Jonesy's Babble

Toolbar button for editing fields. (SnTT)

2006-04-20T09:30:00.000-05:00

I've had this in draft mode since the 2nd week of Show-n-Tell Thursday's and finally got around to posting it. It's some Formula Script code that allows me to change any field of a document if I have editor access to it quickly and without too many prompts. I have the code behing a custom button in my Editing toolbar so it's always available to me. Chad Schelfhout (thanks for the correction Chris!) had posted something similar with a lot more features/power that you should check out as well. Here are the prompts you get - and the screenshots are from an email doc.
That just made the email to be like the sender had requested a return receipt. So you can notify someone over and over that you read their email with little hassle on your part if you want to have some harmless fun.
Just put this in the code for a button and you're set! List := @DocFields; DataTypes := "Text" : "Date" : "Number" ; EditField := @Prompt( [OkCancelList] ; "Select a field to alter" ; "Select the field you wish to alter:" ; "CustomerReply" ; List ) ; Edit := @Prompt( [YesNo] ; "Confirm" ; "Are you sure you want to alter the current contents of field \"" + EditField + "\"." ); RawValue := @If( Edit = 1 ; @Prompt( [OkCancelEdit] ; "New Value" ; "Please enter the new desired value." ; NULL ) ; @Return(NULL) ); DataType := @Prompt( [OkCancelList] ; "Data Type" ; "Please Select the correct DataType" ; "Text" ; DataTypes ); @If( DataType = "Date" ; @SetField( EditField ; @TextToTime( RawValue )) ; DataType = "Number" ; @SetField( EditField ; @TextToNumber( RawValue )) ; @SetField( EditField ; RawValue ) ); ""

"The Wikipedia FAQK"

2006-04-19T09:34:00.000-05:00

Pretty funny article about Wikipedia from wired.com

The Yanks make me sad

2006-04-18T21:37:00.000-05:00

Granted we're only 13 games into the season - with 149 remaining - but the Yankees are NOT playing like they are capable. They either aren't getting the big outs when needed which often leads to getting shelled, like Johnson got tonight. Sure - this start's about as good the 2005 season and we still finished in 1st place in the division but still, we only had hold of first for maybe 20 games last year? If that.

Before tonight's game the Yanks were batting .301 as a team (3rd best in baseball) with a team ERA of 3.84 (4th in MLB and best in the American League). So how were we 6-6 (now 6-7)?!

Plenty of time to get things back in order but the pitching scares me to death. Here's hoping the Yanks get Clemens!

Cuba beats the Dominican Republic to go to the Finals!

2006-03-18T18:38:00.000-06:00

It was a VERY good game. Scoreless until going into the 7th (maybe it was bottom of the 6th) but Cuba came back and scored 3 to comeback and win 3-1. At the start of this, the US and the Dominican Republic were the sure bets to play in the Finals but now both are gone. Not sure if the Korea--Japan game will be on tonight or not but I'll probably try to catch some of it on if it is.

Currently watching the Washington--Illinios college basketball game. 20.7 seconds left and Illinois is down by 4. I filled out one of those brackets and on the first day of games I went 13 out of 16. Yesterday I went 10 out of 16. So for round 1 - 72%. I don't really pay much attention to college hoops until the Conference Championships so 72% isn't too bad, I guess. Luckily, I didn't have Kansas, Nevada, Michigan State or Iowa winning in the 2nd round so those upsets didn't hurt.

WBC: Mexico 2, USA 1

2006-03-16T21:41:00.001-06:00

I got to see the first inning and then made it back from racquetball in time to catch the last two innings. Team USA reminds me a lot of the Yankees. Powerful lineup that can't really get it done consistently. Oh well. I'm just glad A-Rod walked instead of hitting into a double-play there in the ninth. Japan now gets to go play their 3rd game against Korea and the Dominican Republic faces Cuban for the 2nd time. Both games are on Saturday and hopefully I can catch them on ESPN. I think I'll cheer for Japan as they are probably the biggest underdog. Go Japan!!!

WBC: Mexico vs United States (take 2!)

2006-03-16T12:16:00.000-06:00

Team USA goes up against Mexico again tonight and with a win the USA can secure the last spot in the semi-finals. Clemens is on the mound for Team USA and over the last few years his "must win" stats are 1-1 in 7 starts with the team winning 3 of those 7. Not too good considering Mexico gave us a tough game in the opener last week so I expect this one won't be easy either, even more so without Derrek Lee and Johnny Damon in the game. I might be able to catch the first inning before heading off to play racquetball so I'll probably end up recording it and watching it late tonight which will take some of the fun out.

The US team hasn't looked too good during this event. If I can remember their games have been a win vs Mexico(2-0), loss vs Canada(8-6), win vs South Africa(17-0), a very questionable win vs Japan(4-3) and a loss to the only undefeated team - Korea(7-3). If we beat Mexico we're in the semi-finals and I think with the strange tie-breaker rules that even if we lose we have a shot on making it depending on what the final score was. If the US does win tonight we go to face Korea on Saturday. The winner of that game will go to play the final game on Monday against either the Dominican Republic or Cuba (who also play on Saturday).

While I would like to see the US win (national pride and all) it could be better for baseball, both here in the US and around the world, if we didn't win because it might create more excitement here of getting a team together next time the World Baseball Classic comes around to win. Who knows. Of course, I could just be convincing myself of that because I don't think the US can win it all. =)

WBC: Mexico vs United States

2006-03-08T00:04:00.000-06:00

I'm an enormous fan of the show 24. I've been watching it as close to "real time" as possible with a friend who got me hooked a few episodes into season one. The past 4+ years we've had a "24" night where we either catch it as it's shown or we record it and watch it afterwards. Last night there were 2 episodes on and we only got through one of them so I was planning on heading back over tonight to catch the other. This comes back into the post shortly.

The WBC game started at 3:00pm my time so I called my brother and asked if he could TiVo it if he wasn't already. I didn't want to know anything about the results at all so I stayed away from anything as best I could that might tip me off to the score/outcome. Head over to my friend's around 8 to watch the other 24 episode and then going to head over to my brother's to pick the game up and start watching. He's not too big of a sports fan, especially on tv and even more so with baseball. First thing he says, "So, the U.S. won by like 2 points right? Two - nothing?". Unbelievable.

Currently about 10:30 and I've started watching and I'll give some random tidbits until I get bored with typing.

Game 1 in Phoenix, Arizona - presented by Taco Bell.
Clemens vs South Africa - Friday. I'm stoked already.
Commentators talking about how the U.S. team is a lot like the 1st Olympic Dream Team and talked about how they had to come together and play as a team and to support their line of thought they give a quote from Jeter about the Classic, "Nobody will remember who wins the MVP here but everyone will remember what team won".
Odd seeing Jeter in a white uniform that doesn't have pinstripes.
Jeter, Damon and A-Rod are the 3 outs for the U.S. in the 1st inning. Way to represent the Yanks for your first at bats...
I never put this together until now but Jason Varitek and A-Rod are both playing for the U.S. That has to be awkward with the infamous shove to the face Varitek gave A-Rod back in 2004 that almost turned into a brawl at Fenway.
Someone needs to figure out how to make the commercials as separate chapters for this TiVo thing on DVD. Already sick of the fast-forwarding.
Jake Peavy had some good stuff. 3 innings pitched, 21 pitches, 3 strikeouts and 9 batters faced (thanks to 2 double plays).
The whole "Damon: former Red Sox and Boston hero now turned Yankee" stuff needs to stop - every baseball fan knows this already - but sadly it's going to go on and on and on all year.
Derrek Lee homers in the 4th, 1-0 USA.
Commentators observe that had Jeter and Clemens both not been here that it wouldn't be a true representation of team USA. I agree.
Chipper Jones hits a first pitch 1 run shot in the 7th as one of the commentators is talking about him hitting a home run in a game against the Giants a couple days ago - he also gets described as the "Derek Jeter of the National League".
Yankee hitters go 3-9. Not bad considering the team went 6-29. I retract my earlier sarcastic remark.

And from the Dominican Republic vs Venezuela...

David Ortiz still scares me. 3 at-bats, 2 home runes, 3 RBIs today. Why does he have to play for Boston? He's a Yankee killer.
The U.S. isn't the team to beat - the Dominican Republic is the team to beat with an offense like that (11-5 win over Venezuela).

Tomorrow team USA plays Canada at 3pm CST. Brother already said he was going to start TiVo-ing all the USA games plus any other he could - good stuff. I love baseball season!

