Vanilla

Lotus Notes 8.5.2 - not responding

2011-03-24T20:54:00.002Z

I had been having quite a few issues with my Notes client. Whether I was writing an email, editing a document or typing in a Sametime message the client would intermittently stop doing anything visibly, then would go grey coloured, and the Title bar at the top would show "IBM Lotus Notes (Not Responding)". After half a minute or so Notes would start responding again and perform fine, however after a few minutes I would get a repeat performance.

Apparently this can be put down to operating on a poor or slow network, going into offline mode could fix it, however it had been working without any real issue for a few months.

After taking advice from David Fry, from the Lotus Staines office, I installed 'Fix Pack 1' for 8.5.2. and all appears to be well thankfully. it's nice to have things working well again.

Notes URLs – easier than I thought

2010-02-09T14:53:00.005Z

I needed to create a link from an html document to a Lotus Notes document. It’s years since I had to do that and I immediately ran into issues choosing syntax – such as should I use the fully qualified domain name of the server etc.

I decided instead to open the document in Notes – and choose ‘Edit’/’Copy As’/’Document Link’ from the menu. Pasting that into a document editor gave a result such as..

<NDL>
<REPLICA 81256A76:0076FB83>
<VIEW OF39D46BF5:E8F08834-ON852564B5:00139B2C>
<NOTE OFEC4650AB:44EC5B7B-ON802576C4:0067E5A9>
<HINT>CN=SERVERNAME/OU=A6/OU=M/O=TEST</HINT>
</NDL>

I was trying too hard. I started to converted this to an href – however It was easier just to paste the url into a Sametime chat which converted it into the perfect format Notes://SERVERNAME/80256A760076FB83/38D46BF5E8F08834852564B500129B2C/EC4650AB44EC5B7B802576C40067E5A9

Then I wrapped that into an href tag and the job was done.

Ubuntu 9.10 on my Thinkpad T60p GDM + ATI issues at startup

2009-12-15T11:21:00.005Z

OK - so this T60p is getting a little bit battered looking - screen needs replaced for the second time etc...but it's still working. I've been running Ubuntu 9.04 for the last few months with no problems - even the upgrade from 8.10 was smooth(ish).

Yesterday I ran the upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10. the result was anything but smooth. The system started but wouldn't get past the xsplash screen - where the login is supposed to appear, there was no sound either. I could log in to a tty screen via 'ctrl+alt+F2' - that was good. I noticed a lot of posts regarding issues with ATI drivers, and nvidia for that matter, so experimented with old versions of xorg.conf to no avail. the system would boot to a GUI if I chose 'Safe Mode' - normal boot - login at the prompt and run 'startx' - however performance was poor as the ATI drivers were not in use. end result was poor performance - no sound - and generally poor experience.

I burned a new 9.10 Live DVD and it loaded perfectly - no problems - so the issue must have related to the upgrade from my 9.04 system. Luckily enough I keep my home directory on a /dev/sda3, root on /dev/sda1 and swap on /dev/sda2.

I booted the 9.10 Live DVD, chose install, and formatted the root and swap partitions - leaving /dev/sda3 intact. Once the install was completed I mapped a drive to /dev/sda3 where my original home directory sits - the new path being '/mnt/home/name'. Messana has a simple and good guide here on mounting other partitions. Now that the original home partition was mounted I edited /etc/fstab (make a backup first) and changed my home directory to '/mnt/home/name'.

Once all that was done - I logged out and back in again to find my old workspace in all it's splendour, which was nice.

The simple message is if you have difficulty upgrading - just do a fresh install instead of fixing the issues as there were just too many issues to fix. Make your backups of course.

Searching Domino - a little Omnifind integration

2009-09-17T17:40:00.005+01:00

I worked with an IBM Business Partner today to setup the integration between Domino 8.5 and Omnifind Enterprise Edition - also version 8.5 coincidentally.

Ominfind was already setup and working on multiple sources of information - Domino was simply an additional source to crawl. The integration with Domino can be over NRPC (requiring Domino libraries to be available to the Omnifind crawler), or via NDIIOP.

While reading the documentation (rtfm - we actually did it) We enabled DIIOP, setup the Omnifing Crawler for "notes" and were able to search and retrieve results. All in about 20 minutes. You could choose to search all nsf, individual nsf, data directories and individual notes views restricted by a simple selection formula.

We also installed the Notes plugin to place Omnifind in the Lotus Notes search bar - this also required editing to notes.ini to point to the Omnifind server. The end result was a fully integrated search across all the available datasources in the lab - with results available in the notes client.

My only question would be the relative performance of the DIIOP method as opposed to NRPC where a customer has a large amount of data to crawl.

The integration was smooth and really quite easy.

Issues upgrading to Firefox 3.5 on Ubuntu

2009-08-11T11:53:00.005+01:00

Upgrading Firefox from 3.0 to 3.5 on Ubuntu proved to be unusually awkward, however I got there in the end.

As 3.5 is now in the Ubuntu repositories I simply selected it in Synaptic Package Manager, clicked "apply" and it installed smoothly, however when I ran Firefox from the icon it actually launched Firefox 3.0 - not the shiny new 3.5 I was expecting. This was fixed by changing the symbolic link to point to the right version.

In the /usr/bin directory I ran "sudo rm firefox" to remove the existing link and "sudo ln firefox-3.5 firefox" to create the new link, allowing Firefox 3.5 to load as default.

So whilst happily launching Firefox 3.5 I now got an error message stating "XML Parsing Error: undefined entity Location: chrome://browser/content/browser.xul Line Number 34, Column 1" and of course Firefox crashed out.

To fix this I deleted the existing profile by running "mv .mozilla .mozilla.old" in the home directory "/home/yourname".

So after two quick fixes it's up and running and appears to be quite good.

I decided to blog this as otherwise I'd end up repeating the procedure and wonder how I fixed it last time :)

Shutter - Screenshot tool on Ubuntu

2009-03-23T15:14:00.006Z

Screenshots are a necessary evil in order to make various documents a little more accessible. Various tools exist to do this and it all comes down to ease of use and personal preference.

Shutter is a new app for Ubuntu and it's the best tool yet in terms of being able to select the section of screen that I want to grab - and it can be downloaded here

It's a bit strange to take a screenshot of a screenshot tool - so here's a link to the shutter website instead along with a suitable screenshot.

Notes 8.5.1 on Ubuntu - composite applications

2009-03-16T16:07:00.003Z

We had a recent update to the latest build on Lotus Notes 8.5.1 on Ubuntu. As usual the update appeared to go perfectly.

One of the new capabilities I had looked forward to was the inclusion of the Composite Application Editor (cae). The synaptic package name was "ibm-notes-cae".

When I created a new Composite application - I was given the instruction to use the ..."'Actions > Edit application' menu item to add content." Alas the "Actions" menu was not visible. First I tried removing the ibm-notes-cae package and reinstalling it, however this had no effect.

Ray Davies suggested I shut down Notes and rename the "workspace" directory within the notes/data directory and restarting the Notes Client. After a restart the "Actions" menu appeared and I could edit the composite app.

I did have to recreate the previous widgets I had been using - but that was not such a big deal - and I was back to work in five minutes flat.

Which was nice :-)

Charging a blackberry on Ubuntu - barry

2009-01-12T13:57:00.005Z

My Blackberry Curve is pretty handy - but it wasn't charging from the USB on the Thinkpad running Ubuntu.

