IBM Is At It Again! (or Get Your Sametime Hotfixes!)

So last month I wrote about the release of hotfixes for Quickr 8.0.0.2 (or FP1) on the day after the fixpack was released. At that time I stated:

"First of all, I can see no possible way that enough customers called in within a day and IBM was able to reproduce, compile, and generate a Hotfix posted to Fix Central within the span of a day."

Today I see that there are Fixes to known stability issues with Sametime 8.0 server. And how long have these stability issues been seen in production environments for Sametime 8.0? Precisely 5 business days. The technote was published sometime yesterday and Sametime 8.0 was released just 4 days earlier. I also know that customers couldn't even download the files from Passport Advantage for most of the day Thursday (the release date).

My question is similar to the one I asked about the Quickr hotfix conundrum:

"I'm going to take it a step further and ask why IBM would release a known-buggy fixpack followed immediately with a hotfix? This should really not happen - take a little more time and get it all bundled correctly."

But now I'm not just asking the question about a fixpack, but about the gold release of a "dot-zero" world-class IM server.

Don't get me wrong, I'm excited that IBM is proactively releasing hotfixes. But I'm not thrilled that a product is released into production and then just days later there are fixes for "known stability issues"...

By the way, Carl Tyler has also posted about this. He simply states that "It always amazes me how IBM can release a product, and then one or two days later issue fixes for it. Surely these fixes were known about 1-2 days ago?"

Are You Ready For Y2K?

While in Rock Hill last week, I caught this out of the corner of my eye in the discount movie (VHS!) bin in a CVS Drug Store:



So will your family be prepared for Y2K? It's never too late to make sure!

By the way - no wisecrack comments about Rock Hill just being behind the times...

Just Installed IE7 And Here Are The Results

This was what I got after the (apparently) clean reboot when I just installed IE7:


OK, so I'm puzzled as to whether the serious error was that I held out and ran IE6 for so long or whether the error was my upgrading to IE7!?! I guess time will tell...

Things To Ponder....

Funny post over at Ben Witherington's blog...

Have you noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days no one talks about seeing UFOs like they used to?

Hmmm.....

What To Choose For New Sametime Installations?

On a Domino for iSeries List to which I subscribe, the question was asked if one would recommend going to 7.0.3. Is it stable on i5 V5R4 yet? The question was asked in relation to running Sametime 7.5.1 CF1 and not having to use the 7.0.1 jvm with the 7.0.2 server code. I hope you find my reply amusing...

7.0.3 is a major bug fix release. If you're planning on a Sametime upgrade or install, I would load up 7.0.3 just so I don't have the hodgepodge of Fixpacks, Hotfixes, Hacked older versions of Java, and convoluted template installs (for DWA/DST/IE7) that are necessary to run Sametime 7.5.1 with Domino 7.0.2 FP2 HF145-9er (10-4?).

Come to think of it, 7.0.2 FP2 seems to have been an extremely crippled piece of software - with all of the hacks and fixes you have to apply to make it "stable"...

I sure hope IBM doesn't get into the 7.0.2 situation again with all of the patches eventually necessary for it to be stable.

Anyway, since I brought up i5/OS - are you planning for your V6R1 upgrades yet?

WWJB?

Check out Kevin's post about a trailer for a film "What Would Jesus Buy?" Hilarious and thought-provoking...

Domino 8: 101 - Enhanced Quota Feature

A recently published devWorks article details the Enhanced Quota Feature in Domino 8. This enhancement will proactively prevent the creation of memos, calendar entries, and to-dos if a mail file is at or near a certain quota threshold. In prior releases, the user would be able to begin the creation of the document and receive an error when attempting the save operation. This takes the quota enforcement a step further.

Note that the document states that this can be enforced via policies. I have not been able to find these options in any of the policy documents, though. The notes.ini settings can be pushed down via modifications to the policy documents.

Parenting Stories...

I really like Gregg's story of helping his kid with a homework assignment - classic! It sounds like something Jen and I would do. And it reminds me of a story my neighbor told me a couple of months back.

This neighbor is divorced and the child is in TX with the mom. School was going along and the dad received a bad progress report about one of the son's classes. So he calls his son to see what was going on, etc.... Apparently, the son didn't like this and got defensive. At the end of the call I believe the son just hung up after saying "You're in GA, what are you gonna do about it?"

The next day the son hears a knock on the door. Yep - it's the dad and he had plenty of time to think about what he was going to say after a flight and 4 hour drive...

I'm not speaking at Lotusphere 2008...

And to rub it in, I got duplicate copies of the rejection emails for my 2 proposals (one for System i and one for Domino 8 for Admins)... I could take the hint the first time! ;)

Congrats to all who will be presenting!

Slowtus Notes

We've all heard the pithy ways Notes has been described. Slowtus Notes, Lotus Bloats, etc....

Here's a good technote from IBM on how to address poor performance when inside of Lotus Notes. It could be your computer, server, or (dare I say it?) the developers... :)

Knowledge Collection/Troubleshooting Guide: Known causes of slow database performance

Quickr 8.0.0.2

Please IBM, can we possibly get another hotfix? Quickr 8.0.0.2 is actually 8.0 FP1, right? Well IBM released this and then the very next day they release 8.0.0.2 HF1 (8.0 FP1 HF1?) with 4 SPRs that were fixed. First of all, I can see no possible way that enough customers called in within a day and IBM was able to reproduce, compile, and generate a Hotfix posted to Fix Central within the span of a day.

Secondly, if you go to get HF1 right now, here's what you will see:

According to this post at devWorks, the HaikuCommonForms.ntf is a different size in the two differen fixpack zip files - the smaller one was modified on 11/1/07 and the larger one was modified on 10/18/07.

First, I'm going to ask the same question Erik did in his devWorks post - Can you put the correct file out there IBM? Please?

Secondly, I'm going to take it a step further and ask why IBM would release a known-buggy fixpack followed immediately with a hotfix? This should really not happen - take a little more time and get it all bundled correctly. Further, they post another version of the hotfix (which I'm going to download and apply just to see if it fixes my issues - some major issues - with an upgrade). At least I think it's another version...

You know how Google has "beta" beside all of their products? That's all I'm going to say...

Update: By the way, the update to the haikucommonforms.ntf fixed my issues!!! (At least for now...)

Halloween Pics!

OT just chillin' out in the cow costume... Mr. GQ!


Jen and the kids - too cute!


EG in 2004 at Halloween soon after her first birthday. Recognize the cow costume? :)

Renewed Call For Reformation

On this date 490 years ago, a relatively unknown Monk saw some issues with particular doctrines of the church and posted a document listing 95 problems. The 95 Theses of Martin Luther were not intended to split the Church. Instead, he wanted to see change wrought from within. I decided to post something along these lines around a week ago, and have since seen some similar posts along the same lines of some of my thoughts.

Recently there have been a couple of movements that have been gaining attention. Michael Spencer has recently posted a list of 13 items that he has seen as problems facing evangelicalism. This is a fairly good summary of what I have been thinking for years now about some of the older movements (like the prosperity teachers or the emerging church) and even more recently with another movement (broadly referred to as the church planting movement).

Many of Spencer's bullet points can be seen in these churches; such as #5: "The triumph and glorification of unchecked pragmatic entrepreneurialism, especially in worship". To me, this means that many new things are being attempted (the entrepreneurialism) and looked upon as something that is Godly just because they have been observed as being something that "works" (the pragmatism) - by driving people in the door. This may involve always doing "crazy" new things because of the observance of "radical results" that have been working to, partly, increase the numbers as well as "enlarging the territory". Over 50 years ago, we can find this written by A.W. Tozer:

The emphasis today in Christian circles appears to be on quantity, with a corresponding lack of emphasis on quality. Numbers, size and amount seem to be very nearly all that matters even among evangelicals. The size of the crowd, the number of converts, the size of the budget, the amount of the weekly collections: if these look good the church is prospering and the pastor is thought to be a success. The church that can show an impressive quantitative growth is frankly envied and imitated by other ambitious churches.

