Monthly Archives: February 2008

I am reading that Prince Harry of England was pulled out of Afghanistan, where he have been serving with his regiment since December, after an Australian newspaper and then The Drudge Report outed him. Major news organisations, like AP, CNN and many English newspapers, knew about it for months and even got exclusive information, interviews and photos with the understanding that they were not going to be published until after the story eventually leaked.

There is some discussion about if it is ethical for news organisations to censor information like this. As a techical writer, I have often been given information after agreeing to a non-disclosure agreement. So to me it is not a big deal.

As being in the military for 13 years, I understand that anyone that train hard and long want to be able to "test themselves" and do "the real thing", especially if your comrades are sent off to war. You are a unit, you train as a unit, and you fight as a unit. If I had been Prince Harry, I would been furious to have trained for years and then not been allowed to go.

I think the media instead should think about Harry. He did not ask to be born who he is. Sure, he get all kinds of perks, but he also have paparazzis and media around him whatever he does. Give the guy some freedom, let him have a life for a while. There is no need to knwo what he does every hour of the day, every day of the week. If he want to go party or pick up girls, let him do that. If he want to be a good soldier/officer and lead his men into battle, let him do that.

I respect Prince Harry much more than I respect someone like Britney Spears…

OK, I know it is Friday already, but here is my Show-n-Tell-Thursday entry…

Lists are a data type that I don’t think is used enough. Many Notes developers, even some that been programming in the environment for years, don’t use this very powerful feature. In previous years, Bill Buchan have been talking about lists in some of his Lotussphere sessions, and when asking how many in the audience that used lists, less than 10% raised their hands.

So what are lists? They are a data type, similar to an array, but instead of using a numeric index, it uses a string as index, or tag as it is called.

This makes it easy to address items in the list, check if they exists, etc.

Here is a simple example:

Dim age List as Integer

Dim name as String

age( "karl" ) = 38

age( "erik" ) = 7

name = InputBox$( "Enter name:" )

If IsElement(age(Lcase(name))) = True Then

MsgBox name & " is " & age(lcase(name)) & " years old."

Else

MsgBox name & " does not occur in the list."

End If

This code define a list of integers, containing the age of two people. When a name is entered in the input box, IsElement is used to check if an item with that name is found in the list. If it is, the age is displayed, if not another message is displayed, saying that the name was not found.

Note that the list tag (name in this case) is case sensitive! 

To loop through a list and display all the values, use ForAll. Here is an example where we loop thorugh all the entries and display their list tags as well as the values:

Dim age List As Integer
age( "Karl" ) = 38
age( "Erik" ) = 7
Forall a In age
Msgbox Listtag(a) & " is " & a & " years old."
End Forall

Some of the things I use lists for are web agents, where I parse the URL passed for parameters, and build a list of them. Then it is very easy to write code that check for parameters and get the value if they exist.

I wrote an article about lists for The View, published in November/December 2006. You can find more details and examples there.

Today’s Forum Friday posting is in response to this question about sending mail from a Lotusscript agent by H Falzone. 

He (she?) is having problems sending a mail to multiple users from an agent.

Here is the existing code:

Sub Initialize
Dim session As New Notessession
Dim db As Notesdatabase
Dim view As NotesView
Dim doc As NotesDocument
Dim maildoc As NotesDocument
Dim rtitem As NotesRichTextItem

Set db = session.CurrentDatabase
Set view = db.GetView( "TESTER" )

Set Col = session.CurrentDatabase.UnprocessedDocuments
For x = 1 To Col.count
Set doc = col.getnthdocument(x)

Set maildoc = New NotesDocument( db )
Set rtitem = New NotesRichTextItem( mailDoc, "Body" )
Call rtitem.AddNewLine( 2 )
Call rtitem.AppendText( "You are responsible for a lease that expires in 30 days. Please contact Legal Services ( Gidget DiRienz and Responsible Attorney ) to indicate your intentions regarding this lease." )
Call rtitem.AddNewLine( 2 )
Call rtitem.AppendText( "You will also need to update FMV for this property." )
Call rtitem.AddNewLine( 2 )
Call rtitem.AppendDocLink( doc, db.Title )

