I just upgraded my browser to Firefox 3.5. Upon doing so I saw some information on its support for openvideo. I decided to take a look and so far I have been very impressed.
Over time things change and so do the way we go about doing things. In the early 1990's there was a huge uptake in the number of people who wanted to be on email, failing to realize that email would waste a lot of their time and just clutter up their in-box with data that meant very little to their job or their lives. Not only that, but to add to the confusion, SPAM became something that would very quickly dominate their in-box.
As a Lotus Notes administrator I often get to see people's in-box's as they show me the problems that they may be having. Some of them have 1,000's of unread messages which are in some cases a few years old. This tells me two things:
1. This user is getting a lot of irrelevant emails. 2. This user is not able to keep up with everything that they need to do.
Email is nasty. A view of unread messages easily makes people feel like they have a huge work flow which is impossible to ever cope with. Since using Eric Mack's eProductivity for Lotus Notes I have been forced to think a bit differently about what I am doing and also how I am doing it. I use to live in my in-box and from there I would fight the fires as best I could, often unaware of the sparks what were flying outside of the Lotus Notes in-box. Now, you might be thinking "but I don't live in my in-box". Let me ask you a question, do you have to check you email in-box more than 3 times a day? If so, I would suggest that you live in your in-box.
Here is another thing, for all you Lotus Traveler, iPhone and Blackberry users out there. Don't you feel like you can never get away from people now that you have your email with you everywhere that you go? I use to keep on checking my SmartPhone for new email messages when I was out and about. Even when I should have been relaxing.
Most email that we receive, we don't actually need and should no longer be treated as email that needs to clutter our in-box. Here are some examples and maybe you can think of a few more....
1. The CEO of the company sends an email to all staff asking about how the company has been doing this week. This could now go on a corporate blog (for internal use) as part of the intranet. 2. A newsletter subscription, this could be sent directly to a folder via a mail rule. I also know of a company that had a Lotus Notes mail-in database for all staff to send newsletters to. The messages had rules to put them into folders. The amount of traffic generated by these newsletters was minimal as there was only one instance of it coming into the network. 3. etc.
Because of the dramatic reduction in email coming into my Lotus Notes in-box, I am now able to consider than anything that does is reasonably important. I read the email and work out what actions may be required from me to address any of the issues raised in the message. With eProductivity I then sort those actions so that they can be preformed in context of where I am or what I may be doing at a future time. After that, I am able to forget about the email and send it straight to an achieve database.
I have been thinking about the death of Michael Jackson and some of the news that has been made available to us.
Over the years Michael has lead a less than ordinary life, a lot of this has been to do with being a pop star ,let alone the "King of Pop", along with all of the attention that comes with that. His life has been exposed to the world as someone who had an abusive childhood through to someone with a lot of problems in their adulthood such as mental health and financial. It would appear that Michael had all the money to buy expensive properties and to even change the way that he looked.
I always thought that it was a shame that he didn't appear to be happy with his own self image. He went to the extent that he had multiple plastic surgeries to reconstruct his facial appearances. He was very well known for this, and as much as the world can thank him for his contribution to music ,so the medical profession can thank him for his contribution for facial reconstruction surgery. It simply amazes me what money can buy.
A few years ago Michael ended up having to defend himself in court against accusations to do with child abuse. It was such a strange court case, but through it all he seemed to come out as being "not guilty". However, I do wonder if he would have won the case if he didn't have a lot of money to put into it (I still struggle to understand where that came from).
So there was money, fame and fortune. All of the things that so many people seem to spend their lives chasing.
This morning Michael appears to have suffered a heart attack. He had a number of people try to revive him for what appears to have been several hours. I expect that some of these people may have even been highly paid staff that were working for him. Despite all of the best medial techniques and professionals, Michael Jackson is now dead. Everything is left behind.
Today, Michael, will have met his maker, God (the father of my saviour and Lord, Jesus Christ). With no earthly possessions he is now accountable for the way he lived his life. There is no money that can get him into heaven, there is no work done here on earth that is good enough for him to get into heaven. The way that God will let him into heaven will be through Jesus Christ, His death on the cross, and through the power of His resurrection. The bible tells us that we are all in need of a Saviour (Jesus Christ) because we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The only way to God is through Jesus and we need to ask Him to forgive us for all the sin in our life. Yes, even me.
Today, if I die, I know that I will be going to heaven because I have asked Jesus to forgive me for the sin in my life. Even though I get so much wrong and still sin (even though I ask God to help me not to), I have the assurance from God that my sins are not only forgiven, but they are not remembered by him any longer.
So did Michael go to heaven or to hell? On this side of eternity, I will not know. You see, God is available to us right up to our last breath. None of us know if Michael had a chance to put things right with Jesus before he died. The thing is that God would have made himself available to Michael on so many occasions, just as He is available to you and me right now.
When I went to school our teachers use to tell us that "when you leave school computers are going to do everything so you will actually have more time for relaxation". Now, I know some of you folks that read my blog and I can see a few of you grinning from ear to ear at that statement. I wonder if that will ever actually come true? I know that there is the potential.