I installed "barry" from here and ran the "bcharge" command from the command line which reportedly ups the USB from 100ma to 400ma.

The Curve seems to be charging now ! lovely.

All thanks to the dapper Martin Owens

Reply to all email storm - don't blame the users

2009-01-11T18:33:00.004Z

I always thought that reply to all was a bad idea as a default, It's nice that it is no longer the default in Notes, however this story does take it a little further.

An email storm has been created, apparently, by too many people doing "reply to all". However the resolution seems to be to blame the users of the system and ask that they be disciplined for clicking "reply to all" when using large distribution lists.

Maybe they are missing a point and should upgrade to Notes 8.5 :-)

Mobile and not so mobile access to Domino apps

2008-12-23T17:38:00.006Z

I was recently checking out the IdeaJam website and really liked the work that Bruce and Matt having been doing there. Matts use of xPages has resulted in a very functional yet modern looking web application that just happens to be built on Domino.

Matt has recently been working with the Hursley team on the xPages workshop - so he knows a thing or two about the subject.

I noticed that there was a url to access IdeaJam via the iPhone. Take the time to have a look as it's a lovely piece of work. Bruce informed me that this was based on work by Jeff Gilfelt - with instructions on how to do it here.

This should make it easy to give iPhone users access to Domino data - at least to view it, however it also shows up really well as a widget in the notes 8.5 sidebar, (which is nice).

How to determine the version of Portal or Quickr you are running

2008-12-10T14:19:00.004Z

After installing Quickr I wanted to check for updates on the IBM Fix Central website.

The check for the correct fix the site requested whether I was using version 8.0.0.0 or 8.0.0.2.

To check this I looked for the file C:\IBM\Quickr\PortalServer\version\TS.product which is an xml file - Wordpad should be ok to read it.

The installed version was listed as "8.0.0.0"

Easy when you know how :-)

Portal 6.1 - difficulty adding an administrator

2008-11-26T12:32:00.002Z

I installed WebSphere Portal express 6.1 on a Windows 2003 server in a demo environment and ran the config wizard to secure the server to an Active Directory running on a second server.

Adding an Active Directory user as a member of the preexisting "wpsadmins" group proved difficult and resulted in the "EJPAL3030E" error - most likely relating to a misconfigured group attribute.

As time was limited to complete the demo I simply logged into the Portal as the "wpsadmin" user, chose the AD user I wanted to promote to a Portal administrator and selected the icon to "duplicate role" of the wpsadmin user.

Now the AD user can see the "administration" tab in portal.

Whew!

Analysis of a Domino NSD report - howto

2008-11-25T15:27:00.004Z

Looking through the LDD website can be a good use of time. There are plenty of tips to be found. Today I was looking through this section and found a presentation from Lotusphere 2008 on "Using NSD – A Practical Guide".

This was written by Elliott Harden and Joe Wallace.

The explanations seem pretty clear, while not suited for an absolute beginner, it is certainly a good starting point.

Semaphore debugging has never been so much fun.

Ubuntu 8.10 on my Thinkpad T60p - (Part 3 - External Monitors/Projectors)

2008-11-17T12:05:00.004Z

Since the upgrade to 8.10 of Ubuntu from 8.04 I found that the ATI Catalyst Control Centre (ccc) had been removed from the Applications menu.

Looking at Synaptic I saw that there was a package called fglrx-amdcccle already installed. This is the control Centre - it had just been missing from the menu. After a little hunting I determined the Control Centre could be invoked by running the command "amdccle".

To Simplify this a little I created a menu item for the "ccc" by right clicking on the "Applications" menu, selecting "Edit Menus" and then "New Item" - and filling out the details as shown below.

The is the app you need to control external monitors working with the T60p.

Ubuntu 8.10 on my Thinkpad T60p - (Part 2 - Cool Effects )

2008-11-13T15:13:00.006Z

Earlier this week there were a few updates for Ubuntu via Synaptic. As usual I let the system apply the updates in it's typical smooth manner, however this time there was a problem.

When I restarted the system the usual Compiz graphics would not work at all. The cube you can keep - but I ned those wobbly windows. I restarted the system and chose to boot an older version of the Kernel and found the Compiz graphics were working to an extent, I had the wobbly windows but no Cube effect.

I booted back to the latest kernel. Running "fglrxinfo" in a terminal windows gave the error "BadRequest (invalid request code or no such operation)".

As usual there are a few websites giving long and complicated solutions to this problem. I just ran EnvyNG on the command line... "envyng -t" and selected the option to "Uninstall the ATI driver", then chose the option to "Install the ATI driver".

After a reboot the "fglrxinfo" gives a more useful output...

john@monza:~$ fglrxinfo
display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI MOBILITY FireGL V5200
OpenGL version string: 2.1.8087 FireGL Release

And now I have the cylinder effect going in conjunction with the cube.

Thanks go to Alberto for EnvyNG yet again.

Google predict the flu - what can they not do?

2008-11-12T11:59:00.004Z

Google have done a little bit of work predicting your likelihood of catching the Flu if you live in the US. They have tracked search terms and found that queries on the Flu can allow them to predict outbreaks two weeks faster than existing systems.

In itself this is quite interesting - but what else could they track? Political affiliation in an upcoming election? Predict share price fluctuation in specific markets?

If I was a betting man I'd quite full access to their data - however I suppose google trends goes somewhere to this effect - however not with this granularity of geography.

Have a look here

Ubuntu 8.10 on my Thinkpad T60p - BADSIG anyone?

2008-11-06T17:11:00.004Z

As the latest release of Ubuntu has been out for a little while now – I decided to upgrade my laptop OS from 8.04 to 8.10. Ubuntu has the really nice facility of upgrading the OS in place – just by clicking the upgrade button. It was really nice to use when I upgraded from 7.10 on another PC. This time there was a problem.

There were various errors including “BADSIG 40976EAF437D05B5” and “Hash Sum mismatch” on the various Ubuntu repositories. I tried a number of fixes found via Google, mostly to no avail. Eventually I found an article in a forum pointing to a proxy server caching issue.

The fix that worked for me was as follows.

I added the following two lines...

Acquire::http::No-Cache "true";
Acquire::http::Max-Age "0";

to the file /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10broken_proxy. This file did not previously exist on my system – but is referenced if it exists (as I found out due to a typo :-) ).

And separately did this....

sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list_backup
sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list (then delete all the contents)
sudo apt-get update

Then replace the empty sources.list with the sources.list_backup – effectively putting all the original contents back into the sources.list file.

Run "sudo apt-get update” again.

My system could access the repositories perfectly. Finally I upgraded the system by running “Sudo do-release-upgrade -m desktop”.

All went well and now Ubuntu is running version 8.10.

Thanks to Asiyu on the Ubuntu forums

Websphere Portal 6.1 Tuning Guide

2008-11-04T10:17:00.005Z

I have had a quick read through of the, just published, Portal 6.1 tuning guide.

Generally I would describe it as a "mostly friendly" read.

I was pleased to see a section on "Recommended database maintenance for DB2". This is something that has been on my mind for a while - especially for SMB installations where true DB skills would be a "nice to have" resource. There is also a section on DB2 database tuning showing how the teams test setup was altered.

