Welcome to

Instant IBM Lotus Notes 8.5.3 How-to is the latest Lotus Notes title out of Packt Publishing. If you are new to the How-to series, they are the Packt equivalent to the O’Reilly pocket guides. Hmmm, didn’t someone say that they should do this awhile ago?

This short to-the-point book will likely be a welcome sight to end-users who tend to have little to no interest in the massive tomes that are usually published. Each chapter follows an easy to understand format of problem or topic, followed by “Getting ready”, “How to do it”, “How it works”, and finally “There’s more”. When used properly, this formula can make it easy for the reader to find quick answers to specific topics or problems. Sadly, these sections really are not used to their full extent in many chapters. For instance, the chapter Mastering Calendar and To-Dos uses calendar federation as its “How to do it” with the real calendar mastering tips in the “There’s more” section. Maybe it’s me, but it just doesn’t read smooth.

Now, that said, it doesn’t mean that this book is bad. In fact, there are many very useful tips. I would go so far as to say that I would be quite happy if every one of my customer’s end-users had this book on their desk. You just need to look past this books quirks and you’ll find some wonderful nuggets of information.

Disclaimer: Packt Publishing provided a free review copy of the book for the purpose of this review.

The book is available now from Packt Publishing and Amazon.

It has been 4 years since I released the first beta version of Flow on OpenNTF.org, and almost 2 years since the last update. I must apologize to the users who suggested modifications to Flow and have been waiting for me to get them into the code. This is a minor release, but it does have some nice new features thanks to those patient users.

Critical Error Logging
Error logging has to be part of any logging tool, and Flow was no exception. However, now you can trap for critical errors and in one line of code log the error to the log document and send an e-mail about the error to whomever needs to know about it. This will alleviate the tedious task of looking through your logs for those critical errors because you will be notified by e-mail as in the example below:

Log Summary
While logging is a great way to see the step-by-step process that your agents take to ensure healthy activity, there are times where you only want to see a quick summary such as a successful completion message or number of documents processed as in the example below:

Task Timers
Two different timer functions were added so that you can easily time and log how long different events in your code take to process. These convenience functions can be exceptionally useful during performance tuning.

No More Formula Errors in the Log View!
Yes, finally, the ugly date/time formula errors in the log are a things of the past! As soon as the log document is created, the start date is recorded and the summary flag set so that we no longer get those ugly errors:

That pretty much wraps up the changes to v1.1. Instructions for how to use these new features can be found in the Flow API Guide. Flow, the advanced LotusScript logging engine, can be downloaded from OpenNTF.org. Flow is free and open-source, so feel free to modify it in any manner that suits your needs. If you do make an interesting modification, please let me know and I may incorporate it into the next version.

Continuing to fill the void left by the lack of Domino titles by other publishers, including IBM’s own Redbooks, Packt Publishing has just released IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.3: Upgrader’s Guide. The book promises to teach readers how to upgrade to Notes and Domino 8.5.3, the changes made to the Notes 8.5.3 client, how SOA is integrated into Notes 8.5.3, avoiding coexistence issues, and more.

The first chapter jumps right into the SOA (service-oriented architecture) topic. It explains what SOA is and describes the lifecycle of the architecture before explaining how it integrates with the Notes 8.5.3 client. This is followed by a lengthy discussion on composite applications. While the information on composite applications is good, I find it oddly out of place in this book considering that composite applications were introduced in Notes 8.0 in 2007. Considering that this book is aimed at upgraders and not first-time users, it seems redundant. The chapter concludes with a quick description of open technologies built-into Notes 8.x.x such as OASIS/ODF support and Eclipse.

Chapter Two, Overview of New Lotus Notes 8.5.3 Client Features, covers all major features added from Notes 8.0, 8.5, 8.5.1, 8.5.2, and finally 8.5.3. While this is also redundant for anyone upgrading, I find it very useful as it provides a single location to look at when I am asked which version a certain feature was added.

The third chapter very briefly covers Lotus Symphony.

Lotus Domino server features is the topic of Chapter Four. As with Chapter Two, the authors cover all major features to Domino since 8.0. Unlike Chapter Two, they are not segregated by version, except for the 8.5.3 enhancements which don’t show up until the end of the chapter. Before you get to those, there are sections on the Tivoli Directory Integrator, DirLint, SSO authentication for LTAPToken2, and some other topics that, while good information, seem misplaced in this chapter.

Chapter Five, Deployment Enhancements in Notes/Domino 8.5.3, begins with client provisioning. The topic quickly discusses Smart Upgrade and Eclipse provisioning before moving on to policies. The policies discussion is very complete and includes a wonderfully detailed section on controlling replication settings via policies for organizations pushing a local mail file replica architecture.

Domino 8.5.3 enhancements are covered in Chapter Six. Again, the authors go back and cover topics that any upgrader should already be familiar with such as DAOS and ID Vault before tackling the new stuff. The end of the chapter has a good but oddly placed section on iNotes modifications from the end-user perspective.

