Luggage also made it.  Today is
a writeoff of course.  Will get on track and answer emails tomorrow.

zzzzz

First of all, move along.. nothing to see
here if you are looking for technical or business related content.

Picture it… Starbucks, Manila, 2009.

Nicest Starbucks staff I have ever come
across.  Smiles and happy to see you. Every.time.  Now picture
person ahead of me in queue.  Lets call him "Prick".  Prick
is on his mobile phone and talking loudly to someone.  Girl asks for
his order.  He half-answers and continues to talk to the other prick
down the end of the phone (Apology to other prick.  You may not be
a prick.  But, you are obviously related to this prick so I grant
you prick status by default).  She repeats the order back to him.
 Prick then changes his mind.  She puts it through on the till
and repeats it back to him again.  But, she got confused with his
lame-ass half-focussed re-order and when re-reading it to him, it is incorrect.
 He then shouts "Oh COME ON.. Its SIMPLE!" and repeats his
order.  She smiles gently and asks him if it is to go or eat in.  He
doesn’t even answer and throws money on the counter, still talking in a
prickish manner to his prick-mate on his prick cellphone.

I’m next, ask the girl if she is ok
and would she like to get her boss to report this prick.  She smiles
and repeats "its ok, its ok".  Then apologises to me for
the inconvenience.   Prick returns, still on his phone, grabs his
order, change and leaves.  I leave a $10 tip.  She is not paid
enough to deal with that.  My thoughts.

1. – What goes around comes around.
 It usually picks up speed on the way.  I would love to be there
to see it when it catches up on certain people.

2. – Manners cost nothing.  Zip.
 I’m not saying you should always be polite, as its not always appropriate,
but it costs fuck all to say please and thank you.

3. – These people are on shite money.
 Getting abuse is not on their job description.  Especially if
their service is stellar.

After a productive 2 weeks in Manila, and
getting see some friends I made last year again, I am heading back to Belfast.
 The clock has been running since I left the hotel by the way, if
you want to guess a time.  Manila is as friendly now as it was last
 year, and from the moment I got there, I was made feel welcome.  A
strange place is where the staff of Starbucks remember you from the previous
year, along with just about everyone else in the locality.   Their
attitude and approach to external people in this region makes you want
to work more for them, as it is a welcome relief to the "damn consultants"
mentality I see all too often.  It is still a VERY busy city, and
there is no shortage of work, especially in the technology area.  It’s
so strange to see IBM signs on the streets with a recruiting pitch.  I
dare say its been a long time since IBM have done that in Europe or USA.
 

Manila reminds me of Ireland in the
80′s.  People are poor but cheap to employ, hard working, appreciative,
keen, but dealing with a serious legacy of corruption and crime.  These
things take years to eradicate, but they will eventually fade away (or
become more "hidden" as it is in more developed cities).  The
biggest negative I have about the city is the pollution and the air quality,
as it is horrendous.  The scary part is after a few days you don’t
notice how bad it is anymore.  Its just "normal".  

As I sit in Dubai Airport, awaiting
my flight to Heathrow (oh joy) I become aware that is almost December,
and this year is coming to an end.  The lightening pace of this year,
combined with managing to keep busy in these uncertain times makes my head
spin when I think about it.  Eight trips to the US, countless to Europe/UK,
one to Asia and a lot of work in Ireland.  Trying to limit any travel
for the rest of the year, and hopefully plan a slower pace for the coming
twelve months.  Work/Life balance has weighed heavily in work’s favour
for many years.  Next year specifically, that is not going to be the
case.

After three years of never rebuilding my
OS (even though I moved machine) and seriously heavy usage, my Mac has
started to slow down recently.  Today was a clincher.  See photo:

I was running an XP VM, a windows 2003
enterprise VM, Lotus Notes, Keynote, Word and 2 RDP sessions (then skype/tweetie/browser
etc). It barfed.  Hard reboot sorted it (It hadn’t been rebooted in
2 weeks) and I had time machine running with my Seagate 500MB usb powered
drive "just in case".  But I think when I get home I will
have to invest a day into a rebuild.  Not a time machine restore (which
is easy), I mean a full installation rebuild.  Regardless of operating
system.. that’s a pain in the ass.  OS/applications/Data etc etc.
 

