Fud Buster Friday #51 - The Microsoft Yahoo Deal is a Winner

But for Who?

Funny how what wasn't a good idea under a previous leader is now a good idea under their replacement.

Wall Street thinks it's still a bad idea.

According to Mr. Balmer in this review

Nobody gets it. It's a little bit complicated.

If Wall Street doesn't get it, then it's not complicated, it's probably just a mistake on someone's part....but which parties?

Yahoo, in theory loses some revenue up front and in fact gets ZERO money upfront, in exchange for Microsoft to make Bing (Because It's Note Good?) the underlying search engine and supposedly improve on what the Yahoo team has not been able to do, namely beat Google in the search and ad game. And then Yahoo gets 88% of the ad revenue. While I expect some money to be made, they of course would have made more being sold to MS last year.

Microsoft gets to have Bing go beyond beta testing and start handling real world searches. Maybe MS will gain from this, but if my experience with Bing is anything to go by, this will kill Yahoo, which may be what MS wants anyway in the end. Balmer's got no qualms about keeping his enemies closer.

In the mean time IBM is NOT in the search engine game, for better or worse, and is succeeding at gaining exposure on the consumer side of their applications which we haven't seen in years.

Maybe, just maybe, Microsoft is focused on the wrong balls right now.

SnTT - Sometimes I hate AntiVirus programs

Won't say which yellow companies anti-virus product hosed my netbook, but it comes pre-installed on a 30 day trial or whatever.

I will say that the problem we saw was the following:
1) IE/FF could not surf HTTPS sites. Chrome could.
2) Then after troubleshooting more, no browsers could surf. But we could Ping the internet.

I knew in the back of my head that removing Nort, um the yellow program, was the culprit. But one must get the EXACT uninstall and cleaner program.

Found it, ran it, and now all is back to normal.

So it took a while but I eventually found this page: Full of links to uninstall Anti-Virus programs.

Or if you are lazy or they drop that page here they are:

To totally uninstall Avast have a look @ this link [www.avast.com]

To clear Avira AntiVir registry entries use the Avira AntiVir Registry Cleaner available from here [www.avira.com] ... after clearing the registry entries... restart the system and then manually remove any other Avira files that were left.

BitDefender Antivirus Removal Tool: Download the BitDefender Uninstall Tool.

First right-click on the red BitDefender icon near the system tray choose on Exit.

Wait a few seconds. Afterwards double-click on the BitDefender uninstall tool.

You will need to reboot your computer for the changes to take effect.

To totally uninstall F-Secure have a look @ this link [support.f-secure.com]

To totally uninstall Kaspersky have a look @ this link [support.kaspersky.com]

To totally uninstall McAfee have a look @ this link [service.mcafee.com]

To totally uninstall NAV (2003 & later) have a look @ this link [service1.symantec.com]

To totally uninstall NAV (pre 2003) have a look @ this link [service1.symantec.com]

To uninstall NOD32 use the Windows Add/Remove and follow up with the removal tool available here [www.betterantivirus.com]

To uninstall Norman Virus Control / Norman Internet Control use the removal tool available here [www.norman.com]

To totally uninstall Panda 2007 have a look @ this link [www.pandasecurity.com]

To totally uninstall Panda 2008 have a look @ this link [www.pandasecurity.com]

To totally uninstall PC-Cillin have a look @ this link [esupport.trendmicro.com]

Windows Live OneCare cleanup util have a look @ this link [download.microsoft.com]

"Truly, you have a dizzying intellect", Sametime

So of the 3 screen shots below, which do YOU think an Admin should trust and why?

All looks good here, doesn't it?


Uh Oh, Sametime Administrator Server Overview has a different viewpoint:


Domino of course says HTTP and Sametime are running:


"It ends when you decide and we drink and find out who is right and who is dead."

I admit it, my ST server is dead, but that is not the issue here.

Odd messages while upgrading my Client to 8.5FP1

Anyone seen these errors? Oddly enough it says it completed fine, but the log file shows a long list of "missing items".





That's okay, because as this says it did complete, but properly? Not so sure.

2 emails of importance this morning

1)I have been accepted to the Google Wave Sandbox. Don't remember what date I asked to be part of it but nice to know they let me in. Now someone needs to teach me how to program :-).

2) Elguji announced their next baby to be born, IQJam which will go into production when Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1 is released, or sooner perhaps.