Chapter Seven, Upgrading to Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.3, is really about planning. It is difficult to find fault with the authors here, however, considering that upgrading Notes and/or Domino is such a simple task. But, if you were looking for the technical steps on how to upgrade, you won’t find it here.

Coexistence is covered in Chapter Eight. Mostly it discusses which of the new features will not work with older versions of Domino. It is short, but one that any IT manager facing an upgrade should read.

The ninth chapter moves on to development. Only touching on the topic briefly, it is disappointing to see composite applications come up again considering that they were covered very well in the first chapter. Modifications made to views, formula and LotusScript languages, and a brief discussion on XPages, CSS, and JavaScript controls are covered. The chapter also covers the Lotus Component Designer, the blog template, and Lotus Expeditor.

Chapter Ten, Integration with Other Lotus/IBM Products, starts out with a full walkthrough of how to install and configure Quickr before moving on to a short overview of installing Sametime and Connections.

The book wraps up with a chapter all about the Domino Configuration Tuner. This is a wonderful chapter describing the DCT and is one that all admins should read.

All-in-all, this book is not unlike the previous IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1 upgrader’s guide. It is well written, chock-full of good information spanning audiences of end-users, line-of-business users, administrators, developers, and IT managers, but so much of it is old information about previous versions on Notes and Domino that the reader is left feeling that the authors didn’t have enough to write about. And, to be fair, they probably didn’t. Upgrading is a simple process in the world of Notes and Domino. While this is a good book, one at half the size would have been more appropriate. Perhaps Packt should consider a new line of books not unlike the O’Rielly pocket references.

Disclaimer: Packt Publishing provided a free review copy of the book for the purpose of this review.

The book is available now from Packt Publishing and Amazon.

I am working on a small project for a customer which, when complete, will be uploaded to OpenNTF. Part of the project required a random password generator so I set about searching for one. And I did find some, but none that did what I needed. I needed variable length passwords and the option to use special characters for added security. I could have just used one of the examples I found, but since they did not have a license associated with them and I want to upload the finished product to OpenNTF, I opted to write my own. As usual, I will walk you through the code.

1: Public Function GeneratePassword(length As Integer, useSpecialChar As Boolean) As String
2:	On Error GoTo ErrHandler

The function is called GeneratePassword and it accepts two parameters: the length of the password as an Integer, and whether or not to use special characters as a Boolean. And, of course, there is error handling.

4:	Randomize
5:
6:	Dim pass As String
7:	Dim charCount, char As Integer
8:
9:	If length > 63 Then Let length = 63	'Notes passwords cannot be more than 63 characters long

We start by calling the Randomize statement in order to seed LotusScript’s random number generator Rnd(), and declaring the variables we are going to use. We then make sure that the password length is not more than 63 characters since that is Domino’s password length limit.

11:	For charCount = 1 To length
12:		Let char = Round((Rnd() * 1000), 0)
13:		If useSpecialChar And (CInt(char) >= 33 And CInt(char) =< 126) Then
14:			Let pass = pass & Chr$(char)
15:		ElseIf (CStr(char) Like "[4][8-9]") Or (CStr(char) Like "[5][0-7]") Or _
16:		(CStr(char) Like "[6][5-9]") Or (CStr(char) Like "[7-8][0-9]") Or _
17:		(CStr(char) = "90") Or (CStr(char) Like "[9][7-9]") Or _
18:		(CStr(char) Like "[1][0-1][0-9]") Or (CStr(char) Like "[1][2][0-2]") Then
19:			Let pass = pass & Chr$(char)
20:		Else
21:			Let charCount = charCount - 1
22:		End If
23:	Next charCount

Now we move on to the heart of the function. We are going to loop through the code until we have generated a password that is the requested length. The first thing we will do, in line 12, is generate a random number (remember, Rnd() generates a random number between 0 and 1 such as .4285735) and then convert it and round it to a whole number. On line 13 we will check to see if we are allowed to use special characters and, if so, we will then see if our random number falls between 33 and 126. If so, we will get the character represented by that number and add it to our new password in line 14. If we are not using special characters, we will then move on to lines 15-18 and check to see if our number is 48-49 or 50-57 or 65-69 or 70-89 or 90 or 97-99 or 100-119 or 120-122. Yikes! If you step back from that a little, we are actually just checking to see if the number is between 48-57 (which, when run through Chr$() are the numbers 0-9), or 65-90 (a-z), or 97-122 (A-Z). There are a number of ways in which to handle this part of the task, and both of the other random password generators that I linked to above handle it differently, so you may want to look at those. So, just like before, if our number matches we will get the character represented by the number and add it to our new password. In lines 20-21, when none of the above match, we will decrement our counter since we did not add a character to the password. Finally we will run through the loop again until we have the correct password length.

25:	Let GeneratePassword = pass
26:
27:	Exit Function
28:
29:ErrHandler:
30:	Error Err, Error & { on line } & Erl & { in } & GetThreadInfo(1) & Chr$(13)
31:End Function

Finally, we will assign the new password to GeneratePassword in order to pass it back to the calling code and exit the function. We also have our error handling. We won’t really handle the error so much as trap it and bubble the error up to the calling code to handle.