World Baseball Classic

2006-03-04T18:41:00.000-06:00

Anyone who keeps up with baseball has to be aware of the World Baseball Classic that started a few days ago in Japan. This is the first time (that I know of) that anything like this has happened for baseball and I think it is GREAT! It's 16 countries broken up into 4 pools. The 1st round will eliminate 2 teams from each pool and the games are played in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Japan. Round 2 will be each pool's winner & runner-up and they take place in the U.S. and Puerto Rico with the final four teams playing in San Diego.

I've already missed 4 games - Japan has shelled the 2 teams they've played outscoring them 31-5 - but I plan on trying to watch or record any of them that are left. Quite a few MLB players have broken up to play in the Classic but less than I original thought would, which I think will make it even better.

A player is eligible to participate on a World Baseball Classic team if:

The player is a citizen of the nation the team represents. (Additionally, if a player is qualified for citizenship or to hold a passport under the laws of a nation represented by a team, but has not been granted citizenship or been issued a passport, then the player may be made eligible by WBCI upon petition by the player or team.)

The player is a permanent legal resident of the nation or territory the team represents.

The player was born in the nation or territory the team represents.

The player has one parent who is, or if deceased was, a citizen of the nation the team represents.

The player has one parent who was born in the nation or territory the team represents.

The Yankees have Al Leiter, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon out of Spring Training to play for the U.S. and Bernie Williams playing for Puerto Rico. I'm a little worried about injuries here - as I think they'll see more playing time and put more effort into this opposed to a regular Spring Training game - but I think the risk is worth what this can do for baseball around the world and I hope this continues and only grows bigger in years to come.

Quiz: Which sci-fi crew would you best fit in?

2006-02-28T19:28:00.000-06:00

I saw this over at Rocky's site and thought I would give it a try - and I agree that a Dune one would be really cool. I wasn't expecting anything but I wonder what it would take to get on the Bebop crew.

You scored as Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix). You can change the world around you. You have a strong will and a high technical aptitude. Is it possible you are the one? Now if only Agent Smith would quit beating up your friends.

Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix)

88%

Millennium Falcon (Star Wars)

75%

Deep Space Nine (Star Trek)

69%

Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda)

63%

Enterprise D (Star Trek)

63%

Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica)

63%

Babylon 5 (Babylon 5)

56%

SG-1 (Stargate)

56%

Bebop (Cowboy Bebop)

56%

Moya (Farscape)

56%

Serenity (Firefly)

56%

FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files)

44%

Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics)
created with QuizFarm.com

Google Tech Talks

2006-02-21T23:04:00.000-06:00

I haven't looked at any of them but interesting idea I suppose.
Google Tech Talks

Pulling data from a DB2 database using LSX (Show-n-Tell)

2006-02-16T10:07:00.000-06:00

Rocky Oliver and Bruce Elgort came up with the idea of a show-n-tell Thursday for those in the IBM Lotus Domino/Notes community to share a technique, tip, trick, app, etc. that you've developed or use to do your job better.

We have a business system designed by Caterpillar and it drives a lot of our business. With it being a lovely 5250 green-screen application we pull a lot of data out of it and into various Notes databases to give the end user better interfaces to view/sort data as starting points for workflow applications, CRM apps, etc. etc.

Here's just a quick and easy (hopefully efficient) way to pull certain fields from a table and create a Notes document out of it.

You have the Options first - OpenLog from OpenNTF.org is amazing - you should use it.

Option Public
Option Explicit
Uselsx "*lsxlc"
Use "OpenLogFunctions"
%INCLUDE "lsconst.lss"

Then the main section of code in your routine. Pretty simple code with some comments that should be enough to understand.


 On Error Goto errorHandler
 
 Dim session As New LCSession
 session.ClearStatus
 
 Dim src As New LCConnection("db2")
 Dim fldOut As New LCFieldList
 
 '// -- Database that is named in the "wrkrdbdire" command on the AS400
 src.Database = "THOMPSON"
 src.UserID = "userID"
 src.Password = "password"
 
 '// -- Format used is "Libraryname.Tablename"
 src.Metadata = "LIBD42.EMPORDH0"
 src.Connect
 
 '// -- Column(s) that are returned
 src.FieldNames = "ORNO,SPORNO,ORDT8,EQPLNO,DTSHP8,RDYSP,DLRD04,CMNT2,AKISD8"
 '// -- Order#, MSO, Order Date, Location, Ship Date, Ship Status, Ready Date, Comments, Ack. Date
 
 If (src.Select(Nothing, 1, fldOut) = 0) Then '// -- No records found
  End
 End If
 
 Dim nDB As New NotesDatabase("","")
 Dim nDoc As NotesDocument
 
 Call nDB.OpenByReplicaID("Notes1","86256F55006013D6")
 
 While (src.Fetch (fldOut) > 0) '// -- Get 1 row at a time from the recordset
  Set nDoc = New NotesDocument ( nDB )
  nDoc.Form = "frmPO"
  nDoc.fldIDNum = Trim$(fldOut.ORNO(0))
  nDoc.fldMSO = Trim$(fldOut.SPORNO(0))
  nDoc.fldOrderDate = Trim$(fldOut.ORDT8(0))
  nDoc.fldLocation = Trim$(fldOut.EQPLNO(0))
  nDoc.fldCATSDate = Trim$(fldOut.DTSHP8(0))
  nDoc.fldCATSS = Trim$(fldOut.RDYSP(0))
  nDoc.fldTMCCDate = Trim$(fldOut.DLRD04(0))
  nDoc.fldMemo = Trim$(fldOut.CMNT2(0))
  nDoc.fldAckDate = Trim$(fldOut.AKISD8(0))
  Call nDoc.Save(True, False)
 Wend
 
 src.Disconnect
 Exit Sub
 
errorHandler:
 Call LogError
 End

This LotusScript was converted to HTML using the ls2html routine,
provided by Julian Robichaux at nsftools.com.

Template Change

2006-02-15T18:23:00.000-06:00

Got tired of the old template and decided it was time for a change. I didn't look for different ones long but I found this one and thought I'd give it a try. For those that actually read stuff here, what do you think?

Looking back at the football season

2006-02-15T18:08:00.000-06:00

I was very quiet this football season on both college and professional football, I don't think I made even 1 post involving either. So I wanted to sit down and write a few thoughts I had about them.

You have to wonder about the NFL Officials. During the Colts-Steelers game (I'd like to see Peyton win a Super Bowl) you had to think that the NFL (or at least the officials) wanted the Colts to win. Lots of terrible calls. I only saw the first 10 minutes and then the last half of the Steelers-Seahawks game but there was some questionable calls there. I missed the D-Jack call(s) in the 1st half along with Big Ben's touchdown but the holding call that helped kill the Seahawk drive (it did look like some jersey was bundled but nothing uncommon or that would have been called in a regular season game) along with the penalty call on Hasslebeck for "blocking below the knees" (I think that's what the official said) for trying to tackle Taylor who had just intercepted the ball. Is the NFL trying to influence games?

The Dolphins did me proud...the Titans, no so much. I've been a Dolphins fan since I was 10 years old so when the Titans came to town I had a decision to make. You can't have 2 "favorites" in sports so staying with the Dolphins or switching over to the home team. I stayed with the Dolphins but will cheer for the Titans as well - providing they aren't playing the Dolphins.

The Dolphins had a lovely pre-season (1-4) followed by a lovely 1st half (3-5) before going to an impressive 3-7. Following the loss, Saban had his speech about "The record doesn't really matter, the result doesn't matter and the score in the game doesn't really matter". He got a lot of flak because of that statement from reporters and columnists everywhere but oddly enough, the Dolphins won every single one of their remaining schedule to finish 9-7. Granted the wins were at teams with the records of (4-6), (4-7), (8-4), (3-10), (4-10), (10-5) - so maybe that isn't saying a lot. Some said the Pats didn't want to win the last game of the season so they could go play the Jags instead of the Steelers or Bengals but I don't know if anyone really tries to lose a game. I can't wait for next year even though I think it will be tough to make the playoffs because of only 2 wildcard spots plus the Patriots should come back and still have a great season in the division.

The Titans finished 4-12 with wins against Houston (x2 - a lot to be proud here - especially with the Houston kicker missing that field goal the 2nd time they played. Watching that kick he HAD to have missed on purpose so Houston could stay in 1st place in the "Reggie Bush sweepstakes"), Baltimore & San Francisco. 14 of 16 games they allow 20+ points (8 were 30+) and were outscored 421-299. Unless they've tried to trade up or down, they get 3rd pick in the draft. You have to assume that the top 3 picks are Bush, Leinart and Young although Jay Cutler from Vanderbilt has been getting a lot of praise. Houston is saying they're taking Bush. New Orleans will probably take Leinart leaving Young. I don't see how the Titans can pass up on him although that's a lot of money to not be a full time starting QB since McNair is still going to be around. McNair spent the last few years mentoring Young so maybe it's a great pick. I'm just glad I'm not the one(s) making the call on this one.