This is the age of the Laodiceans. The great goddess Numbers is worshiped with fervent devotion and all things religious are brought before her for examination. Her Old Testament is the financial report and her New Testament is the membership roll. To these she appeals as arbiters of all questions, the test of spiritual growth and the proof of success or failure in every Christian endeavor.

A little acquaintance with the Bible should show this up for the heresy it is. To judge anything spiritual by statistics is to judge by another than scriptural judgment. It is to admit the validity of externalism and to deny the value our Lord places upon the soul as over against the body. It is to mistake the old creation for the new and to confuse things eternal with things temporal. Yet it is being done every day by ministers, church boards and denominational leaders. And hardly anyone notices the deep and dangerous error.

Time and again throughout church history, you can find pastors and teachers cautioning the emphasis on gimmicks to increase the church's membership roll. From Pink to MacArthur. One of the other issues that Spencer sees is: "The demise of quality Biblical preaching at the hands of technology and entertainment." This is something that I really find fascinating, and it seems to me that the focus on "pragmatic entrepreneurialism" in doing new things may be causing a demise in the exposition of the Scriptures.

But the ones of us who are complaining about these entertaining methods are not in the trenches trying to reach people for Jesus in full-time ministry. Who am I to say that things shouldn't be done this way? As the church planting movement has demonstrated, you have to do lots of new and crazy things in order to grow a church, right? The sermon has to be one of practicality without being too concerned with theology. However, I absolutely cannot believe that expository preaching and theology have to be given up in order to preach a practical message.

One of the most telling revelations was from Bill Hybels, pastor of the Willow Creek "megachurch". Just in the past couple of weeks he has issued the following apology related to the failure of the many programs at that church to produce true spiritual growth: "spiritual growth doesn't happen best by becoming dependent on elaborate church programs but through the age old spiritual practices of prayer, bible reading, and relationships. And, ironically, these basic disciplines do not require multi-million dollar facilities and hundreds of staff to manage". There are some who are skeptical about his apology, but I am seeing it as something truly hopeful and would like to see this church growth pioneer do even more in the future after being honest about the failures at his church. This is exactly what I've been trying to say.

This is where a man named Charles Spurgeon comes into play. Spurgeon is one of the greatest theologians in the history of Christendom and at 22 he was already preaching to 10,000 people (and was seeing growth that would stagger many minds in these recent movements). But Spurgeon wasn't one who would rely on gimmicks or entertainment. He is quoted as saying "Dear friends, we know that souls are not won by music, if they were it would be time for preachers to give way to opera singers." ("Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit," Volume 18, page 239) and "The heaving of the masses under newly invented excitements we are too apt to identify with the power of God. This age of novelties would seem to have discovered spiritual power in brass bands and tambourines...The tendency of the time is towards bigness, parade, and show of power, as if these would surely accomplish what more regular agencies have failed to achieve." ("Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit," Volume 28, page 377, 1882).

Truly, these sane words from a church growth phenomenon and theologian alike from nearly 130 years ago speak to the fact that a reformation is again needed in the minds of those who are trying to grow the church. Gimmicks aren't necessary for the Holy Spirit to work and grow His church. Of course, sometimes things can and should be done that are out of the box - I have no problem with this and being sensitive to the call of the Spirit. But continually looking for something that's never been done before can be a gimmick in itself.

Finally, there is something else that Spencer touched on that has a great deal of truth: "The failure of most evangelical denominations to broadly embrace and effectively mentor the current church planting movement." This is also something that Dr. Albert Mohler has recently touched upon. Not only has he has written of the loss of expository preaching at the center of worship (as I have mentioned earlier), but he has also written about the church planting movement and the fact that the traditional church needs to work hand-in-hand with that movement instead of seeming to be at odds. Dr. Mohler states:

Similarly, the passion to reach unreached populations is entirely laudable and urgent. The sad reality is that many of our established evangelical churches seem determined to reach only people who look like themselves -- if they are committed to reach anyone at all. The danger on the other side is that many of these newly-planted churches begin to look like their founders and first members. A church of tattooed twenty-somethings in New York can be just as lacking in diversity as the aging middle class congregation at First Church....

The energy and commitment evident in the church planting movement should encourage all who long to see a new wave of evangelism throughout North America. But this movement must be driven by a robust New Testament ecclesiology and must be undergirded by an eager embrace of the faith once for all delivered to the saints. This movement must complement -- not castigate -- existing churches. Each needs the other, and both can learn from each other.

Dr. Mohler is spot-on. The Church needs to work together more than we currently do. At the same time, there needs to be a re-evaluation of what is going to define "evangelicalism" (as in orthodox Christianity). This is my heartfelt effort at a call for Reformation. We, as Christ-followers, should be sensitive to the focus of our core mission - to "make disciples".

Welcome Aboard

I've been meaning to do this for a while...

Welcome to the Lotus 911 team David DeWell!!! I've been working with him some the past couple of weeks and am excited about the experience he is bringing onboard.

Need A New Study Bible

This Wednesday, Ligonier is offering their Reformation Study Bible for only $15.17. I've had one of these for about a year now and it's great. The accuracy of the ESV translation combined with the study notes of the Reformed persuasion make this a great study Bible.

Why $15.17 on Wednesday only? Check out the site - it has something to do with a "monk with a mallet."

10 Years Ago....

On this date 10 years ago, my wife and I had our first date. Then on the same weekend a year later, I proposed to her! I even did that in my own geeky way - through a website... :) I have recently found that I have those old pages still. I'm sending Jen a link to it. It's really cheesy - you don't want to see it!

Anyway, I love you Jen - Happy 10th! :)

Happy Birthday!!!

WOW!! My little girl turns 4 today - my how time flies!! I'm sure the wife will have some more pics posted later!

So Happy Birthday to the best kid ever!!! Daddy loves you!

Where's Whiso?

As most of you probably know, I've been spotted on municipal cameras this week by Bruce:



and Mitch:




And here's another on that may have been seen by millions more!!



I tried to get the poster of the video on YouTube to get me a higher-res video or capture, but this was the best I could get for now. You can see me at 3:49 into the video here:

Number 7 Baby!!!

Just letting you know that for the first time since 1984 the Gamecocks are ranked #7 in the nation!! Keep it coming - please..... :) Good job guys!

Calling Out For A Visitor

My son is virtually calling out for a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Moody...



Well, the shame game worked when my daughter kept asking Chris "when u gettin' married Moody?" ;)

Top 10 Bound

After defeating the undefeated Kentucky Wildcats last night, the Gamecocks should be ranked in the NCAA Top 10 this week!! The player of the game for Carolina was defensive end Eric Norwood - who is from Acworth, GA (where we now live). Kewl! It should be our first Top 10 placement since 2001.

And for kicks, here is the most exciting entrance in College Football. Go Cocks!!!

Domino 8: 101 - Inbox Maintenance

Inbox maintenance can be a good tool to improve performance on your mail server and for your clients. For detailed information on how this is possible, I refer you to this great devWorks article: Best practices for large Lotus Notes mail files

Basically, this document is telling you that the Inbox is most expensive container in a mail file. It is updated each time a user opens the mail file or clicks refresh button. The Inbox is also where new mail is delivered. Reducing the number of documents in the Inbox reduces CPU utilization as well as the space required to update and maintain the view index.

