And so it begins...

I'm sorry I disappeared for a bit, but after long struggles and lots of politics I've just kicked v8.0.1 out to the IT department at my company. Hopefully, if I've done my job, I've found all or most of the issues in advance and it will be smooth sailing from here. If all goes well I'll soon have it out to the whole company. Wish me luck! :)

Quickr... Tip #2 and #3 from The Notes Apprentice

Today's lessons from The Notes Apprentice will be centered around Quickr. We recently had a company tech fair where I demo'd Quickr and Notes 8.0.1 to our end users and IT. Both were very well received. I immediately had requests to create "Places" for some of the groups in IT to start playing. Thus my focus on Quickr lately. I promise to get back to my fun with the Notes 8.0.1 deployment on Monday though! But enough babble....

Tip #2 from The Notes Apprentice...
It's Quickr NOT QuickR. Now seriously, I'm not sure it matters but I was corrected so I feel the need to spread the word. It matters to someone so I decided they must have put some blood, sweat and tears (or at least some spare time) into making Quickr what it is today. Thus, it matters now to me since Quickr is a pretty cool tool. Your welcome!

Tip #3 from The Notes Apprentice...
Never add the Sametime Community Server info to Quickr unless you're sure that your Sametime server also has LDAP authentication turned on like the Quickr server (this was under the Other Options in Quickr v8.0). This is important, especially if it's right after the initial company training and you think "surely this won't effect anything and I can make the change without testing". Bad things happen... All of the sudden no one could log in to Quickr at all... including me! Luckily, I had a genuis from Workflow Studios there wrapping up his Quickr training who offered to help. He quickly started having me check various settings, patiently asking what I'd been doing before it happened. I knew I'd re-registered some places but he assured me that wouldn't cause any problems. It took at least 5 minutes of Jr. Admin panic before I remembered that I'd added that Sametime server info. However, it felt like an hour and it was very hard to think while I mentally updated my resume at the same time! However, Lance (very nicely) taught me about the differences of authenticating between LDAP and the Domain Directory while I backed out the Sametime server info, restarted http and magically everything worked again. So feel free to learn from my mistake... Your welcome!

To blog or not to blog...

Since I'm relatively new to the whole blogging world I ran into something new in the last few weeks that I didn't know how to respond to when it comes to my blog. When something so profound happens to you does it mean you automatically run to blog about it?? ...the answer is no. However, now that time has passed I feel the need to use(abuse?) my blog to tell the world about a wonderful human being. My dad :) He's one of those people that you just love to be around and always has great words of wisdom. The cool thing is he would wait to be asked his advice though when I'd run to him with problems, which is rare! Best friend doesn't begin to cover how I think about him. I can remember camping out for Star Wars premieres or special trips just the two of us to Vegas just for the Star Trek Experience. I remember him supporting me when I left for Basic Training and being just as excited at that graduation as he was when I graduated from college. Lately he's been sick with Leukemia and Lymphoma and not able to get up, so I took some time from work and I tortured him with a Battlestar Galactica 3 season marathon while he got better. Then something happened that will forever change me. On April 9th, his body just couldn't fight any longer and I lost him. He was only 57 and I miss him daily with an ache that feels horrible and feels like it will never end. I wish all of you could have known him. His inner geek would have made everyone smile! Which leads me to the blog. I finally decided that maybe that's what blogging is in a way. A chance for everyone to collaborate about Lotus and our lives and share things that others might not know. I wish I could have had my dad forever but in the end I guess the lifetime of great memories will get me through anything. Without a doubt, he knew I loved him and I knew he loved me. So for this weeks lesson from the apprentice... hug your parents, your spouse, your kids, your dog... whoever in your life means something to you and keep making great memories.

I may be a little behind the times, but Quickr is cool

The nature of my job is that I had planned to come in and continue working on my Notes 8.0.1 deployment today, but I immediately see a Change Request from a group building a SharePoint site. I knew Quickr could handle all their needs and I had 50 licenses. My Sr. Admin has been testing it with another group within IT and this was our first opportunity to go live outside of IT. So I quickly created a place and started competing with the SharePoint developer. He's weeks ahead of me but I'm trying to match every functionality. Which lead me to SNAPPS. Very cool stuff and I've learned more about Quickr in the last 4 hours then I ever imagined. Not only is it VERY easy to grasp, I think the end user is going to be very happy. Thanks SNAPPS :)

I never imagined when I stumbled into Rob at Lotusphere that it would lead to so much information that would help me in my job later. I'm glad I paid attention!!! And more importantly that I remembered it all the next day!

My little work buddy Hal :)

I had a user call today with a particularly easy issue. So, while they were busy telling me every detail (even though I already knew what to do, I know it's impolite to interrupt!), I was taking pictures of my little buddy Hal. He watches over my left shoulder every day while I work. Hope you enjoy my Lotusphere swag pic as much as I did. Especially since it distracted me from having to listen to the user!