Dim recipients( 1 To 3 ) As String
recipients( 1 ) = doc.contactname(0)
recipients( 2 ) = doc.RespAttorney(0)
recipients( 3 ) = doc.NoticesSentTo(0)

maildoc.Form = "Memo"
maildoc.principal="MHP Legal Department"
maildoc.From = maildoc.Principal(0)'<—- !!
maildoc.ReplyTo = "Gidget DiRienz and Responsible Attorney"
maildoc.CopyTo = doc.EnteredBy
maildoc.Subject = "* * * LEASE UP FOR RENEWAL IN 30 DAYS * * * " + doc.ViewDisplay(0) +" – "+ doc.Status(0)
maildoc.~_ViewIcon = 94
Call maildoc.send (False,recipients)

Next
Exit Sub

End Sub 

maildoc.Send is called with the argument recipients, which is declared as an array. That should work, but I would use a zero based array, perhaps that is what’s wrong.

Run the code through the debugger and make sure there really are values for all the array elements, and see what the array looks like.

But why not simply drop that argument to .Send() and store the values in the field SendTo in the document?

Simply assign the array to the field like this: maildoc.SendTo = recipients

That is IMHO the best way to make sure you get everything right.

I also spot another big no-no… Using GetNthDocuments(). This is VERY slow as soon as you have more than just a few entries in the document collection. Use GetFirstDocument() and GetNextDocument() instead.

Here is my version of the same code. Not tested, but something to start with. My additions are in red.:

Sub Initialize
Dim session As New Notessession
Dim db As Notesdatabase
Dim view As NotesView
Dim doc As NotesDocument
Dim maildoc As NotesDocument
Dim rtitem As NotesRichTextItem
Dim recipients(2) As String

Set db = session.CurrentDatabase
Set view = db.GetView( "TESTER" )

Set Col = session.CurrentDatabase.UnprocessedDocuments

Set doc = col.GetFirstDocument()

Do while Not doc is Nothing

Set maildoc = New NotesDocument( db )
Set rtitem = New NotesRichTextItem( mailDoc, "Body" )
Call rtitem.AddNewLine( 2 )
Call rtitem.AppendText( "You are responsible for a lease that expires in 30 days. Please contact Legal Services ( Gidget DiRienz and Responsible Attorney ) to indicate your intentions regarding this lease." )
Call rtitem.AddNewLine( 2 )
Call rtitem.AppendText( "You will also need to update FMV for this property." )
Call rtitem.AddNewLine( 2 )
Call rtitem.AppendDocLink( doc, db.Title )

recipients(0) = doc.contactname(0)
recipients(1) = doc.RespAttorney(0)
recipients(2) = doc.NoticesSentTo(0)

maildoc.Form = "Memo"
maildoc.principal="MHP Legal Department"

maildoc.SendTo = FullTrim(recipients)
maildoc.ReplyTo = "Gidget DiRienz and Responsible Attorney"
maildoc.CopyTo = doc.EnteredBy
maildoc.Subject = "* * * LEASE UP FOR RENEWAL IN 30 DAYS * * * " + doc.ViewDisplay(0) + " – " + doc.Status(0)
maildoc.~_ViewIcon = 94
Call maildoc.send (False)
Set doc = col.GetNextDocument(doc)
Loop
End Sub 

I will assume that EnteredBy on the processed document is a multi value field, otherwise I would use doc.EnteredBy(0) instead.

If you want multiple addresses in the CopyTo field, just use the same technique as for the SendTo field.

Also, assigning maildoc.From a value will not work, the mail router will automatically put the name of the agent signer in there. Use the Principal field like you do, and sign the agent with a generic ID you create for mailings.

My seven year old son yesterday evening, after I changed into jeans and my BleedYellow t-shirt with claw marks:

"Nobody bleeds yellow"

I tried to explain it, but I am not sure if he understood… :-)

My son at my sister’s place in Sweden last Christmas Eve.

I just read a blog entry by Dave Hay called "Geek is Cool". He talk about how he now is proud to be a geek, after he realized he is one:

I realised that I am a geek, I’ve always been a geek and I may well be a geek forever.

I have been a geek since 7th grade, back in the early 1980’s. That’s when the computer club in my school started. I spent many hours, both during the breaks/recess and after school, in the computer room, learning to program and use the computers. My parents were not too happy… "You need to do your homework, so you get good grades and get a good job after you graduate." Little did they knew that what I learned on my own would be much more valuable than most of the other things I learned in school. :-)

Back then, geeks were not popular. All the girls were into the jocks and "normal" guys. Someone like me, member of the computer club and the role playing game club (yes, we even had that!) were considered very weird.