Domino 8 now allows administrators to schedule a time to clean up the inbox of some or all mail files. Keep in mind that, other than the ($Inbox) view index, that this will have a negligible effect (if any) on the storage used by the mail file. The documents are only removed from the Inbox and will remain in All Documents or any other folders in which messages may have been copied. In a phased-in approach, Inbox Maintenance can be a useful (blackmail) tool to get users to begin using folders and manually cleaning up the Inbox (I think we have all seen the users who feel they need to keep all of their mail in their Inbox, right?). For instance, you could choose to notify users that in 30 days all messages over 180 days will be removed from the Inbox of all mail files.

There is a 2 step process to enable this:

1. You must edit the Server Document. Go to the Server Tasks tab and then to the Administration Process tab. At the bottom right, you will see this:

As you can already see, the Inbox Maintenance is a function carried out by AdminP. In the Server Document you can control the day(s) and time this will run. You may also choose to run this only on specific users' mail files or on those files maintained through policies. Along with the schedule specified in the server document, you can also run Inbox Maintenance by issuing the TELL ADMINP PROCESS MB command. If you choose to run this on selected mail files, you are able to choose how many days to retain and whether to remove unread messages.

2. After modifying the Server Document, you may want to use policies to control the subset of mail files to maintain. You will need to implement this through a Mail Settings document in a Policy. In the Mail Settings document, go to the Mail tab and then the Basics tab. The Inbox Maintenance section is at the bottom:

This is what I feared would happen...

It's been a long time since I've had a political post. But this one really caught my attention and it's something I've thought about for a while actually: Christian Conservatives Consider Third-Party Effort

It's pretty self-explanatory - if Rudy Giuliani gets the nod for the Republican ticket, then there are some pretty high-profile names among Christian Conservatives that apparently will try to run a 3rd-party candidate. And just like in 1992, the entrance of a popular 3rd-party candidate on the conservative side will all but ensure another Clinton Presidency (remember, they're a team...). Actually, the first comment at the Times blog sums it up:

These people are the exact reason Rudy Giulaini must win the Republican nomination. This country was founded on separation of chuch and state. GET OUT OF GOVERNMENT AND LAW MAKING. Will you “bless” us with Hillary to prove how badly you just don’t get it?

Actually, the whole "wall of separation" has been severely abused by those who don't really get its original intention, but that's for another time. I would, personally, much rather have Giuliani than Hillary Clinton. She's the inevitable nominee for the Democrats and she has a long history of Socialistic policies. It's proven.

Anyway, regarding this effort by certain Christian Conservatives. I hate that they are hinging everything on his stance on a single issue. One that it doesn't appear that Giuliani will try to extend or restrict. I think we really need to pick our battles more carefully. We can't focus on one issue when there is so much more at stake...

Joke of the Day

Sorry Bruce, no offense...

So today before church, the 18 year-old keyboardist told a joke to crack on the drummer who's old enough to be her dad...

Johnny told his mom that when he grows up he would like to be a drummer. Johnny's mom said that he couldn't do both!!

Lotus Notes Diagnostic Tool - Windows Explorer Integration

Yesterday, I randomly stumbled upon this:



If you have an NSD on your drive, you can right-click it and see a "Lotus Notes Diagnostic" menu!! If you select "Automatic process", the nsd will be processed and the LND application will open in Lotus Notes. Furthermore, the nsd will be removed from your drive and added to the application. (Update: Actually, after further working with this, the NSDs are not removed from the drive but a new folder is created in the same directory where the NSD resided. The folder corresponds to the date that the NSD was analyzed and is in DD_MM_YY format.) There are some other options for RIP (old school) and NSD files. And for you System i shops, you'll love the "Convert EBCDIC to ASCII".

This tool gets cooler and cooler! Now to wait on some crashes... :)

Domino 8: 101 - Admin Preferences and Client Versions

There are 2 features that I would like to review quickly in this session.

First are two additions to the Domino Administrator Preferences that can be time savers. One is the option to "Automatically run in live console mode". This will default to launching the Administrator Client to the Server > Status > Server Console screen for the server listed in the "On startup" field. How many times have you wanted to just open the Administrator client to get a console window. Now this can be your default behavior! The other option allows you to specify databases that will launch automatically. In the image below I'm wanting to open ddm and log on the specified server.



The other is a "Client Version" view that's in the address book. It's listed under People > by Client Version. I have manually created this view in the past. This should provide some value to administrators in being able to know what versions of the client are being utilized in the environment.

Remedy Is Here...

This new album, Remedy, from David Crowder Band is awesome!! Check out the 268 Blog. It's good to hear studio mixes for "Glory of it All" and "Everything Glorious" as they were only available on live compilations previously. There's even a special guest guitarist on "We Won't Be Quiet": The Nuge - yep that Nuge...

The lyrics to the title track are excellent and inspiring...

here we are
here we are
the broken and used
mistreated abused
here we are

here you are
here you are
the beautiful one
who came like a sun
here you are

so we lift up our voices
and open our hands
to cling to a love that we can't comprehend

o lift up your voices
and lift up your hands
to sing of the love that has freed us from sin

he is the one who has saved us
he is the one who embraced us
he is the one who has come and is coming again
he's the remedy

here we are
here we are
bandaged and bruised
awaiting a cure
here we are

here you are
here you are
our beautiful king
bringing relief
here you are with us

so we lift up our voices
and open our hands
let go of the things that have kept us from him

he is the one who has saved us
he is the one who forgave us
he is the one who has come and is coming again
he's the remedy

oh i can't comprehend
i can't take it all in
never understand such perfect love
come for the broken and beat
for the wounded and weak
oh come fall at his feet
he's the remedy
he's the remedy

he is the one who has saved us
he is the one who forgave us
he is the one who has come and is coming again
he's the remedy
he's the remedy
oh he's the remedy

you are the one who has saved us
you are the one who forgave us
you are the one who has come and is coming again
You're the one who has come and you're coming again
You're the one who has come and is coming again
to make it all right
you're the remedy

you're in us
you're the remedy
you're in us
you're the remedy

let us be the remedy
let us bring the remedy

"Lotus Notes Diagnostic Tool" Has Been Released

Hat tip to Jack Dausman for this info! As Jack said, this is for Admins what NotesPeek is for developers! The download can be found in The Sandbox. Once you download it, you'll want to run the setup program and then sign the local notes database. I'm hoping that (more of) this code will be extended to the Fault Analysis code that's on Domino 7+ servers as it already does some of this.

From Jack's blog:

If you are programmer, you might remember the excitement when NotesPeek and NotesPing were first released. Well, LND is the definitive administration tool for Domino failure analysis and will be quite worthwhile to study.

It has some cool features, like recreating the server doc from a DXL dump, NSD file comparisons, and reading through all the semaphore locks.

It does come with a help document , but there isn't much hand holding--you are going to need to know the terms and architecture of Domino to really extract value from LND.

After a quick test drive, I agree. It does a good job of gathering all of the relevant information and presenting it in a friendlier format than the NSD. Kudos to IBM for releasing this. It won't tell you "Hey, here is exactly why you had this crash", but it will get you pretty close...

Good Game Gamecocks!

My favorite team, the #12 Carolina Gamecocks went to Death Valley* today in Louisiana to face the #2 LSU Tigers. It started off with Carolina going up 7-0 followed by 28 unanswered points by LSU. We ended the game with a field goal and touchdown to make it a 28-16 final. While we looked a little messy at times, we actually scored some points against LSU. In the first three games this year, LSU only allowed 7 points total! They're tough and they ran hard against our defense (taking advantage of taking out our star linebacker about 2 minutes into the game).

Oh yeah, what's better is that I watched it at my BFF Chris's house. :)

* - Not to be confused with the copied Death Valley that's in Clemson, SC. This is the team that stole the stadium name, fight song, and mascot from LSU...

Domino 8: 101 - Prevent Simple Search and Deferred Sort

The two items I will discuss below are enhancements to Domino 8 that may impact disk space and/or memory utilization on your servers. The first may also impact your end-users, so you should be aware of the caveats of enabling it.

