Lotushints

This is what I came to ask myself constantly this past few months. Lately, I’ve been noticing that vast majority of all erra on server is due to some java library error. For example, we experience an annoying issue, when at certain point, Notes decide that some Crypto library is missing and doesn’t load up successfully. Not until you restart the server that is. IBMs suggestion was to reinstall the server, as apparently corresponding jar file got corrupted somewhere during upgrade (WTF?!). All fine and well, but this is a production server. A server that hosts thousand users daily. A server that quite frankly has no other issue but this one. There is definitely not going to be any reinstall taking place in near future.

Are Notes really built for Java? Because at this point it certainly fails to look so.

Helped to create this web site (and some other stuff, but let’s focus on web site at the moment). The site is in Slovenian and it presents an awesome idea to virtualize the desktop to maximize security and maintenance for minimal costs.

Writing HTML, CSS and JS for all those rounded buttons was fiddly, not to mention time consuming. The answer from designer: “You don’t need the design to float, scale, etc.”

Right. I will be covering that methodology (or wrongness of it) in one of my next posts. I just hope CSS3 support grows by 1000% in next week. Yeah, wishful thinking.

We have deployed Sametime some year hence in the company. Now it was time to upgrade its functionality and click to call just sounded as the right one. Not only it removes the need for you to browse company directory for telephone number of a person you want to call (you just do that from Sametime), but it also is able to display outside caller information, if you have their information in Server Directory Catalog (sdc.nsf) database.

I will try to cover configuration and deployment of Cisco Click To Call plug-in for Sametime integrated client. Beware, this plug-in will only work with Cisco telephones and Cisco Call Manager.

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Anyone dealing with HTML will or already has encountered an interesting behavior of embedded objects and absolute positioned objects. When embedded object (e.g. flash animation) is positioned over part or entire absolute positioned object, absolute position object is always displayed behind embedded one.

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After several efforts, I finally managed to move to my own place. The only problem is that internet doesn’t work properly. Everything else is just fine. Anyway, hoping to solve issues till next week. Unfortunatelly, this means there will be no post this week.

A funny thing happened to our servers on multiple occasions. Server system time was not equal to Domino server time. Some times they were even as much as 5 minutes apart.

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About a year hence, it was time to refresh web design of my company’s web site. We decided to stick to new and improved web page standards and thus separate style and scripts from content. All well, but one simple thing. Our CMS never forced it’s users to use HTML in their code. We always relied on Notes rendering engine to render Notes documents body contents to what should be displayed on the web.

Not a good idea. I don’t know, when was the last time, someone at IBM took a look at their rendering engine, but this just isn’t it. Unordered lists don’t close, leading to a total mess of your layout. On numerous occasions, a div tag marked as pass through text got put to the bottom of contents and not at the spot where it was in the body field, leading to some more confusion. And what killed it for me was a sudden br tag flood in the HTML for no apparent reason. All 6 of them were gone when text was put in the same line as pass through text and appeared right after I put the text back in new line. And all of this appeared randomly, which amused me for a while.

So, I guess it is no wonder, why there are so many CMS application in Notes, where content needs to be entered as HTML. However, in my experience, you as a developer or admin of such system can be glad if a content editor knows how to use Lotus Notes.

In part 11 of Design pattern series we will go into creating and using the Bridge design pattern. It is moderately used and uses encapsulation, inheritance and aggregation to separate responsibilities into other classes.

The Bridge pattern decouples an abstraction from its implementation so that the two can vary independently.

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In part 10 of Design pattern series we will take look at Builder design pattern. Albeit much similarity, this pattern it is not to be mistaken with Abstract factory pattern. As Abstract Factory emphasizes a family of products and returns the product immediately, Builder focuses on constructing complex object step by step, returning product in final step.

The intention of the The Builder pattern is to abstract steps of construction of objects so that different implementations of these steps can construct different representations of objects.

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Got this e-mail from IBM Notes & Domino team todayand thought it worthy of sharing with public…

What is happening
The certificate for some Java applets in Lotus Domino 6.5.x, Domino 7.0.x, Domino 8.0.x, and Domino 8.5 have an expiration date of May 18, 2009. Starting May 19th, Web users will see a dialog with a message similar to one of the following when loading a Web page that contains a Java applet from the Domino server:

“The digital signature was generated with a trusted certificate but has expired or is not yet valid.”
“The security certificate has expired or is not yet valid.”

This issue can occur even if IBM is set up as a trusted publisher in the browser.

What does this mean
Please be assured that this message does not mean security has been compromised. It simply reflects the expiration of the signature originally provided in the security certificate used with certain Domino applets. You can find an explanation in the following technote:

Title: “Security certificate expiration messages generated from Domino applets (May 18, 2009)”
URL: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=899&uid=swg21381298

Action needed to resolve
To resolve the situation, you have three options: (1) Instruct users to “Always Trust” content from IBM, (2) if using Domino 7.x, upgrade to Domino 7.0.4, or (3) download and apply fixes. IBM recommends that you replace the affected Jar files (option 3) as described in the following download document for any supported release of Domino:

Title: “Download re-signed Java applets for Lotus Domino (May 18, 2009)”
URL: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=899&uid=swg24022981

Alternatively, an interim fix will be posted to Fix Central for the latest Modification and Fix Pack levels by May 8th. These include Domino 6.5.6 FP3, 7.0.3 FP1, 7.0.4, 8.0.2 FP1, and 8.5.0. If you’re not running one of these releases, access the download document above, which provides fixes for all supported release levels.

General Self-Help Resources
Here are links to other ways that you can access IBM Lotus Notes & Domino self-help support information on the Web:
1. My Support (http://www.ibm.com/software/support/einfo.html)
2. Lotus Support is just a click away (http://www.ibm.com/software/lotus/support/clickaway/); learn more about Lotus Software Self-Assist Options.
3. IBM Software Support Site design update (http://www.ibm.com/software/support/gcnews.html)
4. New Lotus Notes Domino Wiki (http://www.lotus.com/ldd/dominowiki.nsf)
5. Fix Central (http://www.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/)

Sincerely,

The IBM Lotus Notes & Domino Team