Friday FudBuster #4 - Delayed

Sorry, was going to write this friday morning, but my office in Phoenix lost power, phone, roof, a/c and I have some things to do.
Will return next week.

PS miscounted, only #4

Lotusphere Bloggers Lounge

Yes, that's right, a lounge just for us and other bloggers known or unknown to Planetlotus.org.
If someone from Lotus or the Lotusphere team would like to discuss plans for it with me, please contact me.
Some of us met last year or in year's gone by.
Some of us never met.

What if we had a room/space dedicated for our usage, similar to the media room but with better furntiure, desks, lamps, couches, drinks, tech toys(sponsors love us) and other amenities?

We could arrange various times to be open or have set hours when one or more of us is live there. Hard I know when we are either mannign a pedestal, in sessions, speaking, meeting with customers, but something we could all use for sure.
Especially those of us, like me, not staying on the swan or dolphin site.

Or open to anything which you think makes sense as well. Mini sessions from each of us on the future? Press opps?

Input is expected and encouraged from all of you.

2 job postings, big $$$, Lotus/Exchange and IBM Content Manager

Haven't done this in a while, but you know what they say, help a brother or sister out and you will see it returned. And if nothing else I posted something this week before Friday's Fudbuster #4.
Tell them Keith sent you :-)

Job #1) (I have much more detsails on this one, email me if interested)
Looking to hire a Systems Architect with Exchange 2007 and Lotus Notes background for the San Ramon area in Northern California . This position is permanent, paying at least $125K.

The client, a global leader of infrastructure software for the enterprise, is changing the fundamental way information is processed allowing organizations to both monetize the value of their information and protect the associated risks. Founded in 1996 with a vision that the ability to process unstructured information would become a strategic must-have, The client has grown into one of the most valuable software companies in the world with a market capitalization of $4 billion. Recognized as the market share leader in enterprise search and e-mail archiving, The client has a global customer base of 17,000, with more than 400 partners and 300 OEMs across all software sectors.

Scott Tomtania, MBA, CSP
Phone: 925.831.8551
Toll Free:800.285.5627
Cell Phone: 925.818.0218
Fax: 925.831.0265
Email: stomtania@theplusgroup.com

Job #2)
IBM Content Manager
Location: TX
Duration: 4 months
Rate: Need All Inclusive and With expenses

Required:
Looking for Developers with IBM Content Manager experience, prefer 1+ years of experience. Project would be Developing an IBM Content Manager based ECM Solution.

Lucky Saini
AgreeYa Solutions
(916) 351-2574 Direct
(916) 294-0504 Fax
lucky.saini@agreeya.com

FudBuster #3: Exchange is Free and how they got 100 million MOSS licenses

"And that's why we are migrating away from Lotus." Cost

Right, and I have a bridge in Miami for you.

They say honesty is the best policy, but Microsoft does their best to not change your perception's of the truth, even if you are wrong.

Yes, I have discussed this many times in the past, but let's do this simply.

In order for your company to obtain EXACTLY what you already have in the Lotus Notes Client and Lotus Domino Server you will need the following items(NOT Including the OS):

1) Exchange Server 2007
2) Exchange Server Standard CAL 2007
3) Exchange Server Enterprise CAL 2007 which is a 2nd CAL you MUST buy if you want the added items for the RIGHTS to use Unified Messaging, Journaling, Compliancy(?), "Premium" Anti-Spam and Anti-virus. Hopefully better than what goes into MSN/Hotmail Live. Some of this is built in to Domino by default.
4) Office Groove 2007 - Similar to the teamroom template but in equating Like to Like it must be added.
5) Office 2007 - One version or another which is the only way to obtain an Outlook client. Most larger companies will be swayed into buying the Office Enterprise 2007 version which includes #4, the first of the "look what you get for free" discussions plus pieces of other Microsoft products you are not likely to use or hear from in the future.
6) Outlook 2007 requires the Core CAL Suite if you will access Exchange but this CAL also includes Sharepoint Server 2007 CAL and thus one insight to how Microsoft claims to have sold 100 Million licenses Which this articles shows is a $10/CAL 1billion/100million.
7) Enterprise CAL Suite is what you REALLY require since it includes among other bits, the ability to encrypt messaging traffic generated through emails and instant messages. Buying this includes #6 so another "look what you get for free or included" discussion.

