Life is too short to drink che...

 The Tuning performance of the server document found in IBM's Domino and Notes Information Center for Traveler 8.5.1 is misleading. I found this out the hard way after a server reboot yesterday. All of a sudden, my device users could not communicate with the server, their recipients were getting multiple copies of messages being sent from their devices, and the server log kept showing "Lotus Traveler task did not respond within the allotted time frame. Client request denied for user". I opened a PMR with IBM tech support and after sending them many log files, it was found that the setting for the servlet.properties file is not correct.

AS_REQUEST_TIME_LIMIT is correctly stated as being in seconds. However, ntstimeoutsyncas is in milliseconds, not seconds. Thus, the servlet is only waiting 230ms for the traveler process to respond. That is such a short period of time that you are going to see that timeout very, very often.
You should change ntstimeoutsyncas to be 230000 instead of 230 in servlets.properties.

After making the change and restarting the server, all is well again.

 A week short of 5 years with my current employer, I am moving on to a new opportunity with another company beginning Monday, November 9. I'll still remain in the Lotus Domino arena as well as the Blackberry world. But my new position will open up additional opportunities for me as well. I'm excited to move on, but saddened as well to be leaving behind many friends and good co-workers.

Is there a way to set the field Refresh design on admin server only on multiple databases at once? What a pain it would be to have to do it individually on 2000+ databases. 

Somewhere along the way (I believe starting with v8.5), if you register a user with a Notes ID, they cannot change their internet password. The option in DWA preferences doesn't appear for them. However, they can use the following URL to change their internet password:

http://servername/mailpath/mailfilename.nsf?changepassword

Has anyone had success getting the Notes 8.5 standard config client to work when a user's data folder resides on a file server? If you use the basic configuration, all works well. However, the standard client won't open. The splash screen appears, and in task manager the notes.exe and nlnotes.exe exist, but the notes2.exe never executes. What also happens is that the lotus\notes\data\workspace\.config folder gets renamed to .configbak (why?), but a new .config folder cannot be created because it is using a / slash for the directory name (where this is coming from I haven't a clue). I am using an account with full admin rights so it's not a permissions issue.

If you haven't already registered and are planning on attending....

Why not join us in Chicago and attend what is shaping up to be a very information packed 2 days with your fellow colleagues in the Midwest region. Session information has been posted on the site, but here are just a few of the speakers and session topics we have lined up so far:

Preparing for the Mobile Applications Onslaught - presented by John Wargo
Dust off your servers with a server health check - presented by Kim Greene
Integration and Coexistence: Leveraging Lotus & Microsoft products to build better solutions - presented by John Head
AJAX and JSON - presented by Scott Good
Lowering costs - should we consider Linux for Lotus - presented by William Malchisky Jr.
Getting social in the Lotus space - presented by Gregg Eldred

Ed Brill will be giving the  keynote presentation (worth the price of admittance right there). On Thursday, thanks to our generous sponsors, there is a Chicago River and Lake Michigan Boat Tour Event.

For more information and to register, go to http://www.mwlug.com/mwlug/mwlug.nsf

As part of the MWLUG Conference 2009 special event, attendees will be treated to an architecture boat tour of the Chicago river and Lake Michigan on Thursday, August 27. This event is made possible by the generosity of our MWLUG Conference sponsors.

We will embark from the IBM Center after the first day of sessions and workshops to the Wrigley Building by trolley where we have reserved one of the largest architecture tour boats. Below is a brief description of the 1.5 hour Lakefront and Chicago River Tour.

There is limited seating so make sure you register for the conference as soon as possible. If you are coming with your family to the conference, there are also a limited number of seats that attendees can purchase at a specially reduced price for your family members.

Wendella 90-Minute Combined Lake and River Tour
Chicago's most comprehensive boat tour. Our signature tour of Lake Michigan and the Chicago River includes a trip through the Chicago Lock and a live narration featuring an overview of architecture and history.

Many guests who took this tour with their parents return years later with children and grandchildren of their own; each new generation creating new family memories. And while Chicago's skyline has evolved over the years, Wendella continues to provide unique perspectives of the magnificent buildings and architecture along the Chicago River before venturing out to Lake Michigan where guests are treated to a rich view of the entire skyline.