Prevent Simple Search:
This option is found in the Advanced tab of the Database Properties dialog. It's called "Don't allow simple search" in that dialog. This will prevent someone from performing a search in a database that is not full-text indexed. Performing a search on a database without an index is a very time consuming process and the results are generally not as you would expect when compared to the search time and results returned from an indexed database. Enabling this option will prevent this type of search. However, many end-users may not know that they are doing this (by not noticing, or caring, that the database is not indexed) and will be used to performing searches. If you enable this option on mail files, be aware that you may receive many requests to create full-text indexes for those end-users who may have been performing simple searches. Creating these indexes will add to the overall drive space that is needed on your server.

Deferred Sort Index Creation:
This option can be a fairly decent space saver on your server. It is a design property, "Defer index creation until first use", of sortable columns and is visible under the "Click on column header to sort" option. What this option does is prevents the indexing of specific columns when the view is created. For example, most users may never sort their mail file using the Response Icons column. Prior to having this option, however, that column's sort index would have been included in the space used by the view.

So exactly how much space can this save?

Let me use my mail file as an example. After perusing through Designer to see how this option is enabled by default in the mail8 template, I notice that the Subject, Size, and Response columns have this option enabled. So, after purging the view index of my All Documents view (~1,500 docs), I opened that view. The initial size was 1,147,984 bytes (so, just over 1MB). I then sorted by the Subject column and the size increased 28%. I then proceeded to sort by the Size column and the increase was another 29%. Finally, I sorted the Response column and the size increased another 28%. In total, my view index for All Documents is now 2,132,224 bytes. This represents an 85% increase over the initial size of the view. Of course, with a relatively small mail file this will not have as much impact, but just imagine the savings with a much larger file.

I'm hoping that this "Domino 8: 101" series will be helpful as you continue your planning to upgrade to Domino 8 and evaluating the things that you, as an Administrator, will need to know. There have been many features added in Domino 8.0 - even though it was mostly a client-focused release. As you can see from previous posts in this series, IBM has a focus on saving space and time with Domino 8 and beyond. Just this week, an additional NSF compression algorithm was announced with 8.0.1 and there is more planned for Domino Next.

Some Things Never Change: Bring Back The Bronco...

So 13 years later he gets busted for robbing some sports memorabilia - the irony. Five words:

If the glove don't fit...

Domino 8: 101 - Server OS Upgrades

In planning for Domino 8, it may be possible that you will have to upgrade the Operating System that your Domino 7 (or 6 or earlier) servers are running. For more information, see the detailed system requirements here.

In some of these cases, such as Windows 2000, this is because the Operating System is no longer supported by the vendor. However, there is currently no set EOS date for i5/OS V5R3. However, this is not a supported OS for Domino 8.

The following operating systems are not supported for Domino 8. If you are running one of these with any prior version of Domino, you will need to upgrade the OS to be in a supported configuration for Domino 8. Please note that the latest release levels of all of these platforms are still supported and that it is generally recommended to stay fairly recent on the Operating Systems in your environment. There is also no rip-and-replace involved (as with other messaging platforms) - the most current OS levels were supported for Domino 7.0. So, if you are current on your OS and current on your Domino installation, you will have no issues upgrading to Domino 8. Also, I'm in no way criticizing IBM for this move to only support the latest OS release levels - just making you aware of it for your planning purposes.

OS Platforms Not Supported For Domino 8.0:

Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
IBM AIX
IBM AIX 5.2(4) (64-bit kernel)
Linux
Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 8
Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 9
RHEL 4
Sun Solaris
Sun Solaris 9 (64-bit kernel)
IBM System i
IBM i5/OS, V5R3
IBM System z
IBM z/OS Version 1, Release 5 or later
Linux on System z
SLES 8 & 9
RHEL 4

Where Were You 6 Years Ago Today?

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... It was really surreal and words can't describe it. Just a couple of weeks ago I took the picture below. It's a shot of two flags standing at the site of the World Trade Center with a plane flying just overhead...



And here is a shot of the construction that's happening at Ground Zero:


It was really odd to see this site nearly 6 years later. I wish they had it a little more open - there was a wrap around the fencing and you could only find gaps to look through.

For the past few years I've posted the lyrics to Dream Theater's Sacrificed Sons about 9/11. It's a pretty powerful song. You can find those lyrics here.

And here is a video of them playing the song live in Rome.

New Gear - G&L Tribute ASAT Special

07 - Front Angle, originally uploaded by topherssgtp.

Just got this in yesterday. I consider it a great deal from eBay! This thing plays wonderfully, the finish is excellent and the tone is fabulous. With the tone level at 10, you get the tele-twang. Back off and you get some nice P90ish tones. Check out the Flickr slideshow here.

If you don't know, G&L are George Fullerton and Leo Fender. Both are from Fender guitar fame. In a nutshell, they later split and started G&L. Leo Fender considered the G&L guitars his best work. And that's saying a LOT!

This one will be named "OT" in honor of my second born. I have a Takamine acoustic that's "EG" in honor of my firstborn. (ATTN: Wife - are you seeing a trend??) And my Les Paul is "Blondie" along with my Jackson, "Jenny", both in tribute to my wife... :) The G&L should fill in the tone gaps left from the Lester and the triple-bucker Jackson! ;)

Thanks Mom and Dad! :)

My Post Was Spoofed!!!

My Domino 8 ODS48 post from the other day was spoofed!! Some wiseguy thought she'd have some fun with it. Turns out it was my wife and her spoof is hilarious!!

Check it out here

Go Gamecocks

With a huge SEC East win tonight against UGA, the USC Gamecocks are at 2-0. My college dorm-mate Jay has some videos of past wins against UGA... :)

Way to go team!!

Domino 8: 101 - ODS 48

A new On Disk Structure (ODS) is available with Domino 8. This is an update from ODS43 to ODS48. First of all, upgrading applications (formerly called databases) to ODS48 is completely optional and requires the addition of a notes.ini setting on the server (or client).

This setting is: Create_R8_Databases=1.

If you enable this in a global configuration document, the Pre-8 servers will ignore it and will not be affected by having this setting. This can be a good way to propogate this to all (or many) of your servers prior to upgrading to Domino 8. As with previous ODS upgrades, a copy-style compact is required to upgrade all databases to the new ODS. However, the applications will not be upgraded automatically with a copy-style compact as they were with previous ODS upgrades unless the notes.ini setting is enabled.

What do I get with the new ODS?

1. There are some general I/O enhancements and "folder optimizations".

2. The maintaining of a "Database Names List" used for user renames
With ODS48, a list of all of the Readers and Authors in an application is maintained at a high level by default. This will improve the efficiency by which AdminP can process the user rename requests ("Update User Name in Reader and Author Fields"). If AdminP finds the user's name in the Database Names List, it will continue processing that application. Otherwise it will skip the application.

3. Design Compression
This database property (found on the Advanced tab of ODS43 and ODS48 database properties) will compress the design notes. IBM states that mail files based off of mail8.ntf will only utilize 11MB instead of 25MB if design compression is enabled. As you can see, 14MB of savings per mail file can be huge. This feature is disabled on all databases by default. However, the mail8.ntf template does have it enabled. You may choose to disable this property in the template prior to creating new mail files or converting existing mail files to version 8.

As with enabling ODS48, a copy-style compact is required to enable design compression. If you are planning on upgrading to ODS48 and enabling Design Compression on mail files, you should consider doing these at the same time by enabling the Design Compression property prior to running the compact so that you don't have to run the copy-style compact twice.

In planning your Domino 8 upgrade, the considerations above regarding the new ODS should assist you in deciding whether or not you will wish to enable ODS48.

NCAA Football Is Upon Us....

In honor of that I have changed my blog template colors to reflect my team - The University of South Carolina Gamecocks! We'll see how the year is going to be after this week's matchup against the Georgia Bulldogs...

