Overheard at The Cleaners

"Sir, would you like the scented starch today?"



By the way, my wife pointed this out to me... :)

Please Update Your Feeds

Looking at my feedburner stats, I see that a majority of my subscribers are still only subscribed to my blogspot RSS feed.

If you've been subscribing to my feedburner feed all along (http://feeds.feedburner.com/cwhisonant), then there's nothing you'll need to do. All of my posts at BleedYellow.com and those at cwhisonant.blogspot.com will appear in that feed.

I will likely post my "Yellow"-related stuff just at BleedYellow.com. I will post personal stuff at this blog. So please stay subscribed to that feed.

If you insist on just subscribing to my BleedYellow.com blog, that feed is:
http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/roller-ui/rendering/feed/lotusnut/entries/atom/

Also, if you want to subscribe to all blogs here at BleedYellow.com, that feed is:
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Are you happy Mitch?!?

You (and Mike) should be - your Giants just knocked off the Pats!! Congrats!!

Nice tunes

So cool - I've been to at least two sessions where the music playing
was Joe Satriani!! Lotusphere + Satch = :)

Happy Birthday Honey!

Please head over to my wife's blog and wish her a happy birthday!!

Love you Jen!

My New Blog

Please take a moment to check out my new blog at BleedYellow.com!!!!

Neal Morse - Official Sola Scriptura DVD Trailer

This looks like it will be good! View it here!

He also has a new album coming out!

The Twenties are behind me...

Yup, I turned 30 today. W00T! Looking forward to dinner with Jen tonight!

Countdown to Lotusphere...

Can you imagine the loss if your email becomes inaccessible even for an hour?

Devin - Welcome To Lotus 911!!!!

I would like to extend my congrats to Devin Olson and welcome him to Lotus 911. See what Devin has to say at his blog.

Sametime in an Active Directory and Exchange environment.

This is for Sametime 8.0 on Domino 8.0 pointing to AD for authentication with an Exchange server.

When trying to get the meeting notifications to work, I initially recieved this error:
Dead Failure Reason:User Sametime Development/Lotus Notes Companion Products (Sametime Development/Lotus Notes Companion Products@Domain) not listed in Domino Directory

After enabling smtpclientdebug=1, I was seeing that the error was actually similar to this: Meeting notification email to moderator

Specifically, the error is: SMTPClient: Error parsing from address

The key part of this error is that it's an error parsing from address. To make a long story short, I ended up having to open STConf.nsf in Domino Designer, then opening the the "sendnotification email" script library. In the sub used for notifications, I had to modify what was being used for the sender's address.

One note is that you should create a Sametime Admin account on the Domino server as well as on the Exchange server. In Exchange, you could create a Sametime Admin group to receive the replies if you would like. Here's what I changed to not only solve the issue above, but to also make the Outlook Client display a name in the Inbox folder.

Look for the following If loop and replace it with the following code down to the line that is: Set header = body.CreateHeader("Sender")

If (sendEmailFrom = "") Then
'sendEmailFrom = meetingDoc.STCreator(0)
sendEmailFrom = "sametime.admin@exchangedomain.com"
End If

' The following three are the best way to ensure that the client renders the
' sender's address correctly. When modifying the principal field, Domino must
' be able to resolve the address in the local directory (from my understanding and
' prior troubleshooting).
doc.From = "Sametime Admin"
doc.Principal = "Sametime Admin"
doc.replyto = "Sametime Admin"
' You can just use the internet address for the following sender fields.
doc.SendFrom = sendEmailFrom
doc.DisplaySent = sendEmailFrom
doc.AltFrom = sendEmailFrom
doc.INetFrom = sendEmailFrom
doc.tmpDisplayFrom_Preview = sendEmailFrom
doc.tmpDisplayFrom_NoLogo = sendEmailFrom
doc.tmpDisplaySentBy = sendEmailFrom

Do guitarists really play Guitar Hero?

So I was walking around BestBuy tonight and decided to test drive one of the guitar hero games. I just don't get it. Maybe it's because I'm a guitarist? I played Black Hole Sun (on Rock Band) on medium and got boo'd off the stage rather quickly. I guess if I have spare time to play an instrument I'll just pick up one of my guitars... ;)

Randomness...