Now if you are a small shop you may only need some of these and if you are a large enterprise I have a longer list of what you need or rather what Microsoft says you need.

If you are contemplating the move to Exchange, or your Enterprise renewal is coming up, think about it and if you need more information, just ask. Remember, it was someone else's over payments to Microsoft which allowed them to bid for Yahoo! at $44 Billion in CASH! Don't make their mistake.

Lotus Collaboration Game?! on Linkedin!

IBM has a submlimnal ad which looks like this on the Linkedin pages.

It will takle you over to this page where bless their heart they want people to register on the IBM.com site. BUT they also include a link for those who don't want to register. That's cool!
Unfortunately it lied. The next screen asks you to fill in all this information, now granted most of us already have an IBM ID.
Follow the path and it's different from the other things we have seen lately. Aimed at Connections, Quickr, Sametime and Domino so a nice one, could do without the British guy(cardiff perhaps?) narrating though.

Lotusphere 2009 is under 150 days away

Seems like an eternity, but no, it will pass faster than your kids summer break.

As we get closer to the ever popular hotel stake outs for space, submissions for sessions and BOFs(who doeesn't like 7am BOFs) and the extremely popular yet oddly registered hands on sessions lest us not forget there will be new people who may not want to go and you should encourage and help them best way you can so they see the light.

A la Visa....

Full conf pass: Under $2,000 (at most)
Swan/Dolphin Hotel: $1,500 (at least)
Airfare: EXPENSIVE
Car Rental: Never mind take a taxi you drunken mortals and save on Parking too
Food, er Beverages: $250
Week away from the office, kids, wife, inlaws, cats, dogs, fish, snow, help desk, trouble tickets and spending it with your friends and new PlanetLotus Blog friends you haven't met yet:

PRICELESS

But seriously, keep in mind everyone sometimes needs some help, maybe you have a spare pass, or your room has a pull out couch or you fly in the same place as someone, collaboration is your personal life and your professional life.
Not sure where we can post these things, maybe the Gonzo Lotusphere site or some place else.

Now when do session submissions start and will they tell us if we are in before the price raises this year?

Me? I get to drive up from Boca, about 2.5 hours with the top down :-) Might have a passenger this year too as I figured he might like a ride.

Sametime on a Blackberry Installation Docs

I recently edited a manual, well more a guide, for those who were lost or troubled by the Sametime on a Blackberry client.
Most of the doucment is culled from RIM and IBM support with my edits and additions were applicable along qith key information about versions of clients for which BES versions.

Note this is for the Sametime client from RIM itself. NOT the Lotus Mobile Sametime client.

For those interested in the document or wanting to download it, we will ask for your name, so you are forewarned! I'd like to see the interest for future ideas or topics for papers.
Make sure you say you heard about it from my blog or Twitter or PlanetLotus or whatever makes sense. Maybe this will become a Lotusphere case study if I have enough replies.

Go here to get it.
http://www.rprwyatt.com/st4bb

OK, some of you might be lazy or need incentives, so this is what is inside:

BlackBerry® Client for IBM® Lotus® Sametime® v2.0/2.1 - New Features
Requirements for using the BlackBerry Enterprise Instant Messaging for IBM Lotus Sametime
How to deploy BlackBerry Instant Messaging for IBM Lotus Sametime Clients
Procedure
For BES software version 4.1 Service Pack 3 and earlier
Task 1 - Create a Network Path
Task 2 - Make Applications Available
Task 3 - Create a Software Configuration for IBM Lotus Sametime
Task 4 - Assign the Software Configuration through a USB Cable
Task 5 - Assign the Software Configuration Wirelessly
Pushing Applications to one User at a Time (4.1.5 and newer)
Miscellaneous Information about Setup/Install
Error 302 appears when logging into BlackBerry Instant Messaging for IBM Lotus Sametime
BlackBerry Enterprise Server IP address not trusted by Sametime Server
BlackBerry Instant Messaging Icon is Missing
BlackBerry Instant Messaging for IBM Lotus Sametime cannot be Pushed Wirelessly to Newer BlackBerry Smartphone Models
BlackBerry Enterprise Instant Messaging Client and Server Compatibility by Version of Client and BES Server

Enjoy!

