February 2003
This is one ingenious company
by Volker Weber
First I could not believe my eyes when I read this at Jeroen's site but Groove Networks has found an interesting new way to piss off potential customers. When you enter their store they will ask you what your country is. Once they know that they will set a cookie which you have to delete if you want to try what I just tried. The product prices you see above are for US customers. If you select Germany as your country of origin, then you get the prices below. Remember that is a downloadable product so you pay for the "shipping" anyway.
T-Mobile delivered the new phone in less than a day
by Volker Weber
Now, that was fast. Ordererd the phone yesterday and it arrived today. How things have changed over the years. OK, this may be special treatment for members of the press (we have our own hotline into the company) but still.
I unpacked it, topped of the charge, then paired the device via BT with Lucy and used iSync to push my addresses to the phone. Bingo. Up and running in a matter of minutes.
Terragen images
by Markus Nolte
Job Site Warns of ID Theft Risk
by Markus Nolte
Beth Cox of internetnews.com has this story:
One of the top Internet career sites, Monster.com, acknowledging that some of its users are being targeted for identity theft via false job postings, has issued a warning to millions of its registered users.
Spiegel Online übt
by Volker Weber
Mir scheint, da ist der Redaktionsworkflow immer noch etwas durcheinander.
Duales Protestsystem
by Volker Weber
Lyssa erzählt von Ihrem Nachbarn, einem No-budget-Filmemacher und Ex-Mira (sprich: Militanter Radfahrer):
Ihm ist es sogar gelungen, eine Art "duales Protestsystem" zu entwickeln, mit dem er sich gleichzeitig gegen die zunehmende Belästigung durch Hundekot in der Großstadt und gegen die amerikanische Irak-Politik wendet. Zu diesem Zweck hat er größere Mengen dieser kleinen Deko-Holzspieße mit US-Flaggen daran gekauft (die gibt es derzeit besonders günstig) und schmückt damit nun alle Hundehaufen in der Umgebung.
Sony Ericsson T68i Mineral Grey
by Volker Weber
Mobile phones don't live forever in vowe's magic flying circus. Although my current phone is still working well, I ordered a new one. The carriers seem to dump their inventory of the T68i on the market. Both Vodafone and T-Mobile sell them off for 29. As of today O2 is still at 99 and e plus at the regular 249. I expect those to follow soon.
So, why did I choose the T68i? The carriers also dump the Nokia 6310i, which is an excellent phone and has roughly the same features. The T68i however is much smaller and it has SyncML support which is a lot more useful than the proprietary Nokia protocol. Last but not least, the Ericsson accessories like travel chargers and so forth are better than the Nokia stuff.
As far as the newer phones are concerned that come with cameras, FM radios and such, they miss one very important feature: Bluetooth. Once you have your second BT device you are not going back to cables or infrared. And BT support in Nokia phones is, well, let me say not as good as it is supposed to be. :-)
New item on my wishlist :-)
by Volker Weber
Just had to quote from this movie. Which reminds me that I have to get this DVD:
Lawrence: My friends, we have been foolish. Auda will not come to Aqaba. Not for money...
Auda Abu Tayi: No.
Lawrence: ...for Feisal...
Auda Abu Tayi: No!
Lawrence: ...nor to drive away the Turks. He will come... because it is his pleasure.
[Pause]
Auda Abu Tayi: Thy mother mated with a scorpion.
XTNDConnect Server 3.6 with Domino 6 support
by Volker Weber
Extended Systems sent me a press release about the new 3.6 release of their XTNDConnect Server. I will try it out as soon as I get it and let you know what I think.
It now supports Domino 6, group scheduling, Palm OS 5 and Symbian 7 devices. Its Live Connect feature lets the server push information to clients so you don't have to poll for information. Sounds really interesting.
Selbstumzingelung
by Volker Weber
Praschl stellt viele Fragen. Gute Fragen.
Samsung readies Matrix phone
by Volker Weber
Odd links
by Volker Weber
Stupid computer tricks *** Neulich bei IKEA *** Anyone else need duct tape? *** tbc
No, Adriana
by Volker Weber
No, Adriana, I think that is as low as you can go with those hip huggers.
[via saltyt]
SmtpAuth saved my Domino server
by Volker Weber
I can keep my Domino server for the time being. Its inability to authenticate with ASMTP against my ISP almost killed it for me. I need to relay my mail through the ISP because Domino sits inside my intranet and will not reverse DNS properly to get around spam filters.
As Domino cannot do the job I needed to find a different SMTP server to do it. The easiest solution on Windows 2000 turned out to be SmtpAuth. It is not an SMTP server but a rather nice service that just opens the connection to the ISP host and then proxies out everything it receives from Domino.
Installation is a breeze and it runs as a Windows service. I needed to move its listening port from 25 to 10025 in order to be able to still have the Domino listener on 25. That was the easy part.
The hard part was convincing Domino to send the outgoing mail to localhost:25. First you go to the server document and set the outgoing port to 10025. Then you need to go to the configuration document for that server and enter localhost as the relay server. Restart Domino. Send a test mail. Fails.
What is going on?
25.02.2003 22:10:49 Router: No messages transferred to LOCALHOST (host LOCALHOST) via SMTP: Attempt made to transfer message to self via SMTP. Possible DNS configuration error.
