Simple Signer Version 1.1 for IBM Lotus Notes released

When a Lotus Notes application is developed, it is a quite common requirement that it must be "signed" by an appropriate Lotus Notes user ID or Lotus Domino server ID before it will operate correctly in a production environment.

The developer (or developers) who over time created the various design elements in the database (forms, views, agents, etc) will have placed their own "signature" against each design element every time that they save it.

The situation commonly arises that the developer(s) who coded the database have  signatures that do not provide sufficient or appropriate authority for agents that are to run on a Domino server, for formulae to be executed in a form, etc).

This is especially the case for “alien” Notes applications that come to you from outside organizations such IBM Business Partners and Independent Software Vendors, but can be true even internally in your organization when there are multiple developers over time or for a specific release of the application..

Therefore a given version of a database application is put into production, its design elements need to be signed by a Notes ID with the appropriate authority. (Refer to the IBM Lotus Notes documentation for full details about the concept of signing Notes databases.)

Although signing is not all that difficult to do, it can be a somewhat circumspect process for the uninitiated!

Hence a few years ago I released the “Simple Signer” for IBM Lotus notes. This is a single-purpose database that was developed to make life a little easier for everybody (including myself) who at some time or other, frequently or only occasionally, has to sign Lotus Notes databases.

Its one an only design goal is to make it extremely quick and easy to sign each and every design element in a given database.

Just switch the Notes ID (if necessary), select the database to be signed, and click on the big pink button.

Note that it works only in Notes 6.0 and later versions (because it relies on the LotusScript  "Sign" method introduced in Release 6.0), but this is not much of nowadays.

Also note that the database’s design is not hidden, so by modifying a few lines of  LotusScript you can alter the way that signing is carried out, to sign only agents for example.

Version 1.1 has no functional changes, it’s still as easy to use as always, but the “Help Using This Database” built-in documentation has been enhanced to show you how add a toolbar button to make it faster to launch Simple Signer.

Download version 1.1 of the Simple Signer from either of our mirrors at notestracker.com or asiapac.com.au.

Golly, gosh, it’s nearly quarter past 1 AM here Down Under so I’m heading off to the cot right away after submitting this post.

Technorati Tags: IBM,Lotus Notes,Lotus Domino,Sign,Database,Application,Security,Authorization,Ease of Use,Freeware,Asia/Pacific Computer Services

How to resize text in embedded IE browser for IBM Lotus Notes and Lotus Symphony

Not all web pages are easy to read, and small text is one of the main culprits.

I have a bee in my bonnet about website usability. Indeed, that bee has been buzzing around in my noggin since attending a usability workshop as an IBM Systems Engineer way back in the mid-1970s.

Yes indeed folks, IBM has focused on good design for usability in both its hardware and software products for quite a few decades, way before some famous IT industry names were hardly a twinkle in their founders’ eyes.  (I’m thinking of the Apple Computers of this world and the way that people rave over the design of its iPhone and the like.)

For example, I recall back in 1983 or thereabouts attending an engineering design meeting at the IBM Rochester Lab in Minnesota, when I was going to give my feedback on IBM System/38 database journaling, an exceedingly important software feature that was about to be announced. But nearly all of that meeting finished up being consumed by a vigorous debate about the precise repositioning and relabelling of knobs on the system’s console. Now that’s what I call being picky!

Anyway, often when I visit a website I test to see if its text can be resized, and amazingly find that, being generous, not more than maybe fifty percent of sites provide for text resizing. A big FAIL for all those sites that overlook this basic capability.

TIP: review the tons of resource links here or backup site here that I’ve assembled about a wide range of usability and interface design topics.

Regarding web page text siding, one person in particular who seems to have hornets (rather than mere bees) buzzing around in his noggin: see Minimum font sizes for Thomas Baekdal’s firm views on this matter. His site has lots of other interesting articles, too.

