Vince Schuurman

Happy Motoring

Vince Schuurman — Fri, 3 Feb 2012 14:44:33 +0200

A tiny bit of snow and then this happens....

Your email is safe with us? (linkedin)

Vince Schuurman — Sun, 8 Jan 2012 22:27:22 +0200

Linkedin shows you profile photo's of several connections to motivate you to trust them with your gmail password. Not sure this bunch is helping though....

I have seen better mug shots :P

ok, enough is enough, no more Java source folder (XPages)

Vince Schuurman — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:04:06 +0200

Like Tommy I have been beating my head against the table trying to get all my code in the Java Source folder (8.5.3), but it is just not stable enough.
Either the page crashes for no obvious reason, or it suddenly fails to recognize the classes (File access error: Error while getting information on item $FileData Note item not found) or even worse the signature was found invalid (java.lang.SecurityException: Error verifying signature for resource WEB-INF/classes/...class).
Rebuilding and/or cleaning the application often is not enough, you have to create a new class and copy THE SAME!!! code back in :(

Everytime you open the database something gets screwed and until IBM fixes the issue I am 'reverting' back to a custom Webcontent/WEB-INF folder.

Classic errors resulting in Domino performance loss

Vince Schuurman — Fri, 9 Dec 2011 21:41:01 +0200

Did another performance audit today and yes all the classic errors resulting in a non-responsive Domino environment where there:
- No compact jobs on system databases (average use of 30%)
- Verbose logging to log.nsf (5 Gb, luckily they had the cut-off date set to 7 days )
- Reporting on 'normal events' (which includes the verbose logging events) (6.5 Gb)
- Last but not least: Virus scanner on all Domino data directories
Yes, they are right: Domino does not scale ;)

Recompile code when opening in designer (xPages)

Vince Schuurman — Wed, 7 Dec 2011 13:32:18 +0200

I found out the hard way that opening a database in Designer 8.5.3 can recompile all the code in the Java source folder, even if the 'Build Automatically' is unchecked.

So if you open a database that is in use, it might crash the database with:
07-12-2011 13:13:10 HTTP JVM: java.lang.SecurityException: Error verifying signature for resource WEB-INF/classes/xpages/Demo.class. For more detailed information, please consult error-log-0.xml located in /data/notesdata/domino/workspace/logs
After that the only way to get the database back online is to clean the database in designer.

If you plan to open databases in designer on production servers (not even modifying anything) or work with multiple people on the same database, setting the preference to not recompile xPages automatically will save you a lot of grief (or your job).

xAgents, xAgents everywhere....

Vince Schuurman — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:11:57 +0200

I am currently working on several concurring development projects and I noticed that the focus is shifting from creating 'pure' xPage documents to xAgents (an xPage set to behave like an agent) to replace 'webagents' used for WebQueryOpen, WebQuerySave or Ajax events.
The 'old' functionality was written in either LotusScript agents, Java agents or Servlets.
The reason for converting the 'webagents' to 'xAgents' is that they offer more performance than LS agents, are more stable than Java agents and easier to deploy and maintain than servlets.
Especially the move from java agents to xAgents is very easy, even if you don't use xPages anywhere else in your application.

1. Create a new xPage, set rendered to "false" and copy your java code in it.
2. Change the current 'PrintWriter' to 'ResponseWriter' like this:

// get the response and set header info
var response = facesContext.getExternalContext().getResponse();;
response.setContentType("application/json");
response.setHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache");
// get the output writer and print the data
var pageOut = facesContext.getResponseWriter();
pageOut.write("{'jsonvar'='jsonvalue'");
pageOut.endDocument();
pageOut.close();
facesContext.responseComplete();

3. If you have supporting classes put them in the 'code/Java' section
4. Change the calls to the agent to your new xAgent and you should be good to go :)

P.S. Does not work on pre 8.5 Domino versions ;)