As for Division I College Football, I don't have as much to say because I can't remember all that much but here are the top 5 things.
1.) Texas beating USC - Made my football year. Best football game, at any level, that I've seen in a long long time. I think it actually lived up to all the hype - which is rare these days.
2.) Vanderbilt beating the UT Vols. Last time was over 2 decades ago and with the UT Vols fans here outnumbering even the Titans fans, gotta love it.
3.) LSU's clobbering of Miami. Who saw that one coming? I thought this one would have been one of the top 4 best bowl games to watch.
4.) SEC was a disappointment in the big bowl games. Auburn and Georgia losing like that was tough to watch and Spurrier (South Carolina) blew a 21 point lead.
5.) MTSU beating Vanderbilt on a blocked field goal with only seconds left. MTSU is now 3-0 against them.

Lotusphere 2006 Report

2006-02-01T12:16:00.000-06:00

Currently writing up my Lotusphere 2006 report that I have to send on to the executives in the company and found this article from the itjungle.com. I thought it was worth a read and mentions some of the "Red Bull" stuff at the beginning that made me laugh.

Lotusphere Day Last

2006-01-26T08:42:00.000-06:00

Just got out of the first session for today which was presented by Paul Mooney and Bill Buchan. I think this one had the best turnout of any session I've been to. Great stories of how NOT to do things with plenty of humor as well. Great session to start the last day.

Lotusphere Day Three

2006-01-25T12:01:00.000-06:00

Today's been a good day as well - even though it started earlier because I went to my 1st ever Birds of a Feather session, Running IBM Lotus Notes on an Apple Macintosh. Having never been, I didn't know what to expect but it was pretty much just a Q&A session with some IBMers. A lot of good questions asked and most of those that attended turned in a business card to help out as Beta Testers. Very cool.

Admin Zero to Hero in 60 minutes was a good one as always. Ed's The Boss Loves Microsoft: So Where Does That Leave Lotus? was great - always a "must" on the schedule. Kevin Marshall and Jamie Magee did their Application Performance Techniques for IBM Lotus Domino Developers session that I went to last year. Again, it was one of the best I've been to yet.

Currently sitting and waiting on Ed and Libby's How to "Sell" IBM Lotus Notes and Domino Inside Your Organization session to start. Don't know if this session has been done in previous years but looking forward to seeing what kind of info is presented.

Last two sessions today

2006-01-24T16:37:00.000-06:00

The Application Performance Optimization (AD206) session was, as the speakers said, more as a session-prep to the BP302 course. The last slide was a conclusion of what they talked about which was...

Performance is mostly about user perception.

Use good programming techniques.

Load and test the application as if it was in production.

Identify and isolate high impact areas.

Performance is also about consistency in response time.

The last one I went to today was Code for Speed, or Code for Easier Reading: You Make the Call!

John Wargo & Rocky Oliver were the speakers for the session. Very good session where Rocky (a little bit country) discussed coding for easier reading and John (a little bit rock 'n' roll) discussed coding for speed. Both agreed that ideally a combination of both was the way to code.

This is the first session this year I've attended where Rocky was speaking but he has such enthusiasm when he speaks (and he was sick today!) that he could make just about anything interesting.

Lotusphere Day Two

2006-01-24T13:51:00.000-06:00

Today's been a good day. I've spent a lot of time in the Product Showcase talking with various companies - mainly anti-spam people as we're looking at changing solutions. Got my "I'm A Sicko" button along with a couple other pins from the UserGroup booth. Met Bruce Elgort and Julian Robichaux at the OpenNTF booth after they had just finished with their latest Taking Notes. Nice guys and Bruce was going to ask about the Mac client in their next interview. Met Chris Whisonant yesterday in a Web Services session before the iSeries one he was co-presenting in. Nice guy as well and did a good job on his session with Kim Greene.

A random insight from today's sessions so far: Andre Guirard is a genius.

The Applications Performance Optimization session is starting up so I'll post more later.

Opening Session

2006-01-23T10:24:00.000-06:00

Not a bad opening session. Lots of demos of stuff to come which looked very cool. We don't do anything yet with Portal or Workplace but interesting stuff there as well. Jason Alexander (George Costanza) was the guest speaker. He did a very good job but I think I liked John Cleese (2005) and Patrick Stewart (2004) better. Sitting in the IBM Lotus Domino 7 -- and Beyond! session at the moment and so far it's pretty much the same thing I saw last year.

I'll keep the posts coming.

Beach Club Resort

2006-01-22T19:08:00.000-06:00

Made it to Orlando and got checked in to the Beach Club Resort then went and checked in for Lotusphere and got the new backpack with all the information that comes with those. The Beach Club Resort's rooms are nicer than the Swan & Dolphin's (stayed there last year so I assume the Swan's rooms as well). The room is a bit bigger and I don't remember having a refrigerator in my Dolphin room like here. Not sure if I consider it nice enough to miss out on the convenience of being RIGHT THERE like you are at the Swan & Dolphin. I'm guessing it's around a 10 minute casual walk (will have to time it) from here to make it to the Dolphin. You also have to pay $9.95 to have a high speed connection here - which is good for a continuous 24 hours opposed to the Dolphin's room which had it for free.

Arrived in Tampa

2006-01-21T10:18:00.000-06:00

Flight arrived 1:30 AM this morning (delayed an hour because of ice in Chicago) and made it over to my aunt & uncle's around 2:30. Going to stay here the rest of the day and head to Orlando sometime late Sunday morning. I've been slacking (0 posts in a month and a half) on posting something, anything, and I'm going to make an effort to at least try and get something on here once a week.

Out of my last 8 flights, 6 of them were delayed at least an hour. I don't fly all that often, maybe 3-4 trips a year, but my track record is becoming terrible with flights. Almost tempted to start trying to get to the airport as late as possible but with my luck there would probably be an accident or something on the way and the flight would actually leave on time, making me miss my flight.

Nashville -> Tampa (July '05): Delayed
Tampa -> Nashville (July '05): Delayed
Nashville -> Houston (Sept '05): On Time
Houston -> Orlando (Oct '05): Delayed
Orlando -> Nashville (Oct '05): Delayed
Nashville -> Orlando (Dec '05): Delayed
Orlando -> Nashville (Dec '05): On Time
Nashville -> Tampa (last night): Delayed

Terrible.

Lotusphere Session Schedule

2005-12-09T18:02:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's sad that I already have my scheduled planned out...

Monday, January 23

11:00am - 12:00pm --> ID102 IBM Lotus Domino 7 - and Beyond
1:00pm - 2:00pm --> AD201 IBM Lotus Domino Objects - Your Questions Answered
2:15pm - 3:15pm --> AD202 Web Services and IBM Lotus Notes and Domino Release 7
3:45pm - 4:45pm --> BP406 IBM Lotus Domino for iSeries Administration and Performance Best Practices
5:00pm - 6:00pm --> AD203 Tips and Topics for Developing Web Services in IBM Lotus Domino Designer

Tuesday, January 24

8:30am - 10:15am -> HND104 Locking Down, Testing and Fully Understanding Your IBM Lotus Domino SMTP Environment
11:15am - 12:15pm -> AD204 Power Programming: Examining and Manipulating IBM Lotus Domino Application Designs
1:30pm - 2:30pm -> ID106 Extending IBM Lotus Domino Administration
3:00pm - 4:00pm -> AD206 IBM Lotus Domino 7.x (and 6.x) Application Performance Optimization
4:15pm - 5:15pm -> BP304 Code for Speed, or Code for Easier Reading: You Make the Call!

