Sean Cull

Fix for Noteshound breaking Notes 8.02 when installed

Sean Cull — Thu, 4 Sep 2008 10:14:50 +0100

I installed Noteshound 7.1.0 on my machine yesterday with Notes 8.0.2. when I went to restart Notes it wouldn't work. Worse still a standard un-install and re-install didn't work either so I had to go and delete the folders manually - all in all I lost a couple of hours of work time.

I put in a support request to Noteshound and Ken Haggmann came back very quickly this morning. After some troubleshooting he deduced that the "Install right-click option" was causing the problem. This adds the following line to the notes.ini file

AddInMenus=nhAddin.dll

Once this line is removed Notes can be restarted although the Noteshound right click option will not be available.

The right-click option is installed by default

It does make you think that with so much change going on with the Notes clients at the moment that it must be a challenging time for ISVs who are integrating deeply into the Notes client as opposed to using standard Notes functionality

Berry Locator - how to find a lost Blackberry ( 9/10 )

Sean Cull — Thu, 4 Sep 2008 09:35:40 +0100

This is a piece of software that has saved me several times and is well worth the GBP 4 cost

It sits on your blackberry and when you send it an email ( text messages don't work ) with a special pass phrase in it the blackberry will email you back with its location from the internal GPS unit. It also brings the blackberry out of mute mode and activates an alarm on full volume

Two minor issues for me, I found the install via the desktop would not work but a support ticket quickly got me a direct download jad link. The second is that I can t seem to use another blackberry to display the location map - you need to use a desktop.

On one occasion I had left my phone on a customers desk and then gone to see several other customers in the same building. I lost the phone and triggered the Berry Locator software. It quickly told me which office it was in so I wen to that office only to be met half way there by my customer who was walking around trying to find me with a very load blackberry that he couldn't silence.

Thanks to Steve who put me on to it via his blog

Darik’s Boot And Nuke Disk Shredder ( 7 /10 )

Sean Cull — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:36:17 +0100

I use this software to wipe hard drives of all data.

This is a slightly controversial area but as best I can tell Darik's Boot And Nuke Disk Shredder seems to be well regarded.

Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot disk that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.
DBAN is a means of ensuring due diligence in computer recycling, a way of preventing identity theft if you want to sell a computer, and a good way to totally clean a Microsoft Windows installation of viruses and spyware. DBAN prevents or thoroughly hinders all known techniques of hard disk forensic analysis.
The development and support of the DBAN software project is funded in part by GEEP International. GEEP is the largest, the most efficient, and the most environmentally conscientious consumer electronics recycling company in North America.

Its easy to use, download the iso image, burn it to CD, reboot and wipe the partitions of your choice - mind you it takes an awful long time per disk ( > 12 hrs for a 60Gb laptop drive )

http://www.dban.org

Update

dropped from 10/10 to 7/10 for time taken to shred a disk

USB Windows Boot Disk

Sean Cull — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:24:35 +0100

I find it useful to have a USB boot disk when I am messing about with hardware, particularly since many systems no longer have a floppy drive. It was also the only useful thing I could do with the freebie Lotus QuickR 256Mb USB pen given away by Mary Beth Raven at ILUG 2008

There are a few articles on the web about creating these, one of the best is this O'Reilly Digital Media Blog

I personally found that for a windows boot disk the easiest method ( suggested in a response on the blog above ) was to use the Dell utility and rename the autoexec,bat file to stop it running the Dell diagnostic software

The utility is available at

ftp://ftp.dell.com/diags/CW1310A0.EXE

The much praised HP Drive Key Boot Utility can be found at

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=US&swItem=MTX-UNITY-I23839

I struggled with this a bit because it defaults to a linux boot disc whereas I wanted a windows boot disc ( to run Ghost 2003 )

Running Notes 8 when you are short of resources

Sean Cull — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:25:00 +0100

Although the Eclipse notes client is a richer place to work there are times when it would be better to run the simpler basic client . A good example would be if I have several virtual machines running at once on my laptop.

Even though you have installed the Standard ( eclipse ) client you can still start the basic client by using nlnotes.exe ( NL is supposedly No Logo ). Your desktop icons etc will be the same in both versions.

I do this with a shortcut on my start menu. nlnotes.exe is located in the same folder as Notes.exe, in my case "C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus\Notes\nlnotes.exe"

Restarting Notes cleanly

Sean Cull — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:17:35 +0100

Although Notes is much much better about restarting after a crash there are still times when it hangs. A good example for me is when you open the developer help with the script debugger on.