OpenNTF.org appoints three honorary Directors

Vince Schuurman — Tue, 1 Nov 2011 18:29:28 +0200

At the last meeting the OpenNTF board appointed three honorary Directors.
And what do you know, I am one of them. This includes a standing invitation to but in on any board meeting.
I really appreciate that. I don't have much time at the moment, but I will try to sit in form time to time, if only to see how things are going.
Thank you guys, I am very honoured ( I'd better be ;) )

Loving DDE 8.5.3 already

Vince Schuurman — Sun, 9 Oct 2011 00:29:06 +0200

I was getting pretty tired of editing the Java code in the Web-INF folder, the Java source in Designer is a big step forward.
Still think it would be best if we could just use the Java scriptlibraries used by Java agents though, that would save a lot of double coding.
And I hope the compiler is smart enough to only compile the classes used by the xPage and not all of the classes in the Java source folder :)

Next step; improve my SQL connections using connection pooling with the OpenNTF extension library

Debranding Lotus Domino

Vince Schuurman — Wed, 5 Oct 2011 09:58:27 +0200

The 'new' IBM XWork Server is aimed at ISV's mainly. I am not an ISV, but since most of my customers are nowadays (end-user market is almost dead here) I decided to help them brand the XWork server.
That means on the other hand debranding Lotus Domino, not something I enjoy. I have been a strong advocate of the brand for ages and really hoped that 8.5 would make a difference. But it doesn't, not to the customers, it seems nothing you change on the server can lift the bad smell the brand accumulated over the years.

So 'they' were granted their wish for once: Domino is dead, but long live the IBM XWork Server ;)

Running 8.5.3 on all systems

Vince Schuurman — Tue, 4 Oct 2011 20:56:33 +0200

Well, all but one. Still have to upgrade the Linux server.
The rest is running fine already, even traveler on the N8.
Update of the phone was surprisingly easy for a change :). Anyone knows how to set the peak/off-peak times?

Yes I know never install software when it's just released, but hey someone has to test it.
Besides I have two customers who have been waiting for the SQL connection pooling for months, no time to waste!

OpenNTF on it's own feet

Vince Schuurman — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 22:14:09 +0200

This week OpenNTF has finally evolved into a non-profit trade association (501(c)(6)).
During the last 9 years I fulfilled every role imaginable at OpenNTF and even ran the site solo for a couple of years.
With the new organisation a new team of board members will be incorporated next month and with pain in my hart I decided to sit this one out.
I have no doubt I will rejoin OpenNTF in a couple of years, but for now I will step down from the organisation and put more time in my own company.

Thanks to everyone who made this possible, especially Steve Castledine who was the first to offer IBM's help in running OpenNTF.

�

Some company nobody heard of was declared bankrupt today.

Vince Schuurman — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 23:47:37 +0200

Nothing new, certainly not worth any press coverage. But after a closer look at the chamber of commerce data it turns out to be a major subsidiary of one of the larger banks in the Netherlands.
To avoid 'unwanted' attention they changed the name of the company just before bankruptcy.
And then they wonder why we don't trust banks anymore :(

3 MBA's compared

Vince Schuurman — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 20:38:49 +0200

The only place you will see a performance test between the MBA 2007, 2010 and 2011 by starting Parallels and Lotus Designer 8.5 :).
In case you are wondering why on earth I need three MBA's, just look at the vid :(

Oh yes, the specs:
1.80GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2GB 667DDR2 SDRAM
2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
1.8GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM

Incommunicado

Vince Schuurman — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 07:15:00 +0200

About to move house (finally). The 'new' house does not have internet yet, so this website will be down for a few days and no 'social media' for me.
Yes I know people are 'social' on their phone nowadays, but I hate typing on such a tiny machine regardless of the interface.

Walk in fridge

Vince Schuurman — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 16:04:15 +0200

Some of you may have seen the Heineken campaign below, if not, watch it, it's pretty funny.

So we are about to move house
and of course my wife wants a walk-in closet
.
Nothing out of the ordinary so far, until I saw this sign on the neighbors terras.