Wednesday, January 25

8:30am - 9:30am -> BP401 Admin Zero to Hero in 60 Minutes
10:00am - 11:00am -> ID401 The Boss Loves Microsoft: Where Does That Leave Lotus?
11:15am - 12:15pm -> BP302 Application Performance Techniques for IBM Lotus Domino Developers
1:30pm - 2:30pm -> ID120 How to "Sell" IBM Lotus Notes and Domino Inside Your Organization
3:00pm - 4:00pm -> BP312 Object Orientated LotusScript Techniques and Tricks
4:15pm - 5:15pm -> BP313 Practical DXL for LotusScript - IBM Lotus Domino Developers Using DXL in the Real World

Thursday, January 26

8:30am - 9:30am -> BP106 Worst Practices in IBM Lotus Domino - Learning From the Mistakes of Others
10:00am - 11:00am -> BP201 Creating and Testing Web Services For IBM Lotus Domino 6 Using the Eclipse Platform
Gurupalooza & Ask the Developers

Mail disappearing in Trash - Mac 6.5.4 on OS X

2005-12-09T17:31:00.000-06:00

I had some issues with the Macintosh machines running the Notes client (iNotes template) and when they would delete an email and then switch to their Trash, it would show up as it should. If they then closed their mail tab or shutdown Notes and then went back into their email, the message they just deleted would be gone from the Trash. I looked on the forums but didn't find anything but Chris had me change the Soft Delete time from 48 hours to 49 hours and now it works like it's supposed to without the message disappearing.

I remember seeing something about that on the forums but my searches must have been too specific. Anyway, odd fix.

Domino 7 Upgrade

2005-12-05T09:06:00.000-06:00

Finally got around to upgrading one of my Domino servers to 7 last Friday. It was running Domino 5.0.9 on Windows 2000 and it was painless getting the server upgraded and running...until I saw that no mail was being routed to the internal Notes server. I could send email to the internet just fine but nothing from the internet was coming in.
We are using Directory Assistance in routing mail between our Domino Domains and I noticed this message on the server "Directory Assistance is reloading internal tables due to change in Directory Assistance database." Tried looking in the forums and on Google for anything to help me out but nothing worked.

Gave Lotus support a call and the first person I talked with had me set this in the notes.ini "RouterPartialLookupResults=1" (default is 0) and restart the server. This worked and mail began routing between the two Domino Domains fine. The Lotus guy said that he'd pass it on and have someone call me back shortly to try and figure out why the upgrade caused things to quit working. Spent over two hours testing things with the next Lotus support person but we still couldn't figure out what caused things to go wrong. I'll give an update tonight after speaking with support again.

Edit:
The console message I'm seeing is actually "Directory Assistance is reloading internal tables due to remote server failure.". I saw the other one at some point as well but this one is the most frequent.

The "Tolerance" Of The Left

2005-11-18T08:41:00.000-06:00

The intelligence (or lack thereof) of people amazes me. The quote below links to an article about an email a New Jersey professor sent to one of his students.

"I will continue to expose your right-wing, anti-people politics until groups like your won't dare show their face on a college campus."

Not sure how long this press release is going to stay up from the College but when you go to their website it first takes you to this:

Press Release
November 17, 2005

Warren County Community College is a "students first" college where learning without limits is always the main goal. We maintain a mission of building a community of learners through accessible, quality learning opportunities designed to meet personal aspirations for all students.

It has been brought to the administration's attention that a part-time instructor, Mr. John Daly, speaking for himself and using his personal email, sent a message to a student representing the Young Americans for Freedom in response to a personal email from her requesting him to announce an upcoming event on the campus. Mr Daly responded to her alone, and expressed his own personal views regarding his beliefs about this group.

The viewpoints of this professor in no way depict the views of Warren County Community College, its administration, or the Board of Trustees. The College does however support the constitution, the first amendment, and the right to free speech.

Additionally, Mr. Daly's message was sent as a one-to-one message, via e-mail, to one person, and not to the college community. Finally, the College is viewing this message as a personnel issue and will be addressing it according to the policies and procedures of the College.

Dr. Austin, college president stated, "I firmly believe every employee and student has first amendment rights, no matter how repugnant I personally find Mr. Daly's statements. Our attorneys have advised us of our obligation to follow state laws, board policies, and college due process in regards to any personnel matter. We are now investigating this matter further."

The school's website. You probably won't find anything on the site but I thought the school's response interesting.

Interesting email

2005-11-11T15:15:00.000-06:00

I don't really keep up much with news stories or much of anything going on in the world. Maybe "shame on me" for that but so much of it seems to be so negative and I don't care to find out about that stuff. Anyway, I know Bush has been taking heat for the Iraq War for a long time but didn't really know anything more than that. I get this email today and read where his attackers "are even floating the suggestion that he be impeached." I don't know if there's any truth to that, I do plan on finding out, but here's the email.

On the heels of the "White House -- CIA leak" investigation, which concluded that no laws were broken (but charged one administration staffer with perjury), liberals are attempting to parlay that non-starter into a much bigger political brawl. Their charges have no substance, and are completely contrived to keep Republicans off balance through next year's midterm elections.

Sens. Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid and Dick Durbin have accused President George Bush of lying about Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction, insisting he "lied us into war." They are even floating the suggestion that he be impeached.

Here are their accusations:

"The Bush administration misrepresented and distorted the intelligence to justify a war that America should never have fought." --Ted Kennedy

"We all know the Vice President's office was the nerve center of an operation designed to sell the war and discredit those who challenged it. ... The manipulation of intelligence to sell the war in Iraq...the Vice President is behind that." --Harry Reid

"I seconded the motion Sen. Harry Reid made last week. Republicans in Congress have refused, despite repeated promises, to investigate the Bush administration's misuse of pre-war intelligence, so Senate Democrats are standing up and demanding the truth." -- Dick Durbin, who recently compared U.S. troops to the Nazis and Pol Pot.

Naturally, the Democrat's media lemmings are reporting these charges as de facto truth, but there is considerable evidence that these Demo-gogues and their colleagues believed Iraq had WMD long before President George Bush came to Washington. Here is a small sample of that evidence from the Clinton years:

Bill Clinton: "If Saddam rejects peace, and we have to use force, our purpose is clear: We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."

Madeleine Albright, Clinton Secretary of State: "We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and the security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction."

Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Advisor and Classified Document Thief: "[Saddam will] use those weapons of mass destruction again as he has ten times since 1983."

Harry Reid: "The problem is not nuclear testing; it is nuclear weapons. ... The number of Third World countries with nuclear capabilities seems to grow daily. Saddam Hussein's near success with developing a nuclear weapon should be an eye-opener for us all."

Dick Durbin: "One of the most compelling threats we in this country face today is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Threat assessments regularly warn us of the possibility that...Iraq...may acquire or develop nuclear weapons."

John Kerry: "If you don't believe...Saddam Hussein is a threat with nuclear weapons, then you shouldn't vote for me."

John Edwards: "Serving on the Intelligence Committee and seeing day after day, week after week, briefings on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and his plans on using those weapons, he cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons, it's just that simple. The whole world changes if Saddam ever has nuclear weapons."

Nancy Pelosi: "Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region, and he has made a mockery of the weapons-inspection process."

Sens. Levin, Lieberman, Lautenberg, Dodd, Kerrey, Feinstein, Mikulski, Daschle, Breaux, Johnson, Inouye, Landrieu, Ford and Kerry in a letter to Bill Clinton: "We urge you, after consulting with Congress and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions, including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."

After President Bush was sworn into office in 2001, his administration was handed eight years worth of intelligence analysis and policy positions from the Clinton years -- you know, the years of appeasement when Saddam was tolerated, when opportunities to take out Osama bin Ladin were ignored, as was the presence of an al-Qa'ida terrorist cell in the U.S. -- which reared its head on 9/11.

In the weeks prior to the invasion of Iraq, Democrats, who had access to the same intelligence used by the Bush administration (much of which was compiled under the Clinton administration), were clear about the threat of Iraq's WMD capability.

Ted Kennedy: "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."

John Kerry: "I will be voting to give the president of the U.S. the authority to use force if necessary to disarm Saddam because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security. ... Without question we need to disarm Saddam Hussein."

Hillary Clinton: "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock. His missile-delivery capability, his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists including al-Qa'ida members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."

Carl Levin: "We begin with a common belief that Saddam Hussein...is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."

Al Gore: "We know that he has stored nuclear supplies, secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."

Bob Graham: "We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has and has had for a number of years a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction."

For the record: Here's a partial list of what didn't make it out of Iraq before the OIF invasion: 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium, 1,700 gallons of chemical-weapon agents, chemical warheads containing the nerve agent cyclosarin, radioactive materials in powdered form designed for dispersal over population centers, artillery projectiles loaded with binary chemical agents, etc. Assuming Irag had no WMD because only small caches were recovered after Operation Iraqi Freedom began is perilously flawed logic. That, in no way, affirms what he spirited out through Iran and Syria before OIF.

So, ask Ted, Dick and Harry, what is their real agenda?