If you are interested in Portal 6.1 from a technical aspect - you really should read this.

Portal 6.1 Tuning Guide

The BBC and content distribution

2008-10-31T22:16:00.014Z

The BBC are a great British institution. The UK would be a poorer place without them in my opinion. I do have the odd grievance here and there regarding how often they seem to promote Microsoft. Sometimes the news.bbc.co.uk frontpage can seem like an advertorial for that company. Today for instance the technology page contains the word "Microsoft" 5 times. Not much mention of any of their opposition there.

I don't mind, it's nice that they think about things more important than Russel Brand (although I have always liked Andrew Sachs).

Previously there were issues with how the iPlayer would be mostly a Windows product. The iPlayer has worked to a limited extent on Linux. Today however the BBC have published a little info on work the BBC have undertaken to bring BBC content to the linux desktop. A nice read.

This is quite an important step as it is bringing some content that I have already paid for through the license fee - to me - regardless of the desktop in question.

Looking at PlanetLotus - the BBC keeps cropping up in news stories. Does that relate to the importance of the BBC or the demographic? I will be interesting to find out which.

XPages workshop in the UK

2008-10-28T14:37:00.002Z

The Hursley team are working on a XPages workshop in Hursley. If you work for an Lotus BP I would seriously suggest registering for this one.

XPages

There is one seriously good (external to IBM) consultant working on the content.

Sub Prime - starter kit

2008-10-24T17:09:00.002+01:00

I found this presentation via Presentation Zen
Quite good really.
Subprime Primer

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: subprime mortgages)

email - keep it short

2008-10-21T08:58:00.002+01:00

On any given morning I receive quite a number of emails that, on the face of it, require some attention.

I prefer to actually get on with doing my day job as opposed to attending to an email inbox as my boss appears to want me to actually achieve certain things for the business rather than simply work in a glorified mail room - the inbox. Luis Suarez is a good example in that he has actively stopped (that can not be good grammar) reading his email - I don't believe that course of action is likely to work for me just yet.

I keep my "email time" to a minimum using a few tricks such as using Notes to highlight mail sent to me only and colour coding mail that comes from customers or management. This works pretty well.

One of the biggest factors on how much value an email has is the content - and how it is written.

One of my management team tends to analyse things for a while and send out the odd blockbuster email which starts of with a paragraph of "scene setting" for the rest of his email which will be the equivalent content to a couple of sides of paper. When I was unaware of a request he had made he stated it was in an email - which I then retrieved from an archive. After reading the email I told him that the first paragraph contained no real information and that having reached the end of it I had archived the email (luckily I hadn't deleted it) and missed the pertinent content.

Some longer emails, such as the one mentioned above, need to be written in the form of a news story with Title, Synopsis and then Detail (or something to that effect) where the synopsis gives me the pertinent detail pretty early on in the narrative.
Shorter email should be no more that a short paragraph.
Preferably email should be as short as a Status update in Twitter or Facebook.

You could, of course, just use the phone.

You will be pleased to know that the colleague concerned and I came to an arrangement - he writes his email as normal and I read them - he is after all a manager.

On a similar note - IBM are noting the same things here

Ubuntu 8.04 on my Thinkpad T60p (Part 6)

2008-10-09T21:55:00.005+01:00

I have a Logitech Orb webcam which I use to demonstrate Lotus Sametime video for customers. Recently it has been sitting in the corner ever since I moved from Windows to linux and as there is a demonstration due next Wednesday I decided to see what effort was required to get it working on Ubuntu.

After the usual investigation of the support forums I realised I needed to install a UVC (Universal Video Class) driver. Finding the right one could be tricky - however just like envyNG there is a utility to do this for you called EasyCam. the install instructions are here.

As I already had the camera connected via USB the EasyCam software detected it correctly as a "Quickcam Orbit/Sphere MP (2006 model)".

EasyCam then, when prompted, installs the correct driver. Once that has completed you can click "Execute - Webcam" from the EasyCam menu to start streaming video.

Skype picked up on the video straight away.

Removing Grafitti

2008-09-18T01:29:00.002+01:00

I think this is superb - Banksy has created art that is some of the best around.
From Flickr

Email becomes a dangerous distraction

2008-09-12T12:34:00.003+01:00

The Sydney Morning Herald ran a story on the effects of email on a persons productivity and had this to say.

"In a study last year, Dr Thomas Jackson of Loughborough University, England, found that it takes an average of 64 seconds to recover your train of thought after interruption by email (bit.ly/email2). So people who check their email every five minutes waste 81/2hours a week figuring out what they were doing moments before."

There is more to life than email - but I do wonder about all those Twitter and IM interuptions. :)

drthomasjackson.com
The related study, at least I think it's the one, is here

iNotes in Domino 8.5

2008-09-03T19:18:00.003+01:00

I really like the idea of being able to work without relying on email.

To a large extent I rely on sametime and my mobile phone (a really dodgy old nokia - kudos points only for the antique value).

However for those times when you do need to access email - I thought this looked kind of cool.

Domino 8.5 beta 2

Interestingly I composed an email using Chrome and could see th received email in Lite and Ultralite mode - but not in Full mode. Then again it was in a win2003 vmware

Ubuntu 8.04 on my Thinkpad T60p (Part 6)

2008-09-02T18:51:00.002+01:00

I already had Notes 8.5 beta 1 installed on Ubuntu 8.04 and wanted to upgrade to beta 2. As this is at beta stage there is apparently no upgrade from beta 1 to beta 2 so the first thing I did was backup my Notes data directory which was in /home/myname/lotus/notes/data.

Secondly I used Synaptic to remove “ibm-lotus-notes”.

Once this was successfully completed I closed Synaptic, opened a terminal window, and ran the following commands in this particular order...

sudo dpkg -i ibm_lotus_notes-8.5.i586.deb
sudo dpkg -i ibm_lotus_activities-8.5.i586.deb
sudo dpkg -i ibm_lotus_cae-8.5.i586.deb
sudo dpkg -i ibm_lotus_sametime-8.5.i586.deb
sudo dpkg -i ibm_lotus_symphony-8.5.i586.deb

I was then able to start Notes from the Applications menu - There was a license agreement to accept – otherwise straight in.

It is fast – really fast.

Thanks to Ray for the pointers.

Ubuntu - White Screen at Login

2008-08-17T19:11:00.002+01:00

This white Screen in Compiz happened again after a kernel update - I really should pay more attention to what the updates were for - but life's more interesting than that.

As before the fix was simple and quick, it's just a pity it's needed at all.

A non-techie Linux user would have difficulty.

Olympic BSOD

2008-08-11T21:21:00.002+01:00

Who would have thought that this would happen?

Via Gizmodo

I hope the server wasn't responsible for any high wire gymnastics.

Ubuntu 8.04 on my Thinkpad T60p (Part 5)

2008-07-24T19:57:00.006+01:00

Today there was a kernel update for Ubuntu. After the update installed I continued to work for a few hours before shutting the laptop down even though the update recommended a restart for the changes to take effect.

Later I started the laptop to check something online - only to get the "White Screen" problem. The symptom is that I could login as normal however when the desktop loads you can only see a white cursor on a white background, luckily the cursor has a dark outline :). The Compiz "Cube" effect still works.

The online howto documents all seemed to go deep into the command line to reconfigure the X Windows system. Some advice given was to update the ATI drivers or reconfigure ATI via the "aticonfig" command.