Of course localhost is set in /etc/hosts and I have told Domino to look into the hosts file. SmtpAuth binds only to 127.0.0.1 so I had to force Domino to go for that address. Entering the address in the configuration document did not work. I finally entered an arbitrary host name and mapped that to 127.0.0.1 in /etc/hosts. Bingo.
If you don't hear any updates to that story, then I have worked it all out.
PS: My Domino server now has so many patches just to handle my mail, filter out spam and deliver via ASMTP that I wish IBM would finally deliver all those capabilities that are present in the client also to the server. I need a POP retriever and the ASMTP option. Or I might as well dump the whole setup for a Fetchmail, Cyrus, Postfix combo.
Hotjunk
by Volker Weber
Two good things about Mac Mail.app. There is a Hotmail plugin and it has a good junkmail filter. Just pulled a batch of mails from Hotmail and i can report that the junk mail rate there is
This is a message to every marketing genius west of the Atlantic ocean: You can spare yourself those "register your product", "your opinion is important to us" and "let me swipe your badge". You are either pissing off people or your valuable messages end up in the junk basket, together with adverts for all kinds of body enhancements. I know there is a freedom of speech. But there is also a freedom of not listening.
So I hear that Microsoft is fighting spam on Hotmail.com. It looks like the only measure is to shut this thing down completely. :-)
Authenticated SMTP outbound with Domino?
by Volker Weber
Now this will be interesting. We are trying to save my Domino server from being obsolete.
I will need to send my outbound SMTP mail over relays that require authentication. So far I have been able to send them to open relays but those die quickly. I would also be able to deliver directly but many servers will not accept mail from my lowly domain.
AFAIK there is no option in Domino to send SMTP mail over authenticated sessions. It can only do that inbound. Is that true? If it is I would be interested to learn about a workaround.
Sony Ericsson Clicker
by Volker Weber
Lucy never ceases to amaze me. There is a little application availabe for Mac OS X, that lets you control several applications from an Ericsson Bluetooth enabled phone. Since the operating system and many applications are scriptable you can actually program you own actions into the application. It then pushes the menu up to the phone where it can be invoked from the Extras/Accessories menu. Instant remote control !
Now you can control your presentations with your mobile. But what do you do, when someone calls while you are on stage? :-)
Copy protected?
by Volker Weber
The cover of this CD says "Copy Protected" but Lucy obviously cannot see this. I put both CDs into the SuperDrive and iTunes ripped them happily to 160 kb/s MP3s. Now I am listening to them on Woodstock.
What kind of copy protection is this?
Aqua Data Studio
by Volker Weber
What Is Aqua Data Studio?
Aqua Data Studio is a SQL editor and developer tool that allows developers to easily create, edit, and execute SQL scripts, as well as browse database structures.Aqua Data Studio provides an integrated database environment with a single consistent inferface to all major relational databases. This allows the DBA or developer to tackle multiple tasks simultaneously from one application. Aqua Data Studio's sophisticated Query Analyzer allows users to work on database scripts with specific RDBMS syntax highlighting and auto-completion to develop and test scripts, including detailed client statistical information and multi-grid results. Its graphical browsing capabilities allow you to understand the structure and dependencies of the database schema at a click of a mouse. It also includes the ability to save your query results in many formats including HTML and XML.
Supports all major Operating Systems: Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OSX, Solaris and any other Java[tm] enabled OS.
Supports Oracle 8i and 9i, DB2 7.2 and 8.1, Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 and 2000, Sybase ASE 12.5, PostgreSQL, MySQL and Generic JDBC[tm].
And if this is not enough to convince you to run instead of walk, read this:
Aqua Data Studio is FREE for personal, education and commercial use, but we encourage you to send us feedback on features that you may need or bugs that you may find. We would also appreciate it if you contribute to our user gallery, especially if you are using Aqua Data Studio in a University or classroom environment.
Securing Your TiBook (or Any Other Mac OS X Machine)
by Volker Weber
This one is specifically for John & Ruth:
A secure computer, it has been said many times, is one that's turned off and not connected to any network. But that could easily describe a TiBook in the backpack you just set down for a minute. If somebody can steal it, or even access it for a few minutes, they can get at your files. This article shows you how to slow them down.
Double comments
by Volker Weber
I can't seem to figure out why some comments show up twice. Being a bit tired of deleting the extra comments I am removing the capability to subscribe to individual posts. For the time being you will no longer be notified if someone posts a comment to a subscribed post.
As a side effect you will notice that posting will now be much quicker again.
Recently
by Volker Weber
Cross-check your name
by Volker Weber
The Chevrolet Nova and the Mitsubishi Pajero are two famous examples of product names that don't play well in Spanish. Toyota was having some difficulties with MR2 in French.
Now I hear that Kubi may also have a problem. Supposedly that means in Japanese "Fire! Get out!". I am unable to verify this. Any readers from Japan here?
Quote of the day
by Volker Weber
Peace on earth is possible. Ladies, We must stop raising assholes, or at least stop having sex with them.
— Tara Sue
Extremely Successful Software
by Volker Weber
Imagine this. You need to build a complex, highly reliable software product that works at high speed on multiple networked server platforms and integrates with many kinds of server environments and databases. You have a working prototype but no production code and want product install CD-ROMs in under a year. The product is not totally defined, but you know that your business will change and you will have to feature evolve very fast in a highly competitive market. You are selling to Fortune 1000 companies, which demand 24/7 reliability.