One of the things that people don't think about when buying a computer, is the associated costs involved in running it. Over the years we have seen all sorts of convincing charts that outline that catch phrase "Return on investment", however, from what I have seen computers have actually created more work for most people and also a hang of a lot more paper. The problem lies in the fact that an employer will buy an employee a computer to use. Herein lies the problem, "to use". The person spends most of their time working the computer instead of the computer actually working for that person. I think that this is a mind-set which employers need to get their head around.
As you may know from recent posts on my blog, I have been using Eric Mac's eProductivity for Lotus Notes which is an application that working in line with David Allens methodology for getting things done. Eric, has offered me a free copy if I would share some of my experiences with it, the good, the bad and the ugly!
Firstly, I ran out for days to trial the product and therefore had to ask Eric for an extension on my activation code. While I was setting up some actions a message appeared saying that my trial had expired. My reaction to this was, I need to be able to keep using it as it has completely changed the way that I am going things. I cannot live without now! So I got hold of Eric and he gave me an extension.
Right now I am still in the early part of the process of learning about "Getting things done" (GTD) so I am having to learn as I go. What I have found is that eProductivity gives me the ability to have a central basket where I can store all of the things that I need to do. Not only that, but it also allow me the ability to be able to sort those actions into the context of what I am doing at a particular time. This may include, when I am at my computer, when I am doing errands, when I am on the phone. For example, when I leave the house to do a few errands I can bring up a list off all the actions that I need to (or could) be doing while I am out. There has been many occasions when I have been out to get something from the local shops only to find that when I have arrived home I had forgotten something and had to go back to get it. Those of you who know me will know that I have a bad memory and it drives me crazy when I forget things. It can be such a time waster.
So what relevance does this have with "computers working for us"? One of the things that I like is how the functionality of Lotus Notes, Lotus Traveler and eProductivity works together. eProductivity acts as a basket which I can store all of my actions in. Not only that , but Lotus Notes give me a stable platform which allows me to be able to trust that the information is going to be there when I need it. Lotus Traveler makes the whole system portable so that when I am out and about and I have a new action which needs to be done, I can record it using my phone, when I am back at my computer I am able to go through the actions which were recorded, out in the field, and can work out what I want to do with them.
It gets even better than that! Because of the ability to replicate database in Lotus Notes, I am able to replicate a copy to my laptop which gives me the ability to use the application with full functionality when I am not on-line or in the office.
During this last week, I had needed to take my Apple MacBook into Apple to have the screen repaired, an Action which I have put off doing for months as it is so hard to go without it. Because eProductivity is on my Lotus Domino Server I am able to keep working with it with Lotus Notes on Linux and as a result am actually doing quite well without my laptop.
The thing that is really of interest to me is that eProductivity is a very powerful application, not just because of what it can do, but also because of the way in which it embraces the power of Lotus Notes, Lotus Domino Server and Lotus Traveler.
I want to mention one thing that I don't like as I am also able to provide a solution for it. As eProductivity makes changes to the design of you mail file, the web access to your mail is in an older format to some of the more recent templates we have seen from IBM. However, I don't use web mail a lot, but I do want to know that I am able to use the latest features when I need to access it. Firstly, when using Domino Web Access for your mail, you should never be accessing your home mail server directly from the internet, rather you should be accessing your mail on a server in your DMZ which has a replica of your mail file. This is a basic security measure to ensure that you are not exposing sensitive information to the world wide web. On that server you can apply the normal Lotus Notes 8.5 mail template to your mail file, then in the advanced replication settings you can disable to ability for the design changes to be replicate between the databases. Therefore, you are able to have the best of both worlds!
I have spoken to Eric about supporting more recent mail templates and he has told me that they are currently supporting the "masses" and that support for more recent mail templates is on the way! To be honest, I have been so impressed by eProductivity for Lotus Notes that I really have not missed using the most recent mail template. It just goes to show that sometimes functionality outweighs look and feel (just another dig at all those Microsoft Outlook supporters hehehe).
I was just talking to a client of mine who is based in a country far, far away. He mentioned that he is thinking about moving from Lotus Domino server to the latest version of Microsoft Exchange. He is very open to ideas and I thought that I would enlist the help of my readers from the Planet Lotus community to see if we could put something together to convince him to stay with IBM Lotus Domino Server and Lotus Notes.
I can think of a few reasons why he should stay with IBM Lotus Domino Server and Lotus Notes however, I don't know a lot about the newer versions of Microsoft Exchange to be able to warn him against the many pit falls. I am going to list a number of reasons as to why he should stay with Lotus Domino Server and upgrade from release 7 to 8.5 may be some people can add a few and even tell me what some of the problems are with Microsoft Exchange.