Another reason for this is the unstoppable
habit Macs have to just consume disk space.  Space seems to disappear
every week and I have no idea where it goes.  Even with Snow Leopard.
  I will try to match the installation that I have now, and data as
best I can, just to see how much space was consumed by another universe.
 And yes MS office for Mac.. I’m looking at you with your fortnightly
"updates".

Mac rebuild has been added to my todo
list when I get back to Ireland.

Ed
just blogged this, and I thought
I would re-hash the information from the previous years about this session.
 IDOL submissions are open until 24th December.  You have PLENTY
of time.  You will be informed if you are successful before the end
of the year.

Do you want to speak at Lotusphere?

Have you never spoken at Lotusphere
before (or not in the last three years)?

Do you want your speaking skills reviewed
and judged?

Do you want to have fun in the process?

Lotusphere IDOL is on again for LS2010.
 The format stays as it was last year, but for those that do not know
what Lotusphere IDOL is about, read on….

Every year, the Lotusphere content managers
are on the hunt for new, "young blood", with good technical and
presentation skills.  Sometimes, the problem is being noticed by track
managers.  This is not as easy as you would think, and being accepted
for a session by the content team at Lotusphere is difficult to achieve.
 Helping on the SNT track  really opened my eyes to the volume
of submissions.

Last year was the second Lotusphere
IDOL…. the fruition of a "talent hunting" idea that was discussed
for months.  So, what’s it about?

The format is very simple, and I simply
cannot beat the description put online by Rocky
Oliver.  So, in true plagiarism
style, here are the rules…

Lotusphere Idol FAQ

How exactly will this work?

There will be three steps to earn your
spot as the Lotusphere Idol winner.

STEP 1: Anyone who is interested
in competing in Lotusphere Idol will email a small abstract – 3-5 sentences
- to our special email address (submit@lotusphereidol.com).
Besides your abstract, include: your submission "area" – is a
"Developer" submission or an "Administrator" submission;
and contact information – both your normal contact info and any contact
info you can provide for you while you are at Lotusphere.  Information
about yourself too!  

he judges will choose 2-3 Administration
contestants and 2-3 Development contestants.

But before you submit, there are some
requirements. First, you must NOT have spoken at Lotusphere in the last
3 years, if ever. This is for those people who have never had the opportunity
to speak at Lotusphere, or who haven’t in a long time. Second, you MUST
commit to creating a full, 60-minute presentation in about 24-36 hours
(or best, have it already done) – more on that in a bit.

STEP 2: The chosen contestants
will present a 5 minute "audition" of their session during our
"LOTUSPHERE IDOL LIVE" session . It will be a fun-filled session
with great auditions, laughs, and more. The judges will make their decision,
and then the winner will be announced LIVE at the end of the session!!

STEP 3: The winner will then
have a little over a day to prepare their session – with the support and
help of the Lotusphere judges. Then the Lotusphere Idol winner will present
their session  where they will wow the crowds with their knowledge
and speaking skills, and bask in the glory of the Lotusphere stage!

Will the Lotusphere winner get any
help?

Yes! Some of the judges will offer to
help the winner in crafting their presentation.

Who will be the judges?

We’re still determining who will be
on the stage, but additional "judges" will be in the audience
as well. These "audience" judges will be comprised of the content
team track managers; therefore the entire judging panel will be the track
managers and the people onstage. The stage judges will be announced very
soon – stay tuned! And our Master-of-Ceremonies will be none other than
Ed Brill – this should be fun!  Keep in mind some of the judges may
be a bit *harsh*… its all in good fun.  Also keep in mind they are
actually picking the winner based on your session, so they will be paying
attention.

Anything else?

The winner of Lotusphere Idol will also
be asked to submit a session for next year’s Lotusphere – no guarantees
it will be selected, but we’re always looking for new talent and finding
a new speaker like this is a very good way to get noticed.

So, that’s it. Get your submissions
in early, and we’ll pick the contestants by the end of December.

Here we go again!  I have been fortunate
enough to have some sessions accepted for Lotusphere 2010.  So, if
you are bored at sphere, you will find me presenting these topics.