The current crop of web browsers provide functions for zooming web pages, but the problem with this is that everything on the page gets resized, not just the hard-to-read text. Some of the browsers have a menu item, albeit often hidden away where a user may not find it, for text resizing.

When it comes to browsers that are embedded inside another product, such as IE inside IBM Lotus Notes or Lotus Symphony to name just two (and there are many more), sadly we find that there are rarely if ever any options that allow you to resize fonts or zoom pages.

With such embedded browsers you’re stuck with what font size the product designers built in. If your vision is poor, or if the built-in font is tiny, such embedded browsers can deliver a very poor reading experience.

Here’s my “how to” tip for today, which should assist you for all those cases where the embedded browser happens to be Internet Explorer, and this is the majority of cases.

Download and install the FREE EasyRead tool from Iconico. This provides two browser toolbar buttons labelled '+' and '-' (for Zoom In and Zoom Out respectively).

But these two buttons are not available for the embedded browsers, so instead you can make use of the similar EasyRead context menu options ‘EasyRead +’ and ‘EasyRead –‘ which, of course, are displayed when you right-click on a page. These context menu should work for you in most embedded browsers.

For example, below is what you might see from the embedded IE browser of IBM Lotus Symphony (similarly for Lotus Notes, and quite a few other situations). The two context menu items are circled:

(Click for a larger image)

Issue resolved -- in most cases, at least.

Technorati Tags: Usability,Text Size,Readability,Legibility,Embedded Browser

Manipulating images resources directly in IBM Lotus Notes and Domino

See my suggestion for two new Lotus Notes formula language functions for programmatically manipulating images in Notes Client and Web browser environments, and please visit IdeaJam to place your vote on my idea.

Visit...

New formula language functions: @SetImageResource and @GetImageResource

Internet filtering by ISPs? The ACS looks at technical pros and cons

Internet filtering is a contentious issue here way Down Under in Australia, as it is in other countries.

If compulsory ISP filtering is introduced in Australia -- as is possible, or maybe likely, in the not-too-distant future -- the ACS (Australian Computer Society) has just released a report recommending the creation of an independent oversighting system and an annual auditing process for blackIists.

It makes interesting reading. Take a look at the news release and the full report is downloadable in PDF format.

Much of what it says of course will apply in other countries.

How Aussies succumb to e-mail fraud (and other online evils)

Yesterday I penned an article about a favourite e-mail tracking tool of mine, eMailTrackerPro, see here.

Following that up, I’d like to point out that the Australian Institute of Criminology has just published a report related to that:

Consumer fraud in Australia: costs, rates and awareness of the risks in 2008 (by Russell Smith and Carolyn Budd).

Abstract

This paper examines the current evidence of the cost, extent of and awareness of consumer fraud in Australia. In 2008, the ABS found that approximately five percent of the Australian population reported being victimised by consumer scams, with personal losses reaching almost $1b. This paper compares the findings of the ABS survey with those gathered by the AIC during the annual fraud awareness-raising activities conducted by the Australasian Consumer Fraud Taskforce. In 2008, a self-selected sample of 919 respondents to the AIC’s online survey reported being victimised by a wide variety of scams, including those relating to fictitious lotteries, phishing scams, financial advice and other attempts to elicit personal information from respondents. Individuals from all age groups were targeted in these scams, with older Australians being victimised to a similar extent to those in their middle years. Armed with an understanding of the nature and scope of the risks, consumer protection and other regulatory agencies can tailor their fraud prevention activities to maximise their impact—therefore reducing the extent to which consumers take up offers which are too good to be true.

Remember that, it applies globally (and in outer space too, I suppose):
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.

Tools I like – eMailTrackerPro

A nice tool that I use every now and then to delve into the origin of a particular message is eMailTrackerPro from Visualware.

I’ve received many spam and suspicious e-mails over the years (nearly two decades as an active Web user). I’ve archived them all, an interesting collection they do indeed make!

By the way, this is the first in an occasional series about PC tools that I use and which I like enough to recommend to you – otherwise, I wouldn’t waste your time. And lest you doubt my motives, the products that I describe will in nearly every case be either freeware or paid for by myself.

