LotusBerry

 I am a fat guy. I am a fat guy that sits behind a desk all day. While I do have a gym membership and try to make it at least 3 times a week, I more often than not fail at that goal. So what makes me think I can be a runner?? I mean, I've never been a fan of running. I probably haven't run/jogged more than a half a mile since high school! Yet here I am contemplating taking up running. For fun!

It all started with the evil that is Twitter. Like most people I signed up, started following people I knew and names I recognized. Then started following the followers of those people. And I've actually managed to meet some of those people in real life and become, if not friends, at least acquaintances. Sounds pretty good so far, huh?

See, the problem with getting to know people is you get to know their likes and dislikes--what inspires them. That's all well and good but then what inspires them starts to inspire you. It's not that you're trying to copy or steal anything from them but you just sort of get caught up in their excitement. Like running.

There are a couple of avid runners on my Twitter friends' list, who shall remain nameless, that I met at IamLUG in St. Louis, MO who were dedicated crazy enough to get up every morning and run. At 7:00 AM. Before breakfast even! While I admired their dedication I valued my sleep more. Still... I was jealous? Curious? Inspired? Whatever it was the seed of becoming a runner was planted and has been germinating for the last couple of months. I even went for a run/walk stumble/crawl a couple of times in September, but I didn't stick with it. And that's really the root of my lifelong weight issues--consistancy.

Now like many of you, I'm also an IT geek and I love my toys. So when I saw that the Amazon Deal of the Day was the Garmin Forerunner 305 I thought, "This might be the answer to my problems with motivation!" I read some of the reviews and decided, probably rather impulsively, to order one.

So now I'm a fat guy that sits behind a desk all day waiting for a package from Amazon and dreaming of the yards, nay miles, that he will some day traverse on foot.

Wish me luck!

 Twitter is all a-buzz as many people post their travel plans for UKLUG in Edinburgh, Scotland later this week. It reminds me that my wife has been making noises to do more traveling. I told her we could go up to the outlet stores in Hagerstown, MD anytime she wants.

Luckily the only shoe she had handy wasn't very aerodynamic so it was easy to dodge.

Seriously though, we've been talking about taking a trip out of the country. So far I think Toronto in the Spring is at the top of our list. Which means I need to get a passport. I had one when I was 5 years old because my father, and therefore the rest of the family, was transferred to Frankfurt, Germany for three years. Needless to say that passport, even if I could find it, isn't going to cut it anymore.

So if I manage to get my passport I think I should take advantage of it and go to UKLUG next year. Seems reasonable, doesn't it? It also seems reasonable to me that since the conference is only two days and the distance is over 3000 miles, we should go ahead and stay for at least a week. Maybe two. That should keep me out of the line of shoe fire until at least 2011 don't you think?

So who's with me??

 At my office we are currently on Lotus Notes & Domino 7.0.3. We're also running a Sametime 7.5.1 server. As you know, the "embedded" Sametime client in Lotus Notes 7.0.3 client does not have the ability to view the Business Cards but with the imminent availability of Lotus Notes & Domino 8.5.1 that's all going to change. It's my belief that once users see the new features in the 8.5.1 client they are going to want them enabled--specifically the Business Card photo.

In the following scenarios I've rounded off the numbers and increased them just to make both the math easier and to try predicting a worse case.

Scenario A: Let's say that we have 10,000 names in our Domino directory (names.nsf) and it's current size is 500 MB. If we add a 50 kb photo to every Person document as IBM suggests (50 kb x 10,000 = 500,000 kb or 500 MB) we've just doubled the size of our Domino directory. One person on my Admin team thinks this will slow down Notes (addressing new memos, searching the Person view, etc.) however I feel that since the photo field isn't searchable (non-text) that the only noticable slowdown might be that it takes a couple extra seconds to open the whole Domino directory in the client. The advantages I see are that it's easy to add the field to the Person doc and our in-place agents would automate the creation and deletion of users along with their photos.

Scenario B: Assuming the same size Domino directory, if we were to create a seperate database per IBM's alternate instructions the size of the Domino directory would not increase. However the Domino directory would have to call the photo database every time someone hovered over a user's name anywhere in the Notes or Sametime client. And per Mary Beth Raven's post, there would be calls to the photo database everytime someone addressed a new memo. That just seems like an awful lot of extra work for the servers and network. Not to mention the editing that would have to be done to the existing agents to maintain the photo database.

So my questions to you, my faithful readers, are:

1. How large is your Domino directory and does that include user photos?
2. Have you implemented user photos and if so, what method did you use?
3. Did you notice any slow down or problems in your directory after implementing user photos?

Any real life experience, ideas, or concerns would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

So I'm reading through the FAQ on the LotusphereLive site and I find this little gem:



Do they really think they're going to get several thousand geeks to disconnect their electronic umbilical cords??

Wow. I just posted my first idea on IdeaJam. 

This idea occurred to me the other day while researching enterprise solutions for social networking.  The most valuable aspects of things like Facebook and Twitter, to me at least, seem to be the ability to see what everyone I follow is doing or working on.  So why can't we have that functionality in Sametime?

Sametime is already locked down for internal use only in most cases so there's not really the fear of people wasting time like there is with Facebook or MySpace.  This would allow users to feel more connected to what the Lotus Notes Developers are working on, for example.  It would also allow managers to immediately see what their team is working on without having a meeting or multiple emails on project status.  In a more strictly social networking sense, this would allow employees to get a feel for each other's personalities.  I also sometimes get the feeling that we in IT are viewed as either know-it-all gods or out-of-touch elitists by the people we support.  Those who wish to utilize it might find themselves more accessible to their user community in a less formal manner than say, opening a trouble ticket.

Please promote my idea if you think it has merit or better yet, tell the technology already exists!  Of course all constructive critism is welcome too.  I may be dreaming of something that the application just can't accomplish.

In my ongoing effort to bring my company out of the dark ages of stovepipe thinking and into the sunny fields of collaboration, I've started playing around with the DominoBlog template (we're a 7.0.3 shop).  I'm kind of flailing my arms over here though because I'm not a developer or even a coder.  I know some HTML and I have a basic understanding of CSS but that's about it.  I'd really like to customize the look and feel of the template.

• What (code) languange does the template use?
• Any suggestions on a book or manual for dummies on that language?
  
• Does anyone know of any white papers or manuals that explain how to customize the DominoBlog.ntf specifically?

Thank you in advance.

I've had a  blog in another location for personal use for many years as well as my own website and domain. However, I'm going to take advantage of this space in order to blog about more professional subjects.  I've been a Lotus Notes Admin for a large government consulting firm for the last four years.  Prior to that I worked on the Helpdesk for two years. Prior to that I had never touched Lotus Notes.  So needless to say, I still consider myself a novice admin.  I've played around with the Developer client a little but I don't know anything about lotuscript or Eclipse.

The reason I've started this blog, in this place, is because I have sort of been tasked with exploring the possibilities of incorporating social networking into our company.  We've just finished upgrading all our clients to 7.0.3.  While we do run Sametime, some of our offices don't use it because of worries that people will "waste time".  So you can see, I've got my work cut out for me.  Actually nothing definite has been assigned to me but I've been asked by my boss to "look into social networking" while I'm at Lotusphere this year.  I know I could just contact our IBM representatives and have them come in with a presentation, and I may still do that, but I'd like to take this opportunity to make my own presentation and shine by presenting it to the "suits" myself.

So if anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.