Lotus Quickr HF19 and read the instructions, for help

Like many of us we appreciate it when our administrative life is made easier by the vendor. Lotus has put out a recent update to Quickr and it has an automated installer. Excellent, right?
Well, let's just say my server failed 2 of the 3 prerequisites.

Currently the Lotus Quickr hotfix installer will only run on Win32 based systems, for other systems, please refer to IBM’s Fix Central website.

Prerequisites:
Win32 based system, Check!
Java 1.5 or above must be installed on the Domino Quickr server. Thought it was updtaed, oops!
The Domino program directory (eg: c:\Program Files\IBM\Domino) must be in the System PATH variable. One would think this is done by defualt these days when you install Domino, evidently this is not the case. OOPS!

So, got the file, try to run it and nothing.

EDITED 8/20/2008: I resolved this error below. It was in the qpconfig.xml file. I had messed up some syntax. DOH!

PS forgot to ask, if anyone knows what this is referring to:
08/17/2008 08:47:22 PM Start IConfig::ReadLtpaConfig( )
08/17/2008 08:47:22 PM End IConfig::ReadLtpaConfig( )
08/17/2008 08:47:26 PM JVM: Java Virtual Machine initialized.
08/17/2008 08:47:26 PM Agent error: [Fatal Error] :1495:2: The markup in the document preceding the root element must be well-formed.
08/17/2008 08:47:26 PM org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: The markup in the document preceding the root element must be well-formed.
08/17/2008 08:47:28 PM Event Monitor started

This is the startup on the server after I changed the OS name to match the DNS name.
went from fred1 to efred the rest stayed the same.
A Quickr qptool update maybe is needed?
Read file, maybe path is wrong, edited path looks ok.
Java isn't up to date. Normally one of the first things I do when building a server is get all the updates on OS, Java, Domino, addons, etc. Guess this one slipped through.

Now to go finish the conector updates too.

Lotus Cube Update

Previously, I showed this.
I know many of you have been asking and eagerly awaiting the Lotus Cube.
And really we want to give it to you as well.

However, due to some internal reorganziations which have been brewing this has had to be put on hold for a short while.

Without a doubt we will have it at Lotusphere but nothing I can commit to sooner.

As news I can post becomes public you may understand better.

So until then, I leave you another view of it.

The Mojave Experiment....FudBuster #2

I got side tracked this week and wanted to look into this.
The Mojave experiment as Microsoft called it was an interesting idea.
For those not in the know,
100 people off the street, so to speak, were shown a "new" Microsoft OS after some questions about how they viewed Vista. Of course what they saw was Vista.
And low and behold, eye candy makes them decide to go with Vista.

Because in Microsoft's world, it's all about Eye Candy.Even if it takes sometime to produce it.

In the real world, well at least the business world, it's about business, expenses, revenue, ROI, and a million other things, but because software looks good? Nope.
It should integrate well with other software, yes.
It should run on multiple solutions, from Macs to Linux to windows to PDA's, phones, sunglasses(hey a guy can dream), blackberries and evidently nowadays on your refrigerator, dish washer and other appliances. Oh and a coffee table, thank you Microsoft.
Fahrenheit 451's author, Ray Bradbury would be either ecstatic to hear this or ashamed.
So you should go buy and use Vista because it looks good.
I use Vista. And aside from a few VPN clients rarely have problems. Ok recent times were Microsoft updates to Vista, so maybe I have some issues on occassion.

But really no worse than my XP machines after updates break all my mailto options and other security settings.

