An error was encountered while opening a window!

I've written previously about pathetically inane error messages that lurk in dark corners of otherwise good software, waiting to spring out at you when you least desire them.

Today's beauty is one that lives in the current latest release 7.0.2 of the IBM Lotus Notes client (imminently to be replaced by the brand new Notes 8 client based on the IBM Expeditor/Eclipse architecture).





This is all that you're told. No more, no less!

So, there was an error, was there? And one that was encountered while opening a window, was it? What a masterpiece of exposition! What design committee thought up that one?

If you get yourself into this predicament, you'll find that this artfully vague message will be regurgitated every time that you try to relaunch the Notes Client following the crashed session.

As it turns out, the solution is quite simple: open the Task Manager and cancel the ntaskldr.exe Notes task.

Would it not be easy to modify this error message to suggest such a remedy? No, no, of course not: let's leave it there to bamboozle even more users!

MESSAGE FOR ALL SOFTWARE DESIGNERS & DEVELOPERS:
Why not eliminate the stupidities in your old code, and not just plow ahead creating new code?

UPDATE:
There's more info about this situation in IBM support Technote 1224056 which states this "was addressed in Notes/Domino 6.5.6. It is reported as no longer occurring in the Notes/Domino 7 and 8 releases." ... I'm not too sure about that! Time will tell, eh?

Web 2.0 -- on a wing and a prayer!

"On a wing and a prayer" ...

• In poor condition, but just managing to get the job done. (from The Phrase Finder)
• In a desperate situation and you’re relying on hope to see you through. (from World Wide Words)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I've written a few posts about "Web 2.0" during the last year or two, and consider that I have a reasonable understanding of the concept -- even if I reckon, a little dismissively perhaps, that it's sort of like the notion "This is the place to be!" and will inevitably be replaced by some other faddish concept.

Another current favorite term is AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML): not an architecture or a product specification but an approach or very general methodology for designing and developing Web applications. Some of them, like Google Maps, really are very nice! But already there are dozens of incompatible developer toolkits (I've listed a small sampling of them at http://www.asiapac.com.au/Links/WebServices.htm and http://www.asiapac.com.au/Links/Design.htm#AJAX_Asynchronous_JavaScript_And_XML.

Then there's SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) not to forget Web Services, with an "acronym soup" of terms (such as SOAP, WSDL, UDDI, ...) -- indeed so many and varied are they that the pithy catch-all WS-* is generally used for convenience. Some people treat the terms SOA and Web Services synonymously, so there's a degree confusion or misinformation going the rounds. (They're not synonymous, but Web Services can form part of an SOA design.)

Like others, I'm getting annoyed by all this excessive hype about "Web 2.0" and I've already predicted its inevitable demise ... See Web 3.0 is Underway -- but "Web Pi" is unreachable ... I like the graphic so much that I'm repeating it here:

Click here to view the Wikipedia article about Pi

Apparently somebody else quite independently has come up with the same construct. See The we is evolving into web pi (though without having fleshed out the concept very far, only proffering "pi is good as u can C").

All that aside, it was two web interactions earlier today that irritated me top the point that I had to vent some steam in this blog.
To me, the most ridiculous thing about "Web 1.0" (not even Web 2.0) is that it's based on the fragile Web Browser as the delivery vehicle, rather than some sort of session-aware rich client.

And, as often happens, it was only a little thing that drove me over the edge today: I was carrying out two extremely simple browser-based transactions.

Firstly, while doing some Internet banking at the ANZ Bank website, I quite inadvertently pressed the Back button on the left side of my mouse (the result would have been the same if I had pressed the Back button near the top of the browser window). You already can't say what happened, can't you, because it has happened to you too? I got an error message saying, in effect, "You idiot, you are not allowed to use the browser Back button at this time. For your safety, you have been disconnected. Please log in again and restart your transaction. (By the way, did we tell you that you're a moron?"

How repugnant this is! How can they keep getting away with this when another Australian banking institution's site that I also use for Internet banking gracefully takes me back as page, as I expected. Is it not fair to expect that if one bank can do it properly, they all should? (By the way, apart from this fundamental design flaw I find the ANZ Bank's site quite nice to use.)