[via langreiter.com]
No, this is not a Microsoft event
by Volker Weber
Race Number 4 postponed to Saturday
by Volker Weber
Ohne Worte
by Volker Weber
[via Industrial Technology & Witchcraft]
Kubi Software comes out of stealth mode
by Volker Weber
This stuff looks really interesting. There is a new player in the collaboration space:
Kubi Client makes it simple for Email users to share information and activities in structured team spaces, without leaving their familiar Microsoft Outlook or IBM Lotus Notes Email client. Unlocking the potential of individuals and teams to work together more effectively, Kubi Client enables spontaneous and secure collaboration within the familiar Email environment.
Client based shared spaces. Sound a lot like Groove, doesn't it. This one however lives inside Notes and Outlook. Its creator is Julio Estrada, the guy who brought you Lotus Quickplace. Can't wait to get my hands on it.
5 Basic steps to secure Domino web applications
by Volker Weber
There are plenty of insecure Domino web applications out there. I hope this helps you build safer stuff:
Domino security can be complex when developing web applications. This article will cover 5 basics about Domino web application security that can help to create more secure applications.
"Wir brauchen einen kleinen Safe"
by Volker Weber
Jürgen Gallmann weist die aktuelle Kritik an Palladium vehement zurück. Ein Interview mit dem Chef von Microsoft Deutschland.
Schlechte Laune?
by Volker Weber
Sound an. Laut. Hier klicken.
IBM competing with IBM
by Volker Weber
Edward Falcon has this nice tid-bit:
Here's a quick little tid-bit from a buddy that works at one of the heavy IBM and Domino shops here in town. The local IBM Websphere reps are suggesting they cease Domino development, and start moving all applications to Websphere...and eventually migrate to the NextGen email. Nice. I would love to see the in-fighting between the Lotus and IBM reps!
Grab yourself a beer and some chips and watch the game.
Sex smells
by Volker Weber
Die Dame links ist die amtierende Miss America 2003, Erika Harold. Sie sagt, sie "wäre nicht da, wo ich bin, wenn ich sexuell aktiv gewesen wäre.“ Aha. (SZaW v. 15./16.02.2003)
[via whocares.de]
Is it really four weeks?
by Volker Weber
Vulnerability in MovableType 2.6 and 2.61
by Volker Weber
I think I waited juuuust long enough before upgrading to the new version of MT:
If you upgraded to 2.6 or 2.61, you need to upgrade immediately to 2.62. There is a security vulnerability in 2.6 and 2.61. If you have already upgraded, you can either download the upgrade distribution and perform a normal upgrade, or download the Author.pm file to replace the lib/MT/Author.pm on your server.
MovableType 2.61 released
by Volker Weber
That means it is now safe to upgrade. There always seems to be a x.y1 version shortly after the x.y version comes out. Six Apart is a very small shop that cannot do extensive testing. The software has to be tested out there in the real world. Over time I have learned to let other people do that. :-)
Update: It is actually version 2.62 already. I hope that I waited long enough to avoid yet another update.
SALTYT completes its move
by Volker Weber
Hope this new home works well for Patrick. He must be attracting a lot of traffic.
Microsoft gives Mac OS X access to Exchange
by John Keys
Microsoft is releasing an update for the Macintosh version of its Office suite to give users of Mac OS X direct access to the Microsoft Exchange Server for the first time.
Migrating from Microsoft Exchange 5.5 to Lotus Domino 6
by Volker Weber
IBM is looking for three more people to write a new Redbook. If you are highly skilled in both Exchange and Domino and currently without a project, this could be interesting:
The focus of this project is to create a redbook that describes clearly why and how to migrate existing Microsoft Exchange environments into Lotus Domino 6. Migration benefits are outlined. Several migration tools are discussed in detail. Step-by-step instructions on how to migrate users, messaging and calendaring information is included. Business partner tools which ease the migration are discussed.
Redbook Draft: Custom Designs for Domino & WebSphere Integration
by Volker Weber
New Redbook draft from IBM:
The Patterns for e-business are a group of proven, reusable assets that can speed the process of developing applications.
In this IBM Redbook we describe the Application Integration patterns, and how, together with one or more of the other Patterns for e-business, they form Custom Designs. We first discuss the application integration methods, how IBM Lotus Domino 6 and IBM WebSphere Application Server V5 can be integrated and then move into Hybrid Runtime patterns, where both Domino and WebSphere Application Server exist. When we move further, the Hybrid Runtime patterns include Directory integration as well as Collaboration patterns.
The latter part of the book is spent describing three real-life scenarios where Patterns for e-business are applied and Domino and WebSphere Application Server are part of the runtime topology. We start from the business requirements, then identify and apply the applicable Business, Application, and Runtime patterns to get to our own runtime topology. We review a simple scenario, and then increase the complexity in the following scenarios. We discuss technology options, and design and development guidelines for the solutions as well.
What gender is computer?
by Volker Weber
A French teacher was explaining to her class that in French, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine: "House" is feminine - "la maison". "Pencil" is masculine - "le crayon". A student asked, "What gender is 'computer'?"
Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups-male and female - and asked them to decide for themselves whether "computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for their recommendation.