1000 different kinds of beer and 40 Wiskey's, Are you kidding??
It is a pub and not a private home of course, but still, 1000 seems like overkill to me.
Anyway, I stepped up to the owner and asked him if I could have a look at his 'fridge', and this is what it looks like.
.

a 'walk in fridge' right nextdoor
I think I am going to enjoy our new house ;)

Intelligent or Geek community

Vince Schuurman — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 08:59:43 +0200

Our 'intelligent communicty of the year' focuses on technology and that of course attracts people with system-oriented thinking.
A recent study shows that autism is much more common in this area and they suspect that system-oriented people are more likely to have autistic children.
Geek as wel all know comes from 'Geck' the Dutch word for crazy. So it seems that the slogan Eindhoven has been going with for years 'Eindhoven de gekste' has a bitter truth in it.

Family life in Eindhoven?
� cartoonstock.com

Eindhoven Intelligent Community of the year

Vince Schuurman — Sat, 4 Jun 2011 09:51:24 +0200

As I reported earlier, Eindhoven is said to be one of the 7 most intelligent communities.
Anyway, after election yesterday it was voted as the Intelligent Community of the Year by the ICF.
My presence here must have had a postive influence on the jury's decision, or maybe it was the crate of local brew we sent them ;)

Back in the xPage saddle

Vince Schuurman — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 01:18:00 +0200

Apart for some small projects I have not done much xPage development lately.
But since one of my clients with an extended 'classic' (R7) Domino environment has serious problems with their applications, especially with WebQueryOpen agents, I suggested we could develop an xPage alternative.
The current WebQueryOpen agents do not handle timeouts in the connections very well. And while trying to establish a connection to a third party, the sheer number of waiting connections will crash the entire server.
Using the technique I described earlier I was able to use their classic (no I won't say legacy ;)) Java scriptlibraries in xPages.
That really speeded up the development process, and leaves me with less challenging taks of redesigning their security process in xPages (they do not use Domino security) and developing the xPage UI.

So far so good, but I am really curious to see how the xPage solution will handle connection problems compared to the 'classic' solution in a production environment.

Converting 'Legacy' Java libraries to xPages code

Vince Schuurman — Sun, 6 Feb 2011 18:52:03 +0200

I developed a demo xPage application this weekend using 'legacy' java code that is currently in Java Scriptlibraries for Domino agents.
It was not a trivial task because there is a slight difference between the way the classes are initiated.
Yes sure there shouldn't be a difference, but the older versions of Domino designer were much more forgiven about the way classes were called.
For me the best approach was to first port the code to Java 1.5 by recompiling the script libraries in Domino 8.5 and fix the reported problems.

When the code compiles on 8.5 open the scriptlibraries and export the content to .java files.
To avoid having to switch from the Domino Designer view to the Java and back view all the time, you might want to add View/add view/java packages to your Designer workspace.

Now prepare your nsf for the java code by creating a source (src) folder under Webcontent/WEB-INF (rightclick new folder) and link the sourcefolder via Buildpath/configure buildpath.
In the package explorer you will see that the new sourcefolder is moved from WEB_INF to the top, just below local. After creating a new package (right click new package) with proper naming based on the contents of the java file (I named them the same as the original Java libraries) , just drag and drop the javafile(s) to the newly created package.

If you have .jar files you can put those in a folder called lib, again under Webcontent/WEB-INF.

Now that is done, try to build the database and you will probably see some compilation errors again. The servlet environment is a lot less forgiving than the Domino Designer interface ;)
After that you can start on the calls from the xPage to the classes.
I had to change some of the code because of security exceptions, but I got everything to work as expected. :)

By this time you probably think; who cares about that app, I just need to know how to call those classes from SSJS!
Okok, here it is, it is not very hard, just the notation is a bit different.