Built specifically for IBM Lotus Domino 8.5.1 using XPages.
An Innovative Collaborative Question and Answer Community for the Enterprise

I think this may be where I start posting my technical blog entries in the future so stay tuned to see how that plays out.

A Social Media lesson. What advice do you give college students?

I just spent an hour and half on a Skype call with a student from my college.

Before I get into this, I want to discuss how this call came to happen.

I, as a member of Linkedin, joined my schools groups which is how he found me. He was looking for an alumni with an accounting background/degree(which I got my BS degree) and was also in IT. Needless to say, not many of us from my class took this route.

I replied to his request with my contact details and since he is working(oddly enough in a Lotus using Enterprise)during the day and I am in London figured Sunday night is easiest for me. So we emailed and exchanged Skype names and subsequently had the call.

None of this would have been possible back when I was in college. The school offered little help or mentors for students struggling to figure out what to study or what to pursue. No one was that approachable, especially if you were not from New York, like me, and had few people to follow. So I got through it all on my own and mostly did well.

But I never wanted the same thing to happen to more students there. Through the years I have rarely been back in NY(4-6 times in 12 years)and wasn't practical to go speak there. They also aren't likely to fly me up anytime soon as I am not a big donor nor a major company.

What I have done is been part of the simple, yet advancing, alumni website, opportunities to mentor or help undergraduates and provide feedback on alumni situations. In 20 years since graduating, this is the 3rd discussion I have had with a student.

Makes me wonder if it is worth it.

On the other hand what could I be doing better to help the interaction?

I suggested a video conference, or a Skype video call to some groups or as part of a series of discussions. Could also encourage more students to ask the school for more interaction with Alumni but since I am not in NY, it would be difficult for me to manage it with the school.

Would love to offer Lotus Connections, but that will come perhaps in time.

But we discussed why I left accounting, what I do, what would I tell college students, what degree should he get and why, outsourcing and what it means for him and how to avoid it.

What was interesting is he doesn't really want to be a developer but wants to be in IT and I can totally understand that perspective. BUT what I can't help is finding what he wants to do. I explained that when you find what interests you, you will know and want to do it. That's how I felt the instant I sat down to use Lotus Notes R2 and even more R3.

His questions were well thought out and I helped him to understand that it's okay to chose a path which doesn't make sense to anyone else. Work for a big company or small one, yourself or with friends, overseas or in your hometown. You make a choice and you adjust that choice as life moves along.

He asked about long hours and pay and I said when you are young and single you do it but once you have a wife and family you better know how to handle your time better. Not that stuff doesn't happen but one should not be working at the office till 9 every night.

I used to have a junior admin that watched me leave almost every day between 5-6 and he might be there till 9 some days. One day he asked me how I do it and I said there is nothing that important at work, regularly, that I MUST stay and finish it. Also if I did my job properly, why would I need to stay late any day? I still subscribe to this idea and when I see/hear about people working crazy hours I just wonder about them. If you own your own business, it's another story of course, but even then you must spend your time wisely.

The conversation left me feeling that I do enjoy what I do and made the choices, hard ones sometimes, to keep doing what I do but realized I had not helped other students. So I was no better off, from this perspective.

So this student and I will work on trying to arrange some meetings with the Dean and some other ideas to help others not get stuck in a rut worrying about tomorrow or next year.

Who knows what will happen, maybe I can convince some IBMers to go speak there this year. I promised to do so, if I make it to NY some time in the future.

I will be speaking at MWLUG in Chicago

Because I am still in the UK I elected not to submit abstracts to IAMLUG and they went instead to MWLUG where I have been granted an opportunity to speak.

I submitted a few sessions to see what the interest was on some topics, as a dry run for LS10, which the Lotusphere site is already updated. Perhaps this will make it to Orlando in one form or another.

My topic is:

Lotus Layers - Making your URL's Play Nicely

With the advances in R8, 8.5 one dilemma facing customers is how to make the Lotus Layers like Traveler, Mail Redirection, Sametime/Quickr, Web site pages and other pieces work in a way that makes life easier for you and your clients. Slides will be available with how to do it all, but this session will be more interactive based on attendees and their experience, issues and interests.

I am looking forward to it, even though I will miss most of the 2 day "pre-event" and the Friday. Due to family and my children's school starting that week I will only be getting in on Wen. afternoon and staying through Friday morning.

