Chris A. Brandlehner BLOG - Category : Lotus Notes Domino

Wie man Firefox 4 mit Lotus iNotes 8.5.2 nutzen kann

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 06:04:55 +0200

Seit einigen Tagen ist Firefox 4.0 verfügbar. Wie üblich wird dieses Update über die eingebaute Update-Funktion angezeigt und so steigt die Anzahl an Installationen rasch an. Leider ist die mit IBM Lotus Domino 8.5.2 ausgelieferte iNotes Version nicht ohne Änderungen mit Firefox 4.0 kompatibel. Hier eine Anleitung wie man Firefox dennoch für iNotes nutzen kann:

There is a new Fix for Lotus Traveler

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 9 Feb 2010 16:21:53 +0200

IBM released a new Lotus Traveler Fix that fixes some issues but also adds some new functions, especially for the Apple iPhone.

IBM Lotus Notes 8.5.x Books

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 2 Feb 2010 11:45:10 +0200

I recommend these books for IBM Lotus Notes 8.5.x:

IBM Lotus Notes 8.5.1 FP1 is now available

Christian Brandlehner — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 15:49:12 +0200

See this TN for download instructions:
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24025721

IBM Lotus Domino Change Manager

Christian Brandlehner — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 15:32:35 +0200

I found a product at the Lotusphere Showcase that seems to be worth having a look. IONET Software offers a change management tool for auditing changes in the Domino Directory. The Change Manager seems to be designed to work fine in a distributed server environment. All software is in Notes databases so no software needs to be installed on the OS or as an extension manager to Domino.

Could not renew Lotus Domino Server SSL key

Christian Brandlehner — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 12:07:31 +0200

IBM Lotus Domino can use an SSL key to provide encrypted network access. To get SSL working you have to use the database cetsrv.nsf, create a certificate request (CSR), paste that into your PKI-providers form who will return a signed certificate. Once you merge that signed certificate into your servers keyring you are ready to go.
The problem I see is that the CSR created by Version 8.5.1 is based on the MD5 algorithm and most PKIs started to refuse MD5 in CSRs in favor of SHA-1 or newer algorithms. I see the problem that everyone who runs a SSL site on Domino will not be able to renew the certificate!

The Lotus Knowledgebase lists a problem that the signed certificate could not be merged into the keyring if signed using SHA-1 by the PKI but this problem was solved with 7.0.3 and does not apply to the current problem as the problem is that the CSR is always signed using MD5.

Read this article: Why is MD5 hash considered insecure?

Why IBM Lotus Symphony?

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:24:12 +0200

IBM released a document explaining why IBM decided to release a free office product and how IBM positions Lotus Symphony in the market. It also contains a brief feature comparison showing the difference to another popular office suite.

IBM announces Plugins for Lotus Notes Standard client

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:41:14 +0200

IBM announced a press release regarding Widgets in Lotus Notes. Kevin Cavanaugh, vice president, Messaging and Collaboration, IBM Software said: "Whatever Lotus customers need, there's a widget for that."
The press release mentions two Widgets, the first one is a LinkedIn Widget the second is a TripIt Widget.
Both widgets install easy, all you have to do is to drag and drop an xml-file onto your Widgets-Sidebar, you can even drag it directly from a browser to Notes so you do not have to use the integrated browser.

Microsoft Exchange 2010 (beta) compared with IBM Lotus Domino 8.5

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:21:36 +0200

This is another comparison of Exchange vs Domino. This time CRN tests Exchange 2010, which is still beta, and Domino 8.5, which was release in January 2009.

"We assessed each in five key areas: installation and deployment, interoperability and customization, feature set, performance and pricing."

Read the full report here.

Is reading MIME emails slow in Lotus Notes 8.x after upgrading to Internet Explorer 8? (Solution inside)

Christian Brandlehner — Mon, 8 Jun 2009 13:19:51 +0200

I installed Internet Explorer 8 some days ago and wondered why the integrated Webbrowser now takes very long to start and why opening a MIME email takes more than a minute.

Die Wahlergebnisse im Burgenland - eine Weblösung auf Basis IBM Lotus Domino

Christian Brandlehner — Sun, 7 Jun 2009 21:40:33 +0200

Die Wahlergebnisse der Europawahl 2009 werden im Burgenland mit Technologie von IBM visualisiert. Im Detail: Realisiert mit IBM Lotus Domino™ 8.5
Europawahl 2009 im Burgenland

IP address filter for SMTP inbound connection controls

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 4 Jun 2009 11:46:22 +0200

In a configuration document for an IBM Lotus Domino server you have the option to configure which IPs are allowed or denied to connect using the SMTP protocol. I would like to share some details on these settings as the field help is not covering all options.

Comparison of Email Clients

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 3 Jun 2009 14:28:07 +0200

The link to ITcomparison.com I posted yesterday received some critics. With todays link I am trying to get you involved and ask you to share your knowledge.

Microsoft Exchange 2007 vs IBM Lotus Domino 8

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 2 Jun 2009 13:22:30 +0200

ITComparison.com clearly shows that Domino is way ahead of a competing product. Although the comparison is dated last year, it is still true and the new features in Domino 8.5 (shipped in January 09) makes Domino even more attractive.
See the full report here.

Italian food company migrates from Outlook to Lotus Notes

Christian Brandlehner — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:32:14 +0200

There is another company migrating to IBM Lotus Notes from competitor Microsoft Outlook.

Lotus Notes 8.0.2FP1CCH2 is available for download

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 8 May 2009 10:54:40 +0200

Lotus Notes 8.0.2 FP1 CCH2 was posted to FixCentral yesterday.

AdminP tip

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 7 May 2009 14:14:58 +0200

Chad Scott posted a good tip regarding AdminP I want to share with you:
http://bleedyellow.com/blogs/chadscott/entry/caveat_with_adminp_direct_deposit30

40k users migrated from Microsoft Outlook to Lotus Notes

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 1 May 2009 15:49:51 +0200

This is actually good news for IBM, 40000 users migrated from Outlook to Lotus Notes.
Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Automotive-Manufacturer-iw-14827262.html

"Operation aborted" when using the Dojo Framework with IE6

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 08:41:31 +0200

As IBM Lotus Domino 8.5 now ships with the dojo Toolkit included you may have seen problems using your site using Internet Explorer 6. In my case, the website rendered just fine with Firefox and IE7 but in IE6 all I got was an empty page and an error message "operation aborted".
I found this thread and found it quite useful. Basically it recommends to close your base href tag in the page header. I found that moving the base href tag after the script tag is also a workaround for this problem.

Require SSL connection seems to be broken with Lotus iNotes in Domino 8.5

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:58:44 +0200

If your users are using Lotus iNotes to access their email from PCs located at insecure network locations you surely want to encrypt at least username and password.This can be done by checking the database property "require SSL connection" on domcfg.nsf which holds (by default) your login form. This is all fine but once authenticated your users may change the URL from https back to http for whatever reason. I tried to prevent that by checking the same property "require ssl connection" on the users maildatabase but ...

Protect your IBM Lotus Domino Server against brute force attacks on non HTTP ports

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 10:30:44 +0200

I am sure you are familiar with Internet Password Lockout which was added in version 8. It's a nice feature everybody likes to use having a Domino Server reachable from all the Internet. Unfortunately this feature works for HTTP and HTTPS only. If you use authenticated SMTP, for example allow some mobile users to relay emails, there is no protection....