One might fairly conclude that they are willing to reduce U.S. national security to political fodder by accusing the President of the United States of "lying." Problem is, the President had no political motive for Operation Iraqi Freedom -- only a legitimate desire to fulfill the highest obligation of his office -- to defend our liberty against all threats.

Ted, Dick and Harry, on the other hand, have plenty of political motivation for their most recent antics -- and all of America should look upon these disgraceful Demo-gogues, and anyone who supports this dangerous folly, as traitorous louts.

On Veterans Day, President Bush noted: "Today our nation pays tribute to our veterans -- 25 million vets.... At this hour, a new generation of Americans is defending our flag and our freedom in the first war of this century. This war came to our shores on the morning of September 11, 2001. ... We know that they want to strike again and our nation has made a clear choice. We will confront this mortal danger to all humanity. We will not tire or rest until the War on Terror is won. ... [I]t is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. ... We will never back down. We will never give in. We will never accept anything less than complete victory."

Notes Mail Databases

2005-10-27T09:15:00.000-05:00

Came across a great article on Ed's site today which got me thinking about the mail databases here. Thought I would share some of my findings and see what some of your stats are like.

Company 1

Number of mail databases: 462
Average Mail Database Size: 156.43 MB
Number of users under the above average: 332
5 largest mail databases:
2.36 GB
2.35 GB
1.8 GB
1.69 GB
1.46 GB

Company 2

Number of mail databases: 81
Average Mail Database Size: 95.57 MB
Number of users under the above average: 66
5 largest mail databases:
933.5 MB
925.1 MB
661.1 MB
604 MB
453.8 MB

Notes client: email performance too slow?

2005-10-15T08:24:00.000-05:00

Currently, I do Notes administration and development for 2 companies, both owned by the same person. All of our server equipment is in a data center in downtown Nashville. The physical location where I work (main office for Thompson Machinery and also corporate services) has a 100 meg NMLI connection to our datacenter. The other company's office has a T1 internet connection. They are mainly a Mac shop and were using Outlook and Entourage before we set them up on Domino and continued to use those 2 in additiion to iNotes for accessing their email.

It's been about a year since we got them on a Domino server and we probably have about 25-30 users on the Notes client now - mostly within the last month. It's a newspaper so they deal with a lot of attachments and we heard a lot of complaints on Notes being slow and how it becomes useless when sending an email (because of the slow connection they have and they have to wait for the email to send before being able to do anything). In hindsight, it would have been better to have a Notes server at their physical location but being locked into those i5 520s, can't really do that now.

Yesterday my boss, the IT Manager (he was the Domino Admin & Developer before the previous IT Manager decided to become a Six Sigma Master Blackbelt - I was just helping with the development, initially) and I went to the newspaper and configured most of the clients with some settings that should increase the performance. The changes are simple and the user works off of a local replica of their mail instead of the server.

Under File --> Preferences --> User Preferences, turn Network Data Compression on under the Ports tab.

In the location document on the Mail tab;

Change the mail file location to be Local

Change the recipient type ahead to be Local then Server

Change the mail addressing to be Local and Server

Change the last setting to be wait for 1 message before sending pending mail

Turn replication on and change your email database to be High Priority and set the replication interval time to what you think is acceptable - we went with 10 minutes.

I've been using this setup for a few days at work and I like it a lot. I can send a 10mb email and it only takes a few seconds after hitting send before being able to use my Notes client for other things while the email is being sent to the server in the background. Notes 7.0 might fix that anyway but there's no Notes 7.0 for the Mac yet. Hopefully it will work well enough for them until we can do something about increasing the bandwidth they have.

Funny...yet scary

2005-10-14T10:11:00.000-05:00

Who moved my Hasslehoff?

Found on Rocky's blog and written by Damien Katz. Hilarious.

Lotusphere 2006

2005-10-14T09:59:00.000-05:00

Finally got registered. This will be my 3rd trip to Lotusphere and based on what Rocky and some others have said I have high hopes for it this year. I really enjoyed the last two Lotuspheres and always came back with a lot of new ideas on development and some on administration but I think this Lotusphere could be the best yet for me.

I got my hotel booked as well and this will be the 3rd different hotel to stay in. The first year I was at the Carribean Beach resort which wasn't bad but you are kinda away from the main area where everything is happening. With that in mind I stayed in the Dolphin resort last year. Being that close and not having to worry about transportation and such I felt it would be impossible to stay anywhere else but the Swan or Dolphin in future years. The Dolphin was all booked up though and I thought about the Swan but went with the Beach Club resort instead. It's a short walk from the Swan and Dolphin hotels so it won't be a hassle and it will be a new experience so looking forward to that as well.

What the Yanks should do according to me

2005-10-11T23:30:00.000-05:00

Must go...
Kevin Brown: His 2 years with us have cost around $30 million and what did we get? A 14-13 record - and 4 of those wins against a horrible Tampa Bay team in 2004.

Bernie Williams: Almost willing to take a chance on him but not with his fielding diffulties, decline in power and $12+ million price tag.

Mike Mussina: Proved yet again that in the BIG games he can't hack it. I'm a fan of Moose's but he's too inconsistent for being the 3rd highest player on the team at $19 million.

Carl Pavano (if rumors are true): Complains of a "tired arm" but doctors couldn't really find anything and label it something like rotator cuff tendinitis. If this is true, seems that the arm could be more a stress / mental thing and shows he can't handle the pressure of being in New York.

Willing to take a chance on...
Randy Johnson: Lots of health issues but was dominating from the last week of August till the end of the season plus he'd be the only lefty in the starting rotation.

Al Leiter: Says he might retire but if he can get his control down could still be very effective.

Jaret Wright: Only 29 and went 15-8 with the Braves in 2004. Was on the DL most of this season and went 5-5. If he can stay healthy he's a welcome addition.

Alex Rodriguez: Hard to get rid of the best player in baseball. Had a great year in 2005 but any player that's making almost $26 million should have great years. Probably only on here because he went 2-15 (.133 average) in the 5 Playoff games with ZERO RBIs.

Tom Gordon: Flash Gordon still can pitch (5-4, 2.57 ERA) but I always get the feeling that big games almost kill him. Something just doesn't seem right when he's out there for those but the Gordon-Rivera combo has worked so far, so why change what works?

Gary Sheffield: A friend once told me "Sheffield will do you great in the regular season but come the playoffs, get ready for disappointments." 6-21 with 2 RBIs in 2005 and 14-48 with 7 RBIs in 2004. The batting average almost comes out at .300 but the RBIs just aren't there. His shoulder problems worry me but with the bat speed he has and the way he swings...

Jason Giambi: I was ready to send him packing before this season started but his 2nd half numbers were amazing. He can stay for another year but if there's another "substance" issue with him, he's gotta go.

Must keep...
Aaron Small: Went 10-0 with a 3.20 ERA. 'Nuff said.

Chien-Ming Wang: Got called up from the minors and the 25 year old went 8-5 with a 4.02 ERA but spent some time on the DL. Seemed to handle the pressure just fine.

Hideki Matsui: Worth his $8 million. In his 3 years of MLB with the Yanks, each year he's had over 100 RBI with a .297 batting average.

Shawn Chacon: 7-3 with a 2.85 ERA. This guy could be our staff ace. Was put in big games all year and always came through.

Mariano Rivera: 7-4 with 43 saves and a 1.38(!!!!!) ERA. Possible Cy Young (as a closer!) for 2005. This guy just continues to get it done and the Yanks will be hurting when he's finally gone.

Tanyon Sturtze: Works good as a reliever and could potentially take Gordon's spot as setup man if Gordon can no longer cut it and one of the lowest paid Yanks.

Jorge Posada: The passion he has when on the field is amazing and the way he handled all the pitching staff changes was great. Offensive numbers have been down since 2003 (hasn't been the same since he got hit in the nose going to second) but still one of the best catchers in baseball.

Robinson Cano: Can you say "AL Rookie of the Year"? I haven't lamented the loss of Soriano after Cano's first few weeks at 2nd.

Derek Jeter: I think our Captain needs no reason why he gets to stay.

Joe Torre: A man who the players and the fans respect and have confidence in. He's also handled all the crazy stuff the Boss says and does better than probably anyone could. A perfect fit in the organization.

Yanks blow a 2-0 lead in game 5

2005-10-10T23:05:00.000-05:00

I have no words. None.

Yanks force game 5

2005-10-09T22:26:00.000-05:00

God be praised.

It was a close game and they came from being down 0-2 to winning 3-2. Rivera came in and pitched a great 8th and 9th and now the Yankees need to win tomorrow's game to advance to the next round against the White Sox.