Then I remembered the EnvyNG program that I used to install the ATI drivers in the first place. I logged in to Ubuntu and chose to use the "Gnome FailSafe" desktop. Actually the FailSafe Desktop was rather nice - basically my full desktop at full resolution without the funky Compiz effects. Then I ran the "EnvyNG" program and chose the option to "install the ATI driver".

After this had completed I rebooted and found the system safe and well - all fixed and the funky effects are back - even though I don't use the cube effect that much at all but life would be poorer without the wobbly windows.

Demonstrating Lotus Sametime

2008-07-24T10:21:00.003+01:00

When demonstrating Lotus Sametime I like to show dialogue between real people logged into the system. When a network connection is not available this can get a little tricky.

Mikkel Heisterberg has published a tool via Intravision that allows you to simulate people logged into Sametime in various states such as Avalable, In a Meeting, etc.

I've used similar tools in the past that people have hacked together - however this looks like a really nice solution.

Now, if I just had a little Sametime "bot" that could give answers to questions.

Lunar Transit

2008-07-18T16:51:00.002+01:00

The Bad Astronomer has published a movie of a lunar transit in front of the earth. This is simply stunning.

iPhone

2008-07-15T00:06:00.004+01:00

While the iPhone continues to struggle to become as fantastic as the Nokia 6021, - it is still a very good way of demonstrating iNotes.

Thanks to macazin.de

After Windows Update - difficulty going online

2008-07-09T22:27:00.004+01:00

There was a Windows update for XP over the last day or two - and it seems to create difficulty for some XP users who are connecting via ADSL to the interweb.

The fix that works seems to be - go into add/remove programs and remove the last windows update - and after a restart you are back online.

Three separate home users have all had the same issue today that was resolved in the same manner.

update: from the BBC

F1 moves to Donnington

2008-07-04T16:33:00.002+01:00

Formula One will move from the Silverstone circuit to the Donnington Park circuit from 2010 onwards.

Silverstone could have kept the Grand Prix if the government had invested a little money.

According to the BBC Bernie recons...."I believe that the government should have supported them, which would have cost probably less than .002% of the government's commitment for the Olympic Games."

The Olympics are becoming quite expensive - and it looks like they are having great fun with the building projects.

It's great that we still have a British Grand Prix - and Donnington should be fantastic.

Installation of Lotus Foundations - Part 3

2008-07-01T19:50:00.011+01:00

Foundations Start

Now that Foundations Core has been installed and is up and running it's time to install Foundations Start. This is the part of Foundations that includes the Domino email server.

From my Ubuntu client – I started Nautilus file browser, clicked on Network Servers and the system found the Foundations server. Windows Explorer should do the same (file - run - \\ipaddress).

Opening the “Foundations” server required the “root” username and password. The shared folders included one called "autoinstall".

Foundations start is supplied in a file called lfstart-domino-2960.pkg. Copy this file to the autoinstall directory on the Foundations Base server.

Once it has been copied click the "Software Update" menu to see when it is recognised.

When you see the "Installed add-on package" is available you can click on "install". As this package contains a Domino server you should ensure you have sufficient ram allocated to the machine. When you have clicked "install" you should see the following message on the "Status" page.

As the install progresses informational messages are displayed like the next screenshot.

Eventually, after 10 minutes or so you should see.....

So easy.

Installation of Lotus Foundations - Part 2

2008-06-30T23:13:00.006+01:00

Once you have logged in to Foundations as the root user you should see the "System Status" screen where you can make alterations to your system.

At this point the Foundations server is running entirely in memory as there are no Hard Disks available. Looking further through the “Services Status” in the screenshot above you will find the following detail.

Click the "Configure disk #1 as a standalone disk" to format the hard disk and write the Foundations code to it. As this example was created in a VMware image there is no existant data to worry about - just make sure you don't overwrite something important.

Click the "Update Status" button to keep track of when the server has finished configuring the disk.

Once the “Update Status” shows that the disk is available – srcoll down to the bottom of the “Web Configuration” page and choose to “Shutdown” the server. Edit the settings for the VM image and set the DVD drive to be the physical drive, we don't want it to open the ISO image now that the Foundations server can boot fron the hard disk.

Restart the Vmware image and login as root.

At this point the foundations Core server has been installed. The Next step is to install “Foundations Start”.

Installation of Lotus Foundations - Part 1

2008-06-30T19:11:00.011+01:00

Installation of Foundations into VMWare

I created a new VMware machine as a Suse Linux machine with 20GB HD. In the VM settings for the machine I set the DVD to point to the Foundations ISO file, "10_00a1.iso", as the CD drive.

When the Virtual Machine starts the ISO file is loaded and boots Lotus Foundations into memory and displays the following screen.

From your host machine point firefox at https//9.180.19.179:8043. (your ipaddress will differ). You will likely have to add a security exception to add the x.509 certificate for the Foundations server to your browser. Then you should see the following screen, followed by a similar IBM Software Agreement screen.

Once the agreements have been accepted you will see the initial setup screen below.

Fill in a suitable password for the root user and enter your domain name. If you have an Activation Key – fill it in – otherwise the server will run in a time limited mode. Once you click “Save Changes” the root account is created and you are provided with a "Login" button.

Click to Login, and enter the username “root” and the pasword you created previously. You can then view and alter the system status and configuration in the next screen

Ubuntu 8.04 on my Thinkpad T60p (Part 4)

2008-06-19T17:32:00.002+01:00

I was just chatting with Dave Hay about VMWare Workstation on Ubuntu.

After installing VMWare and running "/usr/bin/vmware-config.pl" to configure it - sometimes VMWare will not start. Typically at this stage most people run /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl again in the vain hope that it will "just start working" this time.

It can be easier than that.

Just rename the file "/etc/vmware/not_configured" to something else such as "/etc/vmware/not_configured_backup" (or just delete it).

Try starting VMWare again - it should now work. You might just have to run "vmware-config.pl" again if there really is something wrong.

If, for some apparently random reason, VMWare decides there is anything less than perfect it seem to generate this file. All you have to do is update your system and apply kernel patches to get the file to regenerate.

Ubuntu 8.04 on my Thinkpad T60p (Part 3)

2008-06-19T17:14:00.004+01:00

I was due to attend a web conference today and found that Firefox was not correctly supporting Java.

Some of the fixes on the interweb for this issue are truly horrific and over engineered. After a little research I fixed the problem like this

First I created the link to the java plugin in the firefox plugin directory... using the commands below...

cd /usr/lib/firefox-3.0/plugins$
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so

Second I used the Synaptic Package Manager to remove the package called "icedtea-gcjwebplugin". This was courtesy of Eirik

Just to test that java was working properly - went to www.java.com, clicked on "do i have Java" and saw this little fellow...

Ubuntu 8.04 on my Thinkpad T60p (Part 2)

2008-06-17T16:43:00.003+01:00

Now my thinkpad T60p is running Ubuntu successfully with Lotus Notes 8.5, Symphony office suite, video and the VPN into work is a treat (Lotus Mobile Connect).

A part of my job is giving customer briefings - so I need to be able to use projectors and external screens from my Laptop. This has previously been a real issue when running with Linux. Now it works.