So where am I going with this? Easy, the UI sucks label on Lotus has to stop.
If you are in a company still using R5,6 or even 7, go yell at your IT staff or CIO who is paying Lotus big money to get updates and they shoulsd install them and use it.
I can show you in 5 minutes of a web conference everything you are missing!

Can your Outlook allow windows to float on their own?
Can your Outlook you so desire stop opening a ton of windows just because you are trying to do a simple task?
Why doesn't your Outlook do name lookups properly? My biggest gripe with Outlook 2003 at least.
Wouldn't you liek to not have a full AD directory all the time?

I can show you in a side by side demonstration that if nothing was branded you could not tell them apart, Mr. CEO.

BUT if you have a mixed environment of Lotus and Exchange shame on you! Spending twice the amount of money to get what you already pay for from Lotus, just because of a UI? Butthat's another post, past and future for another day.

The Waiting is the hardest part...and most expensive!

You say Lotus is a Legacy solution? Are we that old?

What about Exchange? Well you waited nearly 4 years for an update, was it worth it? You spent 5 years of Software Assurance money with Microsoft and now you wonder how they could afford to buy Yahoo!?!

Outlook also you waited 4 years. IE as well.

You waited 6 years for Vista since XP emerged.

Forgot about Sharepoint, an excellent chart is found here, hopefully IBM SWAT has seen this.
Yep, almost 4 years past.

See a pattern? And on the Lotus side we have seen since 2003 release 6.5 and R7 in 2005 with R8 in 2007 materialize which averages out to a new version every 2 years and in some cases, split stream updates/revisions/addons and enhancements happenned twice a year.

So who is the legacy solution and why do you or your clients think it isn't Microsoft?

Sometimes the PC is mightier than the User

As some of you may know, I twittered today that I had a hell of a time trying to resolve a number of issues on my laptop(yes it's Vista, but it's not usually a problem) which unfortunately manifested itself in my Lotus Notes client and Sametime clients.
Good news. Resolved all of it, will show how in a minute.
Bad news, Looks like Microsoft's fault. When I went to shut my laptop down to reboot it suddenly pops up and says I have 16 (!?) updates to install before reboot.

So the problem I have been seeing the last 2 weeks or so which finally caused all out war in my laptop was a Microsoft update?

And you wonder why I write about them the way I do. Look, I am getting this much closer to a linux laptop, like these!

So how to resolve anomalies that appear out of nowhere and may be Microsoft caused?

1) Sametime passwords suddenly stopped getting saved. This was I thought a Java problem as Sametime8 is eclipsed based and the answer as posted in the Sametime Forum is:

Close the client, delete the following and restart the client, enter the passwords and settings, close the client and restart it:

C:\Documents and Settings\\Application
Data\Lotus\Sametime\.metadata\.plugins\com.ibm.rcp.security.auth\*
C:\Documents and Settings\\Application
Data\Lotus\Sametime\.metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.core.runtime\.setting
s\com.ibm.rcp.security.auth.ui.prefs

2) Trying to install R8.5 Beta(802 never wanted to install on my vista laptop but maybe now it will) and kept getting this error or a variation of it and it would stop everything.


Now the highly esteemed Nathan Freeman posted the "hard way" of clearing your pc. EDITED 8/26/08 FOUND IT:

Here is the link!
Suffice it to say you need to delete almost any reference to eclipse or rcp in your system and then reboot and install.
My temp directory had a 1.5gb eclipse directory. So now I have more free space and a working version of 8.5 beta code.

All's well that end's well, now to finish my Domino.doc to Quickr migration.

BES 4.1.6 further update on Domino Conflicts

Happy Yellow Day to all!
In a previous post from July 29th I discussed the work around to resolving the broken Traveler and Sametime.
What you don't know is the details about it.

Yes the INI setting is the problem.

It basically stops all servlets. RIM informed me they would document the change in noets.ini and warn people about it. RIM suggests people NOT load anything else on their BES box. Those of you in big companies have no problem with this.
SMB have a problem. Running their Domino server as their mail and SMTP server with Sametime on it, Traveler and BES is how they do it.
According to RIM support this is not a sanctioned installation. However, as I discussed With them, if they don't say you CAN'T do it, people will do it. Even if you say so, they will still try :-)

Without the notes.ini line added, RIM claims you will see performance hits and degradation due to how the new server handles HTML emails. With under 10 people on a box I will take my chances, usually once a client gets over 25 on a BES I suggest they build a new box for it by itself.