In the end, we get random passwords like “1L4fXmEX” or, with special characters turned on, like “e$+E6f}d”.

You can download this function below, or it will be available as part of an OpenNTF project to be announced in the next couple of weeks.

GeneratePassword.lss

As you know by now, yesterday we lost a visionary. Though we all strive in our daily lives to change the world — and in small ways we do change it — there are some among us who do so in broad, sweeping strokes. Steve Jobs was one of those people. He touched all of us in some way. I cannot imagine there being more than a handful of people in the remotest of locations that have never touched an iPod or seen a Pixar movie.

My first encounter with an Apple product was in the late 1970’s. It was an Apple II owned by “that weird computer guy” who lived in an apartment upstairs from my aunt. It was the first time I had seen the internal’s of a computer (he always had it opened so that he could swap different peripheral cards) and I was amazed by it. I didn’t see another Apple until seventh grade computer programming class where we wrote games on one of four Apple IIe’s the school had just acquired. Over the years at school, work, and home I had the opportunity to use several of the Mac, Mac II, Quadra, 6×00’s, 7×00’s, iBooks, G3’s, G4’s (the Cube being one of the coolest looking computers ever made), Mini’s, MacBooks, iMacs, countless iPods, iPhones, and iPads. I write this today on my iMac using Pages.

But he was more than Apple. He also lent much of his time and energy to Pixar. Like Apple, Pixar is another company that truly amazes me. Their dedication to the art of film — and, yes, Pixar movies are art unlike many of the films Hollywood produces today — is inspiring. There was also NeXT, the seeds of which germinated into our modern day OS X. And then there was the board of director’s seat at Disney, another company that I admire for their vision, passion, and dedication. While most CEOs come and go with little fanfare (and deservedly so), Jobs had his hands firmly rooted into four amazing companies of which touch my life in many meaningful ways.

I cannot help but to recall how upset my father was when John Lennon was killed. He tragically lost an influential artist that had a deep impact on his life. And while he knew how deeply Lennon had impacted his life, I don’t think I realized how much Jobs has impacted my life until I heard the news yesterday (ironically as a push notification from CNN on the iPhone). But my feelings really should not surprise me. For my dad, Lennon was important and changed his way of listening to music. For me it is technology that is important, and it is undeniable that Job changed it in meaningful and long-lasting ways. Jobs was an artist. Technology was his medium. He will be missed, but his influence will live on.

IBM has published a new technote that all admins running Domino on Unix or i servers should read immediately:

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21500850

Several weeks ago it was brought to my attention that a customer was seeing an increasingly large number of tickets for Notes crashes when attaching or detaching files from an e-mail. After quite bit of time, we kept finding references to lcppn30.dll in the crash data:

<@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@>
Section: Notes Process Info (Time 13:42:48)
<@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@>

INFO (0): Java core request succeeded

<@@ ------ Notes Process Info -> Load Modules for Process :: [ nlnotes:  07ac] (Time 13:42:51) ------ @@>

Base               End                      Size Module
0x04800000         0x049ba000            1810432 C:\PROGRA~1\Adobe\ACROBA~1.0\PDFMaker\Mail\LOTUSN~1\PDFMLO~1.DLL
0x049c0000         0x04bb1000            2035712 C:\PROGRA~1\Adobe\ACROBA~1.0\PDFMaker\Mail\LOTUSN~1\lcppn30.dll

“IBM Lotus Quickr 8.5 for Domino Administration” is the latest Domino related title adding to Packt Publishing’s growing library of amazing Domino related titles. Though the book is a great resource for any Quickr admin, admins running Quickr on WebSphere should be aware that this book is solely centered on running Quickr on IBM’s Lotus Domino platform.

The book begins with a very brief introduction on collaboration using Quickr. It then moves into a discussion on the different deployment architectures — Domino and WebSpehere — and helps the reader narrow down for which architecture their environment would be best suited.

Chapter Three is where the book splits off and begins to focus on Quickr for Domino leaving WebSphere as a potential topic for another book. The author’s begin to dive into the underlying architecture providing the reader with a good understanding of how Quickr is situated atop Domino. Different deployment methods — single server vs. clustered servers vs. expanded deployment — are covered. (more…)

We are pleased to annouce that we will be sponsoring the LTAP 2010 conference. Taking place October 27 & 28, LTAP, or Lotus Technical And Professional Users, is a free virtual conference for Lotus professionals. The aim of the conference is to bring together some of the best Lotus speakers and bring them to you for free. This virtual conference will take place via the web in order to provide an easy means for you to attend without incurring travel and lodging costs.

Don’t be fooled just because the conference is free. Ed Brill, Director, Product Management, IBM Lotus software is delivering the keynote. Also, some of the best speakers in the Lotus community will be participating including Kieth Brooks, Jan Keeney, Gary Devendorf, Rob Ingram, Pete Janzen, Eileen Fitzgerald, and many more!

Visit ltap2010.com for more information and please come by and visit us at Booth #203!