Upgrade to Domino 8.5, syntax error for iNotes users which is in fact a formula error

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:34:03 +0200

After upgrading a Domino Server to Version 8.5 I was facing lots of helpdesk tickets from users not able to access their email. ...

Lotusphere 2009 Opening Ceremony Video

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:35:37 +0200

You can see a video of the Lotusphere 2009 opening ceremony here

DAOS error message and solution

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 23:22:56 +0200

I upgraded an IBM Lotus Domino Server to Version 8.5 and configured it to use DAOS. As I used the compact task I saw this ugly error message:

01/27/2009 23:16:32 The database /home/domino01/data/common/smartup4.TMP was unable to write to file /home/domino01/DAOS/0001/462C1A5581296F54C125754B007A5D302462C1A5581296FP.nlo: Release 8.5HF23 December 31, 2008

I remembered I heard at Lotusphere that DAOS does not work when using 2048 bit server id-files so I added DAOS_ENCRYPT_NLO=0 to the notes.ini file. After a restart of the server DAOS is now working fine.

Using Domain Search to index files in the filesystem

Christian Brandlehner — Sat, 9 Aug 2008 14:33:10 +0200

After posting a trick regarding Domino Domain Search I was asked to provide some basic details on the configuration. I am going to show how to configure Domino Domain Search to index files so you can search for content.

A Domain Search trick

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 5 Aug 2008 17:02:28 +0200

Domain Search is quite an old feature of IBM Lotus Domino but not quite popular. One reason may be that using Domain Search from a browser has some limitations (read on for a workaround). Basically, it is a fulltext search across multiple databases (even on different servers) and files (yes files on the filesystem, not attached to documents in a database).

The problem is that usually not all of your applications are fully web-enabled so you prefer to open search results from Domain Search with the Notes Client, not the web browser.
The trick is to customize the form (SearchResults) in the database catalog.nsf. Add the following JavaScript to the "Web - onLoad Event":

var href = document.getElementsByTagName("a");
var src;
var epos;
for (var i = 0; i < href.length; i++) {
src = href[i].href;

epos = src.indexOf("yourdatabase.nsf");
if (epos > (-1) ) {
href[i].href = "notes://domsrv" + src.substring(10, src.length);
href[i].target = "_OpenResult";
}
}

You will have to adopt "yourdatabase.nsf" to the filename of a database you want to open with Lotus Notes and the notes: link to your servername as well as the length of 10 in the substring is dependent on the length of your servername.

What makes a Notes Client a Standard Client opposed to Basic Client

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 5 Aug 2008 15:47:34 +0200

You may already know that even if you install a Notes Standard Client (the one with the Eclipse stuff) you can force the start of a Notes Basic Client by creating a new shortcut to notes.exe adding the parameter "-sa".
Now think of a situation where you want to have ONE software installation pack for all your client but make it up to the user to decide if he wants to start the Standard or the Basic Client. You will find out that using a second shortcut is not sufficient as Notes may be fired up by clicking a mailto-link in a browser or use "send to email" in his Windows Explorer.
The trick is that notes.exe does a very simple check which client is installed, it search the program directory for a folder "framework". If it exists, the Eclipse GUI will fire up, if not we will see the Basic Client GUI.
So the trick is to have a small batch file that renames the folder "framework" to eg "framework.disabled" and back on the choice of the user.

Saving network bandwith sending outbound SMTP to relay host

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 4 Jun 2008 13:37:48 +0200

There is a notes.ini parameter RouterKeepRelayedBCCsIntact which is almost unknown as there is no equivalent in the servers configuration document. Given that you are using a SMTP relay hosts (as customers of postini or messagelabs do) this setting will allow your outbound SMTP email having several recipients on the BCC list to be sent as a single mail to the relay host instead of sending separate emails for each BCC recipient.

Implementing a CAPTCHA with IBM Lotus Domino

Christian Brandlehner — Sat, 3 May 2008 23:12:30 +0200

I am currently having some problems with form SPAM. Although the form is save and does not allow cross site scripting or even the execution of injected JavaScript it is still a pain in the as to have to delete SPAM from whatever web based database (guestbook , feedback, trouble-ticket, ...).

I have seen CAPTCHA solutions for other platforms but not for Domino so I started developing my own implementation...

Some findings regarding the replicator page

Christian Brandlehner — Mon, 3 Mar 2008 15:31:54 +0200

I was asked where the replicator page is stored in the Lotus Notes Client and if there is any way to access that data. I did some investigation and want to share and discuss these.

How to create a Lotus Notes Widget that submits data to a form on the web

Christian Brandlehner — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 11:48:18 +0200

In this tutorial I want you to understand how to create:
a) a new Recognizerusing regular expressions
b) a new component based on a web form
c) a new action to wire the component to the recognizer

Add a Google Gadget to your Lotus Notes sidebar

Christian Brandlehner — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 16:39:44 +0200

Google offers lots of Gadgets which you can add to your Lotus Notes Sidebar since version 7.0.1.

The Google Gadgets catalog: http://www.google.com/ig/directory?synd=open

Creating a widget that does a fulltext search

Christian Brandlehner — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 15:58:08 +0200

Support for widgets was shipped with Lotus Notes 8.0.1 for Windows (currently not supported with the Linux client 8.0.1). In this tutorial I will try to explain how to add your own widgets.
I will use the name recognizer to lookup a users person document in the Domino Directory.

My Lotusphere URLs

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:58:26 +0200

I would like to share some URLs with you linking to new Lotus products/services announced at Lotusphere 2008. First is bluehouse, which is currently under development but accepts Beta nominations.
A new offering is Lotus Foundation, an offering for smaller companies. Lotus Foundation addresses customers with limited or no knowledge in Domino administration.
This is the full pressrelease.

Lotus Quickr for Domino hotfixes available for public download

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 8 Jan 2008 10:33:22 +0200

Customers using Lotus Quickr should check the fixlist in this technote and upgrade using the download link on the bottom of the document.
Lotus Domino Quickr 8.0.0.0 HF17 is the most current version for NON-english installations, when using the english version the most current version is 8.0.0.2 HF7.

Use your Sametime Client to chat with IBM employees

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 2 Jan 2008 11:43:02 +0200

I found this information via Chris Pepin who posted detailed instructions on how to configure an additional community in the Sametime Connect Client, the same procedure will work with Notes Notes 8.x (except basic configuration).

Where does the integrated Sametime client store the location information?

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 09:53:52 +0200

I am using Lotus Notes 8, the full featured Eclipse based version, with Sametime and really like the location awareness.
Unfortunately I messed up some location information by mistyping or saving incomplete data by accidentially hitting the enter key. I was wondering where that location information is stored and what format that data is. I found that the information is stored in a XML file containing the information I typed in, the IP I had at that location plus a MAC address (of the default gateway I guess).
The file is located at {your Notes data directory}\workspace\.metadata\.plugins\com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.location

New Nokia PC Suite 6.85

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 10:28:06 +0200

Nokia released a new version of Nokia PC Suite this week. I use it to sync my Lotus Notes 8 calendar and contacts with my Symbian based Nokia E61. You can download the software there: http://europe.nokia.com/pcsuite

Fulltext Indexing issues with Microsoft Office when using LZ1 compression for attachments

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 14:08:29 +0200

One of my customers reported that he is seeing problems with FTI when using LZ1 compression.