The Combined Lake and River Tour is perfect for anyone interested in spending quality time with family, friends, colleagues or others who have an interest in Chicago's rich culture and history.

Join us and your peers at the Northeast Ohio User Group on Thursday, June 25th from 8:30am -1pm at the CDW Building in Brecksville Ohio. Special Guest Speakers are  Declan Lynch discussing xpages,  IBM/RPM presenting a Lotus Connections demo, and Sherpa Software presenting Compliance Attender.  IBM will be sponsoring breakfast, we do not have a sponsor for lunch.

8:30 - 9     Continental breakfast courtesy of IBM
9 - 10:15   RPM/IBM presentation on Connections
10:15 - 10:30 Break
10:30 - 11:30 Sherpa presentation on Compliance Attender
11:30 - 12:15 Declan Lynch XPages web presentation
Lunch courtesy of IBM

Please RSVP to Mike Dutiel at mdutiel@emp.com by Friday, June 19th.


CDW
6650 West Snowville Road
Brecksville, OH 44141

Directions:

From The North (I-77 South)
1.        At exit 147, take ramp right and follow signs for Miller Rd 0.2 mi
2.        Turn left onto Miller Rd 0.3 mi
3.        Turn left onto Southpointe Pkwy 0.2 mi
4.        Turn right onto W Snowville Rd
5.        Turn left onto Noble Park Drive
6.        6650 W Snowville Rd Ste A, Brecksville, OH 44141will be on your left hand side.

From The South (I-77 North)
1.        At exit 145, take ramp right for Oh-21 / Brecksville Rdtoward Ohio Turnpike 0.4 mi
2.        Keep straight onto SR-21 / Brecksville Rd 1.5 mi
3.        Turn left onto W Snowville Rd 0.4 mi
4.        Turn left onto Noble Park Drive
5.        6650 W Snowville Rd Ste A, Brecksville, OH 44141will be on your left hand side.

From  (I-80)
1.        At exit 173, take ramp right for Oh-21 toward Akron / Cleveland 0.7 mi
2.        Turn left onto SR-21 / Brecksville Rd 0.8 mi
3.        Turn left onto W Snowville Rd 0.4 mi
4.        Turn left onto Noble Park Drive
5.        6650 W Snowville Rd Ste A, Brecksville, OH 44141will be on your left hand side.

Speaker abstract submissions has been opened for the Midwest Lotus User Conference in Chicago on August 27-28, 2009.

To submit an abstract, click here: Speaker Abstract Submission

OK this is getting old. Seems as soon as we fix one issue with our production Domino 8.5 mail server, another issue arises. Today the server crashed and restarted itself from 4AM until 8AM (when I got the resolution from IBM support) once an hour due to Panic: unexpected internal error returned to logger errors. Find out this is caused by corrupted transaction log files so I have to disable transaction logging and create new ones. It was just 2 weeks ago I had to rebuild the server from the base code and apply a new hotfix to address HTTP memory issues. When will the madness end! (Can you tell I'm releasing some frustration here). Don't get me wrong, I love working with Lotus Domino, but I'm getting tired defending it to my management. Tell me I'm not the only one facing these type of issues...

Does anyone know what the difference is between the statistics of total.smtp.routed vs. total.smtp.transferred? I can't find any documentation on what these stats indicate. I'm trying to get a good indication of how much smtp mail we send/receive on a particular server. We have a Notes 8.5 server.

It took awhile, but finally got the Notes 8.5 standard client upgrade working for our Citrix users. The challenge was due to the fact that we place the user's data folder on a network share. In order to accomplish this, first I had to copy the 8.5 data folder that was created on the Citrix server to the user's data folder overwriting any existing templates. Next, I changed the properties of the Notes 8.5 icon to use the user's data folder to find the notes.ini file (ex. \\servername\users$\%username%\lotus\notes\data\notes.ini and also made sure that the Start In: field said C:\Lotus\notes\framework/.. We'll be placing a txt file in the user's data folder so that when the login script runs, if it finds the txt file it continues on, if not it will copy the data fiiles from a shared location into the user's data folder. Now just have to wait for McAfee Antivirus software to be upgraded on all our Citrix servers.

