" space. Impressions: 1. Although I've nearly completed Web 1.0, I may play it again and go for a higher score. I'm not seeing a good reason to upgrade to 2.0 yet. I also can't get anyone to tell me what the upgrade license costs rather than just buying it straight ......
  120. 01/17/2008Greetings from Orlando!Here's the story in Orlando..... #1. I'm here, and you're not (well most of you). #2. It's very hot here. This evening, dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) fell from the sky in LIQUID form! I'm fortunate to have gotten under cover before being burned. #3. It could be the heat, but I think something terrible has happened to the snow here. It all green and fuzzy -- like its covered with some kind of mold. I think the heat and humidity have caused it to go bad. Maybe they can get it all nice and clean and white by the ......
  121. 01/17/2008It is amazing to me how many supposedly tech-savy people fall for the same B.S. over and over again.A simple article about the iPhone supporting Notes (through iNotes I think) generated yet another long list of people who want to talk about how much they don't like Notes based on using many years old versions, and completely ignoring the facts of vendor lock in and proprietary vs. open data access models. http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/17/iphone-putting-on-a-lotus-notes-suit/ How can anyone who is locked into Active Directory + Exchange + Outlook + SQL Server + Sharepoint + Win2k3 servers serious ......
  122. 01/16/2008Even if you're not going to LS, don't miss seeing the Opening General SessionThis year you're going to see the payoff for all that work and all the overhead associated with running Notes 8 in Eclipse. Usually, either live or shortly after, there is a way to view the Lotusphere Opening General Session. Do not miss this year's OGS. The Notes 8.0 client has a huge potential for new stuff, but you're not seeing too much use of it just yet. I liken it to having a brand new high end sports car that came with a governor set to 55 miles per hour. This year you'll get to see the payoff ......
  123. 01/15/2008The Y2K+38 Problem - It could be your opportunity this weekendFor those who don't know, Y2k38 is "short" for 1/19/2038, when many currently used computers and devices will again have a problem with digits. This time, it is because most Unix based system store dates as the number of seconds since January 1, 1970. Many of those numbers are still stored in 4 byte (32 bit) integers. Since dates can of course exist before 1/1/1970, the 32 bits must be used for both positive and negative numbers -- meaning the most significant bit is reserved as a +/- indicator. So, ......
  124. 01/15/2008The Shirts Have Arrived in Orlando!According to UPS, the shirts are at the shipping depot in Orlando, waiting for me. There are 36 boxes, at 40 pounds each. Yes, over 1400 pounds of ......
  125. 01/15/2008If you are reading this, and will be at Lotusphere 2008 .....Please make sure to at least wave and say hi. There is only one real reason why most people blog. Ego. If someone says otherwise, they're full of crap. To blog regularly, you have to either truly believe that what you have to say carries some kind of importance or you have to not care a bit. Either way, blogging is a clear indication of someone with an ego. NOTHING makes a blogger happier than to hear from people who read their mindless, poorly written drivel. If you read mine, let me know. Finding me at ......
  126. 01/15/2008Weekend Update: Finished, thankfully, with my drywall project; 14 inches of new snow; Countdown to LS08New Snow Fourteen inches of new powdery snow fell Monday. That was enough to cancel school, giving us a three day weekend. More snow is expected on Friday but I should be fine getting out on Thursday afternoon in time to pick the shirts up in Orlando on Friday. I've scheduled the flight early enough that in a worst-case situation (like last February where Jet-Blue abandoned Portland, Maine for over a week due to the storm in New York) I can drive. It's about 21 hours straight driving, so I'd sure like to ......
  127. 01/11/2008Are "CAPTCHA" losing their value for security? New bypass method completely avoids the problem of reading them.You might be a hacker. If you've ever been asked to read an image of distorted letters and numbers, then type them into a field on a web form, you're using a Captcha.The thing is, even though the programs that make the images are keeping ahead of the programs that read them, it is quickly loosing its effectiveness. Hackers are now using YOU to do the work. Suppose a comment spammer wants to automate adding stuff to your blog, but you've got captcha codes set up. These spammers are resourceful people. ......
  128. 01/11/2008Slingbox -- It isn't about T.V. over the internet. It's about my OWN T.V. over the internetI mentioned a few days ago that I got a Slinboxwith the gift certificate Barb gave me for Christmas. I'm really enjoying it, with all the time I spend waiting for the kids at one practice or another. What's interesting, is that lots of services are offering video over the internet, and most of what I'm watching I could get in other ways. Most of the networks offer their stuff a few days later for on-line viewing, iTunes sells the stuff, etc. The thing is, its a pain the backside to use those things. When ......
