Feeling Nostalgic Today

That time of the year, dear reader, is once again upon us.  That time spanning anywhere from mid-January to early February where for 13 years I would kiss my wife and kids goodbye, board a plane heading south to Orlando and spend a week drinking from a firehose of knowledge about a product that helped keep a roof over my head for many a year.  

Yes, I'm talking about Lotusphere.   

It's been a while, 7 years to be exact, since I last made a pilgrimage south to join the other faithful for a week of leaning, fun, networking, more fun, long days walking many steps between sessions, more fun and fun.  It's really hard to put into words what that conference meant for not only me but I think for a wider audience of those that attended frequently.  You see, we were admins and developers of a product then known as IBM Lotus Notes/Domino.  Now many in the IT world have a silent chuckle to themselves when they hear that product name and that's okay.  IBM did a terrible job marketing a product that was truly powerful yet they could never get that message across to big business.  Sure, there were some marketing the product, like a well-loved Tasmanian madman widely known through the Domino world, but at the ground level IBM as a whole was just garbage at marketing.  They kept trying to reinvent the product for what it wasn't and weren't able to sell what it was.  Microsoft on the other hand spent a lot of time and money telling big business that Domino was crap and their products were the correct way to go.  In the end for a lot of us who are now former admins and developers, that anti-marketing strategy worked.  But we, the ones that worked with the product day in and day out knew what we had.  For me, it was always a hard-sell internally to get them to latch on to furthering the products footprint in the environment and in the end I was with the first group of many that followed that were "downsized strategically".   But I will never regret the time I spent with that product or going to events like Lotusphere or the other regional conferences that were held.  I grew a lot during that time.  Not only coming out of my shell but actually successfully submitting a session abstract and getting to present that for a full 90 minutes in front of a room of about 70 people.  Full 90 minute show-and-tell with live demo. Walking that tightrope of will the VM's running on my laptop crap out on me in the middle of the presentation or not going step by step using a "cookbook" of instructions I created over the years and posted here on this now dormant blog.  Having the IBM product manager walk up to the front afterwards, shake my hand and tell me I did a bang up job and hit all the marks.  Yes, it was a good feeling.  A reminder that if you don't try something new and push yourself to do something different you'll never know what you can accomplish.  So that's just my story, but I know from the friend base that I made over the years going to that conference there are many similar.  It was truly a rewarding a special experience in my professional career that frankly I don't think will ever occur again.  Especially these days with where my career is now.   

So, I decided to break out a post one more time on this blog.  This was a place where before Twitter, Facebook and other social platforms we would share and contribute to the group-think.  Those were good times.  And I will always be grateful that I lived them.

Thank you to all of those who I met through this times that helped me out, not only professionally but personally, in my journey.

Google Calendar, Lotus Traveler and an awesome community!

So I was playing around with adding my Google calendar into Notes calendar this week.  I really like that  feature.  My family, at my poking and prodding, is using Google more and more to keep everyone on the same page.  At least, it's my attempt to keep everyone on the same page. With my wife working different hours week to week and the kids year end activities being all over the place, it's nice to have that central "cloud" point to sync us all up.  Plus, I'm trying to draw a line in my life to make sure I separate work and personal things, I want the personal stuff outside of my work client.  But, it's nice to click a check box in Notes and take a look at what's going on quickly.  So this is where my adventure begins.
I noticed the option in the setup for the external calendar to "View this calendar when offline or on a mobile device".  I've seen the feature before and have played with it in the past, so I turned it on again.  As expected with Lotus Traveler, it took all of those external calendar entries that I specified, (there is a time option when you turn it on in Notes), and it brought the Google entries down to my flotilla of mobile devices.  Okay, everything worked as expected.  So I unchecked the option to turn off the Google entries and in the Notes calendar view, they went away.  But on my Traveler connected mobile devices, the remained.  I tried removing the profile from my iPod Touch and reinstalling it, no good.  The Google entries kept coming back.  Mind you, there are not showing up in my client's calendar view.  But here's another weird issue.  Anytime a Google calendar entry start time would come up, say, like when my wife is suppose to start work, it changes my Sametime status from available to meeting.  Thinking it's a calendar profile issue, I delete my calendar profile, but no luck.  The entries are still on my mobile devices and the Sametime status keeps getting changed.  I then tried issuing a blanket "Tell Traveler reset * Andy Donaldson/OU/O",  but that led to an error on the server I had never seen before:

05/06/2011 08:10:09 AM  Lotus Traveler: WARNING CN=Andy Donaldson/OU=OU/O=OU Unexpected Domino timezone string Z=5$DO=1$ZN=America/New_York 

Ok this is an error I've never seen before.  And of course, that led me to open a ticket with support. While I was waiting for them to get back to me, I did some digging.  Obviously those entries are stuck somewhere.    But where?  In Designer, (yes, an Admin with Designer loaded on his PC, scary), I found the view $OfflineCalendar in my mail file.  Tada!  I found the offending entries.  But when I tried to open the hidden view in the Notes client, it just brings up a Notes calendar view and doesn't show the entries.  I tried using Designer to switch the view from Calendar view to summary, but it didn't work or I didn't know what I was doing.  But, I needed to get rid of these documents.
That's when I Tweeted.
And once again, the Lotus community, be it Yellow, Blue or whatever it is these days, came to the rescue.  First up, Devin Olson offered me a bit of code to try and remove the entries. 

Dim s As New NotesSession()
Dim db As NotesDatabase
Dim vw As NotesView
Dim col As NotesViewEntryCollection

Set db = s.CurrentDatabase
Set vw = db.GetView("($OfflineCalendar)")
Set col = vw.AllEntries
Call col.RemoveAll(True)

***Warning, the above code is offered as buyer beware***
But, being an Admin, I was having problems with it.  Some more tweets came in with ideas to try from Don McNally and Tom Duff.  Then, noted Scotsman and community luminary Bill Buchan, gave me the virtual smack in the back of the head guidance on where to get the code added

• Create a Lotus Script agent
• Paste the code in the Initialize section
• Enjoy

Once I ran the agent code on a copy of my mail file, the entries were in the Trash.  Once I ran it against the production database, same happy results.  So what did we learn:
1.  Adding an external calendar to Lotus Notes is a cool feature.
2.  Admin's like me need to continue to stay out of the Developer client
3.  Making the entries available offline and on a mobile device is also cool.
4.  Having entries stay around after you turn the feature off and making your Notes client wacky, is not cool.
5.  The always connected Lotus Notes/Domino community is fantastic beyond words.

It's always an awesome day when you collaborate with some friends hundreds or thousands of miles away and you get something fixed.

The journal.nsf conundrum

Ah, Monday's.  You just gotta love them.  Mine started out like most others.  A mess and lots of different things to do.  As always the Director of Infrastructure, (who's office I unfortunately sit right outside of), seems to pick up on my vibe that I have a lot to do.  So, he calls me into his office to answer questions.  Least of which was how to sync his personal Journal, now called Notebook in Lotus Notes 8, to his mail file so that it gets onto his BlackBerry.  Okay, no big deal.  I take control of the mouse and from within in mail file go to Actions-Lotus iNotes-Synchronize Notebook.  Since he had not completed a sync yet on his new laptop, a friendly window appeared asking for the location of the Notebook application.  Ok, still, easy enough.  Since we have always used journal.nsf on our machines, I clicked Browse, got to his data directory, when to select journal.nsf...and selected busytime.nsf instead.  Doh!  Damn mouse.  Yes, we are blaming the mouse on this issue.  So now his local busytime.nsf is syncing with his Journal view in his mail file.  So the mad dash was off to find where that setting is since I could not change it back anywhere in the client.  Pulled up the Developer app even to go digging through his mail file to see if it was set in the agent.  Nope, not there.  Opened a PMR via the website, also just to be safe.  Again, it's Monday and I just screwed up the bosses Notes client. 
Brilliant.
But after putting in the right Google combination, I found the answer.  And of course, I felt like a buffoon. In the notes.ini file locally on the users machine, there is a line item that says Journal=.  Simple enough, right!?  On my machine, since I knew I was set right, it said Journal=journal.nsf.  On his machine it was set to Journal=busytime.nsf.  Close Notes client, edit notes.ini so that the line read Journal=journal.nsf, restart Notes, sync.  All is well.  Of course as I'm finding this setting, IBM called back on the ticket.  The tech got a good laugh out of it too.
So if today is any indication how the week will flow, it will be an interesting one.