While I was in BestBuy, I picked up a Dynex headphone adapter for my iPhone and a somewhat decent set of earbud headphones. I figure I can have some decent phones for the bus ride to Lotusphere and walking around (if needed...) :)

LOL - Edwards is on CNN compaining about the 99.5%+ of Americans who haven't voted yet (and assuming that they should vote for him...) and then talking about a woman who couldn't get a liver transplant in time. Could that be because slick ambulance chasers like Edwards have completely drove up insurance prices because of his antics and huge lawsuits?

Well... Ummm... Happy New Year!

So, I figure that a week into the year I should at least post something! As you've probably seen from Nathan, Tim, and Mike's blogs, things are pretty fun at Lotus 911 now preparing for Lotusphere 2008... But you'll hear more about that later.

Some random thoughts? Interesting watching the SEC dominating the bowls! If LSU hangs on, then I think the SEC will be 6-1 in bowls this year.

NH primary should be interesting. Will we see another Obama/Huckabee showing? Guess we'll know in 24 hours...

My 2007 In Review

This has been a year that was extremely different from anything I expected this time last year.

Personal
On March 15, we were blessed beyond measure with our 2nd child - Oliver (Ollie) Thomas!! He's crawling around really fast now, trying to stand up, eating some solids (with his 2 teeth), and generally just getting into all kinds of things with his wonderful big sister. Though we were expecting Ollie, he wasn't the only change in our household. The other big change was taking a new job with Lotus 911 and moving from South Carolina to Georgia. There were a lot of amazing little things associated with this move that still blow us away. I've not really shared it publicly, but we've seen God move in some great ways through it all. A quick run-down:

- I started my job on May 29.
- When I told my mother I had accepted the position, she told me that the night before she had been up all night praying and reading her Bible (for reasons she had no clue about at the time).
- We listed our house on a Saturday and had a signed contract by Wednesday.
- A former co-worker of my mother has a sister-in-law who is a great realtor in Kennesaw. Not only did she help with that, but she and her husband allowed me to live in their basement apartment for about 3 weeks. For free!
- My mom's sister works for a large mortgage company in SC but was able to help us with our loan in GA.
- About halfway through June we found our house in Acworth.
- We sold our house in Rock Hill on the last Wednesday of June and signed on our house here two days later and moved in that Saturday.
- As you can tell, June was pretty much a blur. The house is great and even the colors ended up matching the stuff we moved here!!
- And in the change, Emma Grace is just loving her pre-k school and her new friends!

That part of the moving experience was a true encouragement and we also saw God move in some other ways through that. Amazing.

Work
I started off the year with some System i projects to work on and figured I would have a relatively quiet year with Domino. We got some new systems in at the phone company and IBM didn't have them put together, so that ended up being my job. It was pretty sweet piecing together a couple of 570s from the rack up and then working with IBM to build some LPARs and finally move over the Domino cluster. Along the way, there was also the whole DST debacle for the world! I did start working with the open Beta of Notes 8.0 and got a quote in Computerworld. I also finally took my last exam to become a PCLP for ND 7 (I plan on updating to 8 at Lotusphere 2008). But then I started talking to Nathan about whether there was anything open at Lotus 911. For the most part I was just looking for something different and more challenging. Of course there were some other factors, too. Things moved rather quickly and I was able to start with Lotus 911 the last week of May - after 7 years at Comporium.

