Lotus Notes 7.0.2 - NOMAD Review

Updated installation procedure on 10/04/2006.

Since Notes/Domino 7.0.2 is now available at Passport, I would like to write up a review of NOMAD. Formerly project "Wanda", NOMAD is Notes on a USB stick (or any device that can be addressable as a drive letter in Windows). I think NOMAD should stand for Notes On My Agile Drive!

I've had the privilege of testing NOMAD since September 12 (I'm writing the first draft of this on 9/16). I understand that it's a final build of the client, but since I have had no issues with the client, it's irrelevant if it is slightly "beta". I picked up a 512 MB memory stick for only $9.99 after rebates. But, sometimes you can get them even cheaper than that. If you want to have a local replica of your mail file, that may not be enough space.

First things, first. You may wish to have a roaming user profile for Domino in order for this to best work with your desktop. This was really simple, and I have all my bookmarks, addresses, and journal entries replicated. The base installation of NOMAD was ~375 MB for me. That seems quite hefty! Then after the first launch I replicated over my roaming files which account for 58.5 MB. Then you have desktop6.ndk and cache.ndk that are created along with perweb.nsf. This is 22.5 MB for me. That put me up to 456 of my 489 usable MB!

Installation:
Here's the how to install NOMAD. See some of the "gotchas" at Susan Bulloch's site.

Complete these steps to install IBM Lotus Notes client on a USB drive:
1. Insert the USB drive into the USB port on your computer.
2. Make note of the drive letter that is assigned to the USB drive because this drive letter assignment is dynamic and will change when you use that USB port in the future.
3. Extract the C94QIEN.exe file. This is the filename of the self-extracting executable downloaded from IBM. This is just the Notes Client. (The C94QAEN.exe is the Full Client package with Admin and Designer - do not attempt to install nomad from this as it was not meant to work this way.)
4. In a command prompt window, navigate to the folder where you extracted the C94QIEN file (there should now be a setup.exe), and then enter this command to install Lotus Notes on the USB drive:
setup /a /v"NOMAD=1 TARGETDIR=F:\ /qb+"
Where F is the USB drive letter.
The parameters /qb+ allow for the display of the basic user interface and a message box at the end of the upgrade. Don't forget the last quotation mark!
5. When the install process completes, run the command AUTORUN.EXE from the root of the USB drive by double-clicking on the filename or by typing the command on the command line.
6. Lotus Notes client is installed and will automatically launch. Complete the Notes setup process as usual.

Post Installation Cleanup (optional):
So, here's what you can remove to regain some drive space:
- Mail templates - you can leave the one you use if you would like
- Document library, discussion templates, phonebook template, or other templates you may not require
- modems folder - do you really need the modem files?
- Help folder - do you need help if you know what you're doing? :)
- Dictionary files - I don't need canadien.dic or uk.dic
- Java Documentation - go to \lotus\notes\jvm\ and there is a javadocs.zip file that is 33 MB. Get rid of this!

After removing all that, my NOMAD install was down to 336 MB from the 456 MB (and that includes the 52 MB that's from the Admin and Designer Clients! - see below). If you have a clean enough mail file or choose selective replication, you should be able to fit that on a 512 MB stick. I decided to throw Portable Firefox on the stick instead. I have about 85 MB still free. And don't forget to defrag. You may want to move the bookmark, desktop6, and cache files off the drive temporarily to get enough free space to have a really good defrag. Then move the files back over and they won't be fragmented (to start with). I still see that those files get fragmented quickly (just like with the Windows Notes Client).

Loading Administrator and Designer:
After installing the client, the first thing I did was follow Declan's advice to load Domino Administrator and Designer. To do that, just copy admin.exe, designer.exe, events4.ntf, and domadmin.ntf from your PC's Notes installation into the respective directories on the portable drive. It takes a little bit to create the domadmin.nsf the first time, but after that, Administrator and Designer Clients work well. This will create an evens4.nsf and domadmin.nsf. With the template and nsf files, this is 52 MB.

You can also see more information at Chris Miller's site.