Classic I.T. Dilbert Today

Seems like we've all been there and done that...

Brief Recap of This Week

For most of this week I was at a client outside of NYC. This being my first time there, I had to go to the city. On Monday night I drove to Lower Manhattan. The drive down FDR was an experience in itself - not to mention the time I got turned around... I took some pictures that you can see here. I basically walked around the Seaport and then walked up Fulton St. to see Ground Zero. That was really crazy. You'll see one of my photos was a plane flying above two flags where the towers used to be. I can't believe it's been nearly 6 years and can't imagine the chaos...

I purchased a stubhub ticket to the Yankees/Red Sox game on Tuesday night. But Curt Stone really came through in the clutch and was able to get 4 tickets for free!! So I sold my ticket and got 1/2 of my ticket cost back and was able to hang out with Curt, his bro-in-law, and my client. Definitely some points there. Curt has a recap of the night too with a picture of him and me at the stadium and here are some pictures I took. Enjoyed it pal - thanks!! Everyone told me that getting out would be a nightmare (yes, I drove to the game too - the client thought I was either crazy or brave for driving to the city, twice!), but it only took me about 50 minutes from the time I got in the car to get to the hotel (which would normally be about a 35 minute drive).

And on Wednesday night I met up with Mitch Cohen in Teaneck, NJ. He's that Lotus Connections guru... :) We met for dinner and talked forever. He's a great guy and it was good to put a face with the name - thanks for hanging out Mitch!

Things went great and I ended up staying pretty busy in the evenings too. It was so cool to hang out with a couple of bloggers while I was there!

Go Yankees!!!

P8280028, originally uploaded by topherssgtp.

This pic wasn't just grabbed from the internet... :) More later... Thanks Curt!

Exchange Server Has Viruses - Claims Microsoft

exchangeviruses, originally uploaded by topherssgtp.

One of the things "we" like to point out is that Lotus is more secure when it comes to viruses. Well, according to Microsoft's Exchange site, they have "Viruses" built-in to their Exchange product. Check out the scrolling banner... :)

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Mom's Birthday, originally uploaded by topherssgtp.

My parents came to town this weekend and we celebrated mom's birthday. Happy Birthday Mom - we love you!!!

The Shiny New Notes Client - Back To The Future!!!

The opening paragraph from the upgrade Redbook (Page 21) states it all:

The Notes ... client interface has been completely redesigned. This interface looks and acts more like a browser, and integrates the regular Notes client function with access to the Web better than it did before. Many of the things you used to do in the Release ... client are now only one mouse-click away.

Oh I'm sorry, I was reading from the wrong Redbook. That was the Notes/Domino R4 To R5 Upgrade book from March 2000. Let's see what the ND8 team came up with at the Interface page (as I've also seen written elsewhere):

It’s here! IBM® Lotus Notes® and IBM Lotus® Domino® 8 software showcases a modern, Web-like look-and-feel in a familiar Lotus Notes client format. Updated to help you work smarter, the new user interface presents the tools you need, when and where you need them. It’s visually appealing, highly consistent and feature rich. That means you get your job done faster, and easier. And, you enjoy it along the way. Who says work can’t be fun, too?

Sorry...I had to.

Notes and Domino 8 are so far beyond R5, but both releases were significant in their own right. Hopefully I got a laugh out of some of you! Congrats to IBM on ND8!

Consider Shopping At Circuit City

win98ccity, originally uploaded by topherssgtp.

As you can see from this demo kiosk at Circuit City this past Saturday, they may need some more revenue to upgrade some systems... ;)

A Response To Volker's Latest Issue With Notes

I have posted this as a comment at Volker's post * on IBM Technote 1267071: Changes in Lotus Spreadsheets document do not save

Regarding the issue Volker raises here, I believe I have found the problem and there is a VERY simple workaround and this issue is probably unlikely to be seen in most real world uses.

If you create a new spreadsheet or open an existing one, go to a cell and type something. If you click into another cell or hit tab or enter and then click the "x" to close the spreadsheet, then you will always receive the prompt to save the spreadsheet. If you just type something in a single cell but don't navigate to another cell, then you will not receive the prompt to save the modification. A bug indeed, but the IBM Technote should be updated. I will also be notifying Lotus via a response to the technote with how to reproduce this and also to hopefully modify the technote with a note to tab out of the field to receive the prompt for saving the modifications.

* It's ironic that I'm responding to someone who is "neither a business partner, a design partner nor a customer" of the Lotus products, but this is how Volker describes his involvement with Lotus products. I felt that since so many people will see the issue he raised that I would also let you know how to easily avoid the issue that was pointed out by someone who claims to not be a user of the product.

Getting Lotus Connections 1.0.0 To Work With Domino LDAP

If you haven't seen already, Mitch Cohen has documented an infrastructure with Lotus Connections talking to Domino LDAP for authentication. Check it out!

Notes 8.0 NOMAD

According to IBM Technote 1265230, "Notes on a Stick" will be supported for the Basic configuration in 8.0. They hope to allow the Standard version to run from a stick in a later release (threads in the Public Beta forum mention 8.0.1). I can't imagine that Standard would run too well from a USB drive, though.

But, I guess we'll find out in a couple of days if Basic runs well on a stick.

Quickr and Sametime Presence Awareness Issue Resolved

Nathan and I wracked our brains over this issue! We could get presence awareness going for about 30 seconds and then it would go away. Well today we got past that in the strangest fashion...

The basic setup was a Windows Server 2003 box running MS Virtual Server with a Quickr VM and a Sametime (7.5.1 CF1) VM. Nothing earth shattering. We decided to re-allocate that server for an installation of Lotus Connections, so I shutdown the VMs and moved them to another server (same OS). It was actually the same hardware specs but with less RAM (Connections needs the RAM!)

After bringing up the Quickr and Sametime VMs on the other server, presence awareness was working like a champ! Never saw that one coming!

No NSFDB2 for System i

Ever since NSFDB2 was announced, the System i faithful have been waiting for support on the i. We were told to wait for 7.0.1 or 7.0.2 to then be told to wait for 8.0.x. It's official that there are no plans for it, so we can all stop waiting. Details in the comments from Rob Ingram at the Domino Blog:

There are no current plans to provide this feature on iSeries. We have other very important database work we have committed to reduce NSF data storage and other database optimizations. These improvements should help all of our customers, including those on iSeries.

and

we made our plans in conjunction with many groups, including the iSeries team. This resulted in us facing a tradeoff with other very important storage cost reduction efforts which are being planned for the core NSF database. We always do try to prioritize delivery of new capability to as many Domino customers as possible and we expect that all customers, including those on iSeries, will benefit from these future capablities.

We've known all along that the DB2 UDB implementation on the System i was very different from that on other platforms. Perhaps future releases of i5/OS will remedy this.

Happy Anniversary!!

Just want to wish a Happy Seventh Anniversary to my wife Jen! The traditional gift for 7 years is wool or copper and the modern gift is a desk set. Wonder if the desk she got along with our new bedroom suite counts towards this? ;) We've been together nearly 10 years now!! It's been a great road so far with two wonderful kids and many life changes. It's sure to be an exciting future too!

Love You Honey!!!

Curiosity Killed The Cat

But not Curious Mitch. In my thread asking for new bloggers, Mitch Cohen pointed me to his blog (mostly related to Quickr and Sametime). It's been a good read and he's fairly active. And since I've been working with Quickr lately, it's very timely.

Also, don't miss Bob Baehr's blog. He already has a countdown to Lotusphere 2008 - 177 days from now if you're wondering. We're now closer to LS08 than to LS07!

Can't Delete Person from NAB? (SnTT)

So, after upgrading a server from 5.0.2b to 7.0.2FP2 this week (the clients were 4.6.7!), I did a lot of cleanup and added the LocalDomainAdmins group. I know for a fact that at one point I renamed in ACLs the old admin groups as well. I was also able yesterday to delete a good many old accounts.