Changes in Lotus Notes 8 that surprized me

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:06:47 +0200

I am going to update this blog entry with things that puzzle me in the final version of Notes 8.

Roaming is supported with the basic client, but not with the full featured (Eclipse based) Lotus Notes Client
Lock Notes ID (Ctrl-F5) does not blank the screen, you can see all information display when locking. This makes locking the PC when leaving the desk even more important.
The bookmarks. I can't find a way to display them as workspace. This is going to make users return to the workspace.
The Window management. If I open a document in Productivity Tools and open Notes in a second window, closing the document closes Notes as well.
The Locations. Some information is not stored there and gets lost when switching locations and id (eg Sametime Credentials).
The sidebar. I was hoping to be able to use my Sametime 7.5.1 plugins there but it seems they need to be modified to work in Notes 8 sidebar.

Linux boot options for VMware to address time drift problem

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 09:59:34 +0200

When running a Lotus Domino Server a wrong time can be very annoying, just imagine you have some agents not triggered at the expected (real) time. I have seen some Operating System time drift especially with Linux virtualized into VMware. I made some google searches and found that this problem seems to be quite common and there is lot of information on that issue.
I found a solution that works for me, which is to edit the boot options settings to add the following parameters:

acpi=off noapic nosmp nolapic clock=pit

IBM Lotus Domino Web Access (DWA) now supported for Windows Vista

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 1 Aug 2007 07:00:05 +0200

Due to the fact that IBM Lotus Domino 6.x was released some time before Windows Vista was released, there was no support for Internet Explorer on Windows Vista. A couple of customers asked for a fix for Domino 6.x so they do not have to upgrade to Domino 7.x to solve the issue. A Fix for Domino 6.5.6 FP1 is now introducing this support for DWA on Vista.

More Information from IBM: http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24016489

Transparent cluster failover coming with Notes 8

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 10:36:06 +0200

Currently, in Notes 6.x and 7.x a Notes user is being prompted if he want's to try to switch to another server in case the current server does not respond. This prompts says:

The server with this database is no longer responding. Should Notes switch to a replica on another server?

Customers opened PMRs asking for a change* so Notes 8 introduces a new notes.ini parameter HidePromptFailoverInc =1 that eliminates the prompt by defaulting to yes.

This information is based on Technote 1115373
* Tip: This is correct way to submit all your enhancement request. Remember: The more customers submit an enhancement request, the more likely it will be implemented soon.

NSD improvements

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 17:16:13 +0200

Notes System Diagnostics (NSD) has been improved and downloads are available for the 6.5.x and 7.x codestream. Technote 1233676 explains what has been improved and fixed. For better NSD performance on AIX 5.3 you should install APAR IY95879.

Link:
Updated NSD

Ytria aclEZ tool (Beta)

Christian Brandlehner — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 09:25:50 +0200

Ytria released a beta version (30 days free use) of aclEZ. This tool allows you to browse multiple databases ACL in a flexible way and allows you to edit the ACL on multiple databases as well.

What is new in ytria scanEZ

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 16:18:54 +0200

In March Ytria added a new tool to scanEZ, their database-viewer and mass-modification tool.
The "Post Replication Auditor" immediately shows all documents that reappear after deletion stubs are purged.
These documents can then be treated using scanEZ powerfull mass-modification features.
Give it a try and let them know what you think.

New Microsoft Exchange with IBM Lotus Domino interoperability service

Christian Brandlehner — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 12:29:08 +0200

A customer who is migrating from Exchange to Lotus Domino (for whatever reason and less likely the other way round) will be looking for a coexistance solution. Microsoft Transporter for Lotus Domino features directory syncronisation and free/busy lookup.
With IBM Lotus Domino 7 a new webservice based freetime lookup feature was implemented but as Microsoft Exchange does not support that yet this tool is currently the only way to have free/busy information in a mixed environment with the two products.

A WIKI theme for IBM Lotus QuickPlace

Christian Brandlehner — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 11:23:13 +0200

IBM Lotus QuickPlace is in the market for some years now featuring some extras still missing in most web based applications. This is the rich text editor plus an easy way to upload (attach) files.
SNAPPS tried to use that product as a WIKI by building a QWiki theme for the right look and feel plus a PlaceBot that extends logics.

Editing the Lotus Notes Preferences (notes.ini) on Mac OS

Christian Brandlehner — Sat, 3 Feb 2007 22:31:45 +0200

As documented by IBM there a difference between Lotus Notes for Windows and Lotus Notes on Macintosh platform in editing the preferences. While you needed just a text editor on Windows you needed a separate tool for Mac clients.
This changed with Lotus Notes 7.x as you do no longer need any tool. I post some screenshots to show how much easier this is with Notes 7.

ID214, Best Practices for Clustering Performance

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:34:02 +0200

Attention: Cluster Replication bypasses Formula Replication!

Nice recommendation for Domino with SAN: Install OS and Domino on the SAN, have another RAID on the SAN for Domino data and use the local disk(s) for Transactional logging because the local disks should be the fastest ones. This will give you a very fast system.

AD301, Calendaring and Scheduling

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 17:30:32 +0200

This session is about how to create calendar entries and invitations.
Very important is a document that lists and somewhat explains all the fields used in calendar documents.
It is planned to provide API functions and webservices to create calendar entries.

ID305, IBM Lotus Sametime Gateway

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:30:50 +0200

IBM Lotus Sametime Gateway is built on Websphere Application Server. I basically enabled you to connect Instant Messaging Networks, including Sametime, Google Talk, Yahoo and AOL (yet).
The Sametime Gateway is the successor of the Sametime SIP Gateway which is no longer under development.
In contradiction to multi homed chat clients (Trillian, ...) Sametime Connector enabled user of Sametime 7.5 or Notes 8 to add external users to their buddy list without the need to install any plugin on the client. There is no network connection from the Sametime Client directly to one of the external communities, this is handled by the Sametime server. Users do not have to care about usernames and passwords for multiple communities.
Currently the connector supports presence and instant messagings, more functions like audio chat, file transfer and others are subject of future development.
The (old) SIP gateway can connect to the Sametime connector on the other side so you can have a mixed configuration.
The XMPP support is limited in the current release so it can connect to Google only.

Each protocol uses its own security settings, VP uses RC2 with a 128 bit key, SIP uses TLS and XMPP (google) uses a technique named server dial-back as TLS will be supported later.
There is an API to add (third party) tools for virus canning, content scanning, SPIM filtering etc.

ID206, Be the first to know about IBM Lotus Domino 8 Performance

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 21:44:56 +0200

Angelo Lynn and Harry Murray were takling about Perormance.
Key news:
Domino needs configuraiton on Linux for optimal performance.(MEM_AddressableMemSizeMB, MEM_EnablePreAlloc, ...)
When using Domino 7.0.2 or higher on 64 Bit Linux use Tunekrnl to leveralge 4GB of memory to Domino.

When using Domino on 64Bit Windows the performance is better than with W32 on the same box.

Domino on AIX is able to use the very large memory model which will give better performance.

Recommendation: when thinking about a new server today, buy a 64Bit version.

