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Thanks Brian

Five years on chucking mostly meaningless
crap out onto the internet.  By blogging standards, I think that makes
me an "oldie".  My first post was here.
 My first rant was here.

The year gone by has been very fast,
and busier then before.  Travel has been extensive and frequent, and
there are too many highlights to start listing here.  Onwards and
downwards eh?

I have a demo tomorrow, and against my
better judgement, I want to show the RSS reader built into the Lotus Notes
client on my Mac.  Now, I am not a fan of this reader… well, ’cause
it sucks really.  One of the points that makes it REALLY suck is that
users cannot import OPML files (lists of feeds) into the reader.  And,
without some scripts, neither can administrators.  

So, here is what I would recommend if
you wanted to populate a list of feeds to a Notes 8 client.  

1.  Get a free RSS reader and build
your list of feeds.  Then export it to a file (the structure is called
.OPML) and call it presetfeeds.opml.

2.  On windows, go to x:\Notes\framework\rcp\deploy\extras
directory  and replace the presetfeeds.opml file with the new one
you have created.

3.  On Mac, go to the Applications
folder and show the package contents. Under MacOS\rcp\deploy\extras directory
replace the presetfeeds.opml file (you will need admin privilages) with
the new one.

Would be nice if you could do this with
a policy eh?  Or even have a button to import an OPML file.  Ah
well…

I have been asked this twice today, so
figured that a quick post about DAOS and clustered servers may be useful
to more people, then just responding to tweets and emails.

DAOS is server specific.  If you
run it on a server – the DAOS filestore (where the attachments are stored
as .NLO files) must be placed on a drive that the server has access too.
 For example, an additional array on the server, or even a SAN array.
 Mapped drives are a bad idea, as I can imagine DAOS getting very
pissed very quick if the mapping is lost, not to mention network performance
lags.  The .NLO files are encrypted with the server id file.  You
can turn this off if you wish, but I would not really recommend that.  Click
here
to see how.

The filestore is specific to the server.
 If you have two servers replicating data, either or both servers
could have DAOS enabled.  It doesn’t matter.  If they are both
enabled for DAOS, they will both have their filestore.  If only one
server is DAOS enabled, the other server will retain the attachments
in the .nsf file the traditional way.  DAOS operates "underneath"
domino as an application server.  To some respect the domino server
is not aware that DAOS is even running.

In a cluster, it is the same thing,
neither, one or both servers could use DAOS.   And it an easily be
turned on or off.  If it is off, the attachments are in the .nsf.
 If it is turned on, they are in the filestore.  Both servers
in the cluster CANNOT share the same filestore, as the .nlo files are encrypted
by the specific server id file.

You still save a shitload of space on
the server.  I hope that clears it up. I also recommend looking at
the presentation on DAOS (and IDVault by the wonderful Gabriella Davis)
on my resources
page.  If I haven’t answered
your question, or if there are other questions, feel free to comment here.
 Some of the DAOS team from Lotus pop into this site from time to
time, and have also answered questions.

Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn’t Fucking Work

Dennis O’Sullivan reminded me of this tip,
given at Lotusphere by the IBM DAOS team.  If you are enabling DAOS
in your environment, aside from the mail files, enable it on your mail.box
database(s).  This means attached files are moved to .nlo format as
soon as they hit your server, instead of being channelled as a larger message
by mail.box to the mail file, and then being moved to .nlo.

I have tested this, but not in scale
and it works fine.

A few hours ago, I tweeted this:

And got quite a few responses.  Mostly
agreeing with me.  Personally, I find it annoying to check voicemail.
 Even my VOIP system at home emails me the .wav file so I can listen
to it on my laptop or blackberry.  If I see a missed call on my mobile,
I return it, typically before checking the message.  I know some people
who’s voicemail message recommends pretty much any other method of communication
except leaving a message!  These incluce:

Txt

email

skype

IM

twitter

Facebook

As data activity starts to drown out
voice activity over mobile devices in the future will voicemail become
a rarely used tool?

What do you think?

Last September, on my birthday, I asked
to raise some money for the charity:
water foundation.  And you
did very well.  The charity is an excellent concept that has managed
to complete the impossible by supplying wells in many places in Africa.
 They are a funky charity, always utilising the latest in collaboration
to get people interested, and now they have done it again.

Enter twestival….
 Yup, they have teamed up with twitter, the social interaction network/mini
blog for the unwashed masses.  Shock and horror, they are making us
social introverts actually physically meet up on an evening, and like,
talk and such…  Its ok though, you can tweet if you feel the need.

Is there an event in your neighbourhood?
 Here is mine in Belfast.
   Go… and if you cannot make it (like I may not be able to)
just buy a ticket.  Its for a good cause.  If there is not one
in  your neighbourhood, just donate money here.

Google
Latitude is mobile device orientated
(no iPhone support yet).  It is essentially an upgrade to mobile Google
Maps that you may already have isntalled.  It works just like Google
Maps, but you can also enable the latitude feature.  This will then
allow people you have selected (friends) in Google Latitude see where you
are on their map screen.  In turn, you can see them.   I can
turn this feature on and off at will.  It uses GSM triangulation,
GPS, or IP tracking to locate you and position you on the map.   To
me this works a lot better then britekite.
 I can see this catching
on very quickly as more and more devices are supported.   It also
lends itself quite well to corporate systems, or even plugins.    You
can "find" me on my pmooney@gmail.com account if you want to
try it out.