Which Notes database properties replicate?

Denny Russell  November 21 2008 08:04:20 AM

Ever wonder which properties in your Notes database will replicate?  I found this technote from IBM's site and thought I'd pass it along.  I've highlighted the NO's in Red and the few that are issues in a darker red for easy visibility.

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Feed Me! A guide to RSS Feeds

Denny Russell  November 20 2008 08:30:00 AM

No, Not food (but I certainly won't pass up a good meal), I'm talking about information feeds (RSS).  This was an article I posted in an internal Sherpa Discussion database in my never ending mission to make people more efficient in their daily tasks.  I recently referenced it again and thought it might be a useful document that some others may want to pass along to their end-users as well.  Feel free to comment and add anything else you may find useful to be added here as well.

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If you currently do not subscribe to RSS Feeds, then you are wasting time.  Every good site has a feed and this should be the way you are searching for news and product related stories.  

So what is an RSS Feed?
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts.

So what the heck does that mean?
It means it's a way for you to save time.   In this day and age of technology, there is no reason to open a bunch of website and scroll through the news.  Read it all in one place and scan the topics and previews for your news and info.


These are just some of the many feeds I can easily check in a matter of seconds...


So how do I get this really cool thing your telling me about?

It's a very simple process.  First, you need to find a Reader that you like.  There are many to choose from (even the Lotus Notes 8 clients have them built in) but here are a few that I use:

1. NewsGator

2. Bloglines

3. Google

Go to one of these sites (by clicking the link above) and sign up for an account.

Next you have to find the RSS feeds on the website you frequent and add them to your reader.

Go to the sites that you frequently read and find the icon.  

 

You may also see links like this (these are from my blog)...



By clicking on the Reader you use, you will be taken to the website of your reader and the feed will be added in.  The other option is to copy the URL and paste it into your feed reader.


Now you have tons of up-to-date articles coming to you in one place that you can check just as easily as your email. Read what you want, skip the rest. Now imagine how much time you will save on a daily basis from not having to surf around.

Most readers will also allow you to enter Keywords that you want to monitor any feeds that are publishing items pertaining to those keywords.  So you don't have to know every site you want to read.




Sherpa Feeds....
Sherpa Software Lotus Notes Blog
http://feeds.feedburner.com/SherpaSoftwareDominoBlog

Sherpa Software Microsoft Exchange Blog
http://feeds.feedburner.com/SherpaSoftwareExchangeBlog

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Screen Capturing software for your Blackberry

Denny Russell  November 20 2008 06:31:07 AM

In my quest to find a software for capturing images on my Blackberry, I crossed paths with Chris Toohey's presentation on his new BES Push Utility (which I plan to test out and write a review of.)  After chatting a bit, he directed me to www.bbgeeks.com for a cool utility he used for his demo, BBScreenStream (which I also plan to test and write a review of.)

After signing up for their RSS feed, I found Capture It.  A screen capture tool from the guys at the Techmogul.  I sent myself a link to it for the OTA install and it was up and running in a matter of minutes.  It's now a choice in the menu and if I want a screen grab of something, I simply click the menu key and choose 'Capture It'.  It saves the image to the first available memory and from there I can do anything I wanted.  One thing you will find is it vibrates the phone during capture.  Not sure why but it does.  My guess is to let you know its doing something.

I don't have much that I typically need to capture but it's nice to have a utility to do so if needed.  My only drawback so far is I can't capture a menu, just the background screen.

A while back, I blogged about having the new 4.5 OS on my Blackberry Curve so I decided to take a screen shot of what my email looks like now.  Much better than before.



Stay tuned for my write-ups on some other cool Blackberry utilities.

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Another reason to like 8.5 - New Discussion Database Template

Denny Russell  November 19 2008 02:26:18 PM

As I continue to test out Domino 8.5, I started looking at some of the default features of 8.5.  We use a lot of Discussion databases at Sherpa.  So here is what a current discussion database looks like on our Domino 8.0.2 Server.  Honestly, not real exciting. It's functional and if you really need it, it's there.