The men's group decided that "computer" should definitely be of the feminine gender ("la computer"), because:
* No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
* The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;
* Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later review; and
* As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your salary on accessories for it.
The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine ("le computer") because:
* In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;
* They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves;
* They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and
* As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.
The women won.
[via mail from Schweppes]
Google Buys Pyra: Blogging Goes Big-Time
by Volker Weber
Dan Gillmor of SiliconValley.com:
Google, which runs the Web's premier search site, has purchased Pyra Labs, a San Francisco company that created some of the earliest technology for writing weblogs, the increasingly popular personal and opinion journals.
Eric Meyer's color blender
by John Keys
Eric Meyer has recently put together a little tool to find intermediate colors between two colors that you specify in hex.
The Color Blender has been mentioned on several sites, including GeekGrrl, which is just as well, as it is a little inconspicuous on Eric's own site.
The Biggest Threat To Peace
by Volker Weber
"Which country really poses the greatest danger to world peace in 2003? TIME Europe asks for readers' views." And introducing CSS bar graphs, hebig.org/blog covers the poll.
Save as PDF
by Volker Weber
This is just one of the things you take for granted after a working with OS X for a while: You hit "print" and then you get a standard option to save the output as PDF instead. When you have to work in Windows again, you frown upon the idea of shelling out $$$ for Adobe Acrobat just to get the PDFWriter.
Auch ohne Kabel verwirrt
by Volker Weber
Oliver Rist auf ZDNet.de:
Kürzlich bat mich einer meiner Kunden, einen Management-Plan für sein aufkeimendes WLAN zu entwerfen. Als ich ihn fragte, wie viele Access-Points er habe, antwortete er: "Elf, aber ich weiß nur von neun, wo sie sich befinden." Leider ist das eine ziemlich häufige Antwort.
Why do wires make a knot in the dark?
by Volker Weber
Did a small rewiring today by replacing a Netgear DS108 with a FS108. Which got me started about the whole network around vowe's magic flying circus. A lot of this is pretty old stuff but still working. A lot more wires than machines. :-)
Today you can get one device that replaces at least these: Wireless access point, switch, NAT router, DSL modem and print server. I would not need the analog switch board anymore. And finally: With 54 mbit wireless I could probably drop the rest of the wires.
SALTYT is moving
by Volker Weber
Supermodels Are Lonelier Than You Think! may as well be one of the busiest weblogs. After the blogger had lost almost all of his high rez scans he started looking for a new host. If things work out OK, he should be done Monday morning, Paris time (CET).
Where have you been?
by Volker Weber
I just had to think about all the places I have been to. First I thought they were not too many. Then I started to put a list together:
I have travelled to Austria, Belgium, California, Connecticut, Croatia, Denmark, District of Columbia, England, Finland, Florida, France, Georgia, Greece, Indiana, Italy, Louisiana, Luxembourg, Massachusetts, Mexico, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Netherlands, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Slovenia, Switzerland, Tennessee and Texas.
Countries I still need to go to are Canada, Ireland, Norway, Scotland, Sweden. I may be one of the few germans who have never been to Spain. I also was never in Africa, Asia, Australia or South America.
The Keynote XML File Format
by Volker Weber
Apple Technical Note TN2067:
This Technical Note contains the schema describing the XML file format used by Keynote documents (refered to here and in later documents simply as "APXL" -- Apple Presentation XmL). It is intended for developers who wish to create or modify Keynote presentations programmatically.
Quick sanity test
by Volker Weber
If you see two dolphins, you are in fine shape and may go back to work. If you don't, then you need to take a break.
Woodstock battery rundown test
by Volker Weber
Switched on Woodstock, the 20 gig iPod, this morning at 9 am and attached it to my belt. I set it to shuffle play, all artists, all albums. It holds around 3600 songs which fill the disk almost completely leaving around 2 gig free space.
Woodstock was running with a relatively low volume the whole day until around 8 pm in the evening. That was almost 11 hours out of one charge. Then I connected it to the charger which did its job in four hours flat.
In those 11 hours Woodstock played 167 songs. I think I can go on for a month now without too much repeat. The nice thing is I never have to stop it in order to conserve battery life. I just take out the ear bugs and let it do its thing.
Yes, I know that people have reported problems with the iPod battery life. Will let you know if and when things go downhill here.
GTAFKAIFKAA
by Volker Weber
[Globalware, the artist formerly known as Intraware, formerly known as Analysis]
Irgendwie haben diese Leute keine Fortune. Erst nennen sie ihre Firma Analysis. Das kann man ganz fies trennen. Dann firmieren sie sich im Neuer-Markt-Fieber nach Intraware AG um, ein Name. der dummerweise erstens sehr einschränkend (Intranet?) ist und unter anderem in USA schon geschützt und anderweitig genutzt war. Nun erhalte ich heute eine Pressemitteilung, dass aus Intraware nun Gobalware wird. Dieser Name ist als .com-Adresse nicht erreichbar und als .de-Adresse bereits anderweitig vergeben.
Globalware.com gehört Basejet. Globalware.de gehört Avensys. .net ist auch weg, aber .org ist noch zu haben.
Merkwürdig.
I want this :-)
by Volker Weber
I think, the Griffin PowerMate is now on top of my "want to have this gadget" list. It was made for the Mac but also works with a PC. Well, if anybody spoils me with it, I promise, I will only hook it up to Lucy, the iMac.