Now that all of that is out of the way, just remember that it's the Notes client on a stick and it has Sametime support as well. It's another way that IBM is making Notes available for different scenarios (Linux, Mac, Windows, and NOMAD). It works great and performs well on USB 2.0 (don't hope for much success on earlier USB versions - it's slow!!). I used it last week a lot and didn't have any problems (except when my drive space got down to 2 MB free...), but that's my own fault! If you travel a lot, this could come in extremely handy. I just had to reformat an old laptop at home that we keep in the kitchen. This comes in handy for me not to have to load Notes on that. After you close the client and remove the drive, a cleanup process will remove any traces of the client. Enjoy!

Technorati: Lotus Notes

We Tried And Failed

Well, the Gamecocks came so close to beating Auburn last night! Wow... It came down, literally, to the last play of the game. I wish I had been able to see it. So, now for a question - are the Gamecocks better than I think or is Auburn overrated?

Now Playing: "How Can I Keep From Singing?" by Chris Tomlin

Technorati: Gamecocks

Cross-Posting

Well, Bruce isn't the only one posting on multiple blogs! ;) I just posted up some thoughts at my joint-venture site with Greg. We may be recruiting - from both sides of the debate hopefully. It's actually been a really dead site - the last post was in March and my last post was in October 2005! In my third post there, someone actually accused me of being paid to start the site!

Senator Clinton - The History Revisionist

Now Playing: "We Need Jesus" by Petra

Technorati: Hillary Clinton

Package Tracking With Bloglines

This is so cool - you can track UPS, FedEx, USPS, and DHL shipments via Bloglines. I just saw an update that they added DHL tracking - I didn't even know you could already track the others.

Now Playing: "Chewbacca" by Liquid Tension Experiment

Technorati: Bloglines

It's Official - He Finally Inhaled

Wow - what a tirade we got to see from former President Clinton!! I don't really have much time to discuss it, but Greg Simmons has posted some great information from some quick Googling. Looks as if President Clinton's inhalation some 40 years post-toke caused some latent lapses in his memory! Greg linked to the YouTube video. However, you can also see the clips at HotAir by Michelle Malkin with an audio sample of President Clinton discussing how he intentionally let Bin Laden go in 1996 because he "had not done anything against the US". See also this Power Line blog item about the tirade.

Still the "senior class president" - living and getting by on popularity!

Technorati: Bill Clinton, Fox News

Need to Search for System i Information?

Just come to my blog! I have added the iSociety/System iPortal search box to my blog. So, if you can't remember www.systemiportal.com, then just come here and search.

Now Playing: "Little Wing" by Derek and the Dominos

Technorati: System i, iSeries

Disabling Domino Platform Statistics

By default, each Domino server/partition (DPAR) will collect platform statistics. Since we have 3 DPARs on each iSeries, I have disabled platform statistic collection on our application and IM servers. This will just free them up to do other things and not duplicate the statistic collections from multiple DPARs on one platform. I'm sure there's not much overhead to the platform stats collection, but why have 3 (or more) DPARs duplicating that effort? So if you're using Domino partitioning, you may want to disable platform stats for all but one of the DPARs. It's something I've always overlooked, but every CPU cycle counts for something, right?

The line to add to the notes.ini is: Platform_Statistics_Disabled=1

Now Playing: "Anyday" by Derek and the Dominos

Technorati: Lotus Domino

Earthquake In SC

Sitting in the airport, someone sent me this link about a 3.5 mag quake that hit SC about 7:20 this morning:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/ussyas.php#details

It was about 110 miles away from where I live and was right beside Blenheim, SC (think Ginger Ale!).

Introducing The Downtime Monkies

Let's see what Susan Bulloch has on these monkey twins!! I picked the monkies up from a HA vendor for System i and the mug and stress ball are compliments of Sametime 7.5. I'm sure these will never see as much road time though.


I did catch Chris Moody napping with one of the monkies. Poor fella!

Certifiable Domino for iSeries Admin

This morning I passed exam number 855 - "iSeries Domino Technical Solutions V5R3." So, I guess I'm "officially" a Domino for iSeries geek... :) I was also the first person to take an exam at COMMON this Fall.

iSOCIETY, System iPortal, and Truth

Attention System i users!

Several new marketing tools were announced today at the Fall 2006 COMMON conference Town Hall Meeting earlier today. The first is a user portal called iSOCIETY.org. "It's like facebook for adults" was one of the comments. You should go signup from the website. Temporarily, the site is isociety.common.org, but iSOCIETY.org is coming soon.