RIM support, in case you never called them, is really great and never lets me down no matter how odd the problem is (waiting on call back about pushing the new clients out if you are reading from RIM support), IBM support is better, only because in this case they had the test infrastructure to figure out the issue, which was undocumented by RIM at the time.
Always helpful, full of information and willing to listen to your thoughts, many other companies should contact RIM and find out how to fix their service side.

Fudbuster Friday #1 - Microsoft Press Doc

Great news, I was able to secure a domain, fudbuster.net, now to find a host.

Anyway, where to start, Microsoft leaves a trail a 5 year old with a Google search bar can find.

I thought I would start inside the beasts stomach, the Microsoft website.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/uc/docs/MoveWP.pdf
If you see this document on your customer's desk, just grab it and tear it up. It's blatant FUD beyond imagination.

According to Microsoft and their partners, Casahl and Excipio Consulting,
The Top 3 Reasons Why Companies Still Run Notes/Domino (Their line as #Q my reply as #A):
1Q)Inability to get budgeting approved for the migration
1A)This has what to do with running Domino? Nothing.

2Q)Lack of an accurate Domino database inventory to estimate the conversion effort
2A)Funny, last I checked, since Release 1 you could get a database listing of all your databases, it's called the Database catalog and you should use it. If you aren't already, look at the tools which came out in R7 to perform analysis on your network for consolidation of servers, which you will want to do as you can scale into the 1,000's these days per server.

3Q)Technical bias by the IT staff
3A)So the fact that your own IT people prefer it, because it has technical benefits and is superior to other solutions is a reason for you to get rid of it, Mr. CEO. So who do you trust, Mr. CEO, Microsoft who cares about your money they will steal from you or your own staff that manages everything in your company and cares about your costs?

The document also goes on to say:
Excipio and Casahl have interviewed numerous clients and compiled the most
common business challenges faced by organizations with legacy platforms. For the sake of argument, given the document is about IBM vs. Microsoft the implication is clear, Microsoft thinks Lotus is a legacy system and expresses it to anyone that will listen to them.

1Q) The platform is perceived as too complex with too much potential exposure
1A) Potential exposure? to what? Is this compared to Exchange and Outlook which have suffered some major problems over the years because of Microsoft's excellent security. One example of recent issues with Exchange 2007 and Outlook can be found in July 2008.

2Q) Lack of a legacy platform’s ability to change with the business
2A) Let's see now, what part of ODF,Java,RAD, J2EE and the Eclipse environment is not about changing with business and technology times? Business lines can have any application they wish, and it will be fully portable for offline usage as well, built in. Can your Microsoft program do that?

3Q) The organization’s Inability to get meaningful information the appropriate
people in a timely manner
3A) I love this, a grammar typo in their public press document. hmm, Word's grammar checker not doing too well is it? If you have a file, a database, a browser, or a phone you can access the data you require in a format desired. and if you want it to look different, do it yourself or get your staff to do it. There is no great secret to creating a view.

4Q) Existing systems operate on costly, outdated, or unsupported platforms,
thus the systems are unreliable
4A) The funny thing about this line is they are usually talking about Microsoft's own systems. Costly, yes Windows is for sure. Unreliable, definitely more than other OS's. Outdated, also for sure, Windows 2000? End of Life. 2003? End of Life Coming up soon. Now let's say you were not running on Windows but AIX or As/400 or Mainframe or Linux, and almost all of these are cheaper and faster and scale higher than Windows Server. Clients prove it all the time if you read various posts , blogs and forums.

5Q) “It’s always worked this way, so why change?”
5A) Excellent question? What is so bad about a platform that provides email, collaboration, clustering and document archiving all in one server?