Information overload
by Volker Weber
Maybe I should actually start reading all those mails. :-)
Two weeks in February
by Volker Weber
What have we got?
Apple: iPhoto 2, iMovie 3, iDVD 3, Safari Browser beta 2, X11 beta 2, OS X 10.2.4
Groove Networks: Groove Workspace 2.5
Lotus: Notes and Domino 6.0.1
Microsoft: A bunch of fixes for security holes requiring three reboots of the server.
Six Apart: MovableType 2.6
No, this is not fair.
Finally
by Volker Weber
And it seems to work a whole lot better than its older brother. Update on this (windows) problem. There was XNTDConnect running in the background. The installer did not catch that. The developer did. Case dismissed.
Mind reader
by Volker Weber
This site reads your mind. Really. You have to try it. It's incredible. How does it work? Read the first comment.
[via Industrial Technology & Witchcraft]
vowe is impressed
by Volker Weber
Maybe I have said this before, but is does not hurt to say it again: I am really impressed with Groove Networks' support. They have always surprised me with the quality of their work. They really do take care.
The website works very well. When you report a problem, you get a reply really quickly. If things cannot be fixed easily, they tell you. When I had reported a problem months ago and it was finally taken care of, they still followed up with a reply when the problem was fixed. From time to time I was guilty of blasting them for no good reason and they have always replied in a very friendly way.
Well, you cannot say a nice thing without a little bit of ridicule: What is Groove Networks trying to tell us here?
Is this the latest and greatest new version of their product or will it be the last, maybe even the lastest? :-)
Notes/Domino 6.0.1
by Volker Weber
Notes and Domino 6.0.1 are done and should be available soon for download.
Gentlemen, update your browsers
by Volker Weber
The Safari Update 2-12-03 improves the compatibility with popular web sites based on Safari user feedback, further improves the performance of loading web pages and Flash content, adds support for XML, increases standards conformance and delivers improved application stability. The update also enables access to web sites that offer self-signed security certificates.
Clay Bennett is simply the best
by Volker Weber
IBM Employee Directory
by Volker Weber
I was bothering Ed about an IBM e-mail address. Well, Ed is still asleep at this time (minus 7 hours). So I asked Mitch, wo lives in Germany.
He did not only give me a fish. He also told me how to fish. So this problem is solved now once and for all. Presenting the IBM Employee directory. The server sets a cookie named __empdir__ for the ibm.com domain. If you remove this cookie you can ask more than five queries per day. :-)
Das Verzeichnis ist auch in Deutsch erhältlich. Umlaute ausschreiben, also Hans Mueller statt Hans Müller.
Szenario: Sieben Wochen, die die Welt verändern
by Volker Weber
07.02.2003
Deutschland bleibt bei seinem Nein zum Angriffskrieg gegen den Irak. Nicht so sehr, weil die "Beweise" des Herrn Powell Schrott waren, sondern weil Rumsfeld uns mit Kuba und Libyen in eine Lostrommel geworfen hat, bevor Schröder es sich schweren Herzens hätte anders überlegen können.
10.02.2003
Deutschland verweigert den USA die Überflugrechte, es sei denn, Bush nimmt auf der Stelle den Rumsfeld-Vergleich zurück.
11.02.2003
Bush informiert sich, was Kuba und Libyen überhaupt ist. Dann setzt er noch einen drauf. Er vergleicht Deutschland mit der DDR.
13.02.2003
Frankreich kippt um. Nachdem die USA die Garantie für die Ölverträge des Elf-Konsortiums übernommen hat, verpflichtet sich Paris zur uneingeschränkten Baguette-Lieferung für die kämpfende Truppe.
Losing some weight
by Volker Weber
As I said a couple of days ago, traffic is going through the roof. Before I hit my traffic limit beyond which it gets really expensive, I have to cut some corners. As a side note: I live in a flat unlike many of my friends who own houses. Unlike them, I know how to get rid of stuff that I don't need any more. :-)
First thing I did was to advise search engine spiders not to read the images directory. Second thing was cutting down the links to archives, now at 5 instead of 20. Third was reducing the size of the front page from 25 postings down to 12. That however means you have to come back more often, which probably won't happen. Since the front page does not run as long any more, I also cut down the blogroll to 50 entries and did the same for the referrers. Finally I decided to post less pictures where it does not make any sense.
Now, let's see how that works over the next weeks.
Dropping a Compaq Ipaq
by Volker Weber
Jens-Christian Fischer has had a Compaq Ipaq for more than a year.
It looks great, has lots of memory, fantastic color display, bluetooth built in - and much much more.
Still he is dropping it in favor of his old Palm OS based Handspring Visor.
Someone wake me up please
by Volker Weber
... when Ray Ozzie starts posting anything to his weblog. It is still resting and I have for now removed it from my blogroll.
Isn't it amazing how many people recommend it altough it is dead, err, resting?
Spam filter working really well
by Volker Weber
My spam filter works really well. It is collecting almost all of the unsolicited e-mails. Not only those from people offering things my mother would not want me to know about. Also those from people who insisted on scanning my badge at Lotusphere so I can start ignoring them.