So if you want to catch me there let me know early enough to fit everyone in.

PS - I only have 2 weeks to put the slides together, so if I am busy the next 2 weeks you know why.

Fud Buster Friday #50 - Good Lotus Help is Hard To Find

This one is 1,000% false.

I don't care what company you are from, how big you are or how many servers/locations, users or operating systems you use.

We got staff for you. Not only that, they are excellent staff.

Don't want to hire an expensive(we're not as much as ISSL) Business partner? Then I can point you to numerous people I know around the world that can help you and your Lotus environment at lower rates.

Oh, but wait, you can't afford any of us no matter the rates.

Right, you are saving money and cutting costs and overhead and headcount.

Well while you were doing that, guess what else was getting cut?

Productivity! Your servers can't help themselves, well some can, but most can't without an intervention.

Innovation! Those left to change the light bulb could care less about which bulb to use as long as one is in the closet.

Money! You have to spend it to make it or in our terms, spend it to save it.

And who did you keep or hire to intervene? People like this sad excuse for a consultant who hasn't touched a new version of Domnino in 5 years or more.

When I get emails, Tweets, Linkedin resumes, IMs and many other ways Lotus and other IT people who are looking for work, it just makes me wonder what YOU, the client, are looking for when you are hiring.

So don't tell me, your IBM rep or anyone else that good people are hard to find, we are all out there, some of us cost more because we do more, save you more, keep you up instead of down and don't care about extending our contracts.

We care about YOU, the customer having a rock solid environment.

If you, as the customer cared as much as we, you would see the problems you face are of an entirely different nature. Plus we can provide modern ways to reduce your own internal costs by reducing printed documents, storing digitally all your paper, automated faxing, VOIP through your IM program(even if you are an Outlook company), reduce your office footprint so you save real estate costs and power, provide a leaner, greener infrastructure.

BUT, you can't afford it. And your staff sure isn't doing any of it.

We saved one company over $500,000 PER MONTH in soft costs associated with server down time. We can give you a quote on the phone or via IM to see how much you can save by having real IT people manage your infrastructure.

Don't believe me? Try us. If we can't clean you up, on time, on schedule, don't pay us(aside from T&E where required).

Oh, also if you MUST have certified people.

Never mind.

We don't believe in it,(although we have people that have it so we meet certain standards as an IBM BP) until IBM has an exam about troubleshooting Domino and Notes which truly, IMHO, validates what one knows and how one applies it.

Microsoft Time vs. Lotus Notes Time

This screenshot is found in the bottom of the Notes screen in the information bar.

Another reason to enjoy Lotus Notes is when you are downloading an attachment to your local drive you can see the actual, real time downloaded and to be completed and time remaining.

Microsoft time would be all over the place.

The Ad that wasn't there

IBM provides the Business Partners a place where we can design our own marketing materials.

Almost.

The items we create MUST be approved prior to usage.

Here is a banner, as I produced it, mostly as a test and to understand the process.

I received a call from IBM asking if I was serious. Naturally I responded this was a test and really meant for my blogs more than posting to a national event website.
They should have seen the "legalese" I added to one of their emails for a campaign. that might be my next test.

This got me thinking, if I, or you, don't like IBM's marketing, they why not beat them at their own game? Use their tools(Hi Deb!) and make what you want, the way you want it to say or look. Just don't be surprised if they call you asking what you are doing.

If you don't see the ad, click here.

Fud Buster Friday #49 - Groupwise Beats Domino

As with many of these, this one, believe it or not is true.
Well at least the customer reference story claims it is.

Novell posted this customer reference story from Lentis, a major mental health organization in the Netherlands, on their website and at first glance it made me laugh.

Then I read it. And laughed some more.

There seemed to be a mixture of problems at Lentis which I will break down, based on this document.

1) Lentis was running Domino on an AS/400 which normally should be highly efficient and have extremely great uptime. My guess from reading this is the hardware was rather old as was the Domino and Notes clients.

2) 3,000 people is not a lot of people. Don't get me wrong, for some countries it is, but I am used to that many per server. And it only requires 1 admin to manage it. And since they were running Domino on an AS/400 most likely they only had one admin, perhaps more an AS/400 admin than a Domino one.

3) Lentis has 45 locations linked by low bandwidth, 128kb/s to 2MB/s. Naturally this could be slow for some people if they used their email on the server only instead of having it locally replicated, why they chose to use Lotus Notes and Domino this way was their own choice. Perhaps they used roaming or maybe there was an issue about storing data on local PCs or sharing of desktops. In any event, this problem will not go away because one changes software.