Houston wins and goes on to play St. Louis

2005-10-09T21:29:00.000-05:00

Wow.

18 innings. 5 hours and 50 minutes. 14 pitchers. 553 pitches.

The Astros were down 6-1 going into the 8th when Lance Berkman hit a grand slam - the second of the game which is a record in a postseason game - and brought it to 6-5. In the ninth, Brad Ausmus hit a solo shot to tie it 6-6. The relievers do an amazing job shutting down the opposing team - innings 10-18 only 6 hits allowed.

Houston eventually ran out of relief pitchers and called on Clemens to come in and finish the game. He goes 3 innings with 4 K's while allowing 1 hit and ends up the winning pitcher. Chris Burke hits a solo shot in the 18th to win the game and the Astros advance. Simply incredible and the reason why I especially love the postseason baseball games.

Red Sox SWEPT

2005-10-07T18:40:00.000-05:00

The Red Sox just got swept by the White Sox - at Fenway park!!! I will be celebrating all weekend (unless the Yanks lose the next 2 to the Angels...)

A better day for baseball

2005-10-01T18:49:00.000-05:00

Today was much better for my baseball world. Clemens, while not near his best, pitched well for the Astros (7 innings, 1 run, 5 K's) who defeated the Cubs 3-1. The Phillies won as well, which means the Astros are still 1 game up on the Wild Card spot and will need to either win tomorrow (or have the Phillies lose) to win the Wild Card spot. If they lose and the Phillies win, they go to play the Phillies in a 1 game tie-breaker. Oswalt pitches for Houston tomorrow looking for his 20th win this year so things look good for them.

The Yankees won today as well and won their 8th straigth AL East title. They hit Wakefield pretty hard and won 8-4. Boston is now in the same situation as Houston with the Cleveland Indians. If Boston takes the Wild Card, which will probably happen, the Yankees will face the Angels in the first round of the playoffs. I really hope that it doesn't turn out to be like the 2002 divisional series where the Angels killed the Yankees (and the famous "Go Home Yankees" chant).

Tomorrow I'm saying goodbye to Houston (Minute Maid Park is AWESOME) and heading to Orlando where I hope I can make it to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween night. =)

On a side note, I saw a guy today with a t-shirt that read "I Got Punk'd by Rita" at the game. Rachel and I had a good laugh at that and she admitted that she too had gotten "Punk'd by Rita".

A sad baseball night.

2005-09-30T22:23:00.000-05:00

Both the Astros and the Yankees lost last night. Going into the 8th it was tied 1-1. The Cubs scored 1 and Berkman answered back for the Astros with a 2 run shot. I watched Lidge stroll in and went ahead and moved toward the entrance where I came in behind home and watched him pitch from there. I thought for sure it was over with Lidge in but he gave up 2 runs and the Astros fell 4-3.

As for the Yanks, I pretty much just got to see the scoreboard on the left field wall but between one of the innings I got up and found a TV showing a lot of the games and got to watch Wang load the bases and Boston go up 5-1 in that inning. Jeter hit a 2 run shot the next inning and no more runs scored and the Yanks lost 5-3.

Both teams only have 2 games left and for the NL - either the Astros or the Phillies are going to get the Wild Card spot. The Astros have a 1 game lead so if they win these last 2 games, they're in. The Yanks and Red Sox are tied for 1st in the AL East. If both teams win 1 of the remaining 2, the Yanks would win the East because they would have won the season series against Boston 10-9. Both teams right now are 1 game ahead of the Indians for the Wild Card spot so depending on what the Indians do against the White Sox, the Wild Card is either going to go to the loser of the Yanks - Red Sox or to the Indians. I can't remember a more down to the wire finish for any baseball season.

Arrived in Houston

2005-09-30T16:48:00.000-05:00

Today starts my week off from work. Made it to Houston without any problems (the traffic here though...wow). I have a friend down here getting her Master's in Genetics and it'll be nice to see her some while I'm down here. Tonight I'm heading out to watch former Yankee Andy Pettitte pitch against the Cubs and tomorrow we're going to see my favorite baseball player and former Yankee, Roger Clemens, take the mound for what might be his last regular season game. VERY excited about the two games.

Sunday I'll be flying out of Houston for Orlando and going to Disneyworld with 8 family members. It'll be an enjoyable week off (especially if the Yanks hold off the Sox) and it'll be very nice to get away from work for awhile.

Racquetball redemption

2005-09-15T22:44:00.000-05:00

Tonight was the first night Geoff and I have been able to actually both have time to go play some racquetball in a month. With work, the place we go play at the University being closed while getting ready for the new semester and some other things that have come up - it's kept us away too long. Last time we played I got owned and really wanted to put up a better showing tonight. I think I did. Went 2 for 3, with the scores being 15-5, 15-10, 5-15. The last game my returns were horrid and he got a lot of easy points. Hopefully it won't be another month before we get a chance to get some more games in.

Roger Clemens (can you say "eight-time Cy Young winner")

2005-09-15T22:30:00.000-05:00

ESPN article.

I think a lot of the voters were wanting to be able to vote for Clemens - with him being 43, having an incredibly low ERA and still having a good record even with the extreme lack of run support he gets - and I think they now have that little push to do just that. My sympathy and prayers go out to him and his family.

Sports weekend

2005-09-11T15:41:00.000-05:00

We took 2 of 3 from Boston this weekend. Today's game was close - Giambi hit a solo shot in the 1st and the final score was 1-0. Each team allowed 3 hits so not much offense going in the game. I'm glad the Big Unit was able to have a nice outing again. Lately he seems to be pitching like what we expected when getting him in the offseason. We're only down 3 games now but the bad news is we go to play against Tampa Bay who we are a terrible 5-11 against this year and who are 24.5 games out of first. One would think we'd be better than 5-11 against them.

On a side note, the Dolphins won their opener against the Broncos 34-10 while the Titans got killed by the Steelers 34-7. It was ugly. Vandy beat Arkansas to go up 2-0 on the year (the world is coming to an end) and Notre Dame made Michigan look terrible as well. Lots of upsets in the college football world - which makes it that more fun.

Space: Above and Beyond

2005-09-06T22:14:00.000-05:00

I'm normally not a big fan of television shows, preferring movies over tv, but there are a few shows out there I like. I've watched the Prison Break episodes so far and, while it's no 24, it could turn out to be a really good show. Smallville is another along with The Simpsons, of course, and ones likes NewsRadio (gotta be my favorite and can't wait for the rest of the seasons on dvd), Seinfeld and the first few seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

There's also been a few short-lived ones I really liked such as Andy Richter Controls the Universe and two from back in the mid-late 90s; Roar (which you can catch on the Sci-Fi channel) and Space: Above and Beyond.

I remember watching Space: Above and Beyond with my dad back when I was a sophomore in High School. I had mostly forgotten about the show until channel surfing one day during my last year or two in college and the Sci-Fi channel on Thursday's would have a mini-marathon of it showing 3-4 episodes back-to-back. I've been waiting for it to come out on dvd ever since and would do a google search every so often to see if I could find any info about it coming out but could never find anything but rumors. Thus my surprise when looking through a Best Buy add I saw that it came out today. Being a good fan, I had to go pick it up and while there I also had to get the newest Dragonball Z movie - can't believe I'm addicted to that cartoon...

Anyway, can't wait to start watching Space: Above and Beyond because I never saw the last few episodes to see how the show ended. Hopefully it won't be a let down as it has years of hype to live up to. I think most Sci-Fi fans would enjoy it so check the link above and maybe you could always find it to rent to check it out.

MLB 2005 - update

2005-09-05T00:15:00.000-05:00

A starter finally lost a game for me. Mussina got shelled by the Indians giving up 2 runs and then a grand slam to Matt Lawton. The offense tried to keep me in the game but Moose gave up a few more runs and the bullpen couldn't keep it close and I lost by 4. Making that the 2nd game I've lost. Moose's next outing he pitched a 7 hit shutout. 2 games later Vazquez (who the Yanks never should have gotten rid of - unless it was to get Clemens back) gave up 4 hits and 1 run in the first inning. He went the next 7 giving up 2 hits and striking out 8. Contreras just went 7.1 scoreless innings before giving up a run and picking up the win to bring my record up to 132-2. 28 more games of the regular season for me before the Playoffs.

The real Yanks took 2 of 3 from Oakland this weekend, which moves them 1 game up in the Wildcard race but still leaves us 3.5 games back of Boston for the East. We're 7-6 against Boston this year and still have 6 games with them which might determine the AL East champ. I think we could take 4 of the 6 but that still wouldn't give us the lead unless we can close the gap before those 6 games.