To get an external screen to work I used "Envy", an automated installer for Video drivers. First I used Synaptic to install "envyng-gtk". Then I ran Envy from the menu "Applications/System tools/EnvyNG". This detected my video card, an ATI, and installed the appropriate drivers. This also installed the "ATI Catalyst Control Center" that allowed me to setup the resolution for an external monitor.

Sametime Advanced and Active Directory

2008-06-12T01:04:00.002+01:00

I was working with Mark Rattray with a customer in Mayfair, London, on a Sametime Advanced installation.

We started off by installing sametime Standard 8.0.1 server. We used the customers active directory (2003) directly without directory assistance. At this stage we ran a few tests to ensure the system was wrking well.

Next we installed the Sametime Advanceed server. Again we used the Active Directory for the user directory - Mark was superb in his understanding of active directory and soon made all the right choices to get the LDAP integration sorted - although this was not to the standard LDAP port.

Once both servers were up and running we setup Single Sign On to allow integration between ST Standard and ST Advanced web interfaces. Finally we setup the Sametiem plugins to be delivered directly to the users Sametie clients.

I believe this is the first Sametime Advandced installation on Active Directory at a customer site in the UK. Mark deserves full respect.

Ubuntu 8.04 on my Thinkpad T60p

2008-06-05T22:08:00.004+01:00

Now that my T60p has been repaired, after the LCD had developed multiple horizontal lines, I have upgraded the hard disk to 200GB at 7200rpm.

Ubuntu 8.04 installed sweetly.

To enable the desktop effects I had to enable the ATI drivers first. This was easily done by clicking the menu items System/Administration/Hardware Drivers - then click the box to enable the "ATI accelerated graphics driver". This is a non-free driver. The driver is downloadedand installed automatically and after a restart is ready for action. Then click the menu item System/Preferances/Appearance followed by the "Visual Effects" tab - then click "Extra".

Then the wobbly windows start working. :-)

Once that was all working I ran the Synaptic Package Manager and searched for "Simple Compiz Config Settings Manager" and installed it. The I ran it by the menu item "System/Preferences/ Advanced Desktop Effect Setting" and enabling "rotate cube".

Essential stuff. It's very smooth and the wireless setup was really easy.

goosh !

2008-06-03T16:13:00.003+01:00

goosh is the unofficial Google shell...

and it is lovely.

Try it now - go on.

Sametime Advanced - Not that difficult shocker

2008-06-02T21:55:00.002+01:00

Today I was working with a UK Business Partner who is working towards a deal on Sametime Advanced at a London based customer.

In order to get the partner up to speed we had already worked with the Sales team to understand the benefits of ST Advanced - however it had come time to help the technical team with their first test installation.

This was also my first installation of Sametime Advanced - so we started with a Windows 2003 server and installed Domino 8.0.1 and Sametime 8.0.1 authenticaing via LDAP. Then we installed the Sametime client and checked all was well. That's a simple Sametime Standard setup.

On with the advanced...

Next step was to install DB2 Enterprise Edition which went easily, followed by DB2 Search Extender.

I created the BRKRDB and STADV tables and installed the DB2 license key.

Next up was the install of MQ series, the system requirements showed that Eclipse was missing however this was automatically installed. There was also an install of an MQ fix pack downloaded from the fix pack website.

Then Event Broker was installed - quite simple, followed by configuration via ConfigureEB.bat which needed a little editing.

The last installation was for Sametime Advanced which included the underlying WebSphere Application Server.

A little standard configuration was required to setup SSO between WAS and Domino for http and the installation of the eclipse Plugins for Sametime Advanced into the Domino UpdateSite.nsf for and te job was done.
Although that seems like a lot of work, most of it was quite painless and I was impressed overall and felt confident with the result.

Quite good - and took about 5 hours total

VMware - boot from CD

2008-05-14T18:42:00.005+01:00

When a WMware machine is starting you can choose to boot from CD, to do an install, rather than hard disk.

The important bit is when you start the VMware image, click on the machine to get focus and press escape to get the menu shown.

Not bad - but there is another problem - SCSI drivers. The installer complained "setup did not find any hard disk drives".

So i went to VMWare who had the appropriate SCSI drivers as a floppy image file (vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp) - In VMware settings I placed this file as the image for the floppy drive - and was then able to load the drivers by pressing F6 during setup.

In the VMware / vm /settings make sure that the floppy drive is connected :=)

Antarctic solar eclispse

2008-05-06T00:17:00.001+01:00

wow

Super User access to Quickr (Domino)

2008-05-02T16:33:00.002+01:00

Sometimes it can be useful to have a user who has complete access to information in a system.
These are the instructions on how to set this up for Quickr Services for Domino 8.1

Super User Access

LCTY

2008-04-04T09:16:00.002+01:00

That was a busy few days.
Quite a few of my colleagues were involved in presenting and hosting the LCTY events in Wembley and Manchester.

I think the Manchester event was the better one. It was more suited to meeting up with people, rather than Wembley which was a little too large.

Personally - in Manchester I was able to dump the pre-prepared demo's and go with the live demos across the intermittent hotel wireless network. It was fun.

WeFi

2008-03-26T12:08:00.001Z

WeFi appears to be a really cool way of finding other people on WiFi networks around the country.

I'm not sure if it's simply American focused - however - is it just an updated version of plazes?

Quickr and Sametime together

2008-03-17T17:30:00.001Z

Here's a pdf from Developerworks explaining a few of the intricacies.

ST + Quickr Integration

Quickr and qptool

2008-03-11T23:41:00.002Z

After installing Quickr 8.0.0.2 and the fixpack - I ran these commands.
You could too, just make sure you're happy with what they do!

Unlock all the places:
load qptool unlock –a

Upgrade all the databases on the server:
load qptool upgrade -f –server

Upgrade all the places and Placetypes:
load qptool upgrade -f –a

Unregister and re-register all the places with the Place Catalog:
load qptool unregister -a -placecatalog
load qptool register -a -placecatalog

Adding plugins in Notes 8.0.1

2008-02-21T10:17:00.003Z

I wanted to add the "Quickr plugin" for the Symphony document editors to my notes client after completing a new installation of 8.0.1.

The install instructions are a little sketchy but are included in the comments at that link.
One issue I had was the option "File - Application - Install" was missing from my Notes menu options.

The work around, as provided by developerworks, is to edit the plugin_customization.ini in the /framework/rcp directory.

Add this line to the /framework/rcp/plugin_customization.ini file:

com.ibm.notes.branding/enable.update.ui=true

After you restart the Notes client, you see a new menu option: File - Application - Install.

Obvious really.

Sametime VOIP

2008-02-05T12:38:00.000Z

I was working with certified genius (and ex-lotus support analyst) Andy Dennis on a problem where a Sametime customer wanted to use VOIP via Sametime.

Inside the corporate firewall this was no problem, however outside the firewall VOIP would not work.

To enable VOIP outside the firewall it was necessary to move the "ST Reflector" service off the Sametime server and onto a separate server (nothing too powerful - a glorified workstation would likely do).

The installation of the ST Reflector is covered in the Sametime Infocenter here in the doc "Using the audio STReflector".

The ST Reflector service on this box gave an error -2147483108 every time it was started - which means the reflector service does not have sufficient privileges to contact the Sametime server.

Working with Andy, we were able to get around this issue.