By the way.... I helped reset her internet password just fine if anyone was worried about the end user. Nah, didn't think so :)

Ah, the joys of being a junior admin...

Notes 8 hell! Ok, not really. I'm trying to develop our plan for rolling out version 8 to the company and at times I think I've taken on a little too much being the n00bie. However, I persevere and pretend to know what I'm doing which is sometimes half the battle! I've installed Domino 8 on my test server and have only struggled a little trying to figure out the cross certification. Now I'm loading the 8.0.1 client on my VM and will begin testing our apps to see how well an upgrade will work with everything. If all goes well I should have my initial test group upgraded soon. Wish me luck! Ok, this has become a long winded explanation of why I disappeared. However, I promise that daily I think about this thing or that to blog :) Afterwards I'll sit down and log this apprentices issues with the upgrade. Wish me luck!

Cloud 9

Wow, I never thought I'd be so excited by such a small statement! Yancy just said 4 little words that have possibly made my week.... "Welcome to the Planet!" Thanks Yancy! Hopefully I prove worthy :)

You always remember your first...

How cool, my very first time building a Domino server from scratch!! Ok, maybe only cool to me, but I hear you always remember your first....

A funny sidenote, my Sr. Admin made sure to remind me in intial setup of the server to move Outlook Express over to the "Entertainment" group on the taskbar. I know it's a small victory but one he clearly enjoys with every server build.

RSS Feeders

Ok, sorry for anyone that might have my blog in an RSS Feed. I was "developing in production" so to speak. I posted and then saw errors and alas forgot about RSS and had multiple posts with the same line. Can you ever forgive me?! I promise to be more careful in the future :)

Ahh Rules... Tip #1 from The Notes Apprentice

Ok, I know Mooney told me to kill my endusers and be done with it, and I'm starting to understand why! Today's lesson from the The Notes Apprentice... Lotus Notes Mail Rules.

Situation: User calls and is getting duplicate emails from "random" users. Luckily, I was one of the "random" users that she claimed was sending her two of everything so it made it easier to test.

Troubleshooting: Ok, so where to start... I had no idea for a good solid minute before my old help desk troubleshooting skills fired up! I remoted into her box to confirm the duplicate messages, yep two. I watched mail.box to see if two emails actually were coming through the router (pronounced 'rou-ter'), only the one message. I admit I spent hours trying to figure out what was causing the duplicate messages, but alas I gave up and called IBM Support. I felt a little better when everything she had me try was where I had already started.

Resolution: After a good 30 minute call with the ever helpful Lotus Support they suggested I look at the rules on the users mailfile. Sure enough they had a test rule to send a copy of full messages to inbox if "me" was in the sender field. Viola! Sure enough there is a "me" in my name and in the name of all the other "random" duplicates the user was getting. Sure, I felt a little dumb for not looking for the obvious, but that's why I'm here posting for you! Your Welcome :)

Admins vs Developers...

I read this on Jamie's blog the other day...

"Developers want: new processes, changes to existing processes, integration between systems, access to systems from any device anywhere, systems emailing/feeding/serving other organizations' systems. In short, they want ACTION.
Administrators want: no changes to business, no incidents or system events, and no-one talking about or remembering anything that happened that day. In short, they want NOTHING TO HAPPEN. If they could achieve this by unplugging the servers without anyone noticing, they would."

I would just like to say as an Admin... Is that so wrong?!? I am some what teasing but it truly is a great day in my world when there are no changes and everything runs smoothly all day. I can handle the users, I just need to figure out how to get the developer or desktop support to stop making changes and life would be smooth! Just kidding D!!

Addicted to Blogging Already?!? But I didn't inhale!

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Updates....

Ok, I've added a little Flickr slideshow. No, the pictures aren't ones I took but I was too busy wandering around getting the lay of the land at Lotusphere to actually take pictures. Enjoy everyone elses work though!

Lotusphere 2008

Ok, so this is a little late, but I wanted to offer up the n00b perspective of Lotusphere. Wow! Filing in to the OGS (Opening General Session for those that didn't know) was reminescent of being a freshman at my first High School pep rally. There was excitement and cheering and sheer joy that I had made it to this point in my life. Then Bob Costas walked out and I had the same sinking feeling as that High School pep rally when at the height of my excitement I found out we had the worst football team in the district. Oh well, it was still my first OGS at my first Lotusphere and no one can take that away. Not even Bob Costas!

On to the rest of Lotusphere, sessions sped by in a whirl of trying to figure out how things applied to my job back home and realizing the true task I've taken on with becoming a Notes Admin.

The true highlight of the experience, Jellyrolls! Sure there was mass amounts of alcohol consumed but I met a great group of people that truly made me feel welcome. For that, Lotusphere ranks up there as one of the most exciting things I've done in my life. Thanks everyone!!

Hello World!

Ok, it took me awhile but I finally got a blog up and running. We'll see what new tweaks I can do to make it a little nicer next.