Java:

import packagename.*; (and adding the Java library to the project)
// instantiate
Classname variable = new Classname( );
//call methods
Classname.publicclass info = variable.publicmethod();

SSJS:

//instantiate
var variable:packagename.Classname = new packagename.Classname();
//call methods
var info:packagename.publicclass = variable.publicmethod();

Java code that was allowed in Designer such as calling a method wihout instantiating it first is not allowed though. So:

Stringbuffer buf = Classname.publicmethod();

becomes:

var variable:packagename.Classname = new packagename.Classname();
buf = variable.publicmethod();

Any missing constructors have to be added to the code.

As you see it is not hard, as long as you know how to do it.
So that's it? Just copy and paste?

Well not quite, there are some concerns, but more about that later.....

Eindhoven among the Top Seven Intelligent Communities of the Year

Vince Schuurman — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 10:04:52 +0200

According to the ICF (Intelligent Community Forum )

The other six are (in random order):
Chattanooga (Tennessee),
Dublin (Ohio)
Riverside (Californi�).
Stratford (Canada)
Windsor-Essex (Canada)
Issy-les-Moulineaux (France)

Mmmm... must be something in the air... or is the beer? ;)

I am

Vince Schuurman — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 12:00:01 +0200

The styling reminded me of the 'I am super human software' campagne of Lotus. Too bad I cannot find that logo, but I am sure that it looked a lot like above.
I found the 'I am commercial' ad though, just to give you an idea. :)

New Marketing mgr Lotus Software IBM Software Group Benelux

Vince Schuurman — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 07:53:42 +0200

And his name is...... Marnix Kemme!!
Marnix has been a long time supporter of Lotus technology and the driving force behind the Dutch Lotus & WebSphere User Group (SNUG) for years.
Congratulations Marnix and more importantly congratulations IBM :)

HTML5 mobile orientation/accelerator demo

Vince Schuurman — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 00:51:15 +0200

Working on an HTML5 demo I came across an example about the deviceorientation/accelerator features.
It is of course intended for mobile devices although it is supposed to be available in the current Macbook Pro's (mind you I can hardly see the advantage of having this on a laptop).
The 'standard' HTML5 code did not work for me, so I reverted to a 'Mozilla' only solution.
Anyway, if you have a compatible device you might want to try this.
Works great on the N900 of course, but that was to be expected ;)

New Air vs. the old one

Vince Schuurman — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 22:34:56 +0200

I was one of the first to buy the 'old' (2007) Macbook Air's. I thought it would be the best 'travel companion' since it was small light and still had enough on board for work. Sure it lacked an internal CD/DVD ROM player and only had one USB connector, but I didn't expect to need that much anyway.
Turned out I was right.
What I wasn't expecting though was the effect of a max. 2GB memory in combination with what appeared to be a very slow IO.
When running a Windows VM (approx. 1.5GB) I couldn't run any 'native' OSX apps or the Air would simply give up.

So when the new Air was released in Oktober, I was reluctant to buy one. On one hand I wanted one, because the 'old' Air was brilliant for simple stuff 'on the couch' because of it's low form factor and weight, but I wasn't sure that it would have improved enough to get some real work done.
Anyway, I talked to some people and they convinced me that the new Air was a lot better (faster) than the old one, and decided to take the gamble.
Since my regular laptop, a 'Pro' with 2.5Ghz and 4Gb, isn't really flying with VM's, I still had some reservations and I ordered the fastest processor (2.1GHz) and biggest memory (4Gb) to increase my odds.
I have to say the flashdrive of the new 'Air' makes all the difference. I can run it with both native and VM applications using more than the available physical memory without it slowing down.
So I am a happy camper again :)
It is not all joy though, the battery life for example is still a concern. Don't think it will last even the half of the promised 6 hours if you plan to do any serious work on it.

Conclusion: If you are looking for a new laptop go for the SSD version :)
Next project: Upgrade my 'Pro' with a hybrid drive (see Bill's review)

Back from ILUG

Vince Schuurman — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 13:25:19 +0200

and pfew do I need some sleep :)
But the event was brilliant again thanks to the usual suspects; Paul, Warren, Matt, coatsie, Kitty, Eileen, Bill, Steve and all the others!!