  129. 01/11/2008Want to learn to do surface mount soldering and repairs? Hands down, this is the best 8 minutes you could ever spend to learn how to solder properly. http://www.curiousinventor.com/guides/Surface_Mount_Soldering/101 The video is zoomed in super tight, the speaker is very clear, the demo is relevant, and the advice is both practical and accurate. He shows soldering and de-soldering of small, surface mount resistors, larger chips, and chips with very small ......
  130. 01/11/2008How to kill your own network.I woke up this morning to no network connectivity here in my home/office. Given that I have both a cable and dsl connection, with failover managed through my sonicwall firewall this is an extremely rare event. How did it break? I broke it. I recently moved from two servers at Serverbeach to a single more powerful server at The Planet. Having put the order in to cancel the two at the beach, I'd forgotten about it. My firewall, however, did not. It is configured to monitor the two connection paths by ......
  131. 01/10/2008Someone is picking on Gab. Not fair! Gab Davis, who is one of the most gifted Domino admins within our light cone has made a resolution to blog more. Only a few days in, some "Friend" (as if) has told her she should "tighten up" her style. Apparently this person thinks she should write less and edit more. Go check out Gab's blog and help us give feedback to whoever this person is, that they need to go get their own blog, and leave Gab free to say what's on her mind. I think if this person would give less advice, and spend more time reading ......
  132. 01/09/2008CULT Shirts 2008 Preview + Many Changes to the Lotusphere Wiki!Don't miss going to the Lotusphere Wikifor lots of stuff related to the conference. I've just added preview images of the 2008 CULT shirts, and a full 1280x1024 transparent background image of the "Don't Hate Me" logo suitable for desktop and presentation use. Have at it people. ......
  133. 01/08/2008Slingbox Rocks!Here's a tease for you. I'm in my car, parked outside the indoor arena where Ari is practicing her soccer. I've got the EV-DO card turned on, and am connected to my brand newSlingbox. I'm watching Jon Stewart and the clarity is perfect. I did adjust the buffer to a full 15 seconds, because this is a kind of bursty connection. In the first minute or so of the stream, it can be a little jittery, but slow the buffer fills up and the picture gets better and better as the "slingstream" uses the available ......
  134. 01/07/2008My most hated home repair jobs - wallpaper removal and drywall patchingWhen I was very little, I would not finger paint. The reason for this, discovered later, is that I have an aversion to any kind of dust, fine powder, or things that feel like they're coated with dust. This includes newsprint, chalk, and even dry soil. The idea of purposely spreading talc on ones body makes my skin crawl just to think of it. The idea of working with and even sanding down dry wall joint compound is enough to send me into full procrastinate mode for very long periods of time. Interestingly, ......
  135. 01/04/2008Microsoft Patents Frustration Detection System - so I've created a User Interface for it.According tothis article, Microsoft has patented a software and biofeedback based "Frustration Detection System". From TFA:I can't imagine anything more annoying then my PC waiting for me to get frustrated, then at just the point where I'm ready to toss it against the wall it interrupts me with a modal dialog ......
  136. 01/02/2008Video - Come for a Drive in the Snow! Bonus: Pics of my kids an Barb playing the snow!img {margin:3px; border:solid 1px blue;Today we got about 10 inches of perfect snowman snow, on top of 8 fresh inches of dry powdery snow just two days ago. All that went on top of a base of maybe 6 inches of older, icy stuff. The little boy in the picture is our neighbor.Just in case you've forgotten what it's like to drive in this stuff, take a look at this video, or just click any of the thumbnail pictures to see it larger. The driving was done just as the second storm was getting going, so all the snow ......
  137. 12/31/2007New Year's ResolutionsNew Year's Eve is here, and its as good a time as any to reflect on the stuff you know you should be doing but haven't been. Resolutions aren't so much about sticking to them like an iron clad contract. If we could do that, we would already have done those things. They're about thinking through some of what's going on with you and what you can do to make things better. In that light, here are some of mine: #1. Refocus on some of my core business products. Resisting the temptation to endlessly tinker with ......
  138. 12/28/2007Finally picked a replacement phone. Its almost a smart phone - and it wirelessly synchs my DOMINO mail, calendar, and contacts ......
  139. 12/24/2007According to the BBC, The UK is set to release beavers back into the Scottish Highlands.Barb had a funny reaction to this article. According to the article "Plans are in the pipeline for beavers to be released into the Scottish wild for the first time in 500 years." Reading further, it seems the beavers they'll be using will come from Norway. Barb got a very concerned look on her face when she heard this. From Europe, to Scotland, about 500 years..... she asked "they're not going to name the first one 'William' are ......