Well today we were unable to delete accounts. So I did the usual ACL checks on the NAB and even explicitly added my account. Everything was cool, but I got an error that I wasn't authorized to perform the operation (clicking the "Delete Person" button).

No errors in log. Nothing on the console. Nothing in DDM. Nothing but an error. So I go into Full Access Administration. Nothing. So then I decided to check Admin4.nsf ACL. Sure enough, LocalDomainAdmins was NOT in there! I know it was because I was looking through catalog.nsf verifying things yesterday.

But, I was then able to delete an account. And I also added LocalDomainAdmins to every db....

Now Playing: "Insanity" by Firewind

Technorati: Show-n-tell thursday

More Than Meets The Eye!

Just got back from catching Transformers!!! Excellent movie... You have to see it in the theater, though, unless you have a big screen tv - but that may not do it justice either. The AV sequencing was amazing. It was a great unwinding for today...

If you want a ringtone, check out this page with some transformers mp3 tones. The "transforming sound.mp3" is a cool one for a message alert... :)

Linux NSD Tip

Generally with the Linux NSD files you will find the "Input arguments" line with the -crashpid and -crashtid. For example:

Input arguments : -batch -crashpid 4459 -crashtid 134 -wrapper

Of course you can find out which process is running by searching for just the pid number compared to the processes listed in the Notes Process Summary section:

notes R .. 3347 3337 -bash -c /Domino/lotus/bin/server
notes R ... 3568 3347 /Domino/lotus/notes/latest/linux/server
...
notes R .... 4459 3568 /Domino/lotus/notes/latest/linux/http

So we've already determined that the http task was the crashing process. But here's another handy search:

crashpid:crashtid

Just put in the crashpid# then a colon followed by the crashtid# (Note that if the tid# is 3 digits that there should be 1 space between the colon and the tid. If the tid is 2 digits there would be two spaces - basically it's expecting up to 4 digits for the tid# with the leading digits being spaces instead of zeroes). This should help out in finding a db that may have caused it.

In this instance we would search the NSD for: 4459: 134

When that string is found, then you know that you're looking at the actual crash thread for the crashing process. For instance, you may see the following section:

/Domino/notesdata/Path/DB.nsf
Version = 43.0
SizeLimit = 0, WarningThreshold = 0
ReplicaID = 0x85256e42:0x034ece60
bContQueue = NSFPool [ 0006dc45]
Offline = No
DeleteInProgress = No
FDGHandle = 0xf024057a, RefCnt = 9, Dirty = Y
SemContQueue ( RWSEM:#0:0x029d) rdcnt=-1, refcnt=0 Writer=[ : 0], n=0, wcnt=-1, Users=-1, Owner=[ : 0]
By: [ http:4459: 90] DBH= 311, User=Imperial
...
By: [ http:4459: 134] DBH= 371, User=CN=User Name/O=Org

So, with this tip, you are able to determine that something in the Path/DB.nsf application was the cause of the server crash.

Technorati: Show-n-tell thursday

Where Are The New Bloggers?

I've been thinking and it's been a while since I've seen some new faces in the Lotus Blogging community...

With that being said, I would like to welcome two new bloggers.

The first is Michael Smelser. He's a colleague of mine here at Lotus 911 and makes the 5th Blogger here!! It looks like Mike may be focusing on dev - looking forward to it.

Also, let me introduce you to Bryan Kuhn. He's a former colleague of mine and he's been updating his blog a little more lately. Bryan focuses on BES and Dev (though not at the same time) at his blog.

Also, Ed Brill (and others) linked to two new sites in the past week - LotusViralMarketing.com and FastNSF.com, so check em out if you haven't already.

Anyone else out there have a new blog and just starting up? Would love to hear from you!

Top 5 Side 1 Track 1 - My list

OK, so I've been tagged to list my favorite 5 album openers. Hmmmmm....

Virtue and Vice - Holy Soldier's Last Train - 1992 - Awesome opener for H5 dealing with the inner struggle of good and bad in us all. This is probably one of my all-time favorite albums too!

Paradigm Shift - Liquid Tension Experiment's self-titled album - 1998 - LTE was actually my first taste of Dream Theater. Crazy, right?

Where Moth and Rust Destroy - Tourniquet's Where Moth and Rust Destroy - 2003 - I really dig their older speed/thrash stuff, but I'm more into their newer sound and this song really defines that for me.

Surfing With The Alien - Joe Satriani's Surfing With The Alien - 1987 - Amazing song followed by stellar album that still defines Satch!

Welcome To The Jungle! - Guns 'N Roses Appetite For Destruction - 1987 - Not only was this the Side 1 Track 1, but it was Disc 1 for them too. Truly definitive song followed by other songs that are GnR!

OK, so I need to tag 5 others. Not sure who's been tagged (I've only seen Nathan and John's posts on this), so here we go. I'll even go outside the Notes community some to start this up for others... :)

Phil Randolph
Bryan Kuhn (no, you can't pick Every Rose by GnR!! ;) )
Jen Whisonant
Jen Wade
Greg Simmons

Technorati: Top5Side1Track1List

Start 'Em Young!

otibm, originally uploaded by topherssgtp.

Just thought I'd share this pic of little OT wearing his IBM bib! Never too young to start, eh? :)

Notes Client Debugging Parameters

I like to dump this section of parameters into my Notes Client notes.ini file. It's all commented out and you can just remove the semi-colons as needed to enable more or additional logging. If you can think of any other options let me know, but this is a good base.

;-------------------------------------------
;-------------------------------------------
;-----Notes Client Debugging Parameters-----
;Console_LogLevel=2
;LOG_SESSIONS=1
;LOG_CONNECTIONS=1
;DEBUG_TCP_ALL=1
;CLIENT_CLOCK=1
;CONSOLE_LOG_ENABLED=1
;DEBUG_CONSOLE=1
;-------------------------------------------
;-------------------------------------------

p.s. - I'm doing this as much for my record in case I need to debug a remote client I can just hit my blog for this reference... :)

Me as a Simpsons Character

Since everyone else is doing it, here's what I guess I would look like...lol


Go here to get your own Simpsons avatar.

Nickname Too Funny To Pass By...

LOL, I just saw that Rush is referring to my (soon-to-be-ex)* Senator from SC as "Lindsey Grahamnesty"... Too funny! He should continue with his former nickname and call him "Veep Lindsey Grahamnesty"!

* By this, I not only mean that he will no longer be my Senator because I'm a GA resident but that I doubt he will be re-elected in SC.

Now Playing: "Secret Ambition" by David Crowder Band: Cover of Michael W. Smith song

One Down, One To Go

So I guess I'm officially "homeless" for a couple of days as we have closed on the sale of our house in SC yesterday and will be closing down here in GA tomorrow!! What a relief... On Tuesday all of our worldly belongings were packed onto a moving truck (except, of course, for my guitars!!) and will be unloaded on Saturday.

I've been using Quickr some - so cool! Just trying to trap for whether a document is being checked-in for a placebot notification agent. But I don't think this is exactly possible within a placebot...

Now Playing: "Go West Young Man" by All Star United: Cover of Michael W. Smith song.

Every Boat Needs A Name, Right?

boat, originally uploaded by topherssgtp.

I think the name of this boat says it all. It was a great laugh driving down 85 to GA on Sunday!!

Song Redux

One of my favorite bands is Holy 5oldier! I really wish they would put out some new music. Anyway, back in 1995 they released "Promise Man" and they covered Larry Norman's (father of Christian rock) "Why Don't You Look Into Jesus" from 1972.

Well I found copies of both on Youtube, so enjoy.