My expectations of doing mostly System i stuff for 2007 were pretty much turned upside down and it's been "Yellow" work since then! I've been blessed to be working at a Lotus Beacon Award winner for most of this year!! I've learned so much and worked with many products that I wouldn't have touched otherwise. From working with a Whale Appliance to Quickr and Connections and participating in several Lotus Design Partner programs, I've been really kicking the learning into high gear. Then there's the customer assignments - some can be in swank locations, but they all allow me to work with Lotus products! The traveling has been cool (for the most part!), and the amount has been in line with what I was told (so that's cool too!). I've also learned a lot from seeing the different environments that we support. I could probably go on and on about this, but I'll just say that it's great working not only with some of the more well-known names in the community but with all of the other less public folks at Lotus 911. I had to laugh the other day because we were in an internal training session and there were 4 bloggers in the room and one on the phone!! I'm hoping that we can get some others blogging real soon... ;)

Etc...
Some other highlights include:

• Getting my review of Neal Morse's Sola Scriptura album linked from Neal's site! (By the way, Neal has a new album coming out soon...)
• Going to see Gilbert, Petrucci, and Satriani at G3 in Myrtle Beach with Dale
  
• Going to New York twice - I got to see the Yankees beat the Red Sox as well as hang out with Curt and Mitch the first time and then was in Times Square for a few days the second time.
• I was able to also visit with some old college friends since we go through their towns going from GA to different places in SC as well as hang out with some of Jen's family while in NH

I could probably think of some other things that I didn't blog about already. As you can tell, it's been a year of transitions. I'm blessed to have a loving and supportive wife sticking by my side and two wonderful children! Even though it's been tough sometimes with the adjustments, it's also been a blessing - especially with my family with me. We've definitely missed our family in SC, but we've seen them a lot (and have been on the road a lot as well!).

So, here's wishing you and yours many wonderful blessings in 2008. And as you begin the new year, may this be your resolution:

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (Colossians 4:2-6)

The Christmas Story

I would just like to present to you a generally chronological synopsis of the Christmas Story from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Those passages from Matthew are in italics. All scripture taken from the English Standard Version.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy--the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." And Mary said, "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her. In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever." And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!" When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us." And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord") and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, "a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons." Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, "Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel." And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed." And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him." When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: "'And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.'" Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him." After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way. Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Out of Egypt I called my son." Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: "A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more." But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, "Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead." And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee.

And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: "He shall be called a Nazarene."

And when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.

Santa Mentioned in the Bible?

It's very possible. Check out Zechariah 2:6 in the King James Version:

"Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the land of the north"

There may even be a mention of the Christmas tree in Jeremiah 10:3-4:

3For the customs of the peoples are worthless;
they cut a tree out of the forest,
and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel.

4They adorn it with silver and gold;
they fasten it with hammer and nails
so it will not totter.

Of course these are not prophecies about modern Christmas customs, but they're cute, eh?

Domino 8: 101 - Unread Marks Enhancements

Anyone who has worked with Domino mail replicas knows that there is a history of problems with unread mark synchronization. With Domino 8, there have been at least two areas of improvements.

First of all, there is a new notes.ini setting: ADMINP_EXCHANGE_ALL_UNREAD_MARKS=1. This new setting is available for Domino 6.5.6, 7.0.3, and 8.0. It is detailed in Technote 1245043. This setting will exchange all unread marks in new replicas created via the Administration Process (instead of only the default 90 days worth). Also, it requires that only the source server be running the fixed version of the server code.

Secondly is a new option in the Create Replica(s) dialog box. As depicted in the graphic below, there is a new option to "Exchange Unread marks on replication":


This works very similarly to the notes.ini setting described above. If the source server is at Domino 8.0*, then the Administration Process will "attempt to match all of the unread marks from the source database with the target database."

* - I had hoped that this would work with Domino 6.5.6 or 7.0.3 servers like the notes.ini setting, but it does not. The source server and Administrator Client have to both be at 8.0 or higher.

Congrats Lotus 911!!

Big congrats to Lotus 911 for winning the Best Philanthropy Award from Lotus for the work we've done with AngelFlight Mission Control!!

From Nathan's blog, "It coordinates flight plans for private pilots to take sick kids for urgent medical care in locations they can't otherwise reach. The system got particularly put under the gun in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when FEMA requested assistance in moving medical supplies and equipment."

Some Christmas Thoughts...

You may remember last year that I did a series of posts for "The 12 Days of Christmas" - I know we're about halfway through it now, but go check it out for some reading between now and Christmas.

Quickr 8.0.0.2 HF6 Available

I think I beat everyone to the punch... ;)

Go get it at Fix Central