For example, today I got this “Nigerian 419 scam” message:

From Miss Sarah Jones Abidjan Cote d'Ivoire.                         (CONFIDENTIAL MESSAGE) Dear Good thing to write you. I have a proposal for you.This however is not mandatory nor will I in any manner compel you to honour against your will. I am Miss Sarah Jones, the only daughter of my late parents Mr.and Mrs Jones. My father was a highly reputable busnness magnet-(a Cocoa Merchant, Diamond and Gold Dealer)who operated in the capital of Ivory coast during his days. It is sad to say that he passed away mysteriously in France during one of his business trips abroad on 2nd March 2008.Though his sudden death was linked or rather suspected to have been masterminded by an uncle of his who travelled with him at that time. But God knows the truth! My mother died when I was just 4 years old,and since then my father took me so special. Before his death on 2nd March 2008 he called the secretary who accompanied him to the hospital and told him that he has the sum of Seventeen  Million,Seven  Hundred Thousand United State Dollars.(USD$17.700) deposited in  SECURITY COMPANY in Abidjan Cote d'Ivoire. He further told him that he deposited the Consignment in my name as the next of kin,and he registered the Consignment as Family Valuables and finally issued a written instruction to his lawyer whom he said is in possession to handle all the necessary legal documents of the Consignment which he deposited in the SECURITY COMPANY and he instructed the lawyer to handover the documents to me whenever I need it. I am  a university undergraduate and really don't know what to do. Now I want a foreign partner who assist me to retrieve this consignment from the SECURITY  COMPANY in Abidjan Cote d'Ivoire . This is because I have suffered a lot of set backs as a result of incessant political crisis here in Ivory coast.The death of my father actually brought sorrow to my life.I am in a sincere desire of your humble assistance in this regards. Your suggestions and ideas will be highly regarded. Now permit me to ask these few questions:- 1.Can you kindly tell me what the type of a profitable venture this fund will uesd to invest avoid waste of it. 2). Can you honestly help me as your daughter? 3). Can I completely trust you? 4). What percentage of the total amount in question will be good for you after you have collected this consigment on my behalf? Thank you so much. Yours Sincerely, Miss Sarah Jones Please reply me in my private email address sarah209jones03@yahoo.co.jp for more details

Where did it come from (precisely, or as near as can possibly be determined)?

Well, I fired up eMailTrackerPro, copied the e-mail’s header info into the Windows clipboard, from where it automatically got pasted into eMailTrackerPro, thus:

Clicking on the Advanced Trace option yielded, after a few seconds hopping around the globe, the following earth map view and trace route table:

And selecting the View Report option (circled) gave a browser page like this:

Starting in central Africa and ending in south-eastern Australia. Easy, eh?

SDMS Version 4.5.00 for Lotus Notes/Domino released

SDMS is a very popular free “simple document management system” for IBM Lotus Notes and Domino:

SDMS incorporates our NotesTracker capability, which enables comprehensive tracking of database activities for usage details (document creates, reads, updates, deletes, pastes, mail-ins, view or database opens, etc) and for monitoring database compliance (who did what, when, and where).

See our home page asiapac.com.au or notestracker.com for the download link to the current production version 4.5.00 of SDMS.

The e-mail merge feature was enhanced, as requested by a user of SDMS, now allowing any of the user's mail views and folders to be selected as the source of mail messages to be merged:

Previously, just the Inbox was available for selecting memos. This view shows a merged mail memo:

Also added was an agent to import SDMS documents from a different SDMS database into the current one (very useful, for example, when upgrading to a newer SDMS version).

You can better tailor the SDMS page header area, by specifying your own database logo image together with your website URL or your e-mail contact address.

Notes client header, showing user-specified logo (and logo description) plus website link:

Web browser header, showing that (if you like) for the Web environment you can set up a different user-specified logo and logo description:

And as you might expect, there are various usability improvements. Plus some bug fixes, of course!

