span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; border-collapse: collapse; "I've just finished the IBM/Lotus renewal cycle for the year and either IBM has made some changes for the better or I'm losing my grip on my sanity. Whatever the reason, ithis year the process actually made sense/i.br /br //spandivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; border-collapse: collapse; "br /bThe Cost and the TCO/bbr /We're actually quite a small domino shop but our annual renewals would have covered the cost of a 4WD vehicle from a reputable dealer.br /br /This is at least in part due to our office technology mentality. We have our main domino server which is capable of running pretty much everything and we have a second server that we use to run one of our more intensive apps (which I'll talk about in another post).br /br /On top of all this, we have an offsite business continuity server which we've never actually used "for real" - only in test situations. Domino is too stable for it to be a necessity and it's really only there to guard against ISP or "location" failure. br /br /Then we've got a development server and a test server. These are new but welcome additions because having a separate server encourages us to be more daring in our development projects.br /br /The bottom line is simple; if the TCO has blown out, it's our fault for choosing multiple levels of safeguards instead of lower costs./spandivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; border-collapse: collapse; "br //span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; border-collapse: collapse; "br //span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; border-collapse: collapse; "bUpgrade Assurance/b/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"Of course, we've also got the option not to renew at all. That's right, we can save all that money by not renewing and still be entitled to use the software in perpetuity. I think that the maintenance entitles us to helpdesk support, which I almost never use because frankly, it's not very good. I find that if I blog about a problem (and if I read everyone else's domino blogs), I get better results than if I complain to IBM. It's a pity really./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"So, for us, the maintenance really boils down to nothing more than upgrade assurance. If we pay it, then we're entitled to upgrade. If we stop paying it, then we'd have to buy the software outright again in order to upgrade (that's about three times the cost). If we stayed on the same version of Notes/Domino for three years and then upgraded, we'd probably break even. Four years and the strategy would start to pay off./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"Once, there was a time when this was feasible. Once, IBM wasn't putting out many upgrades and in fact those upgrades weren't really worth a whole lot of effort. I guess I'm talking around Notes versions 6 amp; 7. This has all changed with version 8. IBM now has a good strategy and each upgrade introduces worthwhile features while moving Notes/Domino closer and closer to its true destiny, the web./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"IBM are also bundling more and more into the package with Traveller being the most obvious newcomer. It's a great system and I think that it will soon be replacing Blackberry at my workplace. We're also getting a bit of use out of the bundled sametime, though not enough to justify the full package./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"I recently learned that there's some sort of entitlement to websphere. Apparently... I've not heard of it before. It's an IBM secret and I've yet to hear it confirmed from an official source./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"bSitting on Old Infrastructure/b/span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"During the negotiations for our upgrade assurance, it always crosses my mind to not bother renewing, though admittedly the lure of new versions keeps me coming back. This year I made a joke about those poor people who are still on Notes 5 amp; 6. To me, these guys are the laughing stock of the computing world because they're constantly complaining about a product they haven't bothered to update. It's their own fault - not IBMs./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"Of course Notes 5 compares unfavourably to the current offerings of the competition. Compare Notes/Domino 8.5.2 with the MS offering of 1999 and you can be sure that IBM/Lotus will come out on top./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"I said jokingly that enough water has passed under the bridge that they could pay their maintenance this year and get upgraded without "penalty" and I was told that there was a company out there, on Notes 4.5 who HAVE been paying their maintenance every year but still haven't upgraded./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"My jaw dropped./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"Wow./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"If all you're really getting for your money is software assurance, why would you pay for it and then not use it? It just doesn't make sense./span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"br //span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"Maybe IBM needs to do a survey to find out what versions its "assured" customers are running and then get in there and upgrade them. /span/span/div/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17199472-3941288078227248084?l=dominogavin.blogspot.com' alt='' //div
How to Adjust the timing on a Subtitle SRT file using Subtitle Workshop 4
Wed, Oct 19th 2011 4:22a Gavin Bollard In a previous post, I discussed ways to find subtitles to add to your AVI movies and I also looked at using Google Translate to modify them if they weren't in English (or your chosen language). Note: All of the software mentioned here is free. See: Finding and Adjusting Subtitles on AVI Files. In this post I want to look at how to change the timing on subtitles. Why would you need to do this? Movies have different frame rates depending upon the country that they are shown in and the system [read] Keywords: blogger
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Notes and Domino 8.5.3 are out...