Domino moves to eServer i5 520 box!

2005-09-04T13:57:00.000-05:00

As of Friday I officially have everything moved over to our new 520 server. We did have our servers running Domino & LEI 6.5.4 on an iSeries 810 running V5R3. We were running 2 company's Domino servers as partioned servers, which wasn't bad but not effective for maintenance work, especially with our main business application also residing on the same LPAR as those 2 servers. Now we have 3 LPARs; 1 for each Domino server and 1 for the business system.

There were quite a few headaches in the move and several of them could have been avoided had I read some documentation instead of making an assumption. Shame on me - BUT, lesson learned. The assumption I made was that our new 520 box, running V5R3 as well, would need no additional software to make Domino & LEI 6.5.4 to work. This is not the case.

I had upgraded Domino and LEI from 6.5.1 to 6.5.4 in mid-July due to a lot of server issues that had sprung up from seemingly nowhere. I don't even think the IBM support people had a clue as to what caused our problems. 6.5.4 didn't fix it due to some issues with LEI but eventually we got everything worked out and the server quit crashing. When I did this upgrade we were still on V5R2 but shortly after upgraded our OS to V5R3 and everything worked great. This is why I assumed we wouldn't need anything additional to get it to work on the new box but installing LEI 6.5.4 on V5R3 requires 2 additional licensed programs; 5722SS1 (option 33), which will be on your OS cds, and 5799PTL - which is free but you have to order it.

I called up our IBM business partner and got the program ordered early Monday morning and asked to get it to us as fast as possible. The cd arrived sometime on Thursday so I went downtown that afternoon to get the program installed and get LEI up and running. I put the cd in our drive and after a few seconds, the drive ejects the disc. I put it back in, a few seconds later it gets ejected again. I checked the bottom for scratches or anything that might cause the drive to not read the disc but don't see anything so I try again. Same results. I'm fairly frustrated at this point seeing as how the LEI jobs haven't been running all week and the disc took 4 days to get here and I don't want to have to wait for a new disc to arrive.

I put the disc in my laptop and it reads it fine. Try it back in the 520 drive and it spits it back out. I try cleaning the disc but it doesn't help. I started getting rather angry but then realized we still had the 810 and maybe that drive could read it and I could just install it on the 810 and save the program to tape and restore from tape to get it on the 520. Put it in the 810 drive and it reads it fine. Instead of saying "Great, I can get this installed now", I give in to my stubborness and go back to trying to get it to work on the 520 drive. (I had already had numerous issues with the tape drives and bad backups - tape drives and I don't get along.)

Needless to say, it never worked on the 520 drive and eventually I decided installing on the 810 was the only way to go. So I put the disc back in the 810 drive and after a few seconds it ejects the disc like the 520 was doing. After trying to get the disc to read about 20 times, it finally stays in the drive and I get it installed on the 810. Back the program up to tape and restore on the 520 without a problem. I had a few issues with the IE/VNC part of the installation process but eventually that gets worked out and LEI installs without another problem. The entire migration took almost a week but finally got this part of the completed - just have to install it all again when our other 520 box comes in for the clustered environment in a few weeks. Yippee.

Top 100 Hits The Year I Graduated

2005-08-25T20:06:00.000-05:00

Found this on Chris Whisonant's blog which is linked on the left here. Here's how his started off to give you an idea of what's going on.

Per Libby, "the instructions are: Go to musicoutfitters.com, and do a search on the most popular 100 songs from the year you graduated high school. (You can do this by searching on the year you graduated). Bold the ones you actually like. (Understand that the word "like" in this case means, at the very least, "wouldn't immediately change the radio station from.") Pick a favorite. Underline that favorite. And Strikethru the ones you loathe. Italicizethe ones you consider to be guilty pleasures."

I have to say, 1998 was a terrible year for music apparently. I don't think I've even heard 75% of the songs much less recognize half of the artists. I wonder if they just randomly pick 100 songs from that year. I haven't even heard any of the top 10. I think the list at rockonthenet.com is way more accurate but I'll stick with the list everyone else is using.

1. Too Close, Next
2. The Boy Is Mine, Brandy and Monica
3. You're Still The One, Shania Twain
4. Truly Madly Deeply, Savage Garden
5. How Do I Live, LeAnn Rimes
6. Together Again, Janet
7. All My Life, K-Ci and JoJo
8. Candle In The Wind 1997, Elton John
9. Nice and Slow, Usher
10. I Don't Want To Wait, Paula Cole
11. How's It Going To Be, Third Eye Blind
12. No, No, No, Destiny's Child
13. My Heart Will Go On, Celine Dion
14. Gettin' Jiggy Wit, Will Smith
15. You Make Me Wanna..., Usher
16. My Way, Usher
17. My All, Mariah Carey
18. The First Night, Monica
19. Been Around The World, Puff Daddy and The Family
20. Adia, Sarah McLachlan
21. Crush, Jennifer Paige
22. Everybody (Backstreet's Back), Backstreet Boys
23. I Don't Want To Miss A Thing, Aerosmith
24. Body Bumpin Yippie-Yi-Yo, Public Announcement
25. This Kiss, Faith Hill
26. I Don't Ever Want To See You Again, Uncle Sam
27. Let's Ride, Montell Jordan
28. Sex And Candy, Marcy Playground
29. Show Me Love, Robyn
30. A Song For Mama, Boyz II Men
31. What You Want, Mase
32. Frozen, Madonna
33. Gone Till November, Wyclef Jean
34. My Body, Lsg
35. Tubthumping, Chumbawamba
36. Deja Vu (Uptown Baby), Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz
37. I Want You Back, 'N Sync
38. When The Lights Go Out, Five
39. They Don't Know, Jon B.
40. Make Em' Say Uhh!, Master P
41. Make It Hot, Nicole Featuring Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott and Mocha
42. Never Eve, All Saints
43. I Get Lonely, Janet
44. Feel So Good, Mase
45. Say It, Voices Of Theory
46. Kiss The Rain, Billie Myers
47. Come With Me, Puff Daddy
48. Romeo And Juliet, Sylk-E Fyne
49. It's All About Me, Mya and Sisqo
50. I Will Come To You, Hanson
51. One Week, Barenaked Ladies
52. Swing My Way, K.P. and Envyi
53. The Arms Of The One Who Loves You, Xscape
54. My Love Is The Shhh!, Somethin' For The People
55. Daydreamin', Tatyana Ali
56. We're Not Making Love No More, Dru Hill
57. Semi-Charmed Life, Third Eye Blind
58. I Do, Lisa Loeb
59. Lookin' At Me, Mase
60. Looking Through Your Eyes, LeAnn Rimes
61. Lately, Divine
62. Quit Playing Games (With My Heart), Backstreet Boys
63. I Still Love You, Next
64. Time After Time, Inoj
65. Are You Jimmy Ray?, Jimmy Ray
66. Cruel Summer, Ace Of Base
67. I Got The Hook Up!, Master P
68. Victory, Puff Daddy and The Family
69. Too Much, Spice Girls
70. Ghetto Supastar (That Is What You Are), Pras Feat. Ol' Dirty Bastard and Mya
71. How Deep Is Your Love, Dru Hill Featuring Redman
72. Friend Of Mine, Kelly Price
73. Turn It Up [Remix] / Fire It Up, Busta Rhymes
74. I'll Be, Edwin McCain
75. Ray Of Light, Madonna
76. All For You, Sister Hazel
77. Touch It, Monifah
78. Money, Power and Respect, Lox
79. Bitter Sweet Symphony, The Verve
80. Dangerous, Busta Rhymes
81. Spice Up Your Life, Spice Girls
82. Because Of You, 98 Degrees
83. The Mummers' Dance, Loreena McKennitt
84. All Cried Out, Allure Featuring 112
85. Still Not A Player, Big Punisher Featuring Joe
86. The One I Gave My Heart To, Aaliyah
87. Foolish Games / You Were Meant For Me, Jewel
88. Love You Down, Inoj
89. Do For Love, 2Pac
90. Raise The Roof, Luke
91. Heaven, Nu Flavor
92. The Party Continues, Jd
93. Sock It 2 Me, Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott Featuring Da Brat
94. Butta Love, Next
95. A Rose Is Still A Rose, Aretha Franklin
96. 4 Seasons Of Loneliness, Boyz II Men
97. Father, LL Cool J
98. Thinkin' Bout It, Gerald Levert
99. Nobody's Supposed To Be Here, Deborah Cox
100. Westside, TQ

Priceless!!