Technorati Tags: NotesTracker,SDMS,Document Management,IBM,Lotus Notes,Lotus Domino

Lotus Notes 8 – windows title withdrawal syndrome?

For application support and development compatibility testing, I run up to four or five different versions of Lotus Notes on my system, at times several them concurrently in virtual machines. This can get a bit confusing at times: it’s quite easy to find yourself working in the wrong Notes version’s window.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been taking advantage of one of the NOTES.INI settings that enables you to modify the window title and display whatever text you desire – refer to the Window_Title setting at IBM developerWorks.

For version 7.0.3 (running in the virtualized Windows XP Mode of Windows 7 Ultimate), I have:

Thus, the Notes Client displays:

For no particular reason, until today I hadn’t gotten around to trying this with Notes 8, and for the Release 8.5.1 managed beta refresh I set up the Standard (eclipse-based) Notes Client’s NOTES.INI file like this:

However, the modified window title text did NOT appear in the title bar:

Why not? In my dotage did I miss something obvious here, or doesn't this work (at least, for release 8.5.1)?

Technorati Tags: Lotus Notes 8 NOTES.INI Window_Title Title Bar IBM developerWorks

Please help Marek to solve his “dual Notes” problem

I’ve blogged several times about how to install multiple versions of Lotus Notes and Domino (releases 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8) on a single system.

The most recent article was Coexistence of Notes 7 and Notes 8 on the same system. The following comes as a consequence of one reader contacting me to see if I could provide assistance with a problem that he has encountered.

Below is Marek’s outline of his problem, which I’ve taken the liberty to paraphrase slightly since he’s based in Europe and English is not his first language:

We are using in our company dual Notes, but not 2 installations of different notes but it is created with a VBS script a particular copy of the original installation. So we are running on 2 notes clients which are connected to 2 different servers with different databases.

I am working now on a VBS script, and am having problems with connecting to the right Notes session.

If I use Set Session = CreateObject("Notes.NotesSession")
it connects to the session of the first-started Notes client.

The problem is if somebody starts the wrong Notes client as the first the script just breaks down with an error message like “database not found”.

I was already thinking about how to identify the [appropriate] session and then switch it. Am able to identify the session (every session has his own INI where is stated the server and other login details) but I’m unable to switch the sessions.

The second idea was to register the nlsxbe.dll but both Notes clients are using the same nlsxbe.dll so this does not help.

I would really appreciate if somebody could help or come up with some good ideas and help move me forward.

Now, if you read my blog posts, it’s apparent that Marek is attempting something completely different from simply installing multiple Notes clients on a single system. His problem is a design/coding issue, not an installation/configuration issue as such (although I suppose that some configuration option or other just might have some effect on what’s he’s trying to accomplish).

Marek’s working in an area of Notes programming to which I’ve been little exposed, therefore I’m going to “pass the buck” over to the wider Notes development community. Do any of you have experience in this area (interfacing with VBS scripts) and are you able to give Marek any tips that will help him to achieve his objectives?

If you can help in any way, please reply to this post and/or contact me (for example via the home page of Asia/Pacific Computer Services, asiapac.com.au or notestracker.com) so that I can pass on to you Marek’s contact details, which I’m loath to include here in case the spammers get his e-mail address. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

Coexistence of Lotus Notes releases 7 and 8 on the same Windows 7 system (using the new Windows XP Mode)

Back in February 2009 I blogged about Coexistence of Notes 7 and Notes 8 on the same system.

In previous years, I had written about how to install multiple versions of Lotus Notes and Domino (releases 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8) on a single system, but from now on I’m going to stop bothering with releases earlier than Notes 7.

Specifically, at the moment I’m focussing on Notes/Domino 7.0.3 and Notes/Domino 8.5.1 -- I’ve been running the managed beta of 8.5.1 for a while, and liking it a lot. My main concern is that apps that I develop or modify under release 8.5.1 should be as compatible as possible with release 7.x, and thus most likely with release 6.x, which should cover the great bulk of Notes users.