4) Lentis chose to use iNotes which, given they were on an old version, my guess is R5 of Lotus Notes and Domino, they found it a bit heavy on the server usage. Of course if they had been upgrading their server along the way they would have found not just performance enhancements but in the R8 stream an excellent UI that almost equals the full client functionality.

5) Lentis claimed it was costly and difficult to manage and was a time consuming process to manage and setup email accounts. Having been an Admin since R2 I can safely say that making an ID file, and a mail file for a new person takes a minute perhaps? Maybe 5 at the longest, if you include the automated mail file being built on a remote server from the admin doing the work. Sad to say but your network is only as good as your Admins. Pay your Admins well and get ones that know what they are doing, it WILL save you a lot of money, face and time in the long run.

6)Lentis also said:

Equally, Lentis felt that iNotes represented a dead-end in terms of the development of new functionality and in terms of integration with other systems.

This one had me confused. Webmail, no matter from who, doesn't "integrate" to anything. We could write the connector so the mailto function calls up webmail if that is what they wanted. Lack of imagination or initiative on your part does not mean everyone has the same closed view. There is help, Business Partners are here for you. I'm here for you.

7) Lentis continues on:

We are now hosting four different internal mail domains; such an expansion would have been extremely difficult to manage in the past.

Not sure what is difficult here. One Admin, one client, N possibilities of domains and files, there is no problem in adding or merging more organizations. It takes planning ahead to ensure some logic exists, but there is no more difficulty in managing 1 or 1,000 domains. lack of Knowledge is a horrible thing to have, especially if you are an IT person.

8) Lastly, this nugget:

Another benefit of choosing Novell GroupWise over Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange was the ease of serving mobile users.

They then explain how they have 2 new servers just to handle their mobile executives and will be going to get a "PDA" solution. Domino, with Lotus Notes Traveler or a BES was always available to Lentis, if they asked. The mobile users share one template now and can live together well, but depending on the number of users one may want separate servers.

A sad loss for IBM on both hardware and software fronts but the bottom line is bad infrastructure is a by-product of your hiring practices, not anyone's product, usually.

Domino 851 has been spotted

I was helping Chris Toohey with an SSO problem while on the phone with Cisco about my Unity client(expect a post on THAT one).

And we saw this

Check the header!

Lotus Notes Doesn't Work - Help Desk Answers #1

Help desk refrains pop up in my world every now and then. Here's one:

I just got 20+ emails from 10AM and it's 4PM what's wrong with the server?

The answer is nothing of course.

The server was fine and working for every one else (it's always this way, isn't it).

Digging deeper, well, simpler, I went to the server log, looked up usage by user and expanded the date/time. It shows 2 replications, one in the early AM, one in the late PM. No others. Checked other people, replicated all day long.

Problem is customers never want to admit they did something, but facts are facts.
I could look into the log file on their client but it won't tell me if the person switched off replication or changed locations.

So the moral of the story is you may have help desk calls, but they should not be listed as Lotus calls unless truly a Lotus problem. I would bet if you filtered your calls this way you would find you should be training your customers better.

Do you know what you are doing?

I am sure I am not alone in saying at what time or another I "thought" I knew what I was doing. How wrong can one be?

Famous last words from children, right before they fall, skin their knee or knock out a tooth is "I know what I'm Doing".

Evidently some of us never learn from childhood to correct this mantra.

In life there are few who truly know what they are doing. I don't think many of us from a young age said we wanted to be Lotus Developers or Administrators, although I am sure for some of us, "something" technical and computers was on our mind.

So the same could be said about Product Managers. They do know what they are doing, at a given moment, but the future is not so clear. One could argue Microsoft was stuck on this mantra for a while, some say they still are. Maybe IBM also subscribed to this mantra, and still does for some parts, but there are obvious steps forward which no one expected from IBM in the areas of social media/networking and collaboration at an unprecedented level.

Does Google follow this mantra? Well they proclaim "do no evil" although that has been under debate by some. Does Google know what they are doing? Are they changing our world for the better? Is this just a side step in progress for the "next big thing". Whatever that is.

When you are in management, most of your staff looks up to you for encouragement, support and occasionally wisdom. How often do you admit you just don't know something? Or you know what you are doing, only to see it come back to haunt you?