People used to use products like KillNotes.exe to restart Notes but since version 6 (?) you can use the NSD option with the -kill parameter. I have this set up as a short cut in my menu bar using the following syntax

"C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus\Notes\nsd.exe" -kill

Click on the shortcut and Notes is taken down and you can restart notes - with the Notes 8 eclipse client you will probably need to close the large java error pop up

Thecus 4100+ NAS ( 2/10 )

Sean Cull — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:09:05 +0100

This device is just terrible. It has a Gigabyte network interface but the CPU max's out on just a standard network.

It did seem like an attractive option being able to take 5 x 1Tb disks but I ( and others ) have found the performance terrible, particularly with small files

Even with a 40% discount it was a bad purchase. Its a shame really because it has FTP, Web disk and even a web server.

Thecus's own advise via their official representative on the Forum's is buy a bigger unit from us - not much chance of that !

Finding which documents have been deleted from a database with a script solution

Sean Cull — Thu, 29 May 2008 08:16:35 +0100

Update

Notes 8.5 now has an extra column in the user activity pop up which shows deletions

I recently had a call from a customer to say that their application had stopped working. It turned out that a number of configuration documents had been inadvertently deleted when the user tried to archive off old documents - but which ones ?

One frustrating feature of Notes is that unless you code something special it is very difficult to find out who has deleted documents and when ( I now generally use a soft delete mechanism so that most users cannot hard delete documents )

1) The first quick check is to look in the application properties - user activity and see if anyone has "written" a large number of documents.

2) I then use a script to compare the documents in the "live" copy with the documents in a local replica or backup. This takes each document in the backup and tries to find the corresponding document in the live copy. If no matching document is found ( or just a deletion stub ) it puts that document in a folder so that I can copy it back to the live system ( note that the doc unid will change )

3) If I need to do further analysis to see when the document was deleted ( and indirectly by who using the logs ) I can now use the doc unid and NotesPeek to examine the deletion stub - I find that the search facility doesn't always work so I tend to dump it to a text pad and search there

This is the LotusScript code for step 2 ( also attached as an LSS )

'check for deletions on the server:

Option Public
Option Declare ' because Rocky says you must

Sub Initialize

'check for deletions on the server:
' Sean Cull, www.seancull.co.uk

' This agent compares two replicas and highlights documents that are in one
' replica but not the other. These documents are added to folders $4091_Deleted_Documents
', $missingdocuments or $zerolengthdocs for later examination

' the code is particularly usefull for finding what has been deleted from a replica

Dim ws As New notesuiworkspace
Dim session As New NotesSession
Dim thisdb As notesdatabase
Dim otherdb As notesdatabase
Dim coll As notesdocumentcollection
Dim thisdoc As notesdocument
Dim otherdoc As NotesDocument
Dim number_docs As Long
Dim var As Variant
Dim unidvar As String
Dim Error_4091_flag As Boolean

On Error Goto printerror
On Error 4091 Goto error_4091
' error 4091 occurs when you use getdocumentbyunid on a deletion stub
' the error message is invalid universalid
' there are some support documents which also suggest that you sometimes do manage
' to get a handle on a stub so you also need to check if doc.size = 0

Set thisdb = session.CurrentDatabase
Set coll = thisdb.AllDocuments

number_docs = coll.count

Print "There are " & Cstr(number_docs) & " Documents to process"

'variant = notesUIWorkspace.Prompt( type%, title$, prompt$ [, default ] [, values ] )
'PROMPT_CHOOSEDATABASE (13)
'variant(0) = server
'variant(1) = path
'variant(2) = title

var = WS.Prompt( 13, "Choose the second database", "")

Set otherdb = Session.GetDatabase( var(0), var(1), False )
If Not otherdb.IsOpen Then
Msgbox "Could not open the second database"
Exit Sub
End If

Set thisdoc = coll.GetFirstDocument
Do Until thisdoc Is Nothing
number_docs = number_docs - 1
Print number_docs ' this slows things down but I find it useful
unidvar = thisdoc.UniversalID
error_4091_flag = False
Set otherdoc = otherdb.GetDocumentByUNID(unidvar)
If error_4091_flag Then ' a deletion stub
Call thisdoc.putinfolder("$4091_Deleted_Documents",True)
Else
If otherdoc Is Nothing Then
' a missing document as opposed to a deleted one
Call thisdoc.putinfolder("$Missing_Documents",True)
Else
' there is a document but we need to check if it is a zero length stub
If otherdoc.size = 0 Then Call thisdoc.putinfolder("$Zerolengthdocs",True)
End If
End If
Set thisdoc = coll.GetNextDocument(thisdoc)
Loop