Around two months ago, I experienced a motherboard failure, and my local hardware expert gave me the bad news that while it was still under warranty I’d be without it for at least a couple of weeks while it got repaired. So I reluctantly agreed to buy a new motherboard as a rapid solution, but being newer it obstinately refused to recognize the fifth hard disk drive under Windows XP (which had no problems recognizing it). Sadly for me, I was informed that I needed to upgrade to “a more modern operating system” ... I had a strategy of staying with Windows XP for a couple of years more, but (needing to remain compatible with what my clients were using) it could only ne Windows Vista, which I dislike – or, he suggested, why not skip Vista and go to Windows 7 (which was close to being finished now)?

So now I’m using Windows 7, the “gold” or RTM version. What’s more, it’s the 64-bit version, so that at last I can use more than 4 GB of RAM to support running lots of concurrent tasks, such as multiple VMs with various versions of Lotus Notes/Domino, and other such nerd’s dreams.

Indeed, in one of those earlier posts, I already recommended running side-by-side VMs as being the cleanest way to support multiple Notes/Domino releases on a single machine. Here I say “cleanest” because each virtual machine has its own Windows registry settings intact.)

I have a mere 8 GB of RAM installed (four 2 GB cards) because 4 GB cards were unobtainable at the that time, even though I aspired to having 16 GB, but 64-bit Windows 7 seems to manage RAM fairly well and for the moment 8 GB seems adequate.

I also took the opportunity change from a dual-core to a quad-core processor, so as to run more concurrent processes (managed by the very nice Process Lasso, highly recommended for the serious nerd). And now that I’ve gotten the repaired motherboard back, I’ve used it to set up a second system and have commenced a regimen of system-to-system dynamic backup (with around 6 terabytes of hard disk available), not really much more expensive than purchasing one of those relatively a “dumb” dedicated external storage devices.

Blimey, when I started at IBM way back in 1970, not even mainframes had anything like this much power, and even if they had existed they would have been unaffordable for an individual (millions of dollars)!

I chose to install Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) edition, and because I made sure that I got a new processor that incorporated with the requisite hardware virtualization  support -- see the Windows Virtual PC website. It explains that “Windows Virtual PC requires a CPU with the Intel® Virtualization Technology or AMD-V™ feature turned on.”

I’m able to load Windows XP Mode (which is available only with Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate).  Windows XP Mode is a licensed download for Windows XP Professional (with Service Pack 3) running under Windows 7 Virtual PC. Below we see the XP Mode window opened in the top center monitor, with the Lotus Notes 7.0.3 Client workspace opened inside it.

I do find that Windows XP Mode is quite seamlessly integrated with the Windows 7 host, I have found it to operate more closely like a stand-alone Windows XP machine than virtualised clients that I had  used previously, such as Lotus Notes Client running inside Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 or Sun VirtualBox.

On the top center monitor we see Windows XP Mode (which is a  license, included with both Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate versions, for Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3 running under  Windows 7 Virtual PC), and open inside it is the Lotus Notes 7.0.3 workspace.

Bottom left is the Domino 8.5.1 Administrator managed beta client,  with the Domino Server 8.5.1 (64-bit) console overlapping it in front.

Bottom center shows the workspace for the Lotus Notes Client 8.5.1 managed beta (with Windows Live Writer underlying it, Microsoft’s  excellent  Microsoft desktop productivity tool that I’m using to write this and all my other blog articles).

Bottom right is the Lotus Domino Designer 8.5.1 managed beta, which offers a major opportunity for designing and developing some amazing new Lotus Notes and Domino applications.

I really do need two more monitors, don’t I, so that I can run even more things at once!

Technorati Tags: Lotus Notes 8.5.1,Lotus Domino Server,Lotus Domino Designer 8.5.1,multiple Lotus Notes releases,Windows 7,Windows XP Mode