Second is the System iPortal. It's a single point of reference for System i information. You can search the web, code, blogs, etc... for all things System i related. No more Googling for: dns configuration and AS400 or iSeries or i5 or System i. Since I post a lot of Domino information related to System i, I've requested my blog to be added to the blog search. Some of you should do the same. Soon, I will also have a System iPortal search section on this site.

Perhaps the most anticipated announcement is a new marketing initiative by IBM focused on the System i. There will be some cool "viral marketing" television commercials. We were shown a preview of one of the two. Basically, it's IT guys that get fed up with all of the server sprawl associated with Wintel servers. It's something we Domino folks like to point to as well - being able to consolidate MS implementations onto a single Domino system. The i want control/truth features the ability to add your own comment about System i. See if you can find mine. It's a really slick site that can really help generate some buzz for the public to see how much the Systm i is loved. My only concern is related to the url that was on the preview commercial we saw. It's ibm.com/iwantcontrol/truth - it could be a little much for potential customers to remember.

iSOCIETY and System iPortal are excellent examples of what a dedicated customer base can do to spread the word about the best computer system on the market. The Truth marketing campaign should (hopefully) allow IBM to better position the System i as the amazing "integrated" system that it is. Keep up the great work to all who are involved - especially "Angus!"

Technorati: System i, iSeries, COMMON

Bad Memory From Childhood Revived?

Can anyone guess what it is about this that would bring back bad memories from the early 1990s? This is the road sign directly outside the Loew's Hotel in Miami Beach where I'm staying.



Hint... "Beachfront Avenue!!"

Welcome To Miami!

Well, Chris Moody and I arrived in Miami Beach this afternoon for the COMMON iSeries Conference. What do you think of the weather? This is a shot from the balcony of the hotel room.



There were some cool lightning bolts that I couldn't get, though. This storm came fast and left just as quickly. It is humid here - even worse than in South Carolina. I'm pretty pumped about the trip. My presentation with Kim Greene on Domino Domain Monitoring is on Tuesday.

Chris and I have been just hanging out this afternoon. We're watching some football now. After he and I ate, I hung out with 4 iSeries people. One of them has her own consulting firm and the other three work for IBM in Rochester, MN.

PC/104

Is anyone out there familiar with coding embedded applications for the PC/104? Or do you know someone who is?

http://www.pc104.org/

I have a friend working on a way cool medical app that needs to xmit data received via IR to a PC/104 and then have the PC/104 call a web service to transmit the data. He's now trying to find someone to work on the PC/104 web service application.

Now Playing: "I Wish You Were Here" by Balance of Power

Interesting News Story

Iraqi Official Testifies to Links Between Saddam and Al Qaeda

Barham Salih (A deputy prime minister of Iraq) said, "The alliance between the Baathists and jihadists which sustains Al Qaeda in Iraq is not new, contrary to what you may have been told." He went on to say, "I know this at first hand. Some of my friends were murdered by jihadists, by Al Qaeda-affiliated operatives who had been sheltered and assisted by Saddam's regime."

A Kurdish politician who took his high school exams from inside a Baathist prison, Mr. Salih said he was the target of the alliance between jihadists, Baathists, and Al Qaeda in 2001, when a group known as Ansar al-Islam tried to assassinate him. In 2002, envoys of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two Kurdish parties sharing sovereignty over northern Iraq between the two Iraq wars, presented the CIA with evidence that the organization that tried to kill Mr. Salih had been in part funded and directed by Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard.

Those words directly contradict a recent report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that declassified a 2005 CIA assessment of Iraq's pre-war ties to Al Qaeda and found that none existed. In an interview after the speech yesterday, Mr. Salih said he was unaware of the CIA assessment. But he added, "There were links between Ansar al-Islam and Al Qaeda. The information at time [in 2002] was quite different. Now, we could not prove this in a court of law, but this is intelligence."

There are some things we should take home from this. First, we must always keep this in mind. Secondly, to think that the government of Iraq under Saddam Hussein didn't know Al-Qaeda was there is just nonsense. Let's get real here! It appears that this may be some much-needed evidence. I guess those who would rather put politics ahead of national security will just say that this is a very timely release of this information less than 2 months before the elections. It's the same playbook everytime!