People who insist that I fill out registration forms to download their stuff get junkmail@vowe.de. Those messages get forwarded directly to Spam Central a.k.a. Hotmail.
Bad, really bad
by Volker Weber
Now this is not trustworthy computing: The Windows-powered XDA smartphone stores the SIM-PIN in the registry. This means that after you've entered a SIM-PIN once on the device, you can always retrieve it. The PIN is stored in the first four bytes of a 256 byte binary block stored in
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\PhoneExtendFunction\ExtendData". Being part of the registry, this information survives a warm boot.
Boys need toys
by Volker Weber
[Thanks, Frank]
Telefonate zwischen Männern und Frauen
by Volker Weber
Lydia trifft den Nagel auf den Kopf
Quickplace: New Placetypes on LDD
by Volker Weber
IBM has demonstrated new placetypes (read: templates) for Lotus Quickplace 3 at Lotusphere. They are now available as a free download from LDD:
eGovernment: Rapid Response Management
Financial Services: Private Wealth Management
Life Sciences: New Drug Approval (NDA)
Manufacturing: Six-Sigma Project Management
Sun: The Java Problem
by Volker Weber
Internalmemos.com has this gem, which will certainly open some Champaign bottles at competitors.
This document details the difficulties that keep our Solaris Java implementation from being practical for the development of common software applications. It represents a consensus of several senior engineers within Sun Microsystems. We believe that our Java implementation is inappropriate for a large number of categories of software application. We do not believe these flaws are inherent in the Java platform but that they relate to difficulties in our Solaris implementation.We all agree that the Java language offers many advantages over the alternatives. We would generally prefer to deploy our applications in Java but the implementation provided for Solaris is inadequate to the task of producing supportable and reliable products.
[via Haiko Hebig]
Understanding the Tax System
by Volker Weber
This explains the American tax system. The German tax system is even worse.
CeBIT Season now officially open
by Volker Weber
Just received my invitation for the traditional Symantec CeBIT Burn-In. That opens CeBIT season for me. Have to ask my host whether I can come again and stay at his house, take invitations for meetings, plan press conferences and so forth.
Which reminds me, that I need to shed some more weight. The less you have to carry at CeBIT, the better. :-)
Palm vs. PocketPC
by Volker Weber
Walter Mossberg compares Palm and PocketPC devices in respect to support for Office documents. He comes to this conclusion:
Anyone seeking to view or edit Office documents on a PDA would do fine with a Palm-based model and Documents To Go -- better, in many respects, than somebody using a Pocket PC.
The Tungsten comes with Documents To Go. But so far I have not used it at all. Maybe that is because I don't use office a lot. :-)
More > (not a permanent link)
Happy Camper
by Volker Weber
I am just about to finish a whole batch of CDs. And I am so happy that I did not waste money on the Windows iPod. Just for kicks I converted two CDs with Musicmatch - that is the software that comes with the Windows iPod. What a pain in the lower back ! Not only is Lucy, the iMac, almost 150% quicker converting CDs to MP3 than Charlie, the ThinkPad. They are both running at around 800 MHz and I am converting at 160kb/s. iTunes is also a lot less confusing. Final judgement: While Charlie was busy, crashing Musicmatch a few times in the process, Lucy just digested a stack of 10 CDs. Nope, Charlie is not done yet. OK, old man, I am not trying you again.
A friend recently told me, how much he likes Musicmatch. If only he knew. :-)
Lotus to Palm conduits
by Volker Weber
You may remember the annoying problem with XTNDConnect PC (and its derivative EasySync Pro), that I described in vowe's choice: XTNDConnect PC does not reserve a slot for mobile numbers, therefore they will always appear in the Palm as "Other: Mobile" after synchronization. Now there is a cure:
Various products synchronise Palm devices with Lotus Notes. They all share a common problem: mobile phone numbers are stored on the Palm as "other" and in some cases the text "mobile:" is added in front of the number. This is particularly annoying for Treo users who try to send an SMS to a mobile phone number - the number does not show up in the SMS address dialog because the Treo does not know it is a mobile number. We have written a small Palm O/S application which cleans up the address book and removes this problem.
Your run this little tool on the Palm device and it changes the type back to "Mobile" from "Other" and removes the "Mobile: " string from the enty. Now, it would be a lot better, if Xtended Systems would clean up their act and make this tool obsolete. But until they do, this is a keeper.
Musical Chairs continues at IBM Software Group
by Volker Weber
[Musical Chairs is "Reise nach Jerusalem"]
It was announced Thursday on the IBM intranet but I did not think it was important enough to break the news until IBM is ready to talk about it. More executives move around within the Software Group. This also affects Lotus in a big way. The notable part is that one of the executives brings a part of the business into Lotus. It will be interesting to see how IBM resolves the branding issues around this move.
I also wonder how long IBM will go with the four pillar model (DB2, Lotus, Tivoli, Websphere) now that they have to bring Rational in. I think that should be announced around the developerWorks Live conference in April. In the not so distant future Lotus may no longer be a pillar but a beam supported by other pillars.
Knoppix: das Read-only-Linux auf der Heft-CD
by Volker Weber
Gehen Sie nicht über Los. Gehen Sie direkt zum Kiosk und kaufen Sie am Montag eine c't. Hätten Sie ein Abo, dann wäre sie schon da. :-)
Egosurfing
by Volker Weber
On Thursday Markus told me that I am now #4 if you ask Google for Volker. When you narrow down the search to English results only then I am already in the first spot.