Wed, Oct 5th 2011 10:22p Gavin Bollard The ServerI've upgraded our test server from 8.5.2 to 8.5.3 and it took slightly under 5 minutes. Now that's what I call a good server upgrade (are you listening Microsoft???) Anyway, so far, so good, everything seems to be working but then I haven't done a whole lot of testing yet. The ClientMy client took 21 minutes to upgrade from 8.5.2 to 8.5.3, which felt like a long time. It also came back a little weird and some views didn't populate immediately. Refreshing them made a big difference [read] Keywords: domino
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Finding and Adjusting Subtitles on AVI files
Wed, Aug 31st 2011 8:02a Gavin Bollard If you enjoy watching foreign films or if you're hard of hearing like me, then subtitles are a must in your movie collection. In my last post, I covered how to convert movies from DVD to AVI for playing on a portable player. In this post, I'll be discussing subtitles.
There are two types of subtitles, burned in and selectable. Obviously the selectable type is best because you can turn them on and off and you can obtain different languages too. Within the selectable type, there are a few forma [read] Keywords: blogger
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Converting DVDs to Good Quality AVI Files - Part 2 (The Procedure)
Sun, Aug 14th 2011 11:03p Gavin Bollard Forget the why and wherefores of what we're doing - That's part one which you can read here.
Lets get started;
IngredientsA computer with a large hard drive 20GB Free? Pentium 4 3GHz or Faster and a DVD driveA copy of DVD Decrypter - it's freeA copy of AutoGK - it's free
DVD Decrypterhttp://www.dvddecrypter.org.uk/This software allows you to copy the files from a DVD to your hard drive. The project was shut down some years back but it's still possible to get hold of it on the internet. [read] Keywords: blogger
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Converting DVDs to Good Quality AVI Files - Part 1 (The Waffle)
Sun, Aug 14th 2011 4:02a Gavin Bollard I'm very much a believer in the idea that "files" will be the next big format for video entertainment after DVDs. I guessed right from the start that blu-ray would win the format war against HD-DVD but I never thought that either would take over.
About 15 years ago, after having ridden the music upgrade from LP Records to tapes and to CD, I stumbled across this "new" format called MP3. Back then, there were no MP3 players, just computers but I was enthralled by the idea that with enough s [read] Keywords: blogger
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Scheduling Maintenance Tasks on the Domino Server
Tue, Jul 26th 2011 4:02a Gavin Bollard I'm sure that most Domino admins have been doing these tasks regularly but if you don't have occasion to touch them often, you might this post useful. As I mentioned last week, we've been having issues with the JVE running out of memory on our server. One of the "solutions" (band-aids) was to restart the domino HTTP task. I've been experimenting to see how long I can leave it and the shortest it's been is about 30 hours. It seemed to be a good idea to stop and then restart the domino HTTP [read] Keywords: admin
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Domino Resource Issues under XPages
Sun, Jul 17th 2011 8:22p Gavin Bollard A couple of weeks ago, we launched a new XPages app. Hopefully the first of many. It was very impressive and we got a lot of hits.... ...until the server crashed. Not a big deal. Our server is set to restart automatically, and it was up and running in no time. Then about 1.5 days later we had another crash. We've decided to tackle this on a few fronts, first of all we're rewriting some parts of the app to be a bit less intense and to take better advantage of the recycler. That's all cutting e [read] Keywords: admin
domino
lotus
notes
xpages apple
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best practice
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How to Do a Mail Merge to Email using Lotus Notes
Wed, May 18th 2011 10:26p Gavin Bollard Why do one?In today's "green" world, it makes much better sense to send out emails than letters but you still want to personalize them. Sadly, by itself Lotus Notes doesn't support mail merge to email. Of course, we know that outlook does (but then it lets anyone and anything send emails for you - even when you don't want them to). So, how to do it in Notes? OpenNTFThe first port of call is OpenNTF (http://www.openntf.org/). This place is full of great things but most of them are really bad [read] Keywords: agent
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How to Turn off Local Encryption by Default in the Notes 8.x Client
Mon, May 16th 2011 5:42p Gavin Bollard What's this All AboutIf you have a test environment for your Lotus Notes applications, then chances are that you regularly find yourself copying (not replicating) from Production to test - and probably via a Local connection. If you do this a lot, then chances are that at some point you've forgotten to deselect the default local encryption. This is a great security feature but it's quite embarrassing when you arrive at your test site with a database which won't open. Did you know that you ca [read] Keywords: lotus
lotusnotes
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