Secondly, a little later in the day, when three or four pages into filling out a multi-page questionnaire at the Australian government's Centrelink site, I inadvertently did the same thing again. Fancy me being so naive to expect the Back button to take me back one step here, either! The principle is the same, however in this case I was told:

Error 500: Unable to restore flow execution with key '_coed-2907-2533-8831-4187A77DB2BA_k0512D7BE-125B-2129-A2FA-5C769C52F9EB' -- permission denied.; nested exception is org.springframework.webflow.execution.repository.support.InvalidContinuationIdException: The continuation id '0512D7BE-125B-2129-A2FA-5C769C52F9EB' is invalid. Access to flow execution denied.

So until they sort out some simple architectural matters such as proper handling of the browser's Back button, why are they progressing at breakneck speed toward "Web 3.0" or whatever comes next at the bleeding edge of the hype cycle?

The whole issue of browsers (in all their flavors) versus "fat clients" or "thin clients" with their various advantages/disadvantages needs to be more fully worked on. And even if the industry moves toward SaaS (Software as a Service) with centralized Web processing via ultra-fast broadband, there's still no way that I would carry out certain types of activities on anything but a local Rich Client platform, with local control (of backup, security, performance, etc). Well, them's my preferences; I fully understand that yours might be different.

Calculating Documentation Cruft

There's a new (13 July 2007) article over at Dr. Dobb's Agile Modeling Newsletter portal, titled Calculating Documentation Cruft

Here "cruft" is designated as:

• C = The percentage of the document that is currently "correct".
• R = The chance that the document will be read by the intended audience.
• U = The percentage of the document that is actually understood by the intended audience
• F = The chance that the material contained in document will be followed.
• T = The chance that the document will be trusted.

Read the article to find out how the "cruftiness" of your documentation is calculated.

At the bottom of this newsletter there are also some very useful hot links to other agile documentation strategies and approaches, including the following one for general issues surrounding communication.

Serious, or Seriously Funny?

Last night I again watched two of Australia's best-known movie critics Margaret Pomeranz's and David Stratton's weekly show At The Movies on ABC TV, and they both admitted that it was well into the movie Lucky Miles before they realized that it was meant to be taken as a comedy, although a "bitter-sweet" one.

It was the same experience for me when I read Angsuman Chakraborty's June 2nd, 2006 posting: Top 10 Reasons Not To Use Coding Conventions / Standards

Is he serious, or is he doing it all with a tongue-in-cheek approach? Make up your own mind!

For example, what about this one:

5. Coding convention makes your code easier to understand. That makes your job less secure. Maintaining good coding standard means your code can be understood by anyone and your project easily outsourced to some lowly-paid Indian’s in Bangalore (the horror!).

Poor web page design of "My Vodafone" (Australia)

I tried to report this very bad page design about a year ago, and it was only today when I revisited Vodafone Australia's "My Vodafone" home page that I found it unchanged.

I'm not surprised, actually. This is just another case of some combination of poor web page design, woeful usability testing, weak project management, who knows what. Apparently it was done by an external web design firm. Vodafone shouldn't have paid for this. As one of the very early Vodafone Australia customers from around 1994 or so, I'm quite disappointed about it, really. (Those responsible for creating and releasing this weak page design should get a rap across the knuckles!

(Click to view a larger image)

When I first opened this page soon after "My Vodafone" was launched, I kept clicking on various parts of the central area of the page (in the image, surrounded by a thick black line), this to me seeming to be the natural thing to do for a page laid out like this. To my annoyance, this central part of the page was entirely "dead" (no active hyperlinks whatsoever), and despite my fault report still is a year or more later. The only live parts are restricted to the navigator column on the left.

This page would make an excellent discussion point (as a bad example) in Jakob Nielsen's book: Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed

China powers on!

I haven't been to China since my last business trip there for IBM in 1991, but still follow its progress with fascination. Shanghai's landscape has been vastly altered since then, and it seems that the same is now happening in Beijing due to preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games.

With regard to China's technological advancement, a couple of reports are worth reading:

• China’s 15 Year Science and Technology Plan - What Does It Mean To Spawn “Indigenous Innovation”? (by AeA - the American Electronics Association)
  
• The China market: Windows of opportunity (from INSEAD), with accompanying downloadable podcast and PDF report.

The Chinese and the Japanese have a markedly different approach to doing business. It's quite fascinating to compare the second report with another new one from INSEAD:

• Japanese business: Time to take the brake off? (with downloadable podcast)

Ecosystems -- for this and that

I just came across Eclipse Ecosystem (a blog by Donald Smith, Director of Ecosystem Development for the Eclipse Foundation).