Reasons to keep Lotus Domino Server:
1. It is able to be run on any of the major operating systems (Linux, Solaris, AS400, Windows etc). 2. It has the ability to work with multiple thick clients (Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Domino Server and others) and Lotus Notes is supported on Windows, Linux and Mac OS 3. It has a choice of web interfaces (iNotes, Ultra-lite, etc) 4. You can save on disk space through the use of DAOS 5. You can use it with a variety of portable devices through the use of traveler (which is to include support for the iPhone latter this year) 6. Lotus Domino Server and Blackberry Enterprise Server play well together 7. The security is really good
Reasons not to move to Microsoft Exchange
1. It is prone to virus attacks 2. It is prone to address book harvesting 3. It is not easily scalable 4. It is hard to restore a single mail box 5. It doesn't handle large mail boxes very well.
When setting up a new computer network for a business, there are a few things which need to be considered. This is not a difficult task, but one which just requires a bit of thought before you start so that you don't waste time and money in the process. Over the years, I have fixed a lot of issues on computer networks which have been costly due to people not really knowing what they are doing in the first place. Today, I have decided to start putting together a series of posts on "Small Business Computing Advice".
Firstly, let me tell you what a computer network is. Basically, a computer network gives one computer the ability to communicate with another. There is no limit on the amount of computers your computer can communicate with, for instance, the world's biggest network is called the Internet, your on it right now if you are reading this post. Therefore, a computer network is probably not as scary it may sound. The kind of network I am wanting you to consider today is a local network in your office. You may have heard of a "LAN" before, that stands for Local Area Network, a network which is physically at your location.
There are many reasons why you might need to consider setting up a network. A network will give your computers the ability to share resources. For instance, you might have a router or a modem which connects one computer to the internet. Instead of having to buy another modem for a second computer, the two can share the single modem and internet account. Rather than having to have a printer connected to both computers, you will be able to share the one printer between multiple machines. You may also want to share files between one computer and another, a network will give you the ability to do this.
At this point you are possibly thinking that a computer network will cost a lot of money. This is not the case at all, but it could become the case, depending on what you would like to do. Most computers already come with everything that is needed to be able to connect to a network. They generally have a port built into them which will allow you to connect to either a new network or an existing network. If not, you can get the equipment to allow you to do so for about USD$25.00. However, if your computer already has the ports you need on the back of it, then one USD$2.50 cable may be all you need depending on your requirements.
So that all sounds very basic, doesn't it? Yes, it does and it is, however, you're probably going to need to have something a bit more advanced than just 2 computers talking to each other.
As your network grows you are probably going to need to invest in a server. A server is a special computer which actually manages your network. It is able to control who can do what (it might let some people access a file while others may be blocked from accessing it), it can provide users with an internally managed email system which would allow you to create your own email addresses without having to call your ISP!
So what would I do if I was looking at setting up a network for a small business? I would put a server in as soon as possible as this will give me the ability to learn to manage my own computer needs without needing to rely on calling someone to help every time I cannot do something. At the moment I only know of one server which would be really good for getting you started, it is called Lotus Foundations Server. This server generally sets itself up and creates the entire networking system for you. There is very little that you need to know about.
I am able to get my hands on trials of Lotus Foundations Server if you are interested in seeing just how easy it can be. Just leave a response on this post with your email address (no one but me gets to see it) and I will see what I can arrange.
Through the Lotus Domino Server console it is possible to restart Domino services without effecting users who are using the server. For a variety of reasons the SMTP task may need to be restarted.
This service is controlled by nSMTP.exe (on a Microsoft Windows Server platform).
The following video shows how to stop and start the service. It also shows how to enable or disable the SMTP listener task from starting when the server starts as this is not typically controlled through the servers notes.ini file.
I was just reading an article by The Dominion Post claiming that PC's injure 78,000 people. The article claims that the people were hurt from such things as tripping over computers, computer monitor's falling on them and a whole other raft of things.
One of the interesting things about the article is that the headline only refers to PC's and there is no mention of Apple Mac!
Anyway, when I first read the headline, I want to know more about it as I thought that it could be a result of a machine overheating, an electric shock, etc. However, I was rather disappointed to find that the Dominion Post had wasted my time as the headline was completely misleading. The article just tells me that a lot of people are careless around PC's. If you leave any object lying around in a room, then yes, you will most likely trip over it at some point! This is normally referred to as "stupidity". Come on Dominion Post, call it as it is!
When Lotus Notes R8 Client crashes you can kill a few system processes to enable you to restart Lotus Notes without having to reboot your computer.
To do so right click on the Windows task bar. A menu will appear, select the "Task Manager" option as per the diagram below:
A "Windows Task Manager" box will appear. Click on the tab called "Processes" as highlighted below
Click on the column title "Image Name" to alphabetically sort by the name of the processes.
Find the following processes, select each one and click on "End Process" to kill the Lotus Notes R8 Client:
nlnotes.exe
notes2w.exe
ntaskldr.exe
You should now be able to restart Lotus Notes.
If Lotus Notes has crashed and is going through a diagnostic process you may also need to kill nsd.exe before you can restart Lotus Notes.
These instructions work for all Lotus Notes clients except that notes2w.exe only exists if you are running the eclipse version of Lotus Notes Release 8.