Troubleshooting IMAP - Slaying the beast

I don't know a whole lot about IMAP other then it's a protocol used in mail and it's a pain in the butt. A couple of years ago we had to start using IMAP to support some internal processes that require systems to connect to the IMAP enabled mail file and process workflow. But when it breaks, it's a pain point.
This morning it broke again.
Normally when it breaks in our test environment, a reboot of the server clears up the connection errors that are occuring. But when one of the system administrators told me that they can see the inbox or other folders via telnet, I had to start looking into it more.

DISCLAIMER:  I am not an IMAP expert, nor do I play one on TV. The following is a list of steps I used to resolve my problem. Your mileage my vary.  Void where prohibited)

Step 1 - See for myself
When troubleshooting IMAP, the best thing to do is TELNET to the server and log in as the account you are having a problem with.
1. In Windows, open a command prompt.
2. Type telnet sername.domain.com 143 (143 is the IMAP port number)
3. If the IMAP service is running correctly on the server, you should see a prompt like this

If you don't see this, check that IMAP is running
4. Type in the following:
1 login user.name@domain.com password
and press enter
5. If the account information is valid, you should see a OK LOGIN completed. If not, check that the username and password are correct
6. My problem was with folders, both built in and user created, not being visable to the workflow process. To see a list of folders, type in:
1 list "" "*" and press enter
7. If IMAP is working properly, you should see returned a list of folder names
(example)
* LIST (\Noinferiors \HasNoChildren) "\\" Inbox
* LIST (\Noinferiors \HasNoChildren) "\\" Trash
8. If you don't see something similar to this and only get a message returned
1 OK LIST completed
Then there may be a problem.

Step 2 - Troubleshooting
To use IMAP in Domino, you not only have to have IMAP running, but also make the mail file IMAP enabled.
1. In the mail file, go to File-Application-Properties.
2. Click on the info tab.
3. Look towards the bottom, (on mine, it's cut off).

4. If you see Database is IMAP enabled and Folder references attributes are enabled, that means that the mail file is ready for IMAP. In my situation, I had that, but it stil was not working.
5. If IMAP is not enabled on the mail file, you use the convert command from the Domino console.
load convert -e -m mail\file.nsf
-e enables IMAP
-m enables folder references
6. In my scenario, I wanted to disable IMAP on the database and re-enable it.  To disable IMAP, you use
load convert -e- mail\file.nsf
As you will note, there is an extra - after the "e".
7.  Once the process ran on the server to disable IMAP, I used the convert command to re-enabled it.
Presto!  If worked!  In the telnet session, it listed out all the folders and the workflow process was able to access the messages and put it through it's system.

I'm no where near being an expert on the topic of IMAP, but, I wanted to share what turned out to be simple steps in case someone hits a speed-bump along the way.

Blocked Senders List, a story of pain.....

One of the features that was introduced in Notes 7 that has provided many a happy user with some measure of control over the spam they receive is the Block Senders Feature within the mail file.  In my experience, it works pretty well.  But just before the holidays, one of the higher-higher up's ran into a problem with his list.  Any time he wanted to add an address to the list, he was told that he reached the maximum and it wouldn't allow him to add any more.  Doing a quick search, we found that it appeared 100 entries or a maximum of 32K, was all that the list could handle.  Okay, didn't think much off it, passed the information along and went about my vacation.
Upon my return yesterday, this still appeared to be a hot topic.  The higher-higher up still was wondering how they could add more entries in the block list.  We again did a search for information and found the same thing on Notes.Net, 100 entries or 32K.  We suggested cleaning the list, taking out old ones and adding domains instead of email addresses.  It should only be around 100 entries, right?  I mean that's what the Interwebs told us.
Well, I needed to start digging a little more into this, and what I found astounded me.  To start with, I needed to get a dump of what entries where in the Blocked Senders List hidden deep within the bowels of the mail file.  With some help from my Twitter peeps and some more Google searches, I found this entry on Notes.Net on how to export the list to a text file.  So, I created a local blank database, copied the Lotuscript into the database, and POW!  I was able to pull out the users block list to a text file.  I of course wanted to see how many entries were in the file, so I opened it in Excel.  Jaw drop.  There was 1113 entries.  That's slightly, just a little bit more then the 100 that we thought was the maximum.  Just by a few.  And when I looked at the text file, it's size was just over 32K.  So the lesson learned with this is:
1.  You can extract users Block Senders Lists very easily.
2.  You can have more then 100 users
3.  The maximum size of the Blocked Senders List is 32K
4.  Don't believe everything you read on the Interwebs, (except this blog entry, of course)
It would be nice if that 32K limit could be increased.  I am now tasked with finding a workaround to empty out his Block Senders List, but still block that users.  So I have to look at our anti-spam solution to fill that need.  If it can do it.  Oh well. Such is the existence of a Domino Administrator.