This is a blog with a difference, as exemplified by the post: Measuring the Health of Ecosystems

It made me wonder what some other communities of interest would look like when put under a similar magnifying glass -- if you could do it.

• Lotus Notes/Domino Ecosystem?
• Linux Ecosystem?
• Microsoft .NET Ecosystem?
• IBM Mainframe Ecosystem?
• IBM System i Ecosystem?
• NetBeans Ecosystem?
• Firefox Ecosystem?
• Blogging Ecosystem?
• Skype Ecosystem?
• (and so on)

I wonder what they would look like. ... Is anyone out there in the blogosphere able and willing, or daring enough, to set up any other ecosystem blogs?

SDMS version 4.2 is now available

Click to view a larger image

SDMS version 4.2 is now available for download.

Get your copy from the download page here or here (go to the middle of the page for the download links and password).

Be sure to read the Help About and the Help Using documents before using the new features, which include:

• Readers field security to control who can read sets of documents (a user request).
  


• Sets of documents, once approved for publication, can be set to display within a given date range (which can be in the future).
  
  
• The refresh interval of the Breaking News view can be specified from 5 seconds to 2 hours (previously was fixed at 60 seconds).


• The header fields can be collapsed to free up screen "real estate" (a user request).
  

IBM Mainframe Strengths and Values - for Gaming?

There's a new IBM Redbook out that's worth a read by those (probably many) pf you not too familiar with the IBM mainframe world: IBM System z Strengths and Values

I've talked about mainframes before. See, for example, Mainframes - the "dinosaurs" are thriving. There are some good arguments for using mainframes to consolidate workloads, simplifying systems administration (including virtualization, which IBM mastered around three decades ago), and reduce overall power consumption.

For a few years now, IBM has been reinvigorating its mainframe program, starting with a Mainframe Charter in 2003.

This Redbook covers such aspects of IBM's System z mainframe range as:

• A business view
• System z architecture and HW platform
• System z software
• Security
• Resiliency
• System Management
• Consolidation
• Enterprise hub for SOA: integrating and extending assets
• Enterprise hub for data

All very fine, if not just a little conventional. ... But who would have predicted IBM's latest nimble move:

Cell Broadband Engine Project Aims to Supercharge IBM Mainframe for Virtual Worlds (Press Release)

IBM Collaboration With Brazilian Game Developer, Hoplon Infotainment, Looks to Hybrid Platform for Advanced 3D Simulations; Unique Mainframe Architecture Speeds Integration With Cell/B.E.

ARMONK, NY & FLORIANOPOLIS, BRAZIL - 26 Apr 2007: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today disclosed a cross-company project to integrate the Cell Broadband Engine™ (Cell/B.E.) with the IBM mainframe for the purpose of creating a hybrid that is blazingly fast and powerful, with security features designed to handle a new generation of "virtual world" applications, such as the 3D Internet.

The project capitalizes on the mainframe's ability to accelerate work via "specialty processors," as well as its unique networking architecture, which enables the kind of ultra-fast communication needed to create virtual worlds with large numbers of simultaneous users sharing a single environment.

Drawing on IBM's research, software and hardware expertise, the project is being undertaken in cooperation with with Hoplon Infotainment, a Brazilian online game company whose software is a key component of testing the capabilities of the new environment.

"As online environments increasingly incorporate aspects of virtual reality -- including 3D graphics and lifelike, real-time interaction among many simultaneous users -- companies of all types will need a computing platform that can handle a broad spectrum of demanding performance and security requirements," said Jim Stallings, general manager, IBM System z. "To serve this market, the Cell/B.E. processor is the perfect complement to the mainframe, the only server designed to handle millions of simultaneous users."

Web 3.0 is Underway -- but "Web Pi" is unreachable

Click here to view the Wikipedia article about Pi

I was quite chuffed to read over at Dr. Dobb's Portal that Web 2.0 Arrives to Find Web 3.0 Underway

How far will it all go? What will they claim next?

What nonsensical hype! Let me remind you here and now "Web 4.0" will never be achievable, according to my very own theory espoused last year in "Web 2.0" and "Web Pi" -- Reject Reality and Substitute Your Own!

Feel free to adopt the term "Web Pi" (a mere attribution is all that I ask).

Remember, you saw it here first! Transcendentally yours ...