Server.Load has new mail workload benchmarks - they work with version 7.x too. The new benchmarks is more realistic and assumes a mailboxsize of 250MB with 3000 documents, the old benchmark assumed only 20MB.

It is planned that Domino 8 will try to reduce I/O load. One example is the new Streaming Cluster replication.

AD302, What is New in the IBM Lotus Domino Web Server

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:20:50 +0200

In addition to the notes.ini parameter DominoCompleteDocType which has been introduced in 6.5.3, IBM added a field to complete the doctype. Even more useful is a new URL parameter to get JSON from a view instead of XML by using ?ReadViewEntries&OutputFormat=JSON. Although this is on the list of new features for Domino 8 it is available in Domino 7.0.2 and up.
You can add special $$fields to disable Passthru HTML and even narow down on what kind of Passthru HTML you want to disable (by square brackets, marked as such, within a richtext field).
The HTML API has been extended to provide more functions and informations.

Microsoft Exchange Gateway problem

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 9 Jan 2007 15:43:31 +0200

I know some customers using the Microsoft Exchange Connector for Lotus Domino for coexistence of Notes/Domino and Outlook/Exchange (after migrating from Exchange to Domino). You should be aware that the connector uses Notes RTF export functionality to transfer Notes Rich Text (CD) emails to MS-RTF. Due to the fact that the RTF export was entirely rewritten in 6.5.5 the connector stopps working correctly. With version 6.5.5 (and up) you can use the notes.ini parameter UseOlderRTFImportExport=1 to use the old code again but starting with vesion 7.0 there is only the new code available.
I think MS will have to rewrite parts of their connector hopefully using a different export, prefered Domino XML.

Lotus Notes 7.0.2 on Mac OS X, Problem with MIME emails

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 5 Jan 2007 11:03:29 +0200

As already posted here, Notes 7.0.2 for Mac OS X does not load HTML resources (images) in MIME emails and in databases using passthrough HTML. The problem source does not seem to be a missing perweb.nsf though, I found that this database is being created during setup as expected.

notes.ini parameters for Domino Transaction Logging Performance Tuning

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 6 Dec 2006 14:53:56 +0200

To improve performance with IBM Lotus Domino Tranaction Logging you can disable transaction logging for some databases where logging is not necessary, or just too expensive in terms of IO performance.

Performance Tuning Lotus Domino Transaction Logging

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 6 Dec 2006 11:25:06 +0200

IBM Lotus Domino can use Transaction Logging circular, to prevent data loss or data corruption in case of a server crash, or archive style. This allows use of certified backup software that will frequently store the translogs in addition to eg weekly full-backups to save diskspace compared to daily full-backups. Of course this configuraiton requires correct configuration and you should think about performance BEFORE implementing.

Domino LanguagePack fails silently on 64 bit Linux

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 5 Dec 2006 20:08:12 +0200

If you are experiencing a problem with the LanguagePack installer for Lotus Domino 7.0.2 on 64 bit Linux, try installing the 32 bit X11 libraries. This fixed the problem for me.

New Support for CD to HTML conversion with the new 7.0.2 C-API

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 11:04:20 +0200

IBM is providing a new version 7.0.2 of the C-API. A developer can now use code, that is part of the Domino HTML task, to convert Notes documents and design elements to HTML.
Announcement: HTML API support in Lotus Notes and Domino 7.0.2 software
Download: C API 7.0.2

Installing Lotus Notes on Mac OS X on Intel

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 11:06:58 +0200

I wanted to know about Lotus Notes on Mac so I decided to give it a try and share my experience by posting some sceenshots. ...

Support for IBM Lotus Domino in WMware

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 6 Oct 2006 10:18:55 +0200

There is a Lotus Technote about Lotus Domino support when installed in a virtualized OS on VMware. The Technote warns that there have been no performance testings from IBM so performance could be a problem.
I have hear from a customer, that while you can have several thousand Notes users on a Intel/AMD-box, in a VMware you will see the limit with 100 users, so the performance is degraded by factor 10 as a minimum. I would like to hear if you have seen similar results.

Get your free Blackberry Enterprise Server for IBM Lotus Domino today!

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 3 Oct 2006 09:41:22 +0200

RIM is currently offering a free license which is limited to 10 users.
http://www.blackberry.com/products/software/server/domino/quickstart.shtml

Domino Catalog task does not add more than 8192 databases

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 14:43:15 +0200

The catalog task that makes an inverntory of all databases on a Lotus Domino server seems to be limited to a maximum of 8192 databases per server.
If you like to open a PMR to ask for a fix refer to SPR MLUR6PMLL6.

Import PNG images with Lotus Notes

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 08:20:02 +0200

As reported, Lotus Notes does not support PNG images but you can configure Lotus Notes to import PNG graphic files into a rich text field by adding the following line to your Notes clients notes.ini
EDITIMP18=PNG Image,0,_IW4W,,.PNG,,8,
I recommend to also add the following parameter to your notes.ini file
OptimizeImagePasteSize=1

Update your NSD

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 09:48:52 +0200

NSD is an important tool to dump information in case of a PANIC or other software problems. The NSD files contain information you can provide to IBM to determine the cause of the software problem. Better NSD files means it is easier to determine the root cause of your Domino servers problem! So update your NSD now: http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24013182

New Redbook: Migrate from Exchange to Domino

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 09:32:59 +0200

Migrating from Microsoft Exchange2000/2003 to Lotus Notes and Domino 7

Available on the IBM Redbook site: http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpieces/abstracts/sg247777.html

Sametime Servers

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 17:15:38 +0200

I just made a simple NETCRAFT search looking for hosts having "sametime" within their name. The list contains 29 servers but the important message is, that a high percentage of these servers do not require authentication, you can just use them to make online meetings.

The Lotus Notes password

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 2 Aug 2006 17:09:03 +0200

Wouldn't it be nice to have a Lotus Notes password dialog that shows you when you have to change your password and when your certificate will expire?
I made a fake screenshot to impress what I am thinking of, knowing that there are situations where you can't show that information BEFORE you entered the password, for example if you are trying to retrieve the id from the person document or the roaming names.nsf if you are a roaming user. But in cases we have the id file locally, I think this should be possible, isn't it?

Sending a contact to a mobile phone using bluetooth

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 19:03:33 +0200

I found an agent that sends any contact from your local names.nsf to your mobile phone using bluetooth. You can download a template containing that agent here.
The prerequisite is that your computer is using a bluetooth stack from WIDCOM as the agent relies on a dll file called btsendto_notes.dll. If you have that dll installed on your PC, this agent should work.

IBM Take Back Control

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 00:36:48 +0200

There is a new fancy site called "Take Back Control", have a look there: http://www.ibm.com/takebackcontrol/sametime

Logitech Newsletter

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 7 Jul 2006 08:41:08 +0200

Logitech sent me a newsletter and I have to blog about the first sentence. It says "If you are using Lotus Notes or display is incorrect, please click here". Clicking on the link will sent you to a HTML site showing you that newsletter in the browser. Needless to say that the newsletter displays just fine in Lotus Notes, so the "warning" is unneccesarry.
I wonder if Logitech tried to make a statement instead of providing help.

