Some API Calls No Longer Working In Eclipse Based Client

In !!HELP!! I use dynamic popupmenu function from user32.dll to build a custom popup menue in an action. This worked fine in Notes 7.0.x and the Basic Notes 8 and 8.0.1 client.
When you use these functions in rhe Eclipse based client, they will no longer work. The same problem is described here.

Today, I’ve created a service call at IBM. Here is the answer:

I would like to inform you that your query issue is described in SPR # WEBB73RMHA.

As per above SPR, the following Win API calls do no longer work with Eclipse based clients

CreatePopupMenu from user32.dll
DestroyMenu from user32.dll
GetActiveWindow from user32.dll
InsertMenuItem from user32.dll
TrackPopupMenuEx from user32.dll
GetCursorPos from user32.dll
InsertMenu from user32.dll
SetRectEmpty from user32.dll
EnableMenuItem from user32.dll
CheckMenuItem from user32.dll
GetSubMenu from user32.dll
AppendMenu from user32.dll
SetMenuItemBitmaps from user32.dll
LoadImage from user32.dll

I have created the Customer Report, APAR # LO27664 against SPR # WEBB73RMHA.

This issue has been reported to our Lotus Software Quality Engineers and it will continue to be investigated by our QE through our SPR process.

Does anyone has an idea of how to create a dynamic menue in the client not using Windows API stuff ?


Retrieve POP3 Mail With Domino Server Addin

The Domino addin task POP3Collect reads messages from one or more POP3 servers andThe Domino addin task POP3Collect reads messages from one or more POP3 servers and sends them to Domino server or any other compatible SMTP server).

The addin task is entirely written in Java and should therefore run on any Domino 6+ server platform and processor architecture supported by the Domino JVM. It is written and published by Andy Brunner from notesnet.ch.

The addin comes with a short but good installation manual. I installed and configured POP3Collect in less than 5 Minutes. Although the addin pretends to be “Freeware”, The installation will expire on 30-Apr-2008. Never the less I will give it a try …


Domino 8.0.1 – Design / Document Compression

Compress Design / Documents
I’ve recently updated 2 Domino servers from version 7.0.3 to version 8.0.1. Both server are hosting 600 mail files. The filesize varies from 30MB up to 10GB. Hence one of the server nearly went out of available disk space, I enabled database design and document data compression, which is a new feature in Domino 8.0.1.

To use this feature, the NSF must be ODS 48. To upgrade the database to ODS 48, enter the following setting in your NOTES.INI file:

Create_R8_Databases=1

For the Notes client mail template (MAIL8.NTF), this setting is enabled by default and the design is compressed when the mail database is created. For all other databases or if you update from a previous Domino version and keep the design of your mail files, you must manually enable the setting and then run a copy style compact on the database.

It took about 48 hours to compress all mail files. The results of the compression are listed in the picture below:

Compress Statistics

170GB freed space is a good result. This is 170GB less data to backup. What is your experience with the new Domino database design and document data compression?


Attempt To Perform Folder Operation On Non-Folder Note

I updated a Notes 7.0.3 server to the new 8.0.1 release. All mail-files were converted to ODS 48 using compact -c “mail-file”.
Everything works fine until I started our Blackberry Enterprise Server which is installed on a separate machine and accesses the mailfiles of 25 users on the recently updated server.
When the BES accesses a mailfile, an error message occurs on the Domino server console:

22.03.2008 13:17:24 Database note open error: NT00000566 document in database g:
ed by CN=BLACKBERRY/O=XXXXXX: Attempt to perform folder operation on non-folder note.

This error looks similar to the one described here and here. In both cases the error occured because a non-folder notes contained an $Name item with the value ($Inbox).
I investigated the mail files in question but could not find any duplicate note.

Attempt To Perform Folder Operation On Non-Folder Node

All Note-IDs in the error messages refer to a unique design element in all affected mail files: ($Sent).

This is a non-folder note, indeed. I did another search for duplicate notes containing ($Sent) in the $Names field, but there are no duplicates … My next attempt was to delete the ($Sent) view and replace the design with the template.

But even this has no effect; the error still occurs, although the sychronization between Domino and the Blackberry devices via BES seems to work without any error.

Well, I think that I’ll have to create a service desk call at IBM. Or can anyone of the Blackberry gurus within the Notes Community shed a light on this issue ?


Deutschland verblödet

http://www.amazon.de/Generation-Doof-Stefan-Bonner/dp/3404605969Das zumindest behaupten die Autoren des Buches “Generation Doof” ,Stefan Bonner und Anne Weiss.

Supernannys, Stars und Sternchen, Prominente, die am PISA-Test scheitern – Deutschland scheint zu verblöden. Eine Karriere als Popstar erscheint jungen Leuten verlockender als eine solide Ausbildung. Dieses Buch geht der Frage auf den Grund, wie es wirklich um die Mütter, Väter und Bundeskanzler von morgen steht.