The instructions had stated that the VPS_HOST parameter was needed in the Sametime.ini on the ST Reflector server, however the -2147483108 error was received every time. The problem was that the parameter had to be placed within the "connectivity" section of the ini file - as shown below...

[CONNECTIVITY]
VPS_HOST=server.com

Once this was done the service started properly.

Intermittently we began receiving error -2147483129 when starting the ST Reflector task. This was due to starting the task before the Sametime services were up and running properly after a server restart - just go make a cup of coffee for a few minutes and try again.

In addition to the above info you need to allow the Sametime server to accept connections from the ST Reflector. Add this to the sametime.ini on the Sametime server...

[Config]
VPS_TRUSTED_IPS=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx being the ST reflector servers IP address.

When doing this in a test environment you could use the following ini parameter on the Sametime server to allow any ST Reflector server to connect from any IP address - but you would not do this in production of course...

[Debug]
VPS_BYPASS_TRUSTED_IPS=1

Big Waves

2008-01-13T11:24:00.000Z

I was watching the documentary "Riding Giants",and it reminded me of the old National Geographic advert that was shown in the cinemas a few years back.

I managed to track it down

Watch it full screen as it is simply gorgeous

The surfer is Laird Hamilton

TuxGuitar

2007-12-20T14:48:00.001Z

TuxGuitar is a programme to transcribe music for the guitar.
There are versions for Linux, Mac and Windows available for download - and I think it's worth investigating as according to the website it does the following...

With TuxGuitar, you will be able to compose music using the following features

Tablature editor
Score Viewer
Multitrack display
Autoscroll while playing
Note duration management
Various effects (bend, slide, vibrato, hammer-on/pull-off)
Support for triplets (5,6,7,9,10,11,12)
Repeat open and close
Time signature management
Tempo management
Imports and exports gp3,gp4 and gp5 files

Getting to the websphere Admin console

2007-12-06T00:32:00.001Z

I set-up a Domino 8 and Sametime 8 server, then I installed Quickr 8 (portal) on the same box.
After securing the Quickr to the Domino ldap - I needed to get access to the Websphere console to export the SSO keys in order to import them to Domino and get SSO working.

The deafault url for the Websphere admin from Portal or Quickr is http://hostname:10027/admin
Ever since this port changed from Portal 5, I have to think about it every time.

One day i will remember it.

RSS Reader - Newzie

2007-11-22T20:24:00.001Z

Quickr and Connections have an untold number of rss feeds enabled to allow people to access content from other apps. Due to the large number of feeds i was following I needed a decent rss feedreader.

Newzie is the latest one I've tried an it seems to be quite good.
It's quite pretty to look at - I may be a bit shallow there.

Flock

2007-11-06T12:54:00.002Z

I've been trying out the firefox based Flock browser - In short...it's very good.

It hooks up to several social networking sites, which is a major use as there can be so many of them. One thing I'd like to see added is support for the Google OpenSocial type networks network.

There's an opportunity for someone to create an extension to Lotus Connections as well

Blogged with Flock

Lotus Notes 8 - importing RSS feeds from OPML

2007-10-19T10:45:00.001+01:00

If you use RSS feeds to follow various news sites you will probably end up using an RSS feedreader of some description. If you are an expert in your field then it's good to be able to share your RSS feeds with colleagues so they can learn fro the same sources.

The OPML file format is used to transfer RSS feeds between readers.
Lotus Notes 8 has an RSS feedreader, however there is no obvious method to load an OMPL file.

When you load the Notes 8 RSS feedreader for the first time there is a button to "subscribe to preset feeds". This actually does load an OPML file called "presetfeeds.opml". This file is held in the C:\Notes\framework\rcp\deploy\extras directory .

Just rename your new OPML file to presetfeeds.opml, place it in the C:\Notes\framework\rcp\deploy\extras directory, (after you've backed up the original of course), and click the "subscribe to preset feeds" button. All your new feeds should appear.

Musicmesh

2007-10-12T15:41:00.000+01:00

Musicmesh is a pretty good site that allows you to search for an artist and navigate around to different similar artists. When you select a CD cover the track listing is displayed to one side and if you click on a track the relevant video plays from YouTube.

KeyJNote

2007-10-02T17:34:00.000+01:00

I've been feeling envious of a few colleagues with apple macbooks lately. They are simply stunning to see and use. My old windows laptop seems like a poor unfit cousin by comparison. Seeing Keynote running on the Mac is an experience.

Well.... there is something called KeyJnote.

Keynote displays your presentation once it has been saved as a pdf.
They quality of the images and transitions onscreen is really pleasant to look at and blows away ppt and simpress.

The best part is being able to highlight a section and then zoom into it, and using TAB to find the slide you want, and of course the cool effects.

The downside --- it runs from the command line on windows...
"keyjnote.exe my.pdf".

Don't let that stop you - it's really worth the effort. Or of course - go buy a macbook.

Expanding the size of a VMWare disk

2007-09-14T14:38:00.000+01:00

My friend Neil needed to expand the size of a VMWare disk from 10GB to 20GB.
Initially the idea was to rebuild the VM image, however there had to be a workaround.

We found it "here"

As the disk was the system disk we needed to follow the special instructions in the comments. "To do the system disk you will ned a second virtual machine. Mount the System disk on another virtual machine and a second disk, run diskpart on the disk and then shutdown the machine. No start up the original machine and voila you now have a larger system disk."

Bless those MCPs.

How to hide a factory

2007-09-08T12:25:00.000+01:00

I watched a documentary a couple of years ago where they showed how the british army used a stage illusionist to hide artillery in plain sight in fields on the south coast of england during WWII.

The results were impressive.

This is better

How to hide an entire factory

Organisational Heirarchy in Portal server

2007-08-09T19:59:00.001+01:00

I setup a portal server connected to Domino for ldap and did all the usual configuration.

I created a few test users in Domino and added their managers name into the Work section of their person doc. In the people finder portlet I searched for each user and viewed where the sat in the Organisational hierarchy. The portlet then drew the organisations tree structure as requested.

Later a colleague imported a lot of test users when he installed the ActiveInsight applcation. I could search for these users and view the results as before, however they did not appear in the organisation hierarchy. You could not see who managed which employee.

I tried reloading ldap and restarting the portal server to no effect.

I also a few person docs to clear out and reload the manager field details. This worked - the users appeared as direct reports of their manager.

However it turned out that after investigation and a lot of experimentation that i just needed to make an edit of each users person doc, not even to change anything - just to touch the doc. I found a quick way to do this was to slect all users and run the agent "Upgrade to More Secure Internet Password".

Now I can see the entire company hierarchy in people finder.

I could easily have wasted a lot of time on this.

Cool train stunt - engineering

2007-08-09T18:32:00.000+01:00

It's amazing what kids can do these days
==> Trains

Facebook

2007-07-25T16:46:00.000+01:00

I never saw the point in facebook.
However I signed up to check it out - just to keep someone quiet.

Pretty dull.

Then someone contacted me... and I contacted someone else...
and it really started.

it's fun

Lotus Quickr Templates

2007-07-20T11:18:00.000+01:00

The Snapps team have completed and published the new templates for Lotus Quickr services for Domino.

You can register for, and download these superb open source apps from http://QuickrTemplates.com

Well done Rob, Viktor and team

3D Mailbox... joke ?

2007-07-19T18:39:00.001+01:00

I really hope this is a joke
http://www.3dmailbox.com
The thought is disturbing - then there's the video.