Language Pack Installer Problem

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 13:02:42 +0200

Today I tried to install a german Language Pack on IBM Lotus Domino 6.5.5 on RedHat Linux. The installer failed to start with the error message:
Unable to load native library: libjava.so: symbol __libc_wait, version GLIBC_2.0 not defined in file libc.so.6 with link time reference
I found Tecnote 1173500 giving the following help:
1. Get the file ftp://people.redhat.com/drepper/libcwait.c.
2. check if gcc is installed with "rpm -qa | grep gcc".
3. Install gcc if not present.
4. Compile the downloaded file with "gcc -shared -o libcwait.so -O -g libcwait.c".
5. Launch "export LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/libcwait.so".
6. Launch the LP installer.

I did just that and the language pack installer started successfully. I ansered all the questions and reached the point where the LP-installer checks if the domino servers version matches the LPs version. To my surprise, the installer stated that version 65050 does not match 6.5.5 and I should upgrade to that version.
As I was absolutely sure that the versions are correct I made several tries and finally found that the reason was that the file libcwait.so had wrong permissions. That file needs to have the execute right set!!!
You can easily modify the access rights using "chmod 777 libcwait.so"

Alternate Names

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 8 Jun 2006 20:03:11 +0200

Today I was thinking about alternate names and playing around with issuing a cross certificate for /IBM I would like to ask you, if you use this feature because I know only one customer who uses alternate names. What are the issues/problems that prevent using it?
Isn't this feature meant to have also usernames with special characters, like german umlauts, in a person documents without using those special characters in the username? I think yes, but there may be issues not to use it this way as I know several customers using german umlauts in the username instead of using alternate names.

OK, I found one issue that is so awful, I can't believe this is working as designed. Have a user with plain ASCII in his username and add a alternate name having umplauts (you can have just ONE alternate name per user). Now open a new mail and the address dialog. You will see something similar to what I outline in the second screenshot: A dialog box presenting the username as ", " and additional as " /". I can't see the reason why this is completely off.

Warning for IBM Java Applet used in Webmail

Christian Brandlehner — Mon, 22 May 2006 10:44:01 +0200

There is a current issue with the JAVA Applets provided with IBM Lotus Domino (up to 7.0.1). These applets are digitally signed with a certificate which expired on 18 May 2006. In theory this should be no issue as the certificate was valid at the time being used to sign the code. The only impact should be that the certificate could not be used any longer for signing.
In fact, several JRE's, including Sun JAVA 1.5.0 prompt the user with a certificate error prompt. IBM reacted by providing a fixpack that includes applets signed with a certificate valid till 2009. You can request this fixpack by opening a PMR with IBM Lotus Support. http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=463&uid=swg21238081

Performance Tuning Domino Web Applications

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 20:28:49 +0200

This time I am publishing the english version of my presentation.

Performance Tuning von Domino Webapplikationen

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 20:50:48 +0200

Ich habe nun die finale Version der Präsentation fertiggestellt. Dabei hatte ich am Ende noch mehr Probleme als mir lieb waren.
Ich habe, wie es sich für einen braven Betatester gehört, die Präsentation mit den IBM Productivity Tools, einem Subset des Workplace Managed Clients geschrieben. Diese Productivity Tools gefallen mir auch eigentlich ganz gut im Vergleich mit OpenOffice Impress und MS Powerpoint. Obwohl die Wurzel dieses Tools in Impress liegt, wurde ein eigenes Dateiformat .sxi eingeführt, man kann jedoch auch im Powerpoint-format oder Impress-Format abspeichern sowie nach PDF exportieren.
Die Probleme begannen bei mir ab etwas Seite 33. Plötzlich waren eingefügte Bilder beim PDF export nicht mehr sichtbar oder an ganz anderer Stelle und verdeckten damit den Text oder waren nicht mehr am sichtbaren Teil des Bildschirmes.
Ein Versuch durch Export nach PowerPoint oder Impress schlug fehl weil beim Export die Qualität der Eingebetteten Grafik so massiv schlechter wurde, dass ich alle hätte neu einfügen müssen.

Letztlich habe ich es dann doch noch geschafft indem ich einige der Images entfernt und neu eingefügt habe.

Performance Tuning of Domino Webapplications

Christian Brandlehner — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 16:19:25 +0200

I just finished the first part of my presentation and post it here for review. Please leave comments if you find incorrect information or something missing. Stay tuned for more information to come soon.

Exchange must go

Christian Brandlehner — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 09:10:32 +0200

I came along this picture on the blog of Chris Blatnick, and found this one is an eye catcher.
This picture would be a nice logo for IBM's Migrate to the Penguin program as well.

Firefox Update 1.5.0.2 fixes DWA problems

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 14:56:51 +0200

Unfortunately, Firefox 1.5.0 did not work with IBM Lotus Domino Web Access (DWA), the RichText Editor did not work at all. The current release Firefox 1.5.0.2 seems to fix those problems, first tests with my DWA mailbox showed no obvious problem.

Domiclipse, an Eclipse based tool to develop Domino application

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 6 Apr 2006 00:07:39 +0200

The author of Domiclipse is thinking about publishing his tool as OpenSource application. Please visit the Domiclipse Forum to read more.

Performance Tuning IBM Lotus Domino Webapplications

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 14:05:15 +0200

I was invited to talk about Performance Tuning IBM Lotus Domino Webapplication at the Admin&Developer 2006 convention in Oberhausen, Germany.
I was thinking about talking about the following topics in a timeframe of 60 minutes:

Measure speed, what does it is slow mean in seconds?
HTTP Response Headers, Client side caching
Images. They can be located in the filesystem, can be attachments or resources. How to use them?
JavaScript. Wow do I use it so it loads fast?
WebQueryOpenAgents, what it that anyway? (Agent Profiling)
Worst practices

Not sure if I have enough time to cover these issues:

GZIP compression, what we can learn from DWA
AJAX, ...(afraid this is much too complex to present it in time)

I intended not to talk about obvious performance issues like writing fast code or building simple small views wherever possible.

Questions:
If you were (or are) attending this session, is there anything you would like to hear in addition to that?
Any examples of worst practices that made webapplications slow (and were easy to fix)?

Microsoft starts a marketing champaign against IBM

Christian Brandlehner — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 00:32:56 +0200

Those of you who read my blog frequently know that I usually focus on technical issues but today some braking news, even in the Austrian news got my immediate attention. Regarding the news Microsoft has a budged of 500 Million Dollars just for one purpose: to fight IBM.
Needless to say that they should spend the money to improve their products instead of spending it for marketing, but to be honest: Sometimes the customers does not buy the best solution, but something else.
Michael Sampson is analyzing the situation perfectly, describing IBM's weaknesses.
My conclusion: IBM has to fight back instead of trying to be "the good guy".

mixed mode - POP3 and DWA - notes.ini can help

Christian Brandlehner — Sun, 5 Mar 2006 22:01:42 +0200

If you use POP3 to read your emails from your maildatabase on a IBM Lotus Domino Server, everything works fine, unless you use DWA too. Emails you read using DWA do not download to your POP3 mail application. This is due to the fact that DWA removes the unread flag for that document.
To circumvence this behaviour there is an notes.ini parameter that may help. Use the following console command to set it:
SET CONFIG POP3_READ_ALL=1

notes.ini parameter to customize error messages

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 15:45:28 +0200

As Mikkel is posting on his blog there is a way to configure / override every error message in the Lotus Notes Client just by setting a notes.ini parameter. In combination with the possibility to write any notes.ini parameter using a policy, this is really usefull stuff.
References:

Lotus Domino 7.0.1 regression bug

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 15:18:10 +0200

As Vince Schuurman reported the 64K Limit for @Functions is back. According to Rocky Oliver this is a regression bug.
This regression bug may be related to another issue with the error message "Incorrect data type for operator or @Function: Text expected".