  140. 12/24/2007Christmas Eve Day here at TheNorth.comMerry Christmas to all of you. Even those of you who don't celebrate Christmas. No harm in wishing you a merry one. Here at thenorth, Barb and the Kids are already up at her parents place. My tradition is to put a good movie on, sit and wrap gifts, and wait for the FedEX and UPS trucks to bring the last of the last minute fun. Most years that works out. One year it didn't. At 9am on the 24th one year a fire call came in that kept us busy until late into the evening. Here's hoping that doesn't happen this ......
  141. 12/22/2007I'm thinking of unifying at least two of my three web sites, what do you think?I have three sites I try to maintain. This blog site, the main NCT site, and my Second Signal web site. I don't think I'm quite ready to fold in Second Signal yet -- it probably needs its own identity. Do I really need to be all that distinct between NCT and my blog? Many of my peers spend a great deal of time making web sites that look like they're big consulting agencies. I know one guy who's web site almost makes you think he's one of the big analyst firms. I can't imagine that the charade holds up for ......
  142. 12/22/2007The state of the cell phone market. What happened when I went shopping.I need a new phone, as I've stated before. I use a Motorola e815 and generally like it, but if I have to buy another phone (I have to replace one for my daughter) I thought I'd check out Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Motorola, and so on. I spent hours on this yesterday and came away disgusted. I tried the Blackberry 8130, and I liked its size and form factor. The typing for text messages was pretty great even with two keys per button -- I did have trouble finding the period when doing a web address, but I ......
  143. 12/21/2007Shit Happens - A old favoriteThis is an old favorite of mine, I thought I would look up and re-share. As we reach this time of such religious fervor in the U.S. and around the world, it will be of value to understand each other's viewpoints a little better. This is the shortest comparative religion course you can ever take. Taoism: If you understand shit, it isn't shitHinduism: This shit happened beforeConfucianism: Confucious say 'shit happens'Buddhism: Shit will happen to you againZen: What is the sound of shit happening?Islam: If ......
  144. 12/21/2007Sounds like they need a really really big VACUUM cleaner!10,000 Earths' Worth Of Fresh Dust Found Near Star Explosion ScienceDaily (Dec. 21, 2007) — Astronomers have at last found definitive evidence that the universe's first dust – the celestial stuff that seeded future generations of stars and planets – was forged in the explosions of massive stars. Check out this ......
  145. 12/20/2007A December for the books, surely.I just went out and took these pictures to show you that yes, we got another 6-8 inches of snow today. It is getting hard to find places to put all the snow, allowing the UPS guy to get to the door. img { margin:10px; border:solid 1px blue ......
  146. 12/20/2007Certified Unofficial Lotusphere Text!A new wiki has been set up to help people plan and have fun around Lotusphere. It won't work if you don't go play. Everyone gets to be an editor! http://ls2008cult.pbwiki.com/?full_access=sBKGMIyPKI&l=S Go make good things happen, ......
  147. 12/20/2007Northern Collaborative Technologies Recognized by IBM for Second SignalSecond Signal has been named as a Finalist for "Best Industry Solution" in the 2008 Beacon Awards!Second Signalis helping save lives and property by improving response to emergencies by fire departments.Find out more"This is the third time I've been recognized by IBM as a finalist or winner in these prestigious annual awards. This kind of consistent industry recognition is a huge achievement for any sized consulting organization, and an even bigger one for a small one like ours."Andrew Pollack, President ......
  148. 12/19/2007Oh Joy - More snow tonight, tomorrow, and then again this weekend...I like snow, but enough is enough - its only December! We're set up for another 6-10 inches of fresh snow tonight. That will make something like 25-30 inches in the last two weeks. Our winter doesn't usually get started this way. December in Maine is not normally a heavy snow month. Its a few cold days and some warm ones, with January getting really cold and February being our big snow month. No so this year! I'm off to get my stuff together, we're staffing the station again tonight -- the third time this ......
  149. 12/18/2007Quick, call for the Dread Pirate Roberts!Scientists have discovered that there really are ROUS (Rodents Of Unusual Size) living in the jungles of New Guinea. According to this BBS article, "A giant rodent five times the size of a common rat has been ......
  150. 12/17/2007Another Storm, Another Fire, & Driving a Bus in the SnowSome of you who've worked with me have commented that I tend to be very quick to change direction if things aren't going the way I'd planned. I don't marry an idea. I try hard to know when its time to go in another direction. Last night's events are a case in point as to why that's not a bad way to work. This has been a heck of a December for snowfall. I don't think we've seen the front yard uncovered since the beginning. We got another 8 inches of very cold, very dry snow yesterday which was then covered ......
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