The nearby Indian restaurant wasn't as good prepared for our invasion though and ran out of RICE!!! the second night.

Except for a small storm (moderate breeze in Irish terms) on Wednesday, even the weather played along nicely.
Good enough even to make my visit to The Giant's Causeway a very pleasant one :)

The evenings were even so entertaining, meeting old and new colleagues, Steve's session about the Irish 'history', lots of beer and even more talk...

Installed MeeGo on the N900

Vince Schuurman — Sun, 7 Nov 2010 16:02:36 +0200

It took many hours and lots of strong words, but I finally managed to install Maemo and MeeGo dual boot on my Nokia N900.
Yes I know I said it was too much work, but well, I just cannot withstand a challenge like that.
While testing I wonder why I took the trouble, because MeeGoo is not just 'not ready yet', it's painful.
After typing a space or a dot for example you may or may not get a repeating 'b' or 'c' respectively until you hit the backspace or the app crashes.
I thought it would be nice to play with, but since the app's are either not stable enough or not even available, it may be smarter to wait for the next release :). The phone gets pretty hot too, even doing nothing, but that was to be expected.

Anyway, apart from all the problems, I like the way MeeGo looks and operates and I will definitely test some more.

P.S. Sorry for the lousy screenshots, but you guessed it probably; the there is no screencapture app yet :(

Brand new N900

Vince Schuurman — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:26:06 +0200

Nokia replaced my N900 with faulty display with a brand new one.

Let's see if we can put MeeGo on it.
On second thought, I will probably wait for the packaged Maemo version because this is even for a freak like myself a bit too much for a 'simple' phone.

Quick tip: Loading indicator on partial refresh xPage

Vince Schuurman — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:57:35 +0200

If you do a partial refresh in a large database, it may take some time for the application to react. Since there is no visual sign of activity users may get a bit frustrated and click multiple times.
Of course it is not the frustrating bit that motivates us to fix this, it is the multiple clicking that impacts performance ;)

Solution: Show a loading indicator if you do a partial refresh:
Add a 'loadingPanel' with a suitable background, set the z-index high and display to none and add the following code to the eventHandler:

![CDATA[document.body.pointer.style='pointer';document.getElementById('#{id:loadingPanel}').style.display='none';]]

This will set the cursor to the well known 'wait' mode and show the loading panel.
Note you have to tweak this here and there for IE, but you get the idea :)

Other options you may want to check out: onError and onStart.

And yes I realize these events have been around since 8.5.1, just haven't done much xPage designing lately.

12½ years

Vince Schuurman — Wed, 6 Oct 2010 20:57:00 +0200

I just noticed that I missed the 12½th anniversary of my company last month.
Americans tell me that 12½ years is not even a real anniversary, but we celebrate it anyway :)

xPages, entrycounts, reader fields and bugs, bugs and ...

Vince Schuurman — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 16:31:09 +0200

Very very strange problem that took quite some digging into.

Create a database with some documents with reader fields, a view and an xPage.
On the xPage, add a datasource to the Domino View and two computed fields; one with dominoView.getColumnValues(0).size() and the other with dominoView.getEntryCount()
Now (pre)view this xPage in a browser and you will see that both fields will show the total document count in the view independent of whether or not you have read rights on those documents. Not what I would like to see, but I could live with that.
Now swap those two fields and check again.... The getColumnValues.size() now shows the number of documents you have read access to.

ok, now while that was weird, let's take it one step further:
Add a data repeat with the dominoView.getColumnValues(0) of the view as source, and show the value using a computed field.
This shows the columnvalues of the documents you have read access to.
Now delete the computed field (getEntryCount()) and check again....

And to complete the weirdness, try this: Put the getEntryCount() field back on the xPage, and set an event on the repeat, for example print the value you just clicked on.
It sends the currentrownumber back to the server and evaluates the event, BUT since the server counts all the documents, the count will be off!
So clicking on row 5 may send data belonging to row 3 back from the server.

I was able to program around these issues, but the solution isn't pretty :(.