I opened a PMR and IBM is tracking the issue as SPR TTOS6J8JGV.

Problem with shared columns

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 11:02:38 +0200

In Lotus Notes you can have shared columns, a pretty new feature. I discovered some pitfall which is not obvious and I tend to classify it as a bug.

Customize Domino Mailrules

Christian Brandlehner — Mon, 6 Feb 2006 14:46:04 +0200

I am using customized mailrules for some time, motivated by Chris Linfoot and dominopower. These customizations add several conditions to the template.
I was looking for a way to customize actions and customized the servers names.nsf even more.

First Task: Add an action to change the message importance
This action is available in the client mailrules but not for server mailrules. In fact, it is there but just hidden in the GUI.

1. Edit the Form (RulesDlg)
2. add "change message importance |2" to the combobox "action".

This one was easy, wasn't it? Want to do more?

Second Task: Add an action to add a field

1. Edit the form (rulesDlg)
2. add "add field|X" to the combobox "action"
3. add two fields "AddFieldName" and "AddFieldText" below of "behavior". Change the hidewhen formulas to "!@Contains(action;"X")"
4. Edit the ScriptLibrary "Rules"
5. In the Declarations add
Const ACT_AddField = &h00000331&
Dim ACT_sAddFieldName As Variant
Dim ACT_sAddFieldText As Variant
6. In the Function "ActionString" add
Case "X"
ActionString = GetString(ACT_AddField)
7. In the Sub "GetGlobalActionValues" add the lines
ACT_sAddFieldName = Note.GetItemValue("AddFieldName")(0)
ACT_sAddFieldText = Note.GetItemValue("AddFieldText")(0)
8. In the Sub "ActionParser" add
Case "X"
s_MAINFORMULA = s_MAINFORMULA+"@setfield("""+ACT_sAddFieldName+""";"""+ ACT_sAddFieldText + """)"
9. In the function "GetString" add
Case ACT_AddField
GetString = " Add " + ACT_sAddFieldText + " to field " + ACT_sAddFieldName

Login to Domino by URL

Christian Brandlehner — Mon, 6 Feb 2006 09:48:11 +0200

I was asked if there is a way to log into Domino by URL if you know the users username and password. You may want to do so if you want to build some kind of single sign on solution between different webservers that don't support a common authentication method like LTPA Tokens in IBM Lotus Domino and IBM Websphere.
This is indeed possible and the trick is quite easy. The URL is (this example does not work as I do not provide a real username here):

/names.nsf?Login&username=John%20Doe&password=pwd&redirectTo=/log.nsf

Surveys regarding the future features of Lotus Notes

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 14:54:45 +0200

IBM Lotus Development is looking for feedback so you should take part in those surveys.

http://www-950.ibm.com/survey/oid/wsb.dll/studies/LocationReplication.htm

http://www-950.ibm.com/survey/oid/wsb.dll/studies/BookmarksWorkspace6.htm

New 6.5.5 Lotus Notes/Domino notes.ini parameters

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 5 Jan 2006 20:09:52 +0200

These notes.ini parameters are new with Lotus Notes/Domino 6.5.5.

New 7.0.1 Lotus Notes / Domino notes.ini parameters

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 5 Jan 2006 17:15:03 +0200

The Notes.ini variable "NOLOCALSHARINGFAILOVER=1" can be used to prevent automatic failover when opening a local database that is already open by another user. This restores the R5 behavior when two users attempt to open the same local database.
SPR# PJON6CGQSS - Router non-delivery messages were not transladed with the language pack installed. This fix provides a workaround for customers who wish for certain English failure reasons returned in NDRs by the Router to be translated. These English strings currently are visible in the Subject field in the Inbox view. This fix copies 11 untranslated error messages from the router to strings. It also provides a notes.ini, RouterLanguageVisibleNDRStatus=1, which when enabled will generate these new error codes for NDRs. This does not in itself give a translated error. Translation of these new errors on the various language packs is required. The customer must then make a configuration change, to backup the original strings resource, and copy (not rename) the desired language pack version of strings_xx on top of strings. Note that this will also cause some server console messages to be in that language.
SPR# PRUN658HGV - Fixed some memory leaks associated with running applets in Notes. Also enabled redirecting heap dump output (on the client only) to a file via the following Notes.ini variables:
CHECK_FOR_JAVA_HEAPDUMPS - if non-zero, checks for heapdumps, and deals with writing its output to a file. If zero works as it used to with all output going to the Notes debug console.
HEAP_DUMP_FILE_NAME - if CHECK_FOR_JAVA_HEAPDUMPS is set, this specifies the file the output should be written to. If not specified, the default is c:\tmp\heapdump%d.txt. If %d appears in the name, then the code replaces the %d with a number and checks to see if a file with that name/number exists. If it does, it increments the number and tries again until a new file is created. If %d does not appear, then the file is opened and appended to each time.
*Please note: In V7, the Notes.ini variables above will become obsolete when we upgrade to a JVM that supports saving the HeapDump output properly.
SPR# PCHE6DZEZ8 - In some situations, the DXL Exporter could give the error "Invalid Encoded Data - Attachment may be corrupted" due to the abnormal case of two attachments with the same name within a note. Provided a workaround to this problem as follows. If the notes.ini variable DXL_EXPORT_RECOVERY=1 is used, the second and subsequent attachments with the same name within a note will be emitted as itemdata. The first attachment with that name will be emitted in its normal format, object file filedata.
Please note: this Notes.ini variable is only needed in version 6.x. In 7.x, the fix works without the need for the Notes.ini variable.

IBM Lotus Domino for Hosted Organisations

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 14:19:06 +0200

I just tried to setup Domino for Hosted Organisations. This installation mode chaged it's name from ASP (Application Service Provider) to xSP (whatever? Service Provider) over the last years since it was introduced with Domino 6.x.
I tried it with Domino 7: The Administration help says that on W32 you have to use the argument xsp on the setup.exe. This did not work for me, the setup.exe complained that XSP is not a valid argument.
My solution to the problem was that I edited the notes.ini before I started the Domino Server for the first time (before serversetup coming up). I added ASPInstall=1 and serversetup did install Domino with Hosted Organisation support as I tried again.

The Domino database cache evolved

Christian Brandlehner — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 23:27:52 +0200

IBM Lotus Domino caches some database informations in it's nsf database cache to improve performance at a later hit on that database compared to the need to reopen the database, which will take longer time.
You can use the notes.ini parameter NSF_DbCache_Maxentries to control how many databases can reside in the cache at a maximum.

IBM Lotus After Business Event

Christian Brandlehner — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 15:10:04 +0200

This week the IBM Lotus After Business Event is taking place in Vienna. I am looking forward to see you. Please register on the IBM event site.