Now Playing: "Open Skies" by David Crowder Band

Technorati: Iraq

The Path To 9/11: ABC

As we all know, there was some controversy surrounding the airing of this documentary based off of the 9/11 Commission Report, the book Dereliction of Duty, other books/reports, and eyewitness interviews. Most of the hubaloo was generated by the Clinton spin machine - undoubtedly not wanting to tarnish the legacy of the magnanimous Bill Clinton. There appeared to be a coordinated effort for all of them to start griping about the docudrama at the same time.

But, I digress. Since the first commercial I saw for this documentary a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to watch it. I'm glad I watched both nights. There were a lot of things that I had forgotten about during the Clinton Administration, so that was good to see. I didn't really have any expectations going in other than seeing the failures of the Clinton Administration that were already well-known and documented.

So, what did I get out of it? First of all - WOW! It was great to watch. It was in no way made in a manner to lay all the blame on a single person. One of the main problems regarding the Clinton Administration was that it considered the war on terror nothing more than "a law & order problem." Personally, I think the documentary painted Richard Clarke as almost a hero. He really was unrelenting in wanting to do something about Bin Laden, et. al. My wife came out thinking that Clarke came across as just acting like he wanted to do something but knowing all the while that he couldn't. That's possible, but regardless this documentary painted him as one who had a passion to stop terror but had his hands tied by the CIA, FBI, and Executive Branch. John O'Neill was the FBI agent who was also passionate to stop terrorism. But both Clarke and O'Neill ran into the brick walls that were George Tenet (CIA) and The Administration. One group saw legal grounds for killing Bin Laden while the CIA wasn't convinced. So, Tenet never gave a go-ahead. And Bill Clinton just wanted to play nice with "area interests" so he warned Pakistan of a missile launch to get Bin Laden. Pakistan then told Bin Laden to clear out...

All in all, this was a great documentary/docudrama. It's estimated that about 96% is true, so it's not like they were setting out to scandalize anyone without facts. And I don't know where the idea came from that suddenly ABC is an arm of the vast right wing conspiracy out to defame Bill Clinton. That's just too funny!

Now Playing: "Sacrificed Sons" by Dream Theater

Technorati: Path To 9/11

Remembering 9/11 - 5 Years Later

I posted the lyrics to this song last year and they still get me. I'm not sure of any song that better describes what happened. Monday will mark the 5th Anniversary of 9/11. I'm certain we all remember where we were. I was sitting at work when my mom called to tell me that a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center. I thought she was crazy until I turned on Fox News in our server room and got my colleagues in there watching. Then hearing reports that the Pentagon was hit. Then the second plane hit the other tower and a plane crashed in Pennsylvania. Then the towers fell...

Last year, Dream Theater released a song titled Sacrificed Sons. The lyrics by James LaBrie are below. The song starts with news clips from 9/11. At first I thought it was going to be a rant about how we have sacrificed sons and daughters in Iraq, but Dream Theater took a different path that I'm proud of...

Dream Theater
Sacrificed Sons

[left: This has all the appearances of an extraordinarily well coordinated and
devastating terrorist attack—

right: —terrorism against our nation will not stand; the government
will hunt down those resposible—

left: —terrorism means striking terror into the hearts of people, that has been
accomplished—

right: —looking in awe, amazement, shock and grief and anger at what they
were seeing in front of them—

middle: There has just been a huge explosion... you can see, uh, a billowing smoke rising, there was a cascade of sparks and fire and we see this extraordinarily big, frightening scene behind us—

left: —there is panic on the streets, there are people screaming and running—

right: Good lord, there are no words.

left: —3000 Palestinians [unintelligible] chanting "God is good"—

right: —This is just a horrific scene and a horrific moment, but just look
at that. That is about as frightening a scene as you will ever see.

left: But there are times in your life that are life changing, where your
life can never be the same and this appears certainly to be one of them.]

Walls are closing
Anxiously
Channel surfing
Frantically

Burning City
Smoke and fire
Planes we're certain
Faith inspired

No clues
A complete surprise
Who'll be
Coming home tonight

Heads all turning
Towards the sky
Towers crumble
Heroes die

Who would wish this
On our people
And proclaim
That His will be done
Scriptures they heed have misled them
All praise their Sacrificed sons
All praise their Sacrificed sons

[Instrumental Break]

Teach them
What to think and feel
Your ways
So enlightening

Words they preach
I can't relate
If God's true Love
Are acts of Hate

Who would wish this
On our people
And proclaim
That His will be done
Scriptures they heed have misled them
All praise their Sacrificed sons
All praise their Sacrificed sons