Wer Ostern Langeweile hat, sollte sich dieses äußerst kurzweilige und amüsante Buch noch schnell zulegen …


Domino Directory – Column Icon

A user of the German Notes Forum atnotes.de recently posted a question about an icon that occurs in the Domino Directory. He could not work out, why this icon occurs.

Why the heck this icon occurs
I could reproduce this issue. My first idea was that it has something to do with roaming user support. But then there should be the globe icon if roaming user support is enabled …
I opened the DD ( version 7.0.3 ) in Domino Designer and found the following formula in the second column of the “People By Category” view.

@If(@IsAvailable(RoamingUser);@If(RoamingUser="1";70;RoamingUser="2";79;0);1)

Got it? Yes, all documents where the “RoamingUser” field is missing do have the icon left of the users name …
Bug or feature??

UPDATE: Read what IBM says . Great “solution”, isn’t it?


More Sudoku

Thanks to Andre Guirard, the Sudoku helper is now an automatic solver. It is real fun to watch the code find the solution. Recently I received an email ( in copy ) from Werner Goetz who improved Andre’s code for better performance.

What comes next? If someone cannot resist to write a web service client to solve Sudoku puzzles, her is the web service
.
Arjan Seesing provides a web service to solve Sudoku puzzles using candidate elimination together with back tracking.


Sudoku – Use Lotus Notes To Solve The Puzzle

Sudoku is a logic-based number placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 boxes (also called blocks or regions) contains the digits from 1 to 9, only one time each (that is, exclusively). The puzzle setter provides a partially completed grid.

Completed Sudoku puzzles are a type of Latin square, with an additional constraint on the contents of individual regions. Leonhard Euler is sometimes incorrectly cited as the source of the puzzle, based on his work with Latin squares.

The modern puzzle was invented by an American architect, Howard Garns, in 1979 and published by Dell Magazines under the name “Number Place”. It became popular in Japan in 1986, after it was published by Nikoli and given the name Sudoku, meaning single number. It became an international hit in 2005.

There are numerous Sudoku solvers available, but no such solver or helper does work in my preferred tool: Lotus Notes.

Rudi Knegt showed his solution during the Closing session of this years Entwicklercamp. It works great, uses @Formula (loads of redundant code ), does need a lot of fields and the UI is ( sorry Rudi ) … ugly.

I started my first attempt to write a Sudoku solver/helper almost a year ago, but due to a heavy workload I never finished the project. During my last holiday under the Caribbean sun I decided to finish a first version until the end of this week.
Here is what the UI looks like

Sudoku Helper

I used Notes 8.0.1 to create the database; the download contains the database as .ns6 file with ODS43. It will run from Notes 6 up as I use @ThisName and @ThisValue in some fields.

Create a new Sudoku from the menue and fill in the given fields. On top of every field you can see a line containing the possible values for a field. Now you can start to solve the puzzle by clicking into the squares and select a possible value from a dialogbox.

You can ( and should ) save the document frequently as there is no undo function yet.


Admin Headcounts

Readers interested in admin headcounts for Notes/Domino and/or Exchange should look at an interesting survey at www.ferris.com .
Various organizations describe their support staff size. If you contribute your own data, you get a free summary of the findings.


Entwicklercamp 2008 – Flickr

EntwicklerCamp 2008 is over … It was a great conference. Ben Langhinrichs, Bruce Lill, Anton Tauscher and Bernhard Koehler; this is only a small list of this years speakers.

Rudi and his team did a great job organizing the conference. The next EntwicklerCamp will be in March 2009. And from 27. – 29-Oct-2008 another conference highlight will take place in Gelsenkirchen, Germany: Admincamp 2008.

Here are some pictures from this years Entwicklercamp {Link}


Lotus Traveler – Installed

Finally I received my traveler download link last night. The installation was easy and finished without any errors.

Traveler installation

But it is sunday morning and I do not own a smartphone. My boss has a smartphone but I will not be in the office until thursday.
So how can I test the new functionality NOW? I googled and found the Microsoft Device Emulator.

First, download the ZIP file for the emulator. Unzip it and double-click on the vs_emulator.exe, which is the installer for the Device Emulator that will guide you through the installation process. Then, install the Windows Mobile 5.0 MSFP OS image. The installation will create shortcuts on your start menu from where you can launch the various configurations of the Windows Mobile 5.0 MSFP. You will also see a shortcut for the DeviceEmulatorManager using which you can launch any of the installed images.

After you have all set up and running, you can connect to your Domino server running traveler …

Traveler with emulated device

My Album Cover

Others did it (Adam, Chris, Julian). So here is mine …

My Album Cover

Here are the rules for the game:

1 – Go to Wikipedia’s random article page. The first article you get is the name of your band.

2 – Go to the Random Quotations page. The last four words of the last quote is the album title.

3 – Go to Flickr’s Interesting photo page. Third picture, no matter what it is, is your album cover.

4 – Put it all together to make your album. Either crop it to CD cover size, or just use the raw image itself … the only rule is you’re only allowed to add the album title and artist title.