DWA, Umlauts and the Euro symbol

Christian Brandlehner — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 15:00:16 +0200

If you are facing problems with the display of german umlauts or broken display of the Euro sign you may want to test the following settings:

In the Server document > Internet Protocols > Domino Web Engine > Character set section, if 'Use UTF-8 for output' is set to "Yes", it should allow all browsers to view international extended characters (umlauts, accents, etc.) and the Euro symbol correctly EXCEPT for IE.
It has been reported that when IE is configured to 'Auto-select' the encoding, it somehow loses the detected character set and uses its default, which leads to the 'corrupted' international extended characters in DWA.

To resolve it for all the browsers, including IE, please configure the Server document > Internet Protocols > Domino Web Engine > Character set section as follows:

1) 'Use UTF-8 for output' = "No"
2) 'Default character set group' = "Western"
3) 'Western' = "Windows-1252"
4) 'Use auto-detection if database has no language information' = "Yes"
5) 'Character set in header' = "Enabled"
6) 'Meta character set' = "Enabled"

QuickPlace 6.5.4 german

Christian Brandlehner — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 12:01:56 +0200

I had to install IBM Team Workplace (QuickPlace) on a Domino Server version 6.5.4 with german language pack applied. It was the customers requirement, that QuickPlace has to be german as well.

Mailrules can cause some strange errors

Christian Brandlehner — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0200

Last week I found this error message while checking a customers console log.
Unable to add note 92D06 to folder in Database /notesdb1/mail/wrzrdn.nsf: Invalid or nonexistent document

If you see similar error messages, the root cause is that a user created mail rules to move documents into a specific folder, later on the user removed the folder, but the mailrule is still active.
Currently there is no automated solution for that problem, like disabling that broken mailrule.

Voice over IP with IBM Lotus Notes Domino

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 13:47:32 +0200

A very cool solution for voice over IP (VoIP) has been published and already received an Lotus award.

"Entry not found in index" using when "Compare Notes public keys against those stored in Directory:"

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 10:13:43 +0200

I hope you use "Compare Notes public keys against those stored in Directory:" to secure your Lotus Notes/Domino infrastructure. This is a good thing and if your domain has been set up properly, you will not see any negative impact.
If you use more than one top level certifier in your company, within more than one Notes Domain you will see a strange behaviour of Lotus Domino.

Do not mark modified documents as unread

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:30:29 +0200

In Lotus Notes Documents (Mails) get unread when being modified. To avoid this behaviour you can use the database property "Do not mark modified documents as unread".

Free Barbecue

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:03:18 +0200

M$Soft is still trying to proof that migrating from Lotus Notes to Outlook, will save IT investitions for the future.

Which Database Properties Are Affected by a Design Replace or Refresh in Notes 6.x

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 16:16:00 +0200

Did you ever wonder which databases settings are replaced by running load design on your server?

Sametime and Quickplace again.

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 3 Jun 2005 12:30:21 +0200

Do you know what "Lotus Instant Messaging and Web Conferencing" is, or do you know "Lotus Team Workplace"?
But you know "Sametime" and "Quickplace"?

New Password Compliance feature set in Lotus Notes/Domino 6.5.4

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 08:09:04 +0200

The Password Compliance feature set is controlled by new Policy Security Settings, and provides administrators with more granularity in setting a policy for acceptable passwords on Notes IDs. When the user changes passwords, they will also be prompted with a dialog that reflects the policy,

New 6.5.4 notes.ini parameters

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 16:56:12 +0200

Below is a list of the new Notes.ini parameters included in the Notes/Domino 6.5.4 release.

Lotus Notes Client Hotfix

Christian Brandlehner — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 12:14:13 +0200

Lotus Notes Client Hotfixes are not available for customers except for customers with a Priority Support Program - Strategic Level. Keep that in mind when planning your Client deployment.

International Domain Names and Lotus Notes - story continues.

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 2 Feb 2005 06:20:44 +0200

As I was bloging before here, the Lotus Notes Client does not support IDN, which means a conversion of the address a user may type in is necessary but currently not available.

New 6.0.5/6.5.3 notes.ini parameters

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 15:47:42 +0200

Below is a list of the new Notes.ini parameters included in the Notes/Domino 6.0.5 and 6.5.3 releases.

kSpam quarantine addon

Christian Brandlehner — Mon, 13 Dec 2004 14:08:27 +0200

I am running kSpam on one of my Lotus Domino Servers to filter SPAM emails. It was one of my daily tasks, to review the mailspam.nsf database on the server to check it for false positives. As I am going to leave for vacation for some weeks I had two ways to continue: Either find a person to stand in while I am out or even better, find a way to give each mailuser the way to check the filtered email himself.
I worked together with Herwig Schauer and our first release has been tested in our environment and the template has been posted here.

Enhancing the Lotus Domino server based mailrules

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 25 Nov 2004 19:29:05 +0200

I browsed the blog of Chris Linfoot to get some new ideas on Anti-SPAM tactics as my attention was directed to this article about hacking the Domino Mailrules. I found this quite useful and can recommend this modification.

Support for Lotus Domino Web Access with Firefox browser on Windows

Christian Brandlehner — Mon, 22 Nov 2004 16:08:15 +0200

Currently Domino 6.5.3 supports mozilla based browsers on Linux clients only. To make this absolutely clear: Neither mozilla nor firefox are currently supported clients on the MS Windows platform.

If you would like to see firefox on WINDOWS to be a supported browser stop whining, open an PMR and ask for an fix for SPR ETII66RJQQ. If enough customers are complaining, this will be available soon.

Using IBM Lotus Domino Web Access as standard mail client

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 9 Nov 2004 00:11:04 +0200

Using Mircrosoft Internet Explorer using DWA (formerly known as Lotus iNotes) is quite simple - just open the prefences and activate DWA to be your systems mail client.

This works by adding a registry key to HKLM\Software\Clients\Mail which is beeing used by IE. For whatever reason this is a system wide setting that affects all users on a particular computer. IE is not able to direct to webpages directly - even not for Hotmail which is preconfigured. A local code has to be called. In case of DWA it is the iNotes6.dll which is beeing added to your browser as soon as you use DWA as it uses Active-X

When using Mozilla or Firefox, you can't use Active-X so the dll is not beeing downloaded to your computer. Like IE mozilla is not able to direct to a web page directly. but there is a solution: you can use an extension: WebMailCompose can do exactly what you need to send email using DWA by just clicking on an mailto link.

First step is to download and install the extension: http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info/webmailcompose

Secend step is to configure the extension: Configure it using the following URL: http://www.brandlehner.at/mail/YourMailfileNameGoesHere.nsf//($Drafts)/$new/?EditDocument&Form=h_PageUI&PresetFields=h_EditAction;h_New,s_NotesForm;Memo,SendTo;^T

After restarting the browser the configuration is active.

Lotus Domino Web Access vs Outlook Web Access

Christian Brandlehner — Mon, 11 Oct 2004 22:48:50 +0200

I am currently working at a customers site where M$ has been invited to compete against Lotus/IBM by installing a Live Demo while DWA is already running. If you have been in this situation before (not really knowing your enemy) please can you provide me with information which features are GREAT in DWA but POOR in OWA?

Lotus Premium Support

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 21:34:07 +0200

There is a cool video regarding IBM Lotus Premium support:

ANUG

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 28 Sep 2004 21:55:03 +0200

I am quite busy at the moment. I am working with Declan Lynch on new BlogSphere releases and in parallel I am quite busy with my job.
Tomorrow I am talking about best practices regarding a Lotus Notes 6 upgrade at the ANUG, the Austrian Notes User Group. I was talking about the same topic a year ago but this time we will not waste any time with marketing, we will do some hours of hardcore Domino Server and Notes Client migration in real - not just a screenshot presentation.