Here's Larry Norman's (The volume is really low on this recording though):


Here's Holy 5oldier's much more modern redux:


And here's a sample of why I really dig H5. Great music and powerful lyrics in this song!! Their original vocalist, Steven Patrick, is amazing. Does anyone out there have a copy of his solo project Red Reign? I have to find that...:

Great Dinner With Family In NH

I've been working with a client in NH this week and decided to give a call to my wife's uncle Dennis and his wife Linda. They live in Maine only about an hour away from where I am. So I called them up on Tuesday and they called me back yesterday and said they would love to come meet me tonight. I believe I have only met them once at our wedding almost 7 years ago. It was really great to hang out with them. They are involved with their music ministry in their church, so we were able to hit it off talking about that. They're a great couple and really exhibit what Christianity is about (James 1:27). They have taken many kids under their wings - specifically some that may have lost parents when they were young (the orphans) as well as doing some foster care. I really had an awesome time with them!!

Great NOMAD Tip

Judging from my Google hits, I seem to be the Nomad expert. Googling Lotus Notes Nomad yields my review as the #2 site after IBM. So I thought I would follow up with a way I've been using it now as a consultant.

First of all, Nomad is intended to provide USB stick access to the Notes client and it's great. However, you can also install multiple instances of Nomad on larger drives, shares, or local drives. You can check out the full installation procedure from the link to my review above, but below is a modified version that will allow you to have separate Nomad installs for multiple customers (or other needs). This keeps you from having multiple location documents and dealing with cross certificates, etc... It would require you to have about 400 MB free space for each install as well as a bare-bones installation that you would need to use later. Below is a modified installation process.

1. Insert the USB drive into the USB port on your computer and create a "NOMAD\base" folder. This can also be performed somewhere on your local disk. (i.e. C:\NOMAD\base)
2. Make note of the drive letter that is assigned to the USB drive.
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 - you can alternatively extract this file.)
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:\NOMAD\base\ /qb+"
Where F is the 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. Perform the post-install cleanup (from my original review) to free up space.
6. The \base folder now has a copy of the Nomad installation. You can run Notes from here, but I use it to keep a copy of the files.
7. Create a folder \NOMAD\CustomerX.
8. Copy and paste the entire contents of the \NOMAD\Base folder into the \NOMAD\CustomerX folder. This step can be repeated for each customer!!
9. Open the \NOMAD\CustomerX folder and edit the autorun.ini file. You will need to modify the path for the MSI_LOCATION= and MSI_COMMANDLINE= (including the DATADIR= part of this line) options. You will see that they may have F:\NOMAD\Base\... Simply modify this to be the CustomerX path. Save and close the autorun.ini file.
10. The \NOMAD\CustomerX\autorun.inf and \NOMAD\CustomerX\Program Files\Lotus\Notes\notes.ini files will also need to be modified to match the path.
11. Run the command AUTORUN.EXE from the root of any of the CustomerX folders by double-clicking on the filename or by typing the command on the command line. OR
12. Alternatively, create a shortcut to the nlnotes.exe and just run this.

This can provide a good deal of flexibility and gives you a clean Notes install for each customer!

In Honor Of The Silver Surfer Movie

Since it's coming out in theaters today, I believe I will be spinning this album on my iPod for a while!

surfingwithalien, originally uploaded by topherssgtp.

Quick System i Tip

Updated - see information below. I've been meaning to post this for a while, but I'm either crazy busy or just slack. :)

If you're installing Domino (or anything for that matter) on a System i, then you should make sure that your joblog is generated when you signoff. Simply prompt the SIGNOFF command and use *LIST for the joblog option. I think just SIGNOFF *LIST will work. Doing this will make sure that you have a record of all the commands processed during your job. For instance, installing Domino does a lot of background stuff with the RSTLICPGM command you have to use. If anything goofy happens you'll want a copy of the joblog to send to support.

UPDATE:

Thanks to César for a quick clarification to this tip:

I prefer the DSPJOBLOG OUTPUT(*PRINT), perhaps because I’m a developer or because I still use the same session for more things.

What I do not suggest is generate a joblog with the SIGNOFF *LIST when you’re removing Domino from your system, due to some functionality of the system I’ve seen “weird” things appear on the joblogs (you know, *MSGF is deleted and joblog is generated/built afterwards).

Regardless, make sure you get a joblog of the install/uninstall... :)

Great Weekend With Family

On Thursday night my wife and our 3 year old came to Kennesaw to look at houses with our wonderful realtor, Myra Brown! She's been extremely helpful! Anyway, I believe we have narrowed the field to just a few and are working on a contract for one! I knew once SWMBO (she who must be obeyed) came to look that she would be able to find what "we" needed... ;) She's on her way back now and I had a tremendously great time with them. We decided that house hunting wouldn't be too easy with a 3 month old, so it'll be about 2 weeks until I see OT when I head to Rock Hill this weekend. Till then I'll be hanging out in some free wi-fi spots... This Starbucks isn't too bad and the Strawberries & Cream was great for this hot day!

lol, I just overheard a lady say "There are things on that iPod I should be made fun of for, but that's not one of them!" Hope they don't look through mine... By the way, the new Dream Theater album is great and has been spinning a lot on my iPod this week. And I think I'm going to order the Rush of Fools disc. Should have done that while I was sitting here - duh! OK, I'm rambling - catch you all later!

For Those Of You Who Embed YouTube Videos...

Hat tip to the desiringGod blog for this one.

Because of a new YouTube feature, when you embed a video, your users can watch related videos on your site. This is, of course, risky for anyone who wants to be in control of the content of their site. (Wouldn't that be everyone?)

If you want to, you can disable it by adding &rel=0 to the end of the video's URL when you embed it.

That can be kind of scary if something "related" isn't exactly what you wanted to have other people see when at your site. Just the other night while at a Barnes & Noble looking at a magazine I saw where a seemingly orthodox preacher in New England somewhere (I think) was actually fired because of some links from his personal web site. It turns out that he had some links to some occult sites so that people could get information about certain groups. But from just a couple of clicks people at his site could order shirts, etc... from these groups. It appears that the church he was at saw this as something they didn't want visitors to their pastor's site to be able to do so easily.

The moral is, along with the YouTube issue above, that you should probably be aware of what you're linking to and what people may perceive about you.

Now Playing: "Repentance" by Dream Theater

Great First Week

Thanks to those of you who emailed or pinged me about my first week at Lotus 911! It went well - just getting accustomed to things and jumping in where I can. The team is awesome! Of course you all know about Nathan and Tim, but they're just the tip of the iceberg (pun intended!) there. I know I have a lot to learn from everyone and I'm glad to be able to dive right in. It's like a cool geek family (and it's wild knowing that if I need to ask Nathan or Tim something that I can just walk over to their stations - a little surreal).

On the personal front, it's a little tough being away from Jen and the kids during the week until we can all get back under the same roof, but we've seen some great "God things" happening that I hope to write about soon... They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and I'm really beginning to see that. It's kind of wild.

I'll try not to be so slack here at the blog, but I've said that before!

POWER6

Sweet CPU announcement from IBM today - IBM kicks out energy-efficient 4.7GHz POWER6 processor. The new System i boxes we got this year are the Power5+ models clocking at around 2.2GHz. They are insanely powerful and fast - can't wait to see these in action!

"The device reportedly runs "twice as fast" and packs four times the cache as the POWER5, and boasts a processor bandwidth of 300Gbps....preliminary testing showed that all four of the 'most widely used performance benchmarks for Unix servers' were shattered by its CPU."

They will probably be introduced for the System p first and eventually make it to the System i. Time for another NotesBench record!

Sametime 7.5.1 Information Center

I have always* found the System i Information Center to be extremely helpful with information about the System i platform. In case you've missed it, there is now a Sametime 7.5.1 Information Center. It appears to be something that all Sametime admins can use for some great information.