Presidents, Prime Ministers and other governmental leaders expect us to believe them when they say they know what they are doing, personally I doubt it.

As Star trek said "To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before" sums it up usually for many people and they easily get off track. But to lead one must accept that not only does one not know what they are doing always but one must accept that as a reality. To do otherwise leads to failure.

So if your engineers, Business Partner or sales people say they know what they are doing, you may want to engage them in some conversation and make sure you know what they think they are doing.

60% of 1,000 companies not going to Windows 7

6 in 10 companies not going to use Windows 7...in 2010.

Read the full article here from Yahoo!Tech.

EDIT UPDATE:
CNBC had the original posting or so I was told, so here it is. Thanks to Johnny Smith, AKA HeyKoolaid3

Forty-two percent said their biggest reason for avoiding Windows 7 was a "lack of time and resources."

Word to the wise, if 1,000 companies were polled and 60% said no and many claimed money was a problem, where do you think those companies will be next year, if they last that long.

To be fair, some did say the effort to test 100's or thousands of applications was just not practical right now.

On the other hand, IBM continues to provide nearly(no one is perfect) complete backwards compatibility with their products in the Lotus world. So upgrading to the latest version, 8.5 today, 8.5.1 by Q4 or so, is really not a big deal.

As I and others have said many times, upgrading Domino is 15 minutes usually. So what are you waiting for?

Souvenir for Lotus Approach

Richard, Carl and others always comment when I mention approach, so here is something for you.

Based on Billy Joel's Song, Souvenir from the Streetlife Serenade Album.
Listen here.

"Souvenir of Lotus Approach"

A database program, a stored macro,
A database to mind the store,
File away the files of the past
Before your old NOS turns to dust
But that's the price we pay
For every dead program lives somewhere
But slowly fades away
Every dead program lives out there
Then slowly "saves as" away.

Fud Buster Friday #48 - Google Does No evil

The Google informal motto as we all know is Don't Be Evil.

Just what that means is up to debate usually from various places but evidently it has also been dropped as recently as April 1, 2009.

So now the gloves are off and Google is coming out swinging and if you get in the way, too bad for you. As it happens, Google is swinging, directly,(thanks to Duffbert for finding this) for my fences in trying to win over Lotus customers.

Now why would Google do this? Same reason IBM or Microsoft would when they convert someone. Not going to debate if it's a good idea or not, but suffice it to say, IBM is quite possibly either in the way of Google or a stepping stone to help Google get better footing against Microsoft.

Evil? Well, marketing is usually classified as evil or fictional, depends who is asking and which company you refer to of course.

What makes Google seem evil is they read the Microsoft playbook from the 90's and realized they could be Bill Gates nightmare come to life.

IBM of course is not an angel across the board, but the Lotus side has usually tried to stay above board and have open and honest discussions with competitors and customers. It's what I taught the sales engineers I trained and the way I talk to all customers.

In this case, I am a bit in awe of Google and what they have in place that makes a customer's decision almost child like simple. Like Denzel Washington said in Philadelphia "Now explain it to me like I'm a four-year-old." And Google has done that if you dig deeper into their website links on the migration page I referenced.

What if it's all a game to them? What if they fear search is on the way out, what if they do become the next Microsoft or IBM? Will they truly do no evil once they own your OS, phone, mail, applications and calendar?

Or will absolute power corrupt, as it always does?

Lotus Symphony To The Rescue

If you are an Office 2003 or 2000 or XP user and get a file from an Office 2007 with the X extension names and can't use the file, read on.

This morning, as I was about to file my quarterly IRS and state reports, I went to open up my instruction document so I got it all done properly and found one of my files was in a .docx extension.

So naturally the machine I am using couldn't read it. It was then I realized that this machine had not been updated with Lotus Symphony 1.3 which was released last month(the link takes you to the download page).

Download all 200MB, took 10 minutes here in the UK, and then installed it and a few minutes later up came the document perfectly fine.

Now some will argue but it doesn't work 100% with office. You know what? Nothing works 100% with Office, even Office! As was seen when Microsoft realized previous versions couldn't read the new extensions either.

So if you are using an older Office suite, download Symphony today and start using it and soon you will see you don't need that other suite. I have been exclusively using Symphony since January 1, 2009 and started using it more or less since it was available in beta last year.