Well, maybe it's better than outlook

Notes 8 composite apps - the easy way

2007-07-13T10:52:00.001+01:00

One of the main features of Notes 8 is the composite applications. This allows mutliple apps, not all Notes apps, to be combined together as a mashup and delivered as a single application to the Notes desktop.

If you'd like to setup a good demo - have a look in the sandbox.
Sandbox - composite app

The app is based upon sales lead management. There is no development required to get this up and running. Just follow the included instructions.

When placing some of the files in the Notes data directory the instruction is to place the files in the root data directory - I chose to place the files in a subdirectory such as notes\data\compapp

A nice demo.

2007-07-10T10:32:00.001+01:00

The BBC have an article discussing how there is an issue with older Word documents becoming harder to read as older versions of Windows and Office are made obsolete.
Here's the accompanying movie.

Lovely - so the solution appears to be that the BBC demonstrate how cool Vista looks as opposed to older versions and then proceeds to demonstrate the need to use MS Virtual PC in conjunction with an ever increasing selection of Virtual PC images just to read a text document. Have they heard of Heath Robinson?

Of course - if you really want to be able to read some important documents after a decade or two - you could choose ODF, OpenOffice, StarOffice, Lotus Notes 8, Neo Office, etc....who mentioned license fee?

Need some email?

2007-07-06T22:59:00.000+01:00

Ok, so there used to be discussions about Exchange vs Domino for email.
Anyone educated in the debate understood that Domino gave secure distributed applications and also did email as a very good aside.

So.. if you just need email..not applications.. try Zimbra

Here's a good writeup

upgrading Ubuntu from 6.10 to 7.04

2007-07-05T11:58:00.000+01:00

I've been using Ubuntu 6.10 for a while and thought it was about time to upgrade to 7.04.

I opened the terminal and typed.... gksu "update-manage -c". This brought up the update manager dialog box with the button to upgrdae to the nextr version of Ubuntu. I clicked the button and the upgrdae promptly failed. In the terminal window there was a message regarding "GnuPG exited non-zero, with code 131072".

This basically means that Ubuntu is trying to ensure that the downloads it wants to grab are really the right ones - it does this by checking the PGP keys against a signature - and cannot find any PGP setup on the local machine.

The fix is to run "pgp" in the terminal. Once PGP states "Go ahead and type your message" press Ctrl-C to break out and re-run the update manager with - gksu "update-manage -c".

Click the button and all should be well (as long as you've made a backup of course)

Navigating around Notes8

2007-06-27T10:01:00.000+01:00

I found a couple of useful shortcuts when using the Notes 8 client (beta 3).

Try Ctrl + F7 - this opens a quick navigation menu of the open Notes panels.

and...

Try Ctrl + F8 - which opens a quick navigation menu of the open Notes tabs.

Cheers

Safari Browser on windows

2007-06-11T23:17:00.000+01:00

So Apple released their Safari browser on the Windows platform. After a little testing it appears to be really fast. Really fast.

i like it a lot, the question is as i move more and more towards Linux desktop - will it appear there?
At first look Internet Explorer is such as poor relation to this browser.

Firefox is still top in my opinion as it works for me on Windows and Linux - however If Safari does appear on Linux I'll be faced with a new choice. Maybe Firefox needs to go on a diet.

Choice is good.

How NOT to use Powerpoint

2007-06-06T22:53:00.000+01:00

Presenting is an art, some people are good at it, some are not, everyone could do with a little improvement.

I've believed for a long time that you should be able to describe your topic verbally, or with pen and paper, before anyone lets you loose with a multimedia presentation.

Lately, when provided with a presentation to deliver,(using either Notes 8 or OpenOffice), I have taken to removing slides with too much content or without a simple graphic. Really keep it simple.

The video below is a classic, funny sketch that is well worth watching.

http://www.davidairey.com/how-not-to-use-powerpoint

Quickr online presentations

2007-05-23T09:42:00.000+01:00

Although Quickr there is not a publicly available demonstration server for Quickr just yet... there are a few online demonstration movies or screencams available.

Luis Suarez has made one available online here , and offline here.

Additionally Rob Novak and his team are responsible for some amazing free (open source?) templates for Quickr which provide a load of really cool functionality. A couple of them are demonstrated online, namely the QPresent and QPhotos.

Further online demos of Lotus software are available here, including Notes 8, Quickr, ActiveInsight, Domain Monitoring, and DWA.

something for all the family

Off topic again

2007-05-22T15:16:00.000+01:00

This UK history is quite similar to the universe scale - and is superb
uk history timeline

Whereas this site shows Paris as a Roman city.

Migrating notes apps to Linux desktop

2007-05-09T05:37:00.000+01:00

Once I had setup Notes 8 on Linux using the new Open client - the next step was to copy across the multiple nsf that I had on my windows Notes client.

I simply copied them across using a usb disk drive.

Once they were safely on my Linux disk I ran "chmod 664 *.nsf" in a terminal to set the permissions correctly

Nicely done

Quickr

2007-05-03T14:01:00.000+01:00

Working with Some of the new software - experimentation time.
For anyone with a Domino background, this is easy.

Very Cool

Sametime 7.5.1

2007-04-26T12:00:00.000+01:00

The new version of Sametime has been released.
There are plenty of reasons to upgrade - most of which are listed here.

Linux server support is the main feature I've been waiting for, however point to point video should be fun to demo.

Funnily enough - one of the new features is out of the box support for Outlook.

Pretty good.

Domino 8 Linux issues - resolved

2007-04-17T18:57:00.000+01:00

I had a couple of issues setting up the Domino 8 beta server on Linux.

Firstly – when installing the server, do not select to create the symbolic link – softlink if you are installing into the default locations.

Also I had the usual problem where xwindows could not display the setup program. The error was

“Please edit your shell's DISPLAY environment variable to
reflect an unlocked terminal that you would like to launch
the Domino Setup Program”
The fix was to su to root and run the command /usr/X11R6/bin/xhost this sets security to let the machine export the display on it's own screen
then as the “notes” user run...
DISPLAY=:0.0
export DISPLAY

Once this is done cd to the /local/notesdata directory and run /opt/ibm/lotus/bin/server to start the setup program.

searching IBM software support - the easy way

2007-04-13T15:12:00.000+01:00

The IBM software support web is full of usefull info and technotes, most admin and developers refer to it regularly. However it's not the easiest site in the world to navigate.

For years I have been searching the site through google by specifying site:ibm.com in the search box. I wish i could remember where I picked this link up from - however....

In the google search box try entering the text below...

sametime site:ibm.com/support/docview.wss

alternatively just click this link

Red Hat SLED 10 on a t60p

2007-04-12T09:37:00.000+01:00

The latest (beta of course) version of the IBM Open Client is based upon RHEL 5.
The intention is to get the OS instaled with Notes 8, VMware and the VPN client Lotus Mobile Connect (WECM).
~~Even though this is all still in beta I've decided it's likely my best option for my T60p.~~

That was a short lived idea, SLED 10 seems like a much better idea at this stage for this setup - rather than a manipulated build of the rhel 5 beta . Installed like a dream and already has Notes 8 and vmware up and running.