Reading the announcement today, I looked through the new capabilities being offered to the user. One I find very interesting is the Ignore Conversation feature. This e-mail “mute button” allows people to remove themselves from an irrelevant e-mail string, reducing unwanted e-mail and runaway reply-all threads. That would be a cool feature to have. To my knowledge, that is not available today in Lotus Notes. If it is, could someone please let me know. 

Just completed a migration of 10 users from a MS Exchange server to Lotus Notes. I used Binary Tree's CMT for Notes for the server migration. Doing this over a wide-area network was a slow process (the Exchange server was located in Chicago and I'm in Canton, OH). For the user's archive files, however, I used the Lotus Notes upgrade service. Worked like a charm. Just had to create a MAPI profile that pointed to the users .pst file and it created a a_personalfolders.nsf. Having never used that before I would recommend it. I especially liked the fact that I could include all the user's archive .pst files and process them as one. It created separate folders in the Notes file. Now if I was doing this for 100s of users, I would suggest using the CMT for Notes user side migration instead.

Steelers to loose Super Bowl Trophies

Pittsburgh, PA. The Super Bowl XLIII Champion Pittsburgh Steelers, the only team to win six titles, will soon be loosing half of those trophies. After a meeting between NFL Commissioner Rodger Gadel and President Barack Hussain Obama, Obama decided to redistribute half of their Steeler Super Bowl victories and trophies to less fortunate teams in the league.
“We live everyday in the country that invented the Super Bowl.” said Obama “We are not about to lose this Great American tradition in the wake of these difficult times.” Obama’s plan calls for the Steelers, who are a successful NFL team, to give half of their Super Bowl trophies to teams that are not successful or have not been as successful as the Steelers. “The Detroit Loins are just as much a part of the same fiber of the NFL as the Steelers and they should, no rather will, be entitled to a Super Bowl Trophy as well.” Obama explains in his plan that he has imposed on Godel and the NFL.
The Pittsburgh Steelers, who by virtue of hard work, excellent team play, stellar draft choices, responsible investing of free agents, careful hiring of coaches and excellent community service and commitment to their fans, has prospered greatly during the past 30 years and have won six Super Bowl Trophies. But President Barack Hussain Obama’s plan calls for the Pittsburgh Steelers to carry the larger burden of the NFL’s less successful teams. Obama went on to further proclaim, “In these difficult times we are all in this to work together. We must reclaim the NFL Championship Dream for every team, for every city and for every fan.”
“My plan will not affect 31 of the 32 teams in the league.” Obama assures. That’s over 95 percent of the teams in the NFL will not have to worry about loosing any Super Bowl Trophies. “The worst teams in the NFL and the teams that can’t seem to get a break and win a championship will no longer have to worry about going without a title.” Obama promises. “We are a country and league of hope. We all need to make a change. It does not matter the color of the teams uniforms, the personal decisions that the teams make or their performance but rather if they are a member of this great American league.”
The Super Bowl XLIII trophy will be redistributed to the 0-16 Detroit Lions. Through no fault of their own incompetence, the Lions could not manage a victory all season and this trophy will help ease the pain of their lack of performance and give them hope once again. The redistribution of Super Bowl XL trophy will go directly to the Steeler’s division rival the Cincinnati Bengals. The Bengals who also have fallen on hard times have never won a Super Bowl. This victory will bring a smile to hundreds of Bengal fans all over the world as they can now celebrate. Finally, one of the Steeler’s two Super Bowl victories over the Dallas Cowboys will go back to the Cowboys since the league needs to provide hope in the face of difficulty and provide hope in the face of uncertainty. This is a heavy burden for the Steelers but together we can all prosper.
All hope is not lost for Pittsburgh fans, Barack Hussain Obama has another plan in place. Obama has meet with MLB and commissioner Bud Selig on a similar plan. The New York Yankees will redistribute two of their world series trophies to the Pittsburgh Pirates as a supplement to their loosing 16 straight seasons and counting. This plan will help stimulate the Pirates and enable them to regain the American Dream. Barack Hussain Obama will be meeting with the NHL and Michael Phelps in the upcoming weeks as this issue is high on his agenda for “Hope and Change.”

APRIL FOOLS!