While cleaning up my mail file (hovering at 2 GB) I dropped my full text index on the server. I forgot to recreate it. When checking the log files I discovered one of Domino's magic numbers:

31.05.2005 12:17:40   Warning: Agent is performing full text operations on database 'test.nsf' which is not full text indexed.  This is extremely inefficient.
31.05.2005 12:17:40   Full Text message:  index of 42220 documents exceeds limit (5000), aborting: Maximum allowable documents exceeded for a temporary full text index
31.05.2005 12:18:25   AMgr: Error executing agent 'Move Document Around' in 'test.nsf': Maximum allowable documents exceeded for a temporary full text index

So you can't have more than 42220 documents if you want to full text search an database without a fulltext index. But who would want to do such a thing anyhow. Harddisk space is growing faster than CPU or transmission speed.

I'm converting a customer to Lotus Notes. When transfering the local Outlook data I hit the wall with one machine. It only would import data from an old PST file but not the main file.
Investigating a little bit I found out, that the old file once was the primary local store and had also a "Personal Folders" folder and structure.
Once this file was removed the nupgrade process would run nicely converting all the 1.5 GB into Lotus Notes. So lesson learned: make sure there is only one "Personal Folders". I wonder if it is the name or some internal id nupgrade is using. Another can of worm has been opened and I'm stuck there: I tried to create a new Outlook profile with Lotus Notes as provider. It recognizes the DLL (nwnsp32.dll) correctly but terminates with (funny) error messages: When I try to create a profile with Lotus Notes: "A service provider could not be loaded. Contact your administrator"; when I try to add Lotus Notes Mail as a service and click on properties: "The action could not be completed. The action could not be completed." (Yes twice!).
Googeling for the problem makes me shiver, since it seems one of the hard to track down multi vendor semi standard mapi issues.
Any takers?

I got a number of bounced email that were apparently send by a virus infected PC. Since the mail header reveals the IP (and ISP) where it came from, it's a matter of courtesy to forward the message to abuse@isp. Hurray, the ISP made VERY sure that they are not bothered by such messages!

Dear Stephan H. Wissel,

Emails sent directly to our mailbox are no longer attended to with
immediate effect.  Please use the online form at
http://www.singnet.com.sg/tou/misc/ia_incidentreport.asp to submit your
Internet Abuse Incident Report.

For more information on Internet Security, please visit our website at
http://www.singnet.com.sg/tou/security.asp

We wish you a pleasant day ahead!


Yours sincerely,

SingNet Internet Security Team
(this is a system automated reply)

SingNet Homepage - http://www.singnet.com.sg
Internet Security - http://www.singnet.com.sg/tou/security.asp

I checked the online form.To make it more fun for users:
1) one incident per form
2) request to cut & past email headers & text

Speak after me: Customers need service!
 

Found the post Incompetence Considered Harmful on a weblog I recently added. It reminded me on one of my favourite quotes: "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance", which is commonly attributed to Derek Bok (a former Harvard president). The Blog mentioned a research paper and I had a look. The most stunning conclusion: if you are clueless you not even can appreciate a sound solution or distinguish cream from crap.
It seems to me, that's the reason why a lot of sales people companies don't like experts from the field of the products or services they offer, since they would know high quality. Of course unless they made quality (result quality, not process quality) their core value.

"It wasn't worth fighting for the inheritance, love was enough," she finally says, understanding what we were feeling. Yes, seeing the complete absence of any bitterness or rancor, I understand that love was enough.

Read the full story at " The Warrior of the Light"

Anthony and Ernest like to watch the Starwars cartoon series, so we thought treating them to Episode III. Being just 5 it would be a bit borderline. Their verdicts were clear: half way (the popcorn just ran out), when the dialogues were meaning.... (fill in your own blanks) unfolding Ernest stated: "I'm bored I want to go". Anthony fully agreed. Luckily Ida didn't care that much, so I could sit until the end.
Combat was great, special effects stunning, story plot so so and the dialogues --- well Padme was cute as ever.