What is so wrong with an entirely FREE suite of products that look and act the way you want it. In this case it solved my problem and I Imagine many other companies out there, when they get off their Microsoft hamster wheels, will realize that to pay for something when you can get it for free just makes no sense.

Of course, if it's free, how does IBM make any money you might ask, but you have to ask them about it.

iNotes Soapbox Rant: Will the Real iNotes Stand up

Original title:iNotes Soapbox Rant: The Name is Pissy Duck
The name is from a "book" my son dictated to his teacher in school last year, 5 years old, his big sister reads to him but she doesn't always get the pronunciation correct. The real name is Psyduck and is a Pokemon thing.

Now my rant.

Prior to R8 it was called everything from webmail to shimmer.

R8 came out and we had Domino Web Access and it was good, much better than R7's and now had lite and full mode.

R8.5 came out and we had iNotes again replacing DWA and this client rocks and has ultralite for iPhones!

Ed Brill posted about this last year. And the comments show it was not a great idea to change the branding/naming then.

Now we have LotusLive iNotes which, wait for it, is NOT iNotes found on a Domino server.

Huh?

Yes, you see IBM has decided the brand name is important, not necessarily the product itself. IBM evidently now refers to webmail as iNotes, whether it is Notes and Domino based or not, and this version is definitely not. Maybe IBM is after the iNotes Family and there is more to come from it, but this is not a good idea. See Websphere family and to a similar extent Sharepoint Family products that leave many confused.

The company IBM bought, Outblaze will be performing the iNotes one will see from LotusLive.

Now when Microsoft bought Hotmail they never rebranded it Outlook? Sure they rebranded it as MSN Hotmail, now WindowsLive but never called it Outlook officially.

So where does this leave us as Business Partners, you as customers and the world at large from a product awareness or branding? No idea, maybe no one cares, but I for one think this is false advertising and just plain confusing to sales people and customers.

Lotus, the brand, as much as I love it, just doesn't deserve to be seen in this light which will surely provide ample flames to competitors.

Please IBM, name the LotusLive iNotes something else, anything else.

Done ranting.

Availablogging London July through August 3

Stuart posted his Scotland dates yesterday so figure I could post my London dates today.

Will be in London until August 10th so if you are in need of help, speaker, proof of concept, explanation, demo of a Lotus product or just want to have a pint, let me know.

Number in the UK is 0750.686.7680, or skype me or IM me or email.

Exposing Security holes is not funny business

This is being written for CYA purposes.

In reading some tweets from someone I noticed a link to a site which was personally and professionally relevant.

A nice usage of a shared calendar and I investigated it deeper.

As I usually am want to do, I tested their network for basic security holes which would usually point to junior admins work or one of those "damn forgot to fix this" moments of us senior admins.

And sure enough their NAB is exposed. Not only that but the server IDs as well as most employee ID files are attached in the NAB and free to be downloaded. Oh and employee personal details are exposed as well, kids, home address, etc.

Odds the server IDs have a password? I'm not going to check to find out but my guess is they don't.

And the top 2 senior executive ID files? Yes, you guessed it attached.

I sent one of the executives, responsible for IT, an email outlining what we can do to help them with this problem and that they should really take notice of it.

Sometimes this leads to clients, sometimes not. But it does point out the larger picture which is just because you run Domino on a non-Windows platform, doesn't mean your IT staff knows anything about securing Domino, although I am sure they are excellent at their OS of choice.

This is NOT funny and sadly it is an R8.5 server too which means that either they did this on their own, with no advice or worse another BP did it and really exposed them to potential lawsuits and other potential issues.

Either way hopefully we will at least be able to discuss this with them further before it goes on like this for too long.

The bottom line is NEVER make your NAB open to the outside world. Default should always be No Access. If you have an internet connected server you are just asking for trouble.

Luckily they have it set to reader and not editor! I will NOT test delete but my guess is that is available to me, although adding a person is not.

And for those who question how bad is this, I COULD recreate any of their servers, then their certs, after all I have valid server IDs and user IDs and can read the NAB so I could build a server to match theirs and then create accounts as the executives and start sending out 100% valid emails. In fact this is how I had to save 2 customers in the last year, I posted about them too.

Not funny at all. A great write up case potentially for Lotusphere.

It Was 2 years ago today

That this blog, as it appears now, was started.

A few false starts along the way, but I basically found what I wanted to write about, in between bouts of technical enlightenment.