Exit Sub

Error_4091 :
error_4091_flag = True
Resume Next

PrintError:

If (Err() <> 0) Then
Messagebox( "Error" & Str(Err) & ": " & Error$)
End If

Exit Sub

End Sub

ClipCache Pro (9/10)

Sean Cull — Fri, 23 May 2008 23:35:20 +0100

I had mixed success with earlier versions of ClipCache Pro but this latest version seems to run really well under Vista.
It is great for improving your efficiency and generally making life easier - it is also occasionally useful for those moments when your brain becomes disengaged and you delete a mornings work

I Like

Ease of use, custom keyboard short cuts, images getting clipped as well, clean up tools to remove formatting

I Dislike

Some common code I use to dump data to spreadsheets uses the clipboard, if you leave clipcache on you can easily get 1000 + new clips in its store !
Some crashes under XP

Quick floating server console in client using AdminRemoteConsole

Sean Cull — Fri, 23 May 2008 13:10:00 +0100

This is a feature that I use pretty much every day. The Command( [AdminRemoteConsole] ) can be used to open a floating i.e. non-modal server console in your client.

I use it on a smarticon as shown in the clip below. One of the best features is that you can copy the contents of the console to a clipboard for better analysis. It is much more convenient than using the Admin Client

Sametime 8 works well on Dual Monitors

Sean Cull — Tue, 20 May 2008 09:58:24 +0100

I think that this is new in Sametime 8 - I certainly never noticed it before in previous versions

If you choose View > Maximise and have two monitors the shared screen appears on your second monitor leaving the Sametime interface still open in the Primary monitor. This lets you see chat and access the controls

I have often found Sametime disappointing and until I moved to Vista we tended to use MS Netmeeting over VPN between our offices to screen share peer to peer. With it not being possible to Netmeet between XP and Vista machines ( MS what were you thinking ? ) we upgraded our Sametime server and have been pleasantly surprised

As an aside you would think that the Lotus spell checker would recognise Sametime wouldn't you !

Toshiba M700 Tablet PC ( 7/10 ) Vista ( 3/10 )

Sean Cull — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:39:28 +0100

..I have been really looking forward to getting a Tablet PC for several reasons and in many ways have been very impressed with the M700 / Tablet PC expierience. I ordered on from the USA because Toshiba in the UK initially offered pretty low spec machines - pretty daft really since the USP of this machine is that it is a "Power Tablet"

While I do think that the Tablet PC has great potential using Vista has been quite painful with regular crashes - as in multiple times per day - and software that just stops. The machine was originally supplied with XP and I installed Vista Ultimate myself - I thought I had done a good job and down loaded and installed over 20 Toshiba utilities and drivers so it would be interesting to hear what other users with factory installed Vista have found.

OneNote - the MS note taking software has been a great experience

I will hopefully be writing much more about this in the future

FeedDemon RSS Reader ( 10/10 )

Sean Cull — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:29:48 +0100

I find that FeedDemon is probably the most useful tool for web browsing. It lets me stay on top of hundreds of websites and blogs very efficiently

It uses the RSS feeds from the sites and downloads summaries of the articles. You can browse these off line and, most usefully, the system can quickly let you see which sites have new information

I originally paid about 30 GBP but its now free. I have attached my current OPML file which can be uploaded into most RSS readers - be warned it does have a lot of junk in it !

Improvements in Notes 8 HTML email rendering

Sean Cull — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:03:25 +0100

Prior to Notes 8 the rendering of emails was always very hit and miss n Notes.

Another issue was that Notes automatically displayed images in HTML emails and these could sometimes be tracked by spammers to indicate that the email had been opened by a real person.

With Notes 8 there are two big improvements in this area - the first is that the rendering is much better and the second is that the images can be blocked.

The example on the left shows how the Avnet Newsletter has rendered much better in Notes 8 ( on the right ! ) than it did in Notes 6.5.4. This is one of the most striking changes for users Notes 8

Displaying all of your Image Resources in a view easily

Sean Cull — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:22:43 +0100

an extension to Martin's database

Image Resources can now ( version 6 ? ) be displayed in views. This has quite a few possibilities including showing thumbnails in the corporate directory which I will post later but for now I have posted this example which builds on an icon database by Martin Vereecken.

