Filtering is a part of our everyday conversation and interaction. We watch what we say in person, what we post on the Internet, and what we share with users. We begin life as kids with no filters, grow to learn proper conversation and controls and eventually lose them again when we are older. How we filter ourselves often defines how we are observed.

I think that we often overlook great opportunities to communicate openly with partners to provide a full and detailed account. Remember, a partner could be defined as anyone in business, your own company, or even a personal relationship. How many times have you limited the information you shared on a project and had that lack of sharing come back to bite you? When in a business partnership, openly sharing ideas and communication on a project only strengthens the outcome. It often provides revelations for better ways to accomplish the task itself.

Users are unique in communication needs. Normally, we try to limit the amount of information shared to them and heavily strip down or entirely remove the technical portions. Is filtering always the best option? Could full disclosure become the catalyst for communication on what their needs and confusion may be out there in the non-IT portion of the company? How do you provide feedback and obtain information with filtered communication that lacks any useful outcome? I suggest you re-evaluate what steps you take to share information with users and why it is so important to remove almost all the real information. I am not saying that in every instance providing deep technical commentary is required. Just think more like a user and see if the message would get through or just cause more questions.

As you start thinking about what filters you have in place at work and personally, this month you'll read about moving Sametime servers, fixing those non-descript errors users see, ACLs in local replicas and what LotusLive iNotes is. Lastly, Gary Devendorf continues in his series of articles for you to pass on to your developers; this month he discusses displaying Domino data in a SharePoint site.

You can always reach me in my VGS (Virtual Gratification Syndrome) world via Twitter, FriendFeed (now bought by Facebook), Foursquare, Brightkite, Facebook, Diigo, Tumblr, GTalk, AOL, Yahoo!, MSN, ICQ, Sametime, Greenhouse, BleedYellow, smoke signal, carrier pigeon, my podcasts, or my blog for your questions, comments, and ideas. Notice that voicemail isn't on that list? If those are not enough I can name another 200 ways.

— Chris Miller
Sys Admin Tips Newsletter
IdoNotes on everything, yes everything
IDoNotes@IdoNotes.com
www.idonotes.com
www.facebook.com/IdoNotesNetwork

QUESTION: Chris,

I need your help!

Have you ever seen documentation, a presentation or any information about how to move a Sametime server from one Domino server to another (already existing) Domino server without losing the configuration and buddy lists?

Or have you done this yourself?

It's about Sametime 7.5.1 and Domino 7.0.x on a Windows 2003 server.

ANSWER: You bring up a great question as people consolidate and expand environments. I can see where this is a struggle for most companies.

However, the answers greatly depend on how and by what name your users connect to the existing Sametime. If they are using the Domino server name of the existing server, you will be making a change to their local configuration as well. If they are using the DNS name of the existing server, we have the same issue.

The good news is if the users are pointing their clients to connect to a DNS name that is portable, meaning you can move it to another server without affecting any other services, the first portion is complete.

You could load Sametime on the new server, move over vpuserinfo.nsf and all the stxxx.nsf databases and change a few internal configurations if the DNS is portable and the users could continue on as usual. If not, planning many more of the steps will be needed with the host name changes.

I know someone will say make a cluster and then shut the old server down. But, with the DNS issue you will still need to change client settings, even for a cluster. So if you proceed, I am recommending you make sure to use a portable DNS name for future growth.

Chris

The Lotus Notes client has numerous errors a user can encounter when they use the client. Unfortunately, not all of them are meaningful enough to help the user know what steps to take or who to contact.

Luckily, for all of us, a couple years ago Paul Mooney introduced a database that allows you to customize unhelpful error messages and replace them with your own text to give the users a reasonable action in the text that appears. The user is then informed and happy, reducing helpdesk calls.

The database itself is now in version 1.5.2 at the time of writing and is a fully integrated solution. You can see all the client error messages by text and the associated hex code and manipulate each and every one.

You download the database in a zip file to get started from the Resources page on Paul's blog. From there follow the simple directions to get this up and running.

As with any tool that is offered, make sure you test first before rolling it out to users. I can personally say I have used and tested this and give it the IdoNotes approval. Hmm, maybe I need a stamp?

Get the Lotus Notes application and database information you need with Quest's free Notes application analysis tool. With it, you can:

• Find Notes databases across the enterprise
• Classify applications according to attributes
• Analyze application usage and data

Quest's free Notes application analysis tool is available with no restrictions, and includes 30 days of free technical support.

Download it today.

INTERVIEW WITH ALISTAIR RENNIE, GENERAL MANAGER LOTUS SOFTWARE

LotusUserGroup.org had a great conversation with Alistair Rennie, General Manager of Lotus Software at IBM. You can hear the entire interview here.