Some posts have been more fun than others and Fridays always brings new readers and some great comments, but 369 posts later, I still can't believe that averages out to one every other day, there are still things I want to post about.

Over the next month or so I expect to complete a revamp to this blog, in fact it is moving to a Domino Blog template finally. The domain name is booked and loaded, just trying to make the template more "me" but friendly to you as well.

Most likely the FudBuster Fridays posts(started 8/8/08), after I hit #52 will be stopping. I decided I wanted to write a year of them, sometimes they are about Lotus, Microsoft, Google, Sales and/or Business, sometimes just a quick note for your weekend like #42. Were it not for some ex-MS people Fudbuster Fridays would never have started in the first place. Maybe I will continue them, maybe not time will tell.

Some vital statistics for this blog:
1 baby of ours was born during this time and she is the cutest.

The pinball machine was finally rebuilt and played....and played...AND PLAYED.
I picked up an Ideapad S10e and that's our #2 laptop here in London and it is the best thing I bought last year.

Not sure what language "Unknown" is, but it's my 4th largest readership behind English, German and French(maybe it's all the Microsoft people). For you and others I hope the Google translation works "good enough".

Browser? Firefox 3 beats everybody by FAR... IE7, IE6, Chrome, Safari in that order follow.

Since tracking this site with Woopra from 11/2008 it's had almost 15,000 hits. For some that is a day or a month but while I endeavor to find more readers, I also am happy anyone reads it. After all who really wants to read a blog about Lotus, right? :-)

According to the great and powerful Planetlotus.org I have somehow managed to reach the top 10 +/- blogs in total hits for my posts. Go figure, I never did think I would get that far, after all who cares about what us admins think anyway?

Looking forward to the future and seeing everyone in Orlando or sooner if our paths can cross. Now on to my Domino 851 server to work on that blog template.

Fud Buster Friday #47 - iNotes is Ugly, Slow and Requires Its Own Server

As with most FUD the history of a product comes into play, no matter how old it might be.

iNotes (Also known as Domino Web Access or Webmail) as it is called now in R8.5 of Lotus Notes is a huge improvement over past efforts to mimic the Notes client.

It currently mimics it very well and is much more functional than ever before.

Coming in 3 flavors, Full, Light and UltraLite there is a version for everyone.

Full is like it says, it includes everything, email, calendar and scheduling, to dos, Sametime and other required actions and is meant for normal bandwidth availability.

Would you belive I could not find a video of iNotes in English? Enjoy this one:

Light scales back to the basics, email, simple calendar and ONLY connects to get your email nothing else. Aimed at lower than normal bandwidth experiences.


Ultralite is really for iPhones and the Safari browser. But you can use it just as well under your browser of choice.
Watch it here if you haven't seen it yet:


It is NOT slow at all, in fact it handles previews of email and name lookups quickly and efficiently.

In R8.x the mail templates, which manage one's mail file, have been merged into one compared to previously where they were 2 separate templates. In the past this created a sometimes duplicated file scheme thus wasting resources. Now one server can handle both web and rich client access.

Of course for best performance one should understand how memory and other server tasks handle the nuances of each client and design an architecture accordingly.

Along with this smoother than smooth web based client comes increased compression on attachments and a single template storage method to keep overall file sizes smaller.

So the next time you hear from your vendor that Lotus Webmail is old and slow, ask them to watch the videos for themselves. After all your data is private so you can't show them yours :-) And remind them it's called iNotes just like the iPhone because it is all about what I want.

They Call it Flippr and it's for Quickr

Admins at least.

The great SNAPPS team, led by Rob Novak are playing with another Quickr tool, this one for Admins.

Panda Bear was for the users, but now they gave us Admins something nice as well.

Great UI, smooth, fast and simple.

Fast! I am currently in London, UK on a DSL line with average speed connecting to a very old piece of hardware in the states on a slow line. And this does my work faster than I can if I try to refresh a web page!

Although I had some problems initially, that were my fault, now it shows my sites and does lookups on people so one can make access changes a snap.

The basic necessities are there just like they are via a browser, but without the headache and delays or crashes of the browser(you IE people know who you are, stop it).

Now if they can merge Flippr and Panda, for us Admins, I would be very happy. One program and screens pace is always better than 2.

Excellent work! Coming soon to a website near you probably in the near future.
What do I know, I am just a beta.