Technorati tag: xPages

Console message of the day

Vince Schuurman — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:02:51 +0200

Well.. so far anyway ;)

23-09-2010 09:52:18 WARNING: One or more documents in /data/notesdata/rv.nsf were not added to the search results because of the amount of summary data.

Best university in the Netherlands

Vince Schuurman — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 12:31:42 +0200

The Times published a list with the The world university rankings 2010-2011, and what do you know, my 'old school' is ranked as the best Dutch university.
At the 32nd place in Europe and 114th worldwide, still a looong way from Cambridge and Harvard though....

NLLUG 2010 session downloads

Vince Schuurman — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 11:42:59 +0200

Here are the slides and the actual demo db (without the LUG2010.nl siterip UI) used in my session with Martin Schaefer Friday:
The slides
The database

Have fun!

Upgraded to Parallels 6

Vince Schuurman — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 13:01:51 +0200

Claims 40% perfomance gain over Parallels 5. It seems faster, but 40%? Not convinced about that, but I did find some other changes.
Can you spot the difference?

NLLUG 2010

Vince Schuurman — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 23:42:42 +0200

I wanted to write the NLLUG 2010 wrap-up today, but since I wasn't feeling well, I missed most out on most of the event and I can only say that the parts I did attend were great.
Location, organisation and especially the speaker line-up was really impressive.
I did notice however that the saucijzen broodjes and the worstenbroodjes raised some eyebrows with the international speakers, but once assured that the meat (if any) was pork related they were kind enough to approve the Dutch delicacies ;)
Even my session with Martin Schaefer on error-handling went really well considering the circumstances.
I will post some/all of the code from our session shortly.

Microsoft Office Existence Discovery triggering agents

Vince Schuurman — Sun, 5 Sep 2010 11:56:00 +0200

Every administrator of web servers has seen these log entries at one time or another.

03-09-2010 14:18:44 HTTP Web Server: Couldn't find design note - _vti_inf.html [/ar.nsf/_vti_inf.html]
03-09-2010 14:18:44 HTTP Web Server: Couldn't find design note - _vti_bin/shtml.exe/_vti_rpc [/ar.nsf/_vti_bin/shtml.exe/_vti_rpc]

Users with frontpage extensions browsing the server, irritating, but not really a problem.
Yesterday however the extensions tried to lock an Excel export link, which of course didn't work, but for some reason the Frontpage extensions kept on trying and kept triggering a java agent, even though the Content-Disposition is set to Attachment .

03-09-2010 14:18:45 HTTP JVM: Starting excel_export.xls
03-09-2010 14:18:45 HTTP JVM: Using ReportRowGenerator for excel export of 'concern'
03-09-2010 14:18:45 HTTP JVM: export took 124 ms
03-09-2010 14:18:45 HTTP JVM: Starting excel_export.xls
03-09-2010 14:18:45 HTTP JVM: Using ReportRowGenerator for excel export of 'concern'
03-09-2010 14:18:45 HTTP JVM: export took 50 ms

This is not only irritating, but could have a significant impact on the performance. So for now we block the request when the "HTTP_USER_AGENT" equals "Microsoft Office Existence Discovery".

NLLUG 2010: Only 10 days left

Vince Schuurman — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 21:35:06 +0200

So if you plan to attend, register now

I will be presenting with Martin Schaefer, who also co-ordinates the social and bar parts of the conference program (always my favourite part of any conference) .
And of course our presentation is almost ready... uhm... or.. mmm... well, at least we started on it... well, sort of anyway.. :)

8.5.2: Create .eml files using drag and drop

Vince Schuurman — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 10:43:45 +0200

Very nicely implemented, although a bit hard to find.

Looks like IBM is catching up with the OpenNTF Mail Experience features. I think we should add some new features to the next release....
Idea's are welcome! :)

Preliminary results of 8.5.2 on Mac OS

Vince Schuurman — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 22:55:24 +0200

The install did luckily not take an hour but 'merely' 20 minutes and I was happy to see the Notes icon finally bouncing on startup like a 'proper' Mac application. ;)
It starts fairly quickly compared to 8.5.1 even without preloading parts of the Lotus application (an option in 8.5.2).