In the interview, Alistair talks about settling in to the General Manager position and what he's encountered in his first 60 days. He updates listeners on some of the announcements made at Lotusphere, like expanding enterprise mobile messaging and others. Hear about the progress being made on Project Vulcan and get an update on delivery of the beta on LotusLive Labs. You'll also hear about how the Cloud is driving new business for Lotus, what Alistair has in store for addressing THE VIEW's audience at Admin2010 and Lotus Developer 2010 in Boston, and more. Plus, Alistair calls to the community to provide input on what you want to hear from him about, which he'll address in his keynote presentation at THE VIEW's Admin2010 and Lotus Developer2010 conferences.

Check out the podcast where you'll find the interview, a link to contribute to the Lotus Knows campaign, and a link to tell Alistair what you'd like to hear him talk about at Admin2010 and Lotus Developer2010.

KEYS TO DEVELOPING YOUR E-DISCOVERY PLAN

Developing an e-discovery plan to help your organization become better prepared for the challenges of the e-discovery process is a daunting task. Having a process to locate and being able to present electronic business communications is a MUST for every industry.

Check out the proceedings from our most recent online meeting as well as a presentation on this topic from Denny Russell, Senior Product Support Specialist; Marta Farensbach, Senior Product Manager, E-discovery Division; and Harvey Coblin, Product Manager, Discovery Attender, Sherpa Software online. These leading e-discovery experts will provide an introduction to the key areas involved in the e-discovery process and load you up with helpful information and best practices so you can develop an e-discovery capability for your organization. Check out the presentation and:

• Uncover the key e-discovery issues you need to understand today and in the future
• See what's working now for organizations like yours in solving the biggest e-discovery challenges
• Understand the capabilities you need to avoid unnecessary legal risks and e-discovery costs
• Find out how e-discovery can help you manage and avoid employee misbehavior and legal actions, comply with its regulatory obligations, preserve intellectual property, and avoid embarrassing data loss or leaks

If you have been considering the best course of action for your company on this important subject, check out the results of this informative event and get control of e-discovery for your organization. Understand why e-discovery is important, gain insights into the issues and regulations that are most pertinent, and then start creating strategies, capabilities, and technologies to meet needs that will also help manage corporate data properly.

This presentation is free to LotusUserGroup.org members but requires registration. Register today!

THE VIEW's Admin2010 and Lotus Developer2010
Boston, May 12-14, 2010

Get the most from your Lotus investment! Reserve your seat to be a part of the premier events that deliver real-world Lotus training so you can increase productivity and efficiency in your company, advance your skills, and squeeze the most from your current environment. No marketing, No fluff. Just in-depth technical training that you can put to use on the job right away! One registration gets you into THE VIEW´s Admin2010 and Lotus Developer2010. Register today.

When a user makes a local replica of a database that has been enabled to "Enforce a Consistent Access Control List Across All Replicas" in the database ACL advanced settings, the actual ACL is cached locally with the database itself.

This means that whatever ACL is applied to the database when the user makes a local replica, the access credentials are hidden away in the database to force the ACL at all times. This forces the user to have exactly the same rights as they would on the server, even while working offline.

There are more items to note if someone attempts to switch ID files and access this database locally. You can find more in IBM technote #1084294.

QUESTION: Chris,

We have been looking at all of the LotusLive information before and after Lotusphere, but are still confused about iNotes. We run iNotes internally but want to offer it to our outside sales team as well. Is the LotusLive stuff the same but just on IBM servers?

Linda

ANSWER: Linda,

This is a common question and is all traced to a naming confusion. LotusLive iNotes is actually the assets of the OutBlaze purchase from IBM. It is a webmail-based solution, just not on Domino. You could compare it more to Google Apps.

There is also the true integration issue. Those users could not share your full company mail domain name for inbound and outbound mail. They could be a subdomain. For example, if you are company.com, they could be sales.company.com.

Lastly, your Domino directory and the one on their hosting servers would not currently integrate. You could import users into theirs, but true replication does not exist at this time. If you simply remember that the LotusLive part of the name is the deciding factor in between Domino and non-Domino, it makes it simpler.

Chris

SURFACING LIVE DOMINO DATA IN A SHAREPOINT "DATA VIEW" WEB PART
By Gary Devendorf

Wouldn't it be great if your Notes/Domino applications could be surfaced in SharePoint applications? Well they can, and it's very easy to do. In this article, we will use HTTP and some LotusScript to create a SharePoint "data source". With this source, we configure a Data View Web part to present this live data in ways your end users will love. The data lives in Domino and is surfaced, read only, in SharePoint.

In the last article, we showed an effortless method to move Notes data to a SharePoint 2007 list. In this article, we will leave the Notes/Domino data in place while integrating and displaying it in a SharePoint 2007 site. There are many ways to do this. Here we will show, step by step, a flexible, powerful, yet easy way to integrate these two platforms. We will use LotusScript, SharePoint Designer, and my public Domino server for the demos.

For the full article, please click here.

This article is made possible in part by Quest Software. Please visit their site.

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