Adios 2007

With 2007 being quickly ushered out the door, I figured it was time for “Andy’s Year in Review”. Insert trumpet sounds here. I’ve started this blog entry several times now, and it’s hard for me to look back and pull out different things that happened this year to expound upon. So, I’ll break it down into a couple of categories.

Lotus Related Stuff
The Lotus world gave us a lot to be excited about this year. The main excitement has all centered on the release of all of the new collaboration tools like Quickr and Connections. Add to the release of beta, then the gold release of Lotus Notes and Domino 8. And we can’t forget about Symphony. IBM has really given the faithful, along with business, a lot to talk about! Many, many other bloggers have written extensively on this topic, so I’m not going to rehash that here. I am however looking forward to the approved upgrade in my environment. Once 8.0.1 hits the streets, then I’m going to start taking a hard look at my environment and see if it’s maybe time to re-tool the way I do a few things with the new upgrade. I’m really looking forward to what they plan on showing us at Lotusphere 2008 on what the future holds.

Work Related Stuff
Work wise, things have continued to go well. I continue to try to build on my skill set as much as I can, when I can. Early in the year, the new DST rules had everyone, including myself, freaking out. Luckily, thanks to the gang at IBM, that came and went without even a bump in the road. I can only think of one instance where someone’s calendar was screwed up, but it was an easy and quick fix. I was able to finally pass my 702 test to upgrade my certification in November. I actually was able to talk my boss into allowing me to go to Admin2007 for the jumpstart sessions. Hopefully, I’ll be able to add that to my agenda for the whole event this coming year. Looking forward to next year, I already have two huge projects on the horizon. One centers around file archiving and retention, and the other is Notes/Domino 8. That’s where I am hoping that I can go to Admin2008 since the upgrade seminar is now part of that event.

Personal Stuff
This year has really been a year of change in the house. I’ve noticed that my kids are starting to make that change from being just kids, into becoming their own people.
Alex has made the big jump to high school this year. Being Autistic and a teenager is an interesting combination. He has overcome many challenges in his life, but he is one kid that is able to do it without a problem. In elementary and middle-school, Alex always had the help of aides to assist him with his day-to-day routines in school. This year he has pretty much set out on his own, with assistance, but no where near as much help as he was used to. He was on the honor roll for the first nine weeks and is heading that way again for the second nine.
Molly continues her rampage through the elementary school. Already there are the crushes on some boys, playing sports and having the occasional bout of the “nobody likes me” at school. But more and more, I see less of that little baby girl that I once had sound asleep across my chest and more of the young lady that is starting to make her appearance. To be honest, it scares crap out of me. But for now, she’s still my little girl and I’m sure that it will always be hard to see her any other way.
The kids aren’t the only ones that have walked an interesting path this year. Over the summer, Denise took over as manager for her Avon district while the regular manager was out on sick leave. As we both learned, being a sales manager is not an easy job at all. But in the end, she was able to meet and exceed both the sales and recruiting goals for her district. She rocks! And to top it all off, she landed a dream job at the end of the year. She now works in a local scrapbook shop and loves it!
Me, well, I rediscovered how much fun photography is this year. I broke down and bought a real digital camera and a couple of lens. I never seem to have the time to get out and take pictures, but I do when I can. I’ve also noticed this past year that my blog has really taken off! More and more hits keep coming in from all over the place.
But what had to be the moment of the year occurred over Memorial Day weekend. The Medusa, aka Jen, and my hedero-life-mate, Eric had been expecting their first child. They called us on that Sunday to let us know that Jen was getting ready to go into the hospital for delivery. So Denise and I took the kids to the hospital and while we were there, we were able to be a part of Sara coming into the world. It was a great day.

So there you have it. Andy’s view of 2007. Lord only knows that 08 has in store for us, but as always, I’m sure it will be another interesting ride!