2005-08-23T21:52:00.000-05:00

I don't remember when I actually stumbled onto The Morning News but I remember it being one of the Non-Expert articles which got me hooked on checking the site for new ones. I highly recommend them. So random.

I take a look at some of the other articles on the front page every now and then but have never really looked around on the site much at all but I caught a link for this article and had to share. It's kinda lengthy but worth it. Especially if you are a Star Wars fan.

Racquetball tonight

2005-08-18T23:10:00.000-05:00

I am ashamed.

Thursday nights are almost always my racquetball night. Usually it's just my friend Geoff and I but sometimes we might have another friend or two who joins us for either a doubles match or some cut-throat games. Tonight it was just Geoff and we got our standard 3 games in. Normally it takes a little over an hour to get 3 games but tonight's games took about 45 minutes.

In the 4-5 years we've played, our wins/losses would be about equal. It's very rare that when we're finished someone won all the games if we played at least 3. Tonight was one of those nights.

The first game we were tied at 6-6 until Geoff scored 3 unanswered and went up 9-6. I tried to come back but fell short with a final score of 15-10. 2nd game started started off just like the first, tied at 6-6, but this time I got 3 unanswered and went up 9-6. Next thing I know Geoff's 13 and I'm still at 9. Again, put up a good fight but fell short and lost 15-12. The last was the worst game I might have ever played. I got skunked. Yep, lost 7-0.

In the 6+ years I've played the game I can't remember getting skunked. It's probably happened but not anytime in the last couple of years. I'd rather get beat 15-1 then lose 7-0. There's just something shameful about not being able to score 1 point before they get to 7. To make it worse, I didn't even put up a fight. It was pure ownage. Like I said earlier, I am ashamed.

Sendmail headaches

2005-08-17T21:00:00.000-05:00

Today was rather disappointing. Spent a good part of the day trying to get Sendmail to work how I want it to with no luck. I want it to accept emails only from localhost but I want to be able to send emails out to anyone using my PHP script if they choose to be notified via email. I wouldn't think that's asking for much but I can't get it to work. What I currently have is a server that can send emails to local users only.

When I try to send to anyone else
RCPT TO:<user@somedomain.com>
I get... well, I was getting a User Unknown - Error 5.1.1 or something like that. I just logged in to the box to try it so I could get the exact message but it worked like a charm. How in the world... when I left work 4 hours ago I was getting the error and I'm the only one who can log in to the box so... I dunno.

Actually, I think I know what the problem was. Monday I asked our firewall admin to open up port 25 for SMTP traffic and I thought he did but around 3:30 today he said there was a rule conflict somewhere and all he had done Monday was open it up so port 25 traffic could come in, not go out. He made the changes around 4:00 to allow port 25 traffic out and I guess it just takes at least an hour for the firewall rules to update. I'll remember that in the future.

I'd almost say the entire day was wasted because of that stupid firewall rule but I learned a lot in all my google searches trying to fix all sorts of configuration settings. I should be glad all the changes I made didn't kill the server. I guess that counts for something...

The Autumn Effect / Extra innings disasters

2005-08-16T23:05:00.000-05:00

Since the end of June I've been waiting for 10 Years' first major-record release album, The Autumn Effect. A friend pointed out the song "Wasteland" on one of those Music Choice digital cable channels and told me they were a fairly new band from Knoxville, TN. I liked it quite a lot and the next time I was at Best Buy called my friend up to ask what the band name was but couldn't find an album. Looked them up online and was disappointed that it was going to be about a month and a half before the album was out but having picked it up today and listened to it about 3 times already, it was very much worth the wait. If you go to their site and hit the Media link, you can get an audio stream of Wasteland and if you like it, you'll like the album - especially at the $6.99 price Best Buy had for it.

As for the extra innings part, the Red Sox go into the 9th down by one. They tie it up and go into the 10th where they score 7! runs. Detriot's bats try to get them back but fall short and the Sox win 10-7. That doesn't bother me that much, just a little disappointed that the Sox came back and won. The last I had seen the Yanks were winning 3-2 in the 7th. This one's the heartbreaker.

The Devil Rays go into the 9th down by one run. We have Mariano Rivera on the mound, the Sandman. Sure, every now and then he shows that he is, in fact, a human and blows a save or takes a loss but normally he's lights out. Well they score a run off of him and he shuts them down in the 10th so we go into the 11th tied at 3. Alan Embree starts the 11th for us and gets an out and then gives up a double so we take him out and put Scott Proctor in. Proctor balks so the runner gets to go to 3rd. All they need is a sac-fly and the game's over - which would have been a lot easier to handle then the way they actually lost. The next batter hits a grounder to A-Rod so the runner stays and we get the out at 1st. Just need 1 more out to escape the inning. 5 pitches later we walk the next batter. They decide to intentionally walk Huff (a good decision in most cases) to load the bases. The next batter steps in and... 4 pitches later... gets to cotton-pickin' walk to first base while the game-winning run gets to walk home. Here's the gamecast lines... so depressing.

Pitch 1 - Ball
Pitch 2 - Ball
Pitch 3 - Ball
Pitch 4 - Ball

Jonny Gomes walks. Carl Crawford scores. Eduardo Perez to 3rd. Aubrey Huff to 2nd.

I just hope Rivera is getting all the bad outings out of his system in time for October (providing we actually make it this year).

Sendmail and Webmin

2005-08-16T22:03:00.000-05:00

Today I got my first real good look at Sendmail on my webserver. I'm using the common LAMP approach with SUSE Professional 9.1 being my Linux OS. Right now I've got a php function which hits a Domino server to handle all the email notifications from the site but I really want the box to be self sufficient and let the Domino server just handle the corporate emails.

Sendmail was simple to install but all the configurations looked a little overwhelming. Luckily I ran across this neat little program called Webmin. It gives you a graphical interface into a lot of your configurations like Apache, MySQL, Sendmail, SpamAssassin, Squid, SSH, etc - a very handle tool. So I go through the Sendmail configurations, restart Sendmail but no luck in sending emails. I didn't have much time to troubleshoot at all so that's where I'll start in the morning and hopefully have it up and running with ease.

Hot 100

2005-08-14T13:14:00.000-05:00

Earlier in the summer I bought a road bike. I have some friends who go riding a lot and they've been trying to talk me into getting one for over year and I finally gave in. One of them told me about this ride in August called the Hot 100.

I thought about registering for the ride and doing the 62-mile option (not in good enough shape to do the whole 100 miles) so I wanted to go see what the route was like before registering. Two Saturday's ago we did the 31-mile route - ended up going about 36 because we went on part of the old route - in a little over 2 hours so the average was around 15.6 mph.

Yesterday, Matt and I went to do the 62-mile route. The first 20 miles and the last 10 miltes are the same as the 31-mile route. The 62 takes you from Blackman High School to Christiana (where the 31-mile ride turns back to go to Blackman), to Fosterville, to Bell Buckle, then to some back roads that take you back to Blackman. About 45 miles in we had the option of cutting out a 4 mile loop which I wanted to take - lots of hills on the 62 route along with the blazing hot sun had sapped my energy - so I ended up going about 58 miles in a little less than 4 hours (around 14.5 mph). I was a little disappointed in the overall time but the longest I had gone before was 42 miles and there was nowhere near the amount of hills that were on this ride, so I guess it wasn't too bad. The worst part was the last 20 miles. Fairly flat, which was nice because you could keep a decent speed, but very very little shade so it was extremely hot. I thought I was going to die. Guess the name of the ride is fitting.

As it turns out, it doesn't look like I'll be able to make the ride on the 27th as our new AS400's will be in at work and I get to spend the weekend doing upgrades and conversions. But that'll be a story for that weekend.

MLB 2006 for the PS2

2005-08-12T11:25:00.000-05:00

Picked up a copy of it yesterday from BestBuy even though I'm still trying to finish a season from MLB 2005. Going to play a season as the Yankees again. I'm playing the 2005 game in Rookie mode, which explains why I'm 123-1 and Posada, A-Rod and Sheffield each have over 200 RBIs.

While extremely fun to win all the time, I'm going to play 2006 in Veteran mode which will be a lot more difficult and also I'm going to control all my baserunning (let the comp control it in 2005). Played a Quick Start game last night to try and get used to all the stuff I have to do now to play the game. Had a 2-1 lead going into the 8th and Johnson's stamina was done so I went to the bullpen and they fell apart. Ended up losing the game 7-2. Going to have to play a few more of those before starting my season, especially if I can't beat the Rockies who are the lowest ranked team in the game.