I have added an agent called "Create documents for Image Resources" which will cycle through the design elements and create a Notes Document for each of the image resources - this then allows them to be displayed in the view. I have also added two views for this purpose, the first is a flat view and the second a twistied view where the categorisation is based on the image resource name

The code is in the .lss file at the end and I have also added a copy of Martins database with the agent added.

How I got started with Lotus Notes

Sean Cull — Sun, 18 May 2008 20:59:46 +0100

The Critical Machine Incidents Black Book

Quite a few people have been blogging about how they got started with Notes so I thought that might be a good place to start this blog.

I am a Manufacturing Engineer by background but in my Engineering roles I always struggled to make my information and work processes as efficient as I wanted them to be - given that Information and Work Processes are the main part of an Engineers job this was always a bit frustrating - then I came across Notes and a whole new way of working ( and ultimately a new career ) opened up.

I first came across Notes in 1995. At the time I was working for a multinational chemical company and I needed to find a way to improve our Critical Machines Incidents Black Book process. The company took safety very very seriously and the Black Book contained reports on all of the life threatening failures of mechanical equipment in the company - each of these had been written up and reviewed by senior specialists before being distributed to the Chief Engineers of each of the business units ( 50 + people ) who in turn cascaded these reports to 5000 + Engineers. The catalyst to establishing the system had been a particularly nasty accident in which some people died. The investigation had shown that the particular failure mechanism in that particular model of machine was previously known about in one division ( where corrective measures had been put in place ) but not in the division where the fatal accident happened.

While this was a good process for its time the main problem was that the "Black Book" was in reality only a book in one physical place as each of the new incident reports were sent out in memos and the completeness of this valuable collection of knowledge was very limited. I ( as usual ) was frustrated by this paper process and set about trying to put this information in a database so that it could be searched and distributed as a whole. When I asked the head of IT for the Engineering Division ( a quite progressive chap ) what I could use he said he had just the thing - a new system called Lotus Notes

He gave me a new database shell, a design licence ( I presume ) and set me off. After much fiddling and dissecting of the mail template I developed a system which allowed new serious machines incidents to be reported, written up, reviewed and then published. The system was perfectly suited to Notes, there was total security for the draft documents until they had been trough the review process, interested parties were informed by email as soon as a new report was published, reports could be sorted by type, process fluid etc.. and the whole archive could be searched.

I don't want to sound overly zealous about Notes but the transformation from a well intentioned paper black book to an effective searchable knowledge base with work flow and security just blew me away and opened up a whole new way of working - and I still haven't seen another platform that can do this so well.

To cut a long and rambling story short I ultimately got to the point where although I loved being an Engineer ( and hoped I was a good one ) I became known as the guy who used databases all the time so in 2000 I started FoCul Ltd ( I'm Cull and my wife's maiden name is Foster* ). FoCul has now delivered over 200 applications like this one ( although they are much better constructed now ! )

A nice thing was that although the company no longer exists its Engineering Division was sold on and in January of this year ( 2008 ) I came across that first database on a customers workspace - the work flow process is no longer in use but the knowledge lives on !

* I should point ( for her employers peace of mind ) out that my wife has never worked for FoCul but was obviously hugely supportive as I set it up.

Toshiba Dynadock USB docking station with DVI out ( 9/10 )

Sean Cull — Sun, 18 May 2008 01:57:42 +0100

The Toshiba Dynadock is pretty amazing - it provides a DVI socket, Lan and multiple USBs through a single USB input. I actually have a second Rextron XtraViU VCUD20 USB > DVI adapter daisy chained to this to give me two independent ( Dual monitors ) AG Neove 19" monitors and the Toshiba M700 tablet PC screen. I find that my efficiency is much better with two decent screens, particularly if I am using multiple Virtual Machines at once

I am still learning to configure it - there seems to be a few glitches when you try and use the tablet in slate mode - moving the pen up and down actually moves it left to right - but overall it is pretty good.

I was slaved to a Dell D600 prior to this because I believed that only Dell made a docking station with the space for a second PCI graphics card whereas the Dynadock will work with any laptop. Note that the latest drivers from Displaylink support indpendent ( extended ) monitors in Vista and not just mirrored as suggested in the Toshiba bumf.

The brains behind both the Dynadock and the Rexton have been developed by a British company called Displaylink - If I could buy shares in them I would because they look to have captured this lucrative market. Samsung are even doing monitors with usb inputs.

The dynadoc was 100 GBP from dabs.com
The Rexton was 35 GBP from microdirect - although the image showed one of these which would have been slightly better
2 x AG Neuvo 19" 1280 x 1024 with a 3 yr on site warranty from ebuyer.com 90 GBP each