Now here is the same data in a database that is using the out of the box Domino Discussion from a Domino 8.5 server.



Nice work.  Little things like this are what are showing the power of Domino and all the thing it can do.

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Lotusphere Sessions and my Goal for next year

Denny Russell  November 19 2008 07:38:38 AM

There's been quite a bit of talk lately about Lotusphere 2009 and the upcoming sessions.  Some are happy, some are sad (me being one of the sad ones).  I'll be quite honest, I wasn't sure if my session would be accepted and it was sort of a last minute decision to submit one.  Last year was my first time at Lotusphere (yeah, I know, surprising) but I really only spent a day there mostly at the booth, our party and making some rounds to meet up with a few people.  At a recent meeting, I suggested submitting a topic and so I did so in a very short time.

Ed Brill posted this morning about the sessions and well, now I realize, just how great your sessions have to be to get accepted.  For the attendees, I'm not sure how you pick and choose.  So many great looking sessions, not sure how you find the time to fit them all in.  Congrats to all those whose were accepted, it should be a great week for everyone.

After all looking through all of these, my goal for the coming year is simple.  Be amongst these presenters for Lotusphere 2010.  I've still got some Birds of a Feathers sessions that I may be involved in for Electronic Data Discovery and Email Archiving so for those attending, get out there and vote.

With the recent snow here in Pittsburgh, I'm already thinking of Sunny Florida.

• Comments [2]

e-Discovery: Who’s conducting your searches and WHY?

Denny Russell  November 18 2008 10:12:54 AM

I found this article from the guys over at Ferris Research and thought it was worth commenting on.

For many organizations, the main purpose of an email archiving solution is to centrally manage email records for e-discovery. Thus when you evaluate an email archiving solution it is very important to consider how searches take place.

It’s much better if searches can be performed by users--the human resources (HR) department, legal, or compliance officers--rather than email administrators, because:

• People who perform the email search have certain legal responsibilities. Depending on the nature of the investigation, they may be required to provide testimony in court or in a deposition, regarding the exact nature of the search they performed.
• Users who understand the purpose of searches and the context of the matter are better equipped to conduct searches.

Email administrators should maintain control over the email archiving solution. They can assist in preparation of the data and in the packaging of the search results, but they should not be involved in the actual search and the analysis of the search results.

Comment on the article here.

Some good information here so I started to ask around to our sales, support and product managers to get some feeling of if this is the case.  I was not surprised by what I heard back. As I'm supporting Mail Attender, the topic of electronic data discovery often comes up with the Administrators that I work with.  Typically, they are the ones being asked to find data so they ask me what they can do and the topic of Discovery Attender comes up.

From our very unscientific study, we concluded that in the Notes/Domino world, about 80% of the people who have looked at or use our Discovery software, are IT Administrators.  On the Microsoft Exchange side, it's closer to 50-60% that are IT Administrators, and the rest are HR/Legal.  Why the difference, I have no idea.

But one point that I thought was very valid, "Users who understand the purpose of searches and the context of the matter are better equipped to conduct searches."

This certainly isn't a knock on the IT people I work with. It's more just the thought of they may look at this as additional work that needs to be completed and often times, in a very unreasonable amount of time.  Whereas, the HR/Legal people understand the value and what needs to be received and why.  They also know the consequences of not getting it done.

So I am curious, in your organizations, who is conducting the searches?  Is it HR/Legal aft IT has given them the data?? Or is it IT after HR/Legal has given them the search terms?

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Congrats to the guys at Technotics

Denny Russell  November 18 2008 08:34:33 AM

Just wanted to take a quick minute to say Congratulations to Andy and Rob over at Technotics on their 10 year anniversary.  I've had the pleasure to get to know and work with these guys over the last few years and the Lotus community is extremely lucky to have them.  Not only are the knowledgeable and everything that the Lotus Community needs, they are both good guys.  