Less suprising is that this not so humble website is #1 when you look for vowe, which is not a very common term. :-) In case you wonder how to pronounce it, vowe 'sounds' a lot different than you might think. It stems from my name voLKER weBER, which is spoken as Folker Vayber. I have used this acronym for at least 25 years. There is only but a few people who use the term to address me.
As a sidenote, I was really surprised to find that Ed's weblog has risen to the top in the Google index in just a few weeks. In the vowe query he directly trails vowe.net since he is currently hosted on vowe.org. If you look for his name you will find his weblog on this site at the top of the list.
Pr0nt1n65
by Volker Weber
[via The Aardvark Speaks]
Time to Rethink Lotus as It Converges With IBM Platform
by Volker Weber
Simon Hayward, Gartner Research:
Enterprises should no longer think of Lotus and Notes/Domino as a distinct world. IBM's protestations of maintaining both the "old world" of Domino, NSF files and the like at the same time it creates a new world based on WebSphere, Java 2 Enterprise Edition and DB2 could potentially mislead enterprises. Enterprises that wish to avoid their Lotus investments becoming legacy need to:- Understand the "new world"
- Refresh their skills base
- Consider how to take advantage of the emerging optionsEnterprises that have previously written off Lotus should reconsider it. The Lotus product line remains complex, and the greatest benefits will likely accrue to enterprises that can make the most sweeping commitments to IBM technology.The options for enterprises looking for collaboration support have become more plentiful. While Microsoft struggles to turn its assets into a coherent offer for collaboration support, Oracle's entry has opened up the market, and Novell has recommitted to this space. IBM is well-positioned to regain mind share -- if it can also improve its marketing.
(Emphasis mine)
Thank you, Jake
by Volker Weber
Jake Howlett has something really nice to say:
One of my favourite daily-reads at the moment is Volker Webers's Vowe.net. Everything a blog should be: sometimes funny, sometimes interesting, sometimes useful and sometimes personal.
Jake has one of the most interesting sites about development on Lotus Domino. He runs his very well designed weblog on this platform. And the only time you can see this, is at the beginning of the month, when there are no post to display and you get "No documents here ...". Finally, he also recently got two Apple devices.
Traffic Cop
by Volker Weber
Traffic on vowe.net is going through the roof. I welcome every reader here but the search engine spiders get out of hand. As a quick workaround I have cut the links to archives older than three months. That should make a big difference already.
I will make some major changes in the next days that will certainly break a few things. The first thing I will do is move images out of the archive path into a different path and advise robots not to spider this path. Any spiders that do not follow this direction will be completely locked out subsequently.
When I move the images, a lot of pages on my site will break. Please bear with me until I get those things sorted out.
I contemplated moving the site to a different, much more powerful server that currently runs vowe.org but decided against that. In a few weeks I will need to decommission this server so it does not make sense to go there.
Update: This is working much better than expected. The last five months have been cleaned out and are back up on the site. vowe's choice is also completely done. :-)
Instant Mess(aging)
by Volker Weber
February 3, 2003 -- IBM, a leading [blabla] and America Online, the world's leading [blabla], today announced an agreement to jointly conduct a pilot test between IBM Lotus Sametime and AOL's Enterprise AIM
Very old news. IBM has announced this before. Did not happen. AOL, MSN and Yahoo have to lock their users into a gated community. That is the business model. Enterprise IM however works in a different model. How do you connect those networks now with the "free" IM networks without interconnecting the gated communities?
And don't get me started on the small gated community of Groove users who cannot share presence or IM with the rest of the world.
Somebody will take a bath.
iPods around the world
by Volker Weber
Literally hundreds of them. This one is in Mexico.
Congratulations
by Volker Weber
This made my day :-)
Prof. Dr. Gerold Riempp Professor for Information Systems Schiller International University, Tampa, FL
Ed Brill very popular with Microsoft
by Volker Weber
Yesterday Ed uploaded his Lotusphere presentation to vowe.org. It was downloaded 1322 times within the first 24 hours. 584 downloads were originating from this address: 213.199.128.156. According to ripe.net this address belongs to
inetnum: 213.199.128.0 - 213.199.143.255 netname: MSFT-IDC descr: Microsoft European Internet Data Centres descr: Dublin, Ireland
It just works department, sequel 57
by Volker Weber
I decided to sync the Tungsten back into the Palm Desktop on Lucy. Worked out of the box. Then I exported all addresses again as vCard and fixed the stupid XtendConnect PC problem, which puts mobile numbers into the Others field and adds a Mobile: string to it. It was a simple replace "TEL: Mobile: " with "TEL;CELL:" operation which fixed all of the records in one go.
Deleted all records from Palm Desktop and reimported them. One more sync and everything was nice and dandy. Now I got bold. Exported the calendar into a vCal file. Imported that into iCal. Bingo. It just worked. :-)
It just works department, sequel 56
by Volker Weber
Apple's iPod does not only play mp3s. It also lets you look at your calendar and your address records. I had to try that out.
Launch Lotus Notes, open the address book, file/export, all records, as vcard 3. That creates one vcard file. Plug in iPod. Open the new iPod icon on the desktop. Drag the vcard file on the contacts folder. Disconnect iPod.