God on high
Our mistake
Will mankind be extinct
There's no time
Time to waste
Who serves the truth
For Heaven's sake

Stored Name and Password on Web (SnTT)

I know my users probably hate me for this, but it's a quick security option to prevent the web browser from storing (or even prompting) to save the username and password from the login form used by your server. In Domino, it's really simple. In your login form (domcfg.nsf), put the following line of code in your HTML Attributes of both the username and password fields:

"autocomplete=\"off\""

Now Playing: "A King and A Kingdom" by Derek Webb

Technorati: Show-n-tell thursday

More on the Spratt/Norman Race

Here are a couple of other links for the Spratt/Norman race.

First, Greg Simmons decided to jump on the bandwagon and post about the race. Some in the SCDP might even say he plagiarized me!! It's really bad when the SC Democratic Party is stooping to saying Norman is just following talking points. Isn't that basically what Spratt is doing as well?

Secondly, Spratt and Norman have agreed to a debate in Rock Hill!

The first debate of the Spratt/Norman race is on for Sunday at The Freedom Center in downtown Rock Hill.

Winthrop's own Scott Huffmon is the moderator. Doors open at 4:30 p.m. and the event is open to the public. Thirty minutes have been set aside for the candidates to answer audience questions submitted on note cards.

Now Playing: "Cut & Move" by Day of Fire

Technorati: John Spratt, Ralph Norman, South Carolina

What users hate about IT pros

Hat tip to Jeff for the link to this article. It's a pretty standard list, but what intrigues me is on the second page:

Brian, a director at a national industry association, says his pet peeve is his IT department sets limits on his e-mail storage. Employees have 25MB of storage space for messages, which Brian quickly consumes because he receives more than 100 e-mails every day, many with attachments.
"I don't think [e-mail storage] should be unlimited, and I understand why the size needs to be monitored, but it doesn't seem like the storage capacity has adjusted to the inflated use of e-mail," he says.

First of all, it sounds like you're running Exchange! I know people who had low limits on Exchange before being migrated to Domino. But, to be fair, I know a guy who has a 100 MB quota on his Notes mail. But regardless of the platform, it's probably not your IT department's call to have a 25 MB quota. "Brian" in this article is a director. Perhaps if Brian and the other directors and higher ups would increase the IT budget then more space could be used. By the way, e-mail storage is "unlimited" where I am. Even with archiving for all mail over 1 year old, I still have 9 mail files over 2 GB (just for the past year - their archives are that big too!). The largest is almost 5 GB for a graphics designer.

The article is pretty good, so go take a look. I know I have a great story about the jargon...

Now Playing: "When The Light" by Day of Fire

Some Thoughts from John Spratt

My best friend went to "Ben Bernanke Day" on Friday in Dillon, SC - the birthplace of our Fed Chairman. My friend was able to speak with John Spratt. In the course of the conversation with my friend who lives in York County now (John Spratt represents the 5th Congressional District of South Carolina with both York and Dillon Counties), the topic of the upcoming Congressional election arose. Here's what John Spratt had to say:

There are a lot of people who historically vote Republican moving down from the Charlotte, NC area to Fort Mill, Rock Hill (my town), and Indian Land. I'm losing a lot of votes in York County.

As I have previously mentioned, this race could be as close as 4 percentage points. York County accounts for nearly 1/3 of all of the votes in this District. For Rep. Spratt to vocalize concern about this county doesn't bode too well. When I rode up our main "strip" this weekend (Cherry Road), I saw a lot of Ralph Norman signs outside of the businesses along the road. But in that 4 miles of road, there wasn't a single John Spratt sign. That was great! I read something that John Spratt said that really upset me. He said that when he's in Washington, DC that he already has a seat at the table. But if Norman is elected he'll still be in the back of the room.

I'm sorry, but I would rather have someone who represents this district and not just towing the Democratic Party line. Under John Spratt's leadership our district has seen thousands of textile jobs lost. Not that I'm in favor of government intervention in business, but if John Spratt was at the table he must have been drinking some Kool-Aid or something because he didn't help those factories stay in business. Many people may refer to John Spratt as a "moderate", but I believe when push comes to shove that he would vote "D". He has spent 20 years in Washington, but now it is time for some change.

Technorati: John Spratt, Ralph Norman, South Carolina