* - OK, for those of you who used the i Info. Center before around V5R2, it was pretty bad. But after they got rid of the slow java menus and cleaned it up some more it is much better.

Congrats To The Moodys!

This weekend Chris Moody (the perpetual bridesmaid!)and Lottie got married! Congrats you two!! Here's a link to the Flickr tag I posted and below are three pics I really like followed by some stories.


Chris and Lottie's First Dance


Lottie, Chris, Jen, and Me (After an ordeal with getting Cocky to the wedding in humid Columbia, I changed out of the tux...)


Lottie, Cocky (Go Gamecocks!), and Chris

I've known Chris for about 10 years now! I remember him and Seth Dean coming into FCA their freshman year of college when I was helping out with worship. We lived in the same house my senior year. I had to be on campus early for BSU and was one of the few there when Chris came up early too. I helped him move in and we became really good friends that year. I put in a good word for him and we've been working together for the past 5.5 years and we've been really close the whole time. I'll miss him with the move, but I'm sure we'll be back up this way pretty frequently and will hang out with the Moodys.

This entire weekend was amazing. It was like a mini college reunion. We just had a wonderful time and I won't bore you with all of the details. It was a little sad too because I won't be seeing most of these friends for a long time. One of the highlights was being asked to play guitar accompanied by Billy Robinson. I've never actually played a wedding and we had to talk Billy out of retirement! Billy and I go way back - we were friends in high school and college roommates for 3 years! Who knows when we'll get to perform together again? :( He did a great job with the song and I believe I did too... :) It was a privilege to play for the Moodys on this most special day of their lives as they took communion together for the first time as husband and wife.

I guess about now they are in or nearing Hawaii - he pinged me to say they had a missed layover and were put about 4 hours back... Poor kids! It'll be worth it, I'm sure!

We love you guys!!! Congratulations again!!!!

My Big News!

As I've hinted at, I have some huge, exciting news to share!!

Beginning on May 29 I will start my new job with Lotus 911 as a Lotus Consultant!!! Thanks for the warm welcome Nathan!

This is a wonderful opportunity for my family and me. It will be a major shift for me moving from a position as an Admin/Developer for 7 years with a private sector company to a Consultant position. I am really looking forward to the challenge of that change as well as working with some great talent and wonderful folks!

My family will be in a transitional phase for a while as we will be moving from Rock Hill, SC to Kennesaw, GA. In honor of this and through peer pressure, my wife, Jen, has also started a blog! As a bit of background, I have always had the nickname "Nut" because of my last name. With that said, my wife's blog is "The Nut House" and as she posted in her first post, "watch out Bulldogs - family of nuts and Gamecock fans headed your way!"

Won't Be Making It to The VIEW 2007....

I was hoping to meet a lot of you there, but I won't be able to make it. More on that very soon!!! Big changes coming my way... :)

Sametime 7.5.1 Upgrade Failed

Guess I'll try again another day... I was upgrading on an i5/OS V5R4 box from 7.5 CF1. When I started it back up I got a "Meeting Server: Child Process Died". There were about 2 hits on the Lotus Support site that seemed to be close, but neither of the solutions worked. Well, one was to reinstall PASE but I was not at the server to load a CD and that didn't appear to be the problem anyway. I started the whole process at about 8:55 and was starting it back up initially at about 9:00. After looking into the error for a bit I called Lotus support and waited 30 minutes before even speaking to a human. I hung up with them after specifying a priority 1 (server down) and being told it was callback. This was about 10:30. At 11:00 I decided to uninstall 7.5.1 and reinstall 7.5. I'm back up now and haven't heard back from Lotus and the whole "up to 2 hours for a callback" wasn't floating my boat on something that should have only taken 10 minutes... :)

Have You Offset Your Carbon?

It seems that the latest rage is "carbon offsetting". This is where you can buy a credit (around $50 per year per vehicle) and something environmentally friendly will be done with that money (like planting a tree or preserving current forestation). Al Gore does offsets, so I guess anyone who wants to "live green" should be OK doing it too, right? :)

According to the Save the Planet website, six 25-year old pine trees can absorb 1 ton of CO2.

About 20 years ago, we planted about 1,000 pine trees on my parents' property:



This means that (when they are 25) they will absorb 166 tons of CO2 annually. My sedan accounts for about 4.6 tons and our SUV accounts for about 6.6 tons. So at 6 tons average per vehicle (depending on mileage, of course), the 1,000 trees we planted are more than covering the carbon footprint for all vehicles in my family. Actually, this covers about 27 vehicles per year until the trees are gone!

I just feel really good about myself knowing that I'm "green" as far as my vehicles go.... Hopefully you can see the humor in this - if not, then go out and find 6 pine trees to call your own so that you can live green too. That's a whole lot cheaper than buying a "green" car and it's officially sanctioned by our former VP!

Speaking of "green", I saw a car the other week with one of the "Live Green" banners on the bumper. Was it a Prius? Nope. It was a 1995 Mustang GT - the little V8 must be green, eh? ;) Maybe the lady found some pine trees!

Updated Sandbox Application

One of the first applications I downloaded from the Sandbox was the "Staff Whereabouts". It's basically an in-out board to see the status of a workgroup. We actually got the application to replace an AS/400 based! signout application. I have commented at the sandbox that I have reworked the ui and have web-enabled the application. I actually web-enabled it a while back. We only have one or two people that may use it on the web, so not much time was invested in it (it's mostly if you need to signout in a pinch). But about a month ago I completed changed the colors of the ui. It could stand for a complete overhaul, so forgive me if it still looks like a Notes application. :)

Here's what it looks like now:



If anyone's interested, post a comment. I don't want to link directly from here since it's not really my application.

Bella (The Movie)

Thursday night at the Thirsty07 Conference, we were treated to a screening of the movie Bella. Described at the website as "a heartwarming story about friendship, family and our capacity for love in the face of the unexpected," this film was the 2006 winner of the Toronto Film Festival. This puts it in some great company of past winners.

This is possibly the most moving film I've seen since "The Passion of the Christ." But don't just shrug it off as a "Christian" movie just because it was screened at Thirsty (or because I'm writing about it). It really is about our "capacity to love" and all people will benefit from it. The friendship between Jos and Nina is challenged and the way that they make it through is truly amazing and inspirational. I don't want to really talk about it here because the plot would be ruined. I will say, though, that this film has been worth it because two lives have already been saved!!

My Donation To The Lotus Museum

I "donated" the picture of Notes "Express", Release 3.30 for OS/2. Thankfully, I don't have to manage any more OS/2 boxes!

Four out of Five Complete

Whew... we've migrated 4 out of 5 of our physical iSeries servers over into LPARs on 2 physical System i boxes. The first server we migrated was our Domino cluster box and I started/completed that on 1/27/07. Since then we've migrated a dev server, Domino production box (twice...), and yesterday moved our MiMiX box. This last one will take longer as we have to migrate our entire user base from 5250 "Green Screen" to Webfacing.

This slow process will likely be why I don't post much new Domino content. But I'll try to come up with some stuff...

Now Playing: "Upon The Face of The Waters" by Tony Palacios

Lotus Museum

If you're in the mood to check out some of the history of Lotus, check out the new Lotus Museum. I've already made a donation and am waiting for it to show up online. I'm relatively new to Lotus, so this is a great site for me to brush up on some history.

I'm digging the Nurf Football and the Sametime Coaster is pretty nice! But the Captain's Hat is maybe the sweetest item!

So little time...

Heading to Alpharetta Tomorrow for Thirsty!

I'll be heading to Thirsty 2007 tomorrow with my wife and our worship leader, his wife, and their daughter. We went last year and it was awesome. It's a really refreshing conference with a tremendous focus on Worship. Can't wait!

I'll have my corporate mail off, so gmail me if you want at chris.whisonant.

Now Playing: "Peace" by Third Day