My paper was well received and I had some good discussions with Asia's steel cookers. You can download the paper from the download section of UMsys Asia. I always thought that steel is a boring topic and technology isn't improving. Attending some of the sessions I learned, that the industry is actually progressing quite fast and that you can produce steel today with less energy, in higher quantities and with custom mechanical properties that were unknown 10 years ago. I was very pleased, to see a transition from a pure cost based view of production towards a value based approach. The steel companies also swiftly stepped in and used their products for disaster relief. The pictures show were light-years away from the tin huts we associate with steel based housing.
I spend the evening walking around one of the lakes next to the hotel (took me more than 1.5 hours) and was pleasantly surprised how buzzing the evenings were. The Hanoians use the coolness of the night to meet and enjoy the evening with friends at the lake shore. It almost felt like a holiday.

Yes.... My first million. Holding cold hard cash in my hands. Well it's rather warm and flappy and one million Vietnamese Dong (which is about 63 USD). At least now I know how it feels to be a millionaire . Since I arrived early the afternoon I had some time to kill. I strolled from the hotel towards the "Old Quarter" where you can find a lot of early 20th century buildings filled with buzzing Vietnamese life. Originally I intended to walk but then Lam (see picture) convinced me to be my driver. For about 1.5 hours he drove me through the city Vietnamese style: Traffic signs and lights are decoration or suggestions, not rules; when you see a lot of traffic coming your way, jank your horn and keep driving. Some of the motorcycle riders actually wear helmets -- the ones you know from the Rambo movies. I had a good time, visited the old prison and the Temple of Literature, which was founded in 1070 as an university. Since my driver took some back roads I had a glimpse into Vietnamese daily life. In a rather shadowy narrow run down road, what do I see in the basement of an old house: an internet cafe (my guess about 40 screens) packed with young people. Some stuff seems to be the same everywhere.

Off to Hanoi, Vietnam. I will speak on the annual conference of the South East Asia Iron and Steel Institute ( SEAISI). It's my first time to Vietnam and my first time to meet Asia's steel barons. I'm curious how selling care for environment, health, safety and quality will be received by this audience.
I'm doing that at the Asia CTO of UMsys, the Universal Management System (you'd guessed:) for environment, health, safety and quality.
More about UMsys and Vietnam soon.
Stay tuned  

I encountered a number of installations here where Domino is running on Solaris on SPARC I found at least one reference of Domino running on Solaris 10. However I didn't find information about running Domino on Solaris on x86 platforms. I'm particularity interested in the combination Solaris10/Domino 6.5.x. The official IBM site is a bit blur on that. Sun has these neat AMD based servers, so I wonder:
a) does it work?
b) how does it perform?
Anyone enlighten me?
stw

Update:
On IBM's official platform page for Domino Solaris 10 is not listed. Solaris 8/9 are listed without a platform mentioned. At least one engineer has confirmed, that Domino7 will be certified on Solaris 10/Sparc. Finally - well hidden in the release notes of Notes 5.0.11 there is the confirmation, that Domino6 will not run on Solaris/x86. They could state that on the platform page.

Update II (July 2005):
Christophe tried it and failed. However there is a new hope. Lxrun might make it possible or even more likely: since IBM renewed their contracts with Sun, a future release might have Solaris x86 on the roadmap.

Pointed conclusion in this month Fortune magazine:

"Christianity was born in the Middle East as a religion,
moved to Greece and became a philosophy,
journeyed to Rome and became a legal system,
spread through Europe as a culture
- and when it migrated to America, Christianity became big business."

Remember "In the Name of the Rose" where Franciscan monks struggled with the religious establishment of their time? They were told: "The question is not whether Jesus was poor, the question is: Should the Holy Mother Church be poor". Seems like history repeats itself.

Update:
The evangelical churches not only made it onto the Fortune website, they captured the Business Week headlines too, including a special mention of supersizing believe.

P.S:  If you are into acronyms you would not only like WWJD but also WWBD or JBB