Install, Manage and configure DAOS and
IDVault Step by Step

This session I get to present with the
most excellent Gabriella Davis from Turtle Partnership.  Gab takes
ID Vault and I take DAOS.  This is a 2  our "Show and Tell"
session and we will take you through the step by step setup and configuration
of these two 8.5.x features.  Lots of picture by picture slides and
full demo.  After this session, you WILL be able to set this stuff
up and also we impart our real-world experience.

Worst Practices 4: "Orlando we have
a problem"

Its back and its pissed!  I have
the the pleasure to try to control present with Bill Buchan.
 We will bring you through all new stories of "pilot error"
screwups in the Domino world, how they were caused and how they could of
been prevented.  This session is my guilty pleasure.  Being on
stage with Bill always leads to an unpredictable and fun hour.

Meet "The Grumpies": Eschew
Obfuscation!

This BP session is an evoloution of
a BOF from last year.  Bob Balaban and I have very few slides and
and strange agenda.  We will openly discuss just about anything to
do with Domino, and give our (usually grumpy and cynical) opinions on questions
from the audience.  It is an entertaining and experienced session,
as it draws on formed opinions from years of working on customer sites,
and knowing what is "right" and what is "bloody awful".

Adminblast 2010: Over 60 Tips in 60 Minutes!

AKA the session that tries to kill the speaker.  If
you have seen it before, you know how it works.  I run you through
60 useful tips for administrators that you can bring home with you and
use straight away.  Typically if this session repeats, I present with
other speakers so you get their opinions (and arguments) on my tips.  Andy
Pedisich, Rob Axelrod, Jess Stratton, Greg Engels and Francie Tanner all
took slides last year in the repeat.

In fact, it has been on since 8.5 by default.
 I was asked this a few weeks back and totally forgot to blog the
answer. Information is found in the Domino wiki article here.

"Explanation:
Streaming Cluster Replication (SCR) was introduced as a performance enhancement
to cluster replication in 8.0 but was found to cause problems in 8.0, 8.0.1,
and 8.0.2. These issues were fixed in 8.0.2 FP1 and 8.5.

Recommendation:
Set DEBUG_SCR_DISABLED=1 in the server’s notes.ini for Domino releases
8.0 and 8.0.1. Enabling the parameter is not necessary for 8.0.2 because
it is disabled by default.  For releases 8.0.2 FP1, 8.5 and later,
remove the parameter to take advantage of  SCR’s performance optimization.
"

Also, keep in mind that cluster replication
with DAOS is improved in 851.  If both servers are DAOSIFIED, the
cluster replicator will check to see if the .NLO already exists on the
opposing filestore.  If it is already there, it is NOT replicated.
 

If you have enabled SCR again in 8.5
or 8.51 in anger, let me know if you have any issues.

Huge thanks to the most excellent John
Paganetti from Lotus Development for answering some of my dumbass questions
on SCR recently.

In advance – by Guber I mean "user".
 While on the last and longest leg of my trip to the Philippines,
and trying to stay awake so I can kick jetlag’s ass when I land, working
on bits and pieces was helping.  So, I was at the "inbox 5000"
milestone that means I am as up to date as possible, so time to do something
else.

A question asked frequently when presenting
on DAOS.   "OK, I have read the instructions on DAOS from the
slide deck on your resources
page".  It is all working
and all attachments are now in the DAOS directory as .NLO files.  I
understand that when a user has a email with the attachment it is actually
in the DAOS directory.  If he deletes it, the refcount of the attachment
in the daoscat.nsf database will decrease by 1.  When the refcount
for that .NLO attachment is at zero, that means that nobody has kept a
copy of this attachment anymore.  So now, the .NLO attachment sits
in the DAOS directory for 30 days (as per the prune setting in the server
document).  After that, it is deleted.  I get it.  It works.
 Its great.

Guber user though gets in touch with
me 31 days later, saying that he wants that email (and attachment back).
 I can restore the .nsf fine, but how do I find out what .NLO I need
to restore from the file system and how do I restore it?"

In this post, I will show you how to
simulate this scenario for test purposes, and then how to recover the file.
 I am assuming you do NOT have backup software that supports DAOS.
 You may or may not have open file/.nsf supported backup for the mail
databases.

More

Time taken..

Luggage time taken.  THE SAME!
 It is a sorry sign of travel that you are actually relieved that
your luggage turned up.  So it looks like Mr Tim Clark is the winner
with his guess.  Well done Tim.  A pint at Lotusphere for you.