Bingo. 500++ addresses on Woodstock, the iPod.
Groove's 90-day preview period
by Volker Weber
Just received this e-mail from a Groove developer that I post with his permission:
Hi Volker,I popped in on your blog today, and saw what has been a familiar sight on my machine: the "Preview Period Expired" message. It's familiar to me because I'm the developer who coded it!
I just want to reassure you that the message doesn't affect the operation of Groove in any way; all data is preserved and all tools function normally. It's just a "nag", as you often see in shareware, which is meant to remind unlicensed corporate users of the preview edition's limited license terms. It should come up no more than once a day, and only if the account is unlicensed, over 90 days old, and our heuristics judge it to be on a corporate LAN. We try to be as conservative as possible on that last criterion, so we won't bug "personal use" folks.
If you want, you can always create a new test account, and you'll get 90 nag-free days.
Hope this helps,
SethStandard Disclaimer: This is me talking, not Groove Networks. I just wanted to check in with you on this.
Well said. Thank you, Seth.
The Boss Loves Microsoft: Where does that leave Lotus?
by Volker Weber
Ed Brill had an interesting session at Lotusphere that was very well received.
Stupid URL
by Volker Weber
Lotusphere Online gets vowe's special onion award for the stupidest URL of this year: mail1.online2003.net. That makes a lot more sense than lotusphere2003.com, doesn't it? And guess who owns lotusphere.com? Arrgh.
BTW: Lotusphere.net and Lotusphere.org are up for grabs. Any takers?
01.02.03 04:05:06
by Volker Weber
Haiko Hebig reminds us:
There was another very beautiful one last year: 20.02.2002 20:02
18 days and 18 hours earlier was even more interesting: 02.02.02 02:02:02
Think twice before you upgrade
by Volker Weber
I have one (professional) license. And I use a second (preview) one for testing purposes against that. It has just timed out after upgrading to 2.5. How has Bob Balaban put it so nicely? A telephone is not very useful if you have no one to call. :-)
Update: I have learned that this message does not affect the usage of Groove. It is "just" a nagscreen.
No sync, no good
by Volker Weber
Just installed the latest and greatest release of Groove on my Windows 2000 workstation and notebook. And I find that it still does not cure it's worst problem: Accounts get out of sync and the user has to intervene. Delete an account and fetch it from the other machine. This very other machine however has developed a problem while I was travelling: It shuts itself off. It may have a small crack in the main board, I don't know. And now Groove tells me that I need to delete the account on the other healthy machine. Which means it will delete all the data on this box and depend on the other, very sick machine:
Are you sure you want to delete your account Volker Weber? If you click Yes, Groove will delete all shared spaces associated with the account on this computer, log off the account, and close the transceiver.
How risky is that? To me this looks like Microsoft's "replication", not like Lotus'. Oh dear.
People die every day. Lots of people.
by Volker Weber
Dave Winer puts the Columbia news in perspective:
If television wanted to do us a real service they'd take their cameras into a nursing home or the pulmonary unit of a major hospital, right here in the US, and show the people what dying is like in the world we live in. Some people don't know. I didn't until last year. The Shuttle astronauts were so lucky! They had amazing lives. They went to space. They were scientists so they knew it was risky. And they were lucky because they died quickly without much time for pain and long goodbyes. Yes it's sad they died. Yes. But it's great that they lived.
Back from Austria
by Volker Weber
Returned from Austria (not Australia!) today after a very good meeting with Todd Bradley, Vesey Crichton, Markus Bregler and Lorraine Legros. I was away from home less than 24 hours but learned a lot of new things about Palm, met really nice people, had a great party, a good night's sleep, excellent food, and time for a walk in the snow. Thanks to Martin Kuderna who made the impossible possible. Excellent planning and execution!
Btw: If you have been waiting to get a new Tungsten T - now is the time. Watch for Media Markt to drop prices to 444 Euro on Monday. Or get the 515 at 333 and the 130 at 222. Vobis already dropped a leaflet in my mailbox with ever so slightly higher prices.
Can you spot me in the picture above? :-)
Inside the Apple PowerBook G4/12
by Volker Weber
Excel marries Groove
by Volker Weber
Here is what Ashok has to say about his new tool:
Excel, that great collaborative Application marriesGroove, the great collaborative Platform.Without doubt, Excel is one of the catalytic applications of the PC age – more business people learned to use it even before they used E-Mail. Some learned to use a PC because they needed to use Excel. Many SME’s in fact, use Excel as the primary data capture tool.Excel is also a naturally collaborative application, as figures are contributed by team members dispersed over departments and locations, or shared across management likewise.
To be able to change a Single Cell in an Excel sheet and have that instantly ripple across all users is power that was just not available – till Groove came along to provide the underlying platform.
Groove 2.5 is available for download
by Volker Weber
Groove 2.5 is "under the button", which means you can download without too much hoopla from Groove being published yet. And what do you know - it prints. :-) Does not search yet. You get a lot of connections into Outlook if you still use that. And there is a bunch of other things in the new relase.
As a reminder: You will always find the latest version here without going through the stupid form that collects the same data all over again:
http://components.groove.net/Groove/DailyBuilds/latest/GrooveWorkspacePreview.exe
Yes, this is intentionally not a link. But I am sure you can work around that. :-)