It's been great and we at Sherpa look forward to many more years of working with both of you.  

• Comments [1]

Geocaching: Treasure Hunting for the techie

Denny Russell  November 18 2008 06:57:27 AM

A few weeks back we went Geocaching for a trip for my daughter's Brownie (Girl Scouts) troop.  I had only heard a little about this prior to the trip and it seemed interesting. The local township that I live in was putting on a class and it gave the girls a chance to earn a badge.  In a nutshell, it's treasure hunting.  Caches or treasures are hidden, logged on a website (www.geocaching.com) and then you use your GPS to locate and claim your prize.  You place something else back in the cache for the next person and you are on your way.

I knew my friend and neighbor was into this so I asked to get a better understanding and borrow his GPS.  When I first held it, I knew this was going to be one of the toys I'd just have to have.  Santa, if you are reading this, please check out Garmin's website as they make some very nice devices.  As an outdoorsman, I've always read about GPS devices but never really saw the usefulness until now.  I could plug in coordinates and these devices could get me within a few feet of where I was headed. What more could a gadget loving techie want?

As we talked about what could be done, he started to show me around the website and some of the places and things he had found.  One registered coin, has traveled well over 32,000 miles around the world.  All this could be tracked using Google Earth to see the destinations.

Armed with my borrowed GPS, we were ready to get to it.  After a brief intro and history of geocaching, they sent us on our way.  They broke us up into 2 groups and had a list of 10 items we were to find.  At the end, we even hid a cache and logged it for the other team to find.  When we finished the mornings events, we found this could be a pretty cool thing to enjoy as a family. My daughter and son both had a good time and as long as it's not too cold out, my wife also agreed that this would be a great family activity.

If you haven't done so, I encourage you to check out www.geocaching.com and see what you can find.  You might be surprised to find out how many are close to where you are located right now.

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Western PA Lotus User Group

Denny Russell  November 13 2008 10:45:59 AM

It's nice to see the interest in trying to get a Lotus User Group started in the Pittsburgh Area again.  I'm hoping it works out because it would be interesting to see the Lotus User base in Pittsburgh.

If you are interested, here the website.  There is also a LinkedIn group to join as well.

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Contest: Show us your "Sherpa" gear. Great Giveaways.

Denny Russell  November 10 2008 10:10:46 AM

Each year, we give out lots of free 'stuff' at the booths at all the shows we hit.  Heck, I've even been known to send out a hat or shirt or beanie on occasion.   I'm always curious what happens to it.  At Lotusphere, I pass numerous people wearing the Beanies and then I wonder, what happens next.  Do you wear it back to the office and show off?  Taunting your co-workers who weren't fortunate enough to attend?  Did you do your yard work in it?  What?  Something has to happen to it?  So what is it?  We want to know.

Don't be ashamed to show us.  We've had many styles of Beanies, different styles/colors of Ball Caps,  both black and white T-shirts as well as the 10th anniversary shirts from this year.  At the very beginning there were even the famous 'Sherpa Shorts'.  Yes boxers.  Needless to say, we don't work with that marketing company anymore.

We had so much fun looking at these pictures, we want more. So we decided to hit you, our customers, readers and others who have received Sherpa gear, for them. Beginning in November '08, Sherpa Software is going to run a monthly contest. The rules are simple - send us your best pictures wearing your Sherpa gear (no boxers, please!!!); we will post them. At the end of each month, Sherpa employees will vote for their favorite and the winner will receive a $100 gift card to Amazon.com. Since we are beginning this contest this late in '08, we are going to hold off on the grand prize until December '09. The grand prize winner, selected from the 14 monthly winners, will receive a $1000 Liberty Travel gift card, good for domestic and international travel.

To send us your photos, please click on the click at the top of the Sherpa blog site. You can read additional details here.

Remember, extra points for photos from exotic locations, kids, pets and anything else creative. So get your cameras rolling and let's see those pictures. If you need a beanie, please post a comment on this blog or send me an email to request one.

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