Too bad that they could not prevent the client from taking focus on starting, but all and all it behaves better than the previous version.
So far I have not found major bugs, so Mac users start your engines. :)

Technorati tag: Domino

Just back from vacation and there it is Domino 8.5.2

Vince Schuurman — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:16:34 +0200

Just upgraded all my software including Traveler, will let you know how that works out.
And no I will not test 8.5.2.'s iPad support :P

Ideajam on and about OpenNTF's website

Vince Schuurman — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 14:17:28 +0200

OpenNTF started an IdeaJam on the OpenNTF services and website usability.
So if you have something to say go here to post your thoughts now.
The Ideajam will close at 07/16/10 10:00AM Middle European time (GMT +1), so you have to be quick!
.
Every OpenNTF user can participate. Use the ideaspace 'July2010' and the tag 'July2010'.

Fixed comments on IE, Chrome still a problem

Vince Schuurman — Mon, 31 May 2010 15:35:33 +0200

The 'unkown error' thrown by IE is fixed now, but Chrome still does not want to play along with the JS on this site.
Sorry, I don't have time to check out why at the moment so for now Chrome is out :(

Domino crashing every 70 mins (like clockwork)

Vince Schuurman — Mon, 31 May 2010 07:38:31 +0200

This problem stumped me for a while.
Since this particular server had not been maintained in years (why would one, it's Domino right? ;)) I first checked the usual suspects; agents, replication schedules etcetera and disabled unnecessary processes.
That didn't help, so I asked them to send me the console.log and the NSD's.
From the NSD's we concluded that the SMTP task was responsible for at least a couple of the crashes, so we disabled the SMTP at 69 minutes and enabled it after 71. No Crash!!???
We already did all the usual fixes like deleting the smtp.boxes, disabling all virus and spam engine both on the server itself and in Domino, but nothing helped.

Luckily my good friend Kurt de Feyter helped me out by converting the NSD into something more readable showing that the names.nsf was seriously corrupted.
Fixing that did not help however, but combining the NSD with SMTP debugging we found that all the crashes were caused by the same incoming e-mail.
After blocking the originating IP on the firewall and in Domino the problem was 'fixed'.

Since this is 6.5.6 we are talking about, there is no intend to investigate any further, but if you ever see this kind of behavior, remember to check the external factors.

8.5.1 Lotusscript INI setting: GO_FASTER=1

Vince Schuurman — Fri, 21 May 2010 22:59:02 +0200

One of my customers called me 2 weeks ago (right in the middle of my vacation as usual ;)) that after upgrade to 8.5.1 FP2 the performance of one of their production servers got so bad that both the front-end and the back-end crawled to almost a full stop.
Since I was on vacation there was not much I could do, but luckily they got help from IBM, and although it took them almost a week they came up with the solution reported earlier by Erik Brooks.
It seems that the 8.5.1 Lotusscript engine has some serious performance issues due to SPR# DCOE6KPW48.
The SPR# DPOL7PEHQX apparently counteracts that problem providing a new ini - FullTrimFix=0 - to disable DCOE6KPW48, which then will restore performance.
Erik reported performance issues of agents running 3-4 times as slow, but my customer experienced far worse. So keep this in mind if you run 8.5 servers with complex applications.

'Escaped' from Tenerife

Vince Schuurman — Thu, 13 May 2010 20:40:49 +0200

Due to the ash cloud, all air traffic to and from Tenerife was suspended temporarily on tuesday .
It was just plain bad luck that my flight was among those that were cancelled. It was IMO not 'just' bad luck that the earliest possible return flight to our original destination was said to be May 23rd!!!