Universescale

2007-03-31T13:59:00.000+01:00

This is way off topic... but so good

Universcale

Once it loads you can navigate the ruler along the bottom

Sametime 7.5.1 - Linux Server

2007-03-30T08:20:00.000+01:00

Finally - my demo server systems are going to be 100% linux.
The clients are going to have click to start web conferences too on Linux and mac.

Good stuff

Notes 8 beta 2 on Ubuntu

2007-03-21T12:14:00.000Z

Alan Bell, http://dominux.co.uk explained how to enable the installation of Notes 8 on Ubuntu.
Basically the installer requires bash rather than dash. To do this as Alan explained...
start a terminal session, and...

cd /bin
ls -l sh
this should show sh -> dash
sudo rm sh
sudo ln -s bash sh
ls -l sh
this should now show sh -> dash

Download the installer for Notes8 beta 2 for Linux from IBM and extract the archive by running...
tar -xvf notes8standard_linux_beta2_np.tar

Once this has been successfully completed you can run the Notes8beta installer by running ./setup.bin

From this point onwards the intsallation if basically the same as on the Windows platform.
After installation the client can be started by running ./notes from inside the clients directory.

I found that I had to exit the client and restart it to successfully get up and running.

Free Web Conferencing

2007-03-07T01:07:00.000Z

www.yugma.com looks pretty good.
It's a free (no cost) web conferencing tool for 10 people and works on Mac as well as windows.

Apparently they also have a tool called LetsPowwow which is available on Linux

2007-01-08T15:32:00.000Z

Sametime 7.5 works in conjunction with Cisco IP Telephones.
I got it to connect up with the Cisco Call Manager and Presence Server - although the cisco side of things did seem a little trick to myself - it seemed simple enough to one of their technical guys

Setting up an external monitor - Thinkpad T41 with RHEL4

2006-12-22T12:38:00.000Z

How top setup T41 to use external monitor.

Previously used “sytem-config-diaplay”
this caused problems where login at X would log staight back out again.

Ran “aticonfig --initial=dual-head --screen-layout=left” and so am now using proprietary ATI drivers.
“sytem-config-diaplay” will no longer work as the ati drivers are now in force.

The external monitor now shows “Input signal out of range”.

Running the command “xrandr -s 1024x768” changes the resolution and the external screen displays properly.

Running the command “xrandr -s 1400x1050” changes the resolution back again and the external screen shuts off.

Now the external screen is working as a second screen - where I want a clone for presenting.
Run "aticonfig --desktop-setup=clone --overlay-on=1"

Red Hat Login problem

2006-12-20T18:18:00.000Z

In a moment of genius I enabled dual head monitors on a Thinkpad T41 running RHEL4 and found that each login took me straight back to the login prompt (gnome).

When I booted to init 3 and ran system-config-display I was able to deselect the dual head option.

Saved the day - woohoo!

Lotus Notes on Ubuntu Linux

2006-12-07T16:11:00.000Z

Here's a guide to installing Notes 7.0.1 on Ubunbtu Linux.

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=222492

There's also this script from an IBM guy who got it running on his thinkpad with ubuntu based simplymepis http://divby0.blogspot.com/2006/11/notes-7-simplymepis-6-one-sweet-lappy.html

Quickplace and Sametime integrated

2006-09-01T17:49:00.000+01:00

It's sometimes useful to have both Sametime and Quickplace running on a single box. It's not supported...but so what, just use it for your own edification.

This will get Instant Messaging and awareness working - online meetings are another matter.

Anywhere you add the hostname of the server please use the fully qualified domain name (fqdn), such as "domino.domain.com" - otherwise this will not work.

The versions are Win2k, Domino 7.0.1, Quickplace 7 and Sametime 7.5.

The installation order of the software is essential. Don't install Quickplace last.

Install Domino first, then Quickplace. When installing quickplace you will be asked for an admin username - I used qpadmin. The qpadmin user does not need to exist in the Domino directory. Once the server has started log into quickplace as the qpadmin user and set the directory type to Domino, then add an existing Domino user account as an additional Quickplace administrator.

In Notes, open the server document and set the "Session Authentication" to Multi Server (SSO). Then restart the http task.

Log into quickplace as the Domino user you just added and check that all appears fine.

Stop Domino and install Sametime with the option of using Domino as it's directry.

Start Domino and log into Sametime via a browser using the existing domino acount that you set to be the Quickplace administrator and check that it appears to behave properly.

Browse to Quickplace and edit -> "Server Settings" -> "Other Options" to contain the (fqdn)hostname of the server for both "Sametime Community Server" and "Sametime Meeting Server".

It's not neccessary - but I restarted Domino at this point.

Log into Quickplace as your Domino user and you should now see Sametime awareness anywhere your name appears.

Have fun

Stellarium

2006-03-22T00:42:00.000Z

If you like looking at the sky at night - then you need stellarium.

It can be downloaded from http://www.stellarium.org and will run on Linux, mac or Windows.

Sometimes - it's just a slow news day

2005-11-28T17:50:00.000Z

You just have to love this
Four donkeys

Domino using Active Directory via Directory Assistance

2005-11-22T16:20:00.000Z

After a little faffing around I setup Domino 7 to have no users local to its directory (other than a Domino admin account). All usernames that accessed the Domino applications, via http, were held in Active Directory 2003.

It's simple enough to repeat. Just use "Directory Assistance" with...
Domain type "LDAP"
Make this Domain available to...Notes clients and Internet Authentication and LDAP Clients (last bit for another purpose).
Group Authorization = yes
Enabled = yes
The naming context rules I left as wildcard... */*/*/*/*/* yes and yes
On the LDAP tab..
Hostname = fully.qualifiedhostname.com
credentials = CN=testadmin,CN=Users,DC=company,DC=com

Save the document and then edit the ACL of the Domino application you want people to acess. For a test I added a wildcard access in the ACL with the syntax as follows....
*/CN=Users/DC=company/DC=com (with access set to Author).

Nice and easy for any basic Domino administrator

Linux and DVD

2005-11-20T23:23:00.000Z

If you're running Linux and want to watch your legally owned DVDs on your legally owned PC you might find that some distro' do not include the code to view them. Opensuse 10 is a case in point.

Apparently WinXP is the same - Media Player cannot run a DVD unless you have the codecs installed from elsewhere - such as WinDVD.

The following URL should help improve your viewing pleasure.
http://cambuca.ldhs.cetuc.puc-rio.br/xine/

Make sure you remove the existing "xine" and "kaffine" from your suse10 system first as they have been scuppered.

Wireless works

2005-11-11T14:24:00.000Z

I finally got around to sorting out my wireless networking issue.

I ran through the networking setup as if from scratch and everything just worked. Simple.
WEP is enabled and all works perfectly.

good stuff

Wireless

2005-10-24T09:14:00.000+01:00

Now that Suse 10 is up and running - it's pretty useless until I can get the Wireless networking sorted. The system is dual boot with WinXP.

The card is a netgear MA311

Grub error 18

2005-10-22T01:23:00.000+01:00

Well - I installed Suse 10 alongside WinXP on my home system. I recently upgraded the dying hard disk from 60GB to 180GB (supposedly a 200GB HD - but you know the score).

During the install and after the 1st CD - the system reboots as expected but fails to restart with "grub error 18".

It turned out that creating a boot partition 0f 0.5 GB (probably 100MB would do) fixed the problem. It seems that grub has an issue with large partitions.