Gee... David

Did you ever look at a document on Friday and try to remember on Tuesday night what it was called? You know, the sort of problem where you don't know what to call it but you will know you found it when you see it.  Well, today I searched three times (successfully) for the same document never realizing that it was available in my history all along.  One simple picture should show you all you need to know to take a shortcut to your own 'recent' past.

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David Wilkerson October 7th, 2008 08:56:12 PM

The noise surrounding XPages has certainly grabbed my attention but, to be honest, this statement took my breath away:

XPages allow Domino Web application developers to both extend the functionality and the end-user reach of current IBM® Lotus® Notes and Domino applications. . . Delivered through Java™Server Faces (JSF) technology, XPages provide both novice and seasoned Web application developers with nearly limitless data architecture. . .

That simple reference to JSF technology was overwhelming, to me. For a long time I have spoken to Domino developers who are tasked with creating Java based web applications to understand the similarity between Domino web development and JSFs. Of course those conversations have often resulted in sighs and wishes that Domino could do things 'like that'. Well, here we are. The quote is from the getting started section of a tutorial available at IBM's DeveloperWorks site. "Harness the power of XPages in Lotus Domino Designer".

But wait, to borrow from the patter of the TV infomercial, there's more: The power of XPages conceals the underlying complexity of JSF development and allows the power of the Domino Designer to retain its premier perch as a true RAD tool. (And NO I do not mean Rational Application Developer"). It is like having your own private rendering engine. Remember the "Domino Rendering Engine? Well, now you can have your own   rendering engine. XPages provide the mechanism by which 'you', the developer, supply your own markup and the resulting interpretation is mapped to JSF custom class libraries.

What does this mean for my applications?

• For starters, it makes it simple to bind multiple data sources to a single HTML form. Imagine allowing for an update to response documents, a related profile document, and a parent document all in one form submission. User input can be greatly simplified.
• Another benefit is that you can retire those old $$ hacks and the tedious effort it took to maintain them. XPages support page submission redirection without all the fuss we are used to.
• You can now easily work with CSS to drive layout and avoid placing your components in a (solitary confinement) cell.

When should you consider migrating to XPages? In my view it depends on where in the product maintenance life cycle you find yourself. I think, however, that when you consider the effort you typically expend maintaining your existing forms you will find that a little time in becoming comfortable with this powerful feature will enable your organization to cost effectively address the re-engineering required to do a soup-to-nuts renovation of your Domino web based applications. You won't simply extend their lifetime you will enhance their functionality.

So, head off to DeveloperWorks and take the tutorial for a spin. You will be glad you did. To paraphrase an famous religious figure, When we were children we saw but through a glass darkly but now we can build a new face for a new day.

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David Wilkerson October 6th, 2008 09:17:37 PM

I am struck by the likelihood that a substantial number of existing portals will need be upgraded. To this end I provide a link to what appears, on brief review, to be an excellent guide to the process. In a nutshell, this is NOT trivial and, in my view, if you are teetering on the precipice of installing 6.0, DON'T. You should go directly to 6.1. Despite all the usual caveats about waiting for the first service patch keep in mind that by the time your deployment begins to mature such a patch will most likely be in place. This chore and the risks of the unknown are by far out weighed by the complexity of the upgrade process.

Check out the PDFs in this link and see for yourself: Step-by-Step Migration Guide.

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David Wilkerson October 6th, 2008 09:10:36 PM

Here's a 'new' product that has emerged in the IBM Lotus brand. It is the outcome of IBM's fairly recent acquisition of Proventia. This security suite bundles several features and is expected to grow in depth as the offering matures.

IBM Lotus Mail Protector

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David Wilkerson September 3rd, 2008 08:00:54 AM

The Out-of-Office feature is one that frustrates some users and delights others. In my own opinion I have never 'liked' but accepted the behavior that delayed notification of status until the agent in my mail file did it's work. Now, with Domino 8, I am happy with a recent alternative that many admins have overlookded of which many users are ignorant.

The 'new' service is router based and runs ad hoc. That is to say that when a correspondent sends a message to a user whose status is out-of-office a notice of that status is immediately returned to the sender.

Besides the benefits that this behavior represents it also simplifies administration. No additional security permissions need be made. No longer do users need to remember to disable their out-of-office agent and, in addition to the familiar features, users can specify a time of day to begin and end their out-of-office status.

How do you configure this feature? On the server configuration document (not the same as 'the server document' access the Router/SMTP tab > Advanced tab > Control tab and modify the Out-of-Office type field. No server or router restart is required.

Voila, je suis fini!

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David Wilkerson August 27th, 2008 07:58:50 PM

A quick note: Upgrade your Notes / Domino environment to improve performance. The desktop is much faster to load.

IBM Announcement: Notes 8.0.2 Is Available

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David Wilkerson August 26th, 2008 08:50:12 AM

My brother, the archivist (not anarchist) will be delighted to know that the National Archives are in utter chaos and the office has not done it's job with regard to records management investigations since 2000.  Forget about political finger pointing and ask the pertinent question. Should federal agencies be required to maintain records? If so, who will make sure they are doing so? If no one is checking (not since 2000) then how can we know that there are records or that the records are managed in a manner as to render them useful? We can't and that's a big, a really big, problem.

http://www.dominopower.com/issues/issue200807/00002201001.html

Check it out.

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David Wilkerson August 21st, 2008 09:46:07 AM

I have noticed a consistent crash. When I launch Notes and a pop up for a missed alert appears, the window hangs. NSD launches and the application is listed as unresponsive until I kill the usual PIDs (nlnotes, ntaskldr, etc). Upon a reboot of the client, all is well. This seems to happen "every" time that I have a missed alert.

Has anyone else seen it?

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David Wilkerson August 17th, 2008 09:08:40 PM

Isn't this special! This email, caught up in our Spam Sentinel filter purports to update my Internet Explorer to the current version. Of course if you mouse over the link you find that it is 'really' addressed to http://rcgomes.net46.net/imgs/update.exe  The site, shockingly enough, is Russian.

So, should we send a 'note' to EVERYONE in our address book saying 'watch out for this hack'? Nope. In the first case, our Spam Filter caught it, as it should. In the next case, don't open suspicious email. (Hey, this one doesn't even LOOK like it came from Microsoft.) In the next, no one should follow links received in email that point to an executable such as "update.exe". Finally, why would MSN be sending update information for Microsoft's software?  

So, in summary, unless your contact list consists of people with dubious brain power, NO do NOT send an email to everyone saying "watch out for this.

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David Wilkerson August 8th, 2008 07:00:31 AM

I have to admit that I have no inherent reason for preferring Firefox over IE7. The fact is that I prefer the former because of the way it loads new tabs. Simple. I ask for a tab and I get one instantly. Not so with IE7. Microsoft wizards have done it again with a ridiculous routine that has to load a page that tells me it is blank. Gee, and I would never have known otherwise! It isn't this that annoys me, though. It is the fact that I have to WAIT while a blank page is loaded. How ridiculous is that? So, I use Firefox as my default browser and make adjustments in IE by having a half dozen blank pages open as members of my start up set.

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David Wilkerson August 7th, 2008 07:02:15 AM