New Lotus Technotes RSS Feeds

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 09:46:55 +0200

IBM Lotus Support started to host a RSS Feed for Technotes, see this page for available feeds: http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/rssfeed.nsf
Also a good source is http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/rss.html which list feeds for IBM Redbooks.

So get a feed reader if you do not alreay have one and start to red the news related to your interest. If you want to use a Lotus Notes based feed reader you may want to try this one: http://www.openntf.org/projects/pmt.nsf/ProjectHome?ReadForm&Query=Studio%20Blog%20Reader

IBM Lotus Notes 7 - Beta 2 is available for public download

Christian Brandlehner — Mon, 2 Aug 2004 14:14:36 +0200

You can download the recent beta version of version 7 here: http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/beta/nd7pubbeta.nsf

New 6.0.4/6.5.2 Notes.ini parameters

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 16 Jul 2004 12:26:21 +0200

Below is a list of the new Notes.ini parameters included in the Notes/Domino 6.0.4 and 6.5.2 release.

fix for: Database has grown too large; use File New Replica to recreate your file with larger capacity.

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 9 Jul 2004 12:53:30 +0200

Today I had an issue with an old archive database on a Lotus Notes 6 client. The archive database was still R4 ODS and therefore limited to 1GB.
As the database reached the 1GB limit, the Notes Client was no longer able to open the database. Creating a new replica or copy of the db failed.

I found a solution that worked:
Close your Notes Client.
Add Skip_Fixup=1 to your Notes Clients notes.ini
on a command prompt type "ncompact.exe databasename.nsf -m -c -i"
Remove the notes.ini parameter.

Edit any field Smarticon

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 07:15:33 +0200

I just came along a great site showing some Lotus Formula Code for a great SmartIcon. It will allow you to edit any field in a document and to add a field. Just great:
http://www.breakingpar.com/bkp/home.nsf/0/87256B280015193F87256E3700680660

End of Service extension for Lotus Notes Domino 5.x

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 25 May 2004 15:50:03 +0200

[

IBM announced that the planned End of Service, announced for April 2005, will be extended. Please see this IBM announcement: http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=463&uid=swg21117092

]

Lotus Domino does not support Internationalized Domain Names yet

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 1 Apr 2004 12:58:36 +0200

Beginning with March 2004 non ASCII characters like german umlauts are allowed to use in Internet Domain names (to be stored and resolved by DNS servers). Currently Lotus Domino does not support those domain names in version 6.5.x. As a workaround customers can try to implement a IDN aware reverse proxy server to forward request to a Lotus Domino Server. This workaround does not work for all Web Applications as this workaround just works for relative URLs but not for static URLs.

Lotus Domino 6 Streaming Replication

Christian Brandlehner — Wed, 10 Mar 2004 14:25:25 +0200

IBM introduced Streaming Replication with Lotus ND6. If a Lotus Notes Version 6 Client connects to a ND6 server for replication, this new replication process should speed up the replication.

New IBM Lotus Domino 6.5.1 Notes.ini parameters

Christian Brandlehner — Tue, 9 Mar 2004 12:28:08 +0200

Below is a list of the new Notes.ini parameters included in the Notes/Domino 6.5.1 release.

Is there a public free SameTime Server for Instant Messaging?

Christian Brandlehner — Sat, 7 Feb 2004 11:49:11 +0200

If you have a SameTime Server deployed in your Infrastructure you do not need to read the rest of this document, just log on to your Lotus SameTime server and feel happy.

Who the hell is Demyan Shcheglov/Logrus?

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 5 Feb 2004 16:31:17 +0200

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As mentioned in the Domino.Doc 3.1 for AIX (german) installation guide I tried to sign all the Domino.Doc databases. I was asked for a cross certificate for Lotus first but next, I had to trust a organisation called /Logrus. I have never heard of that organisation before and I do not know why their code is in a Domino.Doc template. Very strange!

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Installing Domino.Doc 3.x on Lotus Domino 6.5.1

Christian Brandlehner — Thu, 5 Feb 2004 16:09:39 +0200

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Today I had to install Domino.Doc on Lotus Domino 6.5.1 although this is not a supported configuration but as the new Domino Content Manager for Domino 6.5.1 ist not available yet IBM told me that it should work.

The installation of Domino.Doc failed just after starting with the error "Error Code 493: Do not run Domino as root. Domino exiting

Could not initialize the Notes API!"

I was able to workaround the problem by changing the owner of the binaries directory "/opt/lotus". This directory is usually owned by root:system. Just for the installation I canged that to domino1:system and installed Domino.Doc using the user "domino1" instead of "root".

There was also a small problem with the file httpd.cnf which is just read only by default in Domino 6.5.1. Change this to read and write before installing Domino.Doc as this file has to be edited to add new MIME types.

Do not forget to redo your changed on the file permissions before starting Lotus Domino!

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Certified for IBM Lotus Software

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 12:07:38 +0200

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I was just a CLP Domino R5 Principal System Administrator the last years, but while I was in Las Vegas IBM offered free certification tests, so I had the chance to upgrade my certification for ND6. The CLP update exam (see http://www.lotus.com/services/education.nsf/81f04813dc9ce3c7852566da004c5cb2/e97e3f62aba21ab485256c85006271c0?OpenDocument ) is asking a lot questions on xACL, Policies and Activity Logging. I was able to pass the exam so I am now able to call myself Certified for IBM Lotus Software, IBM Certified System Administrator - Lotus Notes and Domino 6 .

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How to check broken doclinks

Christian Brandlehner — Fri, 19 Dec 2003 10:50:09 +0200

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I found a fine article describing a small agent which is checking if a document contains broken doclinks. I had no time to test the agent yet but for what I understood it is quite simple to implement.

http://www.dominopower.com/issues/issue200311/00001136001.html

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LDAP active by default on Domino 6 Server

Christian Brandlehner — Mon, 1 Dec 2003 16:01:24 +0200

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Everybody who upgraded his Domino Server to 6.x will have seen that LDAP is started by default on the Administration Server of the Domino Directory. Removing LDAP from the parameter ServerTasks in the notes.ini does not disable this task as the Domino Server adds this task automatically after the next restart.

The trick is to add the parameter DisableLDAPOnAdmin=1 to the notes.ini, remove LDAP from ServerTasks and quit the running LDAP task. This should prevent the Domino server to add LDAP again. See Lotus Technote 1099161 for Details.

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Password Recovery Tool

Christian Brandlehner — Sun, 30 Nov 2003 16:04:33 +0200

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I was browsing the Internet looking for Lotus Notes related stuff as I found a tool used to recover lost passwords for Lotus Notes id files.

First I was shocked that there should be a flaw in the id files which would make it easy to find the users oder certifiers password, but then I had a closer look onto the tool and found that it is doing dictionary and bruteforce attacks. The maximum password length you can recover is 15 characters. Even with a fast computer (2GHz or more) you will calculate several days to even find a password with 6 characters. If you want to check for upper and lowercase too it will take even longer.

I can't see any danger for Administrators as they were always driven to use long, not predictable passwords for certifiers.

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