Luckily I was able to book a flight with another airliner before the other other duped passengers because I never go anywhere without laptop or UMTS dial-in card. And although it was a night-flight (I hate those because I can never sleep while travelling) and the destination was 100 km off of my original destination, I felt lucky to get a flight at all.
So remember this folks, don't leave home without proper internet access (Anil, that goes for you too :P).

Timing multiple ajax calls

Vince Schuurman — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 09:51:03 +0200

Whilst developing a multidatabase search engine I came across Ajax queue. This small and easy to use jQuery plugin let's you specify whether the calls should be made consecutive or simultaneous. The beauty is that when you choose 'synchronized' the callbacks won't fire until all the ajax calls have finished.
This means for example that you can search through multiple databases and process the results after all search query's have finished :)

Code example:

$(function(){
for (i=0;i jQuery.ajaxSync({
url: urls[i],
success: function(html){
// do stuff
};
});
})

The other option is to perform 'consecutive' calls. This allows for example to search in one database and then use these results to perform another search.

Cleaning up is hard to do

Vince Schuurman — Thu, 4 Mar 2010 15:16:26 +0200

Especially cleaning up code in databases you are not familiar with can be a real pain.
My take on this issue has always been if you are not certain, leave it alone (hands off approach), but apparently not everybody agrees.

One of my customers called with a question about a certain agent that gave him some problems. They were cleaning up the code but suddenly one of the agents showed red crosses in the designer client (yes, 8.5 designer finds those oddities for you even if you are not looking for them).
He tried to fix the crosses by recompiling the entire database (in production....mmmm.....) but that didn't fix it, could I take a look?
Sure, I can, and this is the problem:

The agent is still running

but the scriptlibraries are missing

They are in luck the agent wouldn't save on the recompile because without a scriptlibrary I'm sure it would not have been very functional otherwise.
After checking I found that the scriptlibraries have been missing for a loong time, the copy I had from a couple months back also missed that scriptlibrary so I hope they can find it on a backup somewhere.

Note: ALWAYS use monthly/halfyearly backups in addition to the weekly cycle. The data or code could be missing a long time before you notice it.

Retiring as chairman of OpenNTF

Vince Schuurman — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:43:07 +0200

I decided against another term as chairman of the Steering Committee, so during Tuesday's meeting a new chairman will be appointed.

I have worked on OpenNTF since the start 8 years ago and even ran it solo for a couple of years.
But a lot has changed over the last year. Not only is OpenNTF now being run by the Steering Committee, with the Technical Committee doing the development and maintenance, but due to the crisis my work situation changed as well. I have a lot less free time currently and OpenNTF has a lot more help, so I feel I have to take a small step back and let other people take the lead.
I will stay on the Steering Committee of course and help out with general business and the Technical Committee, but not act as frontman for a while.

So I wish all the best to .... (to be filled in on Tuesday) as the new chairman of OpenNTF :)

Technorati tag: OpenNTF

Firefox for Maemo 5

Vince Schuurman — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:54:57 +0200

Firefox 1.0 for the N900 is available for download

I must say it takes some getting used to, it's not as fast as the built-in browser, but has a lot more features.
For example settings

Tabbed browsing

and lots of add-ons

And it's only version 1.0 so it may get better ;)

XPage Calendar Application

Vince Schuurman — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:07:07 +0200

My brother owns a couple of child-care day centers and he asked me if I could develop an application where they could flag certain days as available for people without a regular contract.
Since this application needs to be easy to operate for both people seeking child care as for the child-care centers, I developed a very simple interface.
Logged in as 'customer' you can only 'reserve' dates set by the center and as center you can enable/disable a date using just two simple clicks.
To make it more interesting for myself I decided to develop it in XPages since there doesn't seem to be any XPages calendar applications around.
Anyway here it is, bear in mind that I'm not a GUI designer, my focus is on the functionality :)

Demo

And no it is not finished yet, in fact 'the customer' hasn't even seen the prototype yet, so if you have constructive criticism I might be able to sneak it in before the grand finale...

P.S. It works perfectly on the Nokia N900!!

Mmmm maybe something for the next version of the OpenNTF Mail Experience? ;B