Lord Lotus Blog

The Lost Seuss

Mike Sobczak — Mon, 5 May 2008 21:56:38 -0400

I haven't put a lot of humorous stuff on my blog lately. I was trying to force myself to post more "real" content. Well, I got something today that I couldn't resist posting. Click the following link and enjoy!

The Lost Seuss

Helps to read the doco sometimes

Mike Sobczak — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:08:51 -0400

I guess I'd forgotten to enable comments in my Blog Config. I got an e-mail from someone regarding my last post stating that when he tried to comment on my blog, he was being redirected to this website: http://german-58826326439.spampoison.com

I apologize for that. I could have sworn that I had comments enabled all this time. Ugh!

Vista issue: Excel application always opens minimized

Mike Sobczak — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:34:35 -0400

I've been researching a problem that appears to be related to Windows Vista, and am looking for help/guidance from any Notes <-> Office integration experts out there in Notes community.

When I run the following code within Windows XP, the Excel spreadsheet is opened and maximized on the user's desktop. However, when I run the same code on Windows Vista, the Excel spreadsheet is opened but minimized in the Task Bar.

Const FILEPATH = "c:\Temp\Issues.xls"

Dim o As Variant

Dim oWB As Variant

Set o = CreateObject("Excel.Application")

o.EnableEvents = False
o.DisplayAlerts = False

Set oWB = o.Workbooks.Open ( FILEPATH )

o.Visible = True

I know I can use ActivateApp to resolve this, but that would require updating a lot of existing code. Is there is a setting or a preference in Windows Vista that would restore the behavior users had with Windows XP and prior?

Run agent in the background - via LotusScript

Mike Sobczak — Wed, 9 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Notes 6 introduced the ability to run an agent in a background thread. You enable this behavior by checking the Run in background client thread property in the Agent Properties dialog box:

Since no good deed in Lotus Notes goes unpunished, Domino Designer displays the following message box every time you save the agent:

As a result, users can run this agent in a background thread if the agent the agent is executed from the Notes Actions menu:

or using the following formula code:

@Command ( [ToolsRunMacro]; "Run me in the background, baby!" )

What if you want to trigger the same agent via LotusScript? Unfortunately, LotusScript will not run an agent in the background, regardless of whether the above agent property is checked.

However, you can hack your way around this limitation by having your LotusScript code open a form in the Notes UI that executes the above @Command in the Postopen event. Provided that your LotusScript to opens and closes the NotesUIDocument immediately, users will never know what's happening.

All credit for this nifty trick goes to Chhanno L Verma, who answered his own question in the Notes/Domino 6 and 7 Forum.

Bledding yellow

Mike Sobczak — Fri, 4 Apr 2008 10:59:53 -0400

I've registered myself with the Bleeding Yellow site and am connected to the ST community. The people currently logged in is a virtual "who's who" in the Lotus Notes blogging community. I haven't chatted with anyone yet, but its nice to know that there is a site where I can easily reach someone if I need advice.

Thanks to all of those at Lotus911 for making this possible!

NOTE: After registering and looking around the Bleeding Yellow community, I didn't see any instructions for setting up my ST client. (I'm sure that in my excited state I missed that particular page.) Alan Lepofsky has blogged about how to set up your ST client to include the Bleed Yellow community.

Winter DominoFest 2008 Recap

Mike Sobczak — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 21:43:58 -0400

Well, another DominoFest has come and gone, and I thought today's meeting was one of our best! Well, aside from the DVD of the "Worst Practices" presentation skipping repeatedly. After all of the strong words from Brian O'Curran and Ed Brill directed towards Microsoft during the day, I guess my Windows Media Player decided to settle the score. From here on out, I'll only be using InterVideo WinDVD!

One thing I forgot to do before the DominoFest ended was to officially thank everyone who made this meeting possible. So, I'd like to thank:

Brian O'Curran, for bringing back his own particular brand of insanity to the DNP. On behalf of the DNP, we missed you, Brian! Don't ever leave us!
Margaret Callaghan, who volunteered to give a presentation after only being a member of the DNP council for a month (and did a great job, by the way!)
Ed Brill, who gave an impassioned and informed presentation after flying in from New York. Does he ever sleep?!?
Jim Kennedy, who manned the sign-in desk
Rob Wunderlich, for providing the coffee
Tod Nelson, Ken Rokicki, Rob and Jim for making the LotuSphere Presentation CDs (I still have some left by the way...)
NuTechs, Data Planners and EBiz for providing lunch for everyone
Jamie Colpean, for helping me get situated in the morning

And last but not least, I'd like to thank the 65+ people in attendance for making the DominoFest experience what it is. Without you folks, we literally would not exist.

Until next time!

Fear and Loathing with Lotus Notes

Mike Sobczak — Tue, 4 Mar 2008 23:05:13 -0400

This site has the perfect gift idea for that certain someone you work with who just bleed yellow and black like you do:

I hate Lotus Notes

They can wear it with pride while they giggle at all of the snarky comments on the Lotus Notes Sucks site. What a perfect combo!

Load testing a Lotus Notes application

Mike Sobczak — Fri, 8 Feb 2008 17:11:55 -0400

A friend of mine asked me if there are any products that can be used to load test a Lotus Notes application. This application is only accessed using a Notes client. She'd like to use something like HP LoadRunner or tools that load test web sites. Does anyone out there know of something besides the following products:

Teamstudio Profiler
BinaryTree's CMT Inspector
Technovations GroupSizr

Or, if you've used any of the above tools and found that they satisfied your load testing requirements, please let me know.

Hitler: Bloodthirsty Dictator, Die-hard Cowboys Fan

Mike Sobczak — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:50:39 -0400

click here

Is IBM Lotus asleep at the wheel? What is up with $ConflictAction???

Mike Sobczak — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:48:59 -0400

I can't believe that the Merge Conflicts form property (or $ConflictAction = "1") hasn't been working since 6.5.1:

SPR# AMON6DZJRW - Item merging not working correctly in all situations.

And if that doesn't give you the cold shivers, its still broken in 7.0.3 and 8.0:

'Merge Replication Conflicts' does not work as expected in Notes 7.0.3 or 8.0

I have to say I'm shocked that that a key part of the Notes replication engine, something that has worked for years, doesn't work anymore. But hey, at least I can look forward to Google Gadgets in 8.5...