6Q) Operating costs continue to rise, while the value of the legacy systems continue
to decline
6A) You got me here. Tax purposes allow you to depreciate your purchases every year so yes the value goes down. Costs don't go up, aside from the CIO salary. If you haven't noticed most companies provide an annual raise of maybe 1-5%, but it has been rather nominal. Electricity has gone up? Great! Consolidate your servers, pull some back to a central data center, your server can scale higher, right? If you aren't seeing 2,000+ on a server you need some help, email me immediately.
Try doing that with Exchange, there's a reason Lotus Foundations servers also come in an Exchange version, because it does not deal very well with remote activities.

7Q) The feeling that the vendor appears to “hold us hostage” versus more cost
effective alternatives
7A) Vendor lock in? Lotus? How? With what? Lotus lets you run on almost any platform(some variations of Linux excluded), not just Windows. Sametime, Quickr run on multiple platforms as well. And they integrate better with Office than Office integrates with Office.


Well, there is a lot more to this article than I want o put in this posting, maybe this one piece can keep me writing for a few weeks. We didn't even get to the money part yet.

Feedback is always appreciated, and my services are available if your company finds itself in need of defending Microsoft FUD.

Domino.Doc Migration to Quickr

Apologies to Jelan H. and the other IBMers working on Domino.Doc's future, my client can't wait any longer. If you have an update, let me know.

As those who follow my Twitter path know the last 2 weeks I have been building Lotus Quickr servers. One for a client, one for a client migrating from Domino.Doc.

The migration is being helped by Content Integrator which is a really cool tool which can also help move your Sharepoint data to Quickr. Anyone that needs it, email me and we can discuss the project.

One downside to the tool is you need to think like a developer, which for us Admins is never easy. However it comes with some examples and I was able to run a test finally that made sense. But when I ran it on a live cabinet it did nothing.
But I am close and just need to play with it some more.

Sad to see .Doc go, been with it since Beta and taught many IBMers how to install and manage it in it's early days, but without a version that runs on R8 among other items, it is time to go wholly into Quickr. We love Quickr, especially now that automated hotfix's are coming out. And quickr integrates so well into Sametime, Notes 8, Windows Explorer, MS Office that it's a wonder anyone using Quickplace hasn't upgraded yet.

Closing in on our 6th major Quickr upgrade/Install and more work to be found. One client we put on Quickplace last year is going to ugrade soon and that is excellent!

Personal Posting: Suicide is not Painless

This goes out to everyone that lost a friend or relative in this way.
Contrary to the theme from MASH it is rarely painless. Definitely not for those that are left here to ponder what if, why, how could I have helped or just bewildered that a good friend could do such a thing and not tell anyone about it.

I just found out someone I have known for nearly 35 years killed herself some time ago. Probably happenned during my sojourning in South America or Israel or EMEA, but I was pretty unacountable for about 6 years at a time when the consumer side of email was nascent and my time zones were all over the place and my friends had moved on from Florida, well most of them, post college circa 96-2001.
My fault for not staying in touch better I guess. Just figured some day it would all work out.

For my friend Kimberly Sue Hessen, it didn't.

I don't know all the details, and at this point may never, but it just goes to show that no matter how low you may be, someone is really worse off somehow in some way.
The void left by her affected her family, friends and colleagues.
One day they're here, next day they're gone.
How fleeting life is, and how sad, someone chose to forfeit the miracle of life granted to them.
I can't touch base with everyone from the past, but I can do my part to remember my friend and keep her memory alive, even in a digital format.

Fudbuster Friday's are here!

Yes folks, tired of hearing the old Microsoft lines, now used by other competitors as well, or annoyd that users can't read blogs, or the web for updted articles?

Maybe you think the Accenture deal should be revisited for clarity?

Or maybe you think Microsoft's definition of Legacy should be redirected inward given the 4 years between releases of Exchange and 5 for Windows Server!

Well the LotusEvangelist is planning to knock em off, one at a time every Friday. If you are interested in assisting please comment or email(lotus.evangelist at yahoo.com) or IM(Bleedyellow) or DM(Twitter) me your ideas or FUDs to be cleared up.