Time Travel the Daylight Savings Time Way

Over here, we change the clocks tonight. It is a random event decided by the government.

But that is not the point of this blog post.

Governments suck at understanding technology, be it farming or digital, they should just stop messing with us.

But I digress.

While working on a client site I noticed that the log file view shows a time, say 9:45am-10:02am.

When you open the document, I saw 8:45am times.
Please be aware this will not hurt your server in any way as it is a client side view issue, not a server side issue. Well, in this case.

Whoa! Daylight Saving Time issue! DST sucks!

Hang on a second. I am in Israel, +2 of GMT, customer servers are in EST.

My admin client of course runs local time for me. I am used to seeing log times in funny ways but this bothered me. I checked the server console, time stamp and date is correct. We checked the OS itself, also correct.

In a Skype chat with some friends, I posted the issue, this was an AIX server by the way, I also posted this Technote # LO68032 from IBM which describes it perfectly well.
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg1LO68032

Unfortunately it states "This APAR is closed as FIN. We have deferred the fix to a future release."

And not in the 9.x stream.

I tried other servers at the same client, same problem.

I then tried other customer sites, no problem.

While discussing it with Susan, she advised that it would not be a problem after this coming Monday based on the historical dates for the time changes. Kudos to Susan who is always helpful and up to date with information. Note to her boss, you do not pay here enough!

The work around is to change the OS to EST then restart Notes and that works. 

However, I am interested in what caused it and how to fix it.

It occurred to me that this was the only client I was using a specific CISCO VPN and client (5.0.07.0290) which I do not use for any other clients.

It would seem to me that the problem lies not with IBM, Notes or Domino but with the VPN from the customer and the settings or policies it enforces when I login to it.

So maybe IBM should revisit that technote and customer and see if a VPN was involved. In the mean time I am opening a ticket at the customer site...after Monday if it still happens.

Traveler error about incorrect server version

As a follow up to my post about the traveler fix we received.

Do not fat finger your typing, as I did.

I included an extra = sign in the xml file and that presented the following challenges:

1) new installations would fail with an error that says:
"The Server you have contacted must be upgraded to support this version of Lotus notes Traveler"
2) Devices would repeatedly get asked to download the updated or newer client

While these were my instructions:
\traveler\cfg\client\VersionInfo.txt

#Lotus Notes Traveler - Android
Lotus\ Traveler.Android.version=8.5.3.2 201207031233

If Linux OS - be sure the file pemissions/ownership is not changed.

I somehow added an extra = sign before the version number.

The IBM team sent me this URL to test the server which I provide in case anyone else sees these errors.

http://www.yourdomain.com/servlet/traveler?action=checkForUpdate&deviceType=Android&Version=0

You should get in return a message that looks like this(your verssion number may be different):

AppName=Lotus Traveler
DownloadLink=http://www.yourdomain.com/traveler/LotusTraveler/android/LotusTraveler.apk
Version=8.5.3.2 201207031233
LMIAppConfigFile=traveler.properties

In the incorrect xml file, the version line showed version== and thus the two sides could not communicate properly.

Live and learn.

Stability vs. Cutting Edge

We would all like to think of ourselves as bleeding edge, top of the line tech managers, staff or whatever your range of business.
But reality kicks in sometimes.

I know, I'm a Miami Dolphins fan and right now, there are
many questions, few answers. The biggest, how did a great team hit rock bottom?

In the IT world, it's easier sometimes to see the slide coming because the signs are there and no one is reading them, usually because we have no time.

Last post I showed a graphic of a Lotus Domino server which ran, without fail or stoppage for 177 days. Which is cool, great and impressive from a stability perspective.
BUT, what if that is a bad sign from an operations perspective?

If you can't answer these questions well enough for your CXO, maybe you should revisit what you are doing for your clients and/or employers.

Does this imply my client is adverse to change or was I told not to do something?
Is change control systems (if you use them) threatening your advancement and opportunities ?
Did we/me not manage their servers properly?
Who should have upgraded the Lotus server application level
Who should have upgraded the Windows server Operating System level?
Are we missing something we could benefit from either of these 2 upgrades, do we even know what?
Quarterly updates come out almost regularly for Lotus and IBM software, why did these not get installed?
Microsoft releases updates monthly usually, evidently these were turned off since usually we have to reboot the server once the patches are installed, are we open to security vulnerabilities now?
Do we do IT Audits in our company? If so, why did they not say anything to us about this as well?
Are we a leadership organization or a follower? Take a look at our competitors market cap or stock price or recent quarter/annual numbers and see, you may not like the answer.

If IT is essential, why are we not treating it that way?

Your car needs oil and an oil change or it will come to a grinding halt, your server may be more forgiving, or not, but the marketplace is not and rewards those that advance or live on the cutting edge.

So in the end which are you really?