I graduated, started working, first at Microsoft and then (after my military service in the Swedish Airforce) at a company developing IVR applications. That company went bankrupt, and I got a job as a journalist at a computer publication. I was still the resident geek, all other writers had a journalistic background and learned about technology, while I was brought in as a technical person they could teach to write. I developed some internal systems while I was there, initially just to help myself in my daily work, but soon they were used by the whole staff.

I then met my wife-to-be (now ex-wife) online. This was in 1996, she did not even tell her dad until after we were married how we met. :-) That’s how many people looked at technology then. It is just a little over 10 years ago…

Today I meet girls who like geeks and even look to date geeks specifically. We are now more popular, and when most people have computers, I think they appreciate the geekyness more. So it has never been a better time to be a geek. :-) I am a geek, and I am proud of it!

Lately I been feeling more restless than usual. I work very close to the DFW airport, and every time I drive by and see the planes take off or come in for landing, I want to be on that plane. I went to Sweden both last summer (I also visisted my aunt and cousin in Germany) and for Christmas. Of course I went to Orlando for Lotusphere in January, and in the beginning of February I went on a 5 day cruise to Mexico. And I already want to go away again…

What’s your take on certifications?

It took me over 10 years before I took my first certifications (last year at Lotusphere, crammed in 3 tests between the sessions). I never believed in certifications, I can tell some horror stories about "certified" developers that could not code very good at all. All I say is "GetNthDocument"… 

At this years Lotusphere, I wanted to upgrade my Certified Application Developer to the Advanced level for 6.0/6.5, and also try to upgrade to Notes/Domino 7.0. The advanced upgrade (exam 273) was no problem, but I failed the 7 upgrade. Since I am still on R5 at work (some clients are on 7.0.2, but development has to be done for 5.0.12), I did not have that much experience of creating web services or using DB2 in Notes, which were what most of the test was about.

But what really made me wonder were all the questions about the new user interface. Is the biggest and most important thing for a developer to know that if you click "do not show this dialog again" when you get the prompt to close Designer, the prompt will also go away in the Notes client?

What about having a couple of questions about something that is really useful for a developer to know? Like how to work with lists, for example.

On the bus to the Lotusphere Wednesday party at Islands of Adventure, I was sitting next to Andr?uirard, and we talked about the tests. He said he did review the tests a while back, and they were thinking about revising them. But I did not get any word on what the current plan is.

…in a country far far away, there were a class of six graders. Their teacher was married to a theater actor, and the class set up a play pretty much every semester. One time the teacher came up with the idea of making movies instead. The class was divided into 6 groups of 4-5 students each. One of the children in the class had a father who was a documentary film maker/director, and he came in and explained a little bit about film making basics.

Most groups opted for the easy route, using one of the fairly new camcorders. This was back in 1982 or 83, so they were big and heavy, but the advantage was instant results. One group, however, were the overachivers. :-)
They decided to make an animated (stop motion) movie about toys coming alive at night. To do that, they used Super 8 cameras so they could take one picture, move the toys, take another picture, etc. The group (or at least the three core members) spent several days and a couple of weekends making the movie, which was later shown to the parents.

I was one of the members of this group, and I got a copy of the movie transferred to VCD a couple of years ago. A couple of weeks ago, I opened the movie into Sony Vegas, removed the old handprinted titles and replaced them with new computer generated titles, as well as adding a soundtrack and a sound effect. A couple of animated sequences were slowed down a little, and a couple of live-action sequences were speeded up slightly.

Here is the result.

Update: The titles are in Swedish, just like the original. I will create a version in English. You are not missing much, it is basically some thnaks to parents and teachers, and a list of who made the movie. The text in the end of the movie says: "Hmm, I thought I picked those up last night." (select hidden text to read).

Well, plenty of things going on since I got back from Lotusphere and not much time (or energy) for blogging….
Part of the office moved to a different location a few miles away, about 100 users were moved to Citrix and Notes 7.0.2 as a result of this, and several servers were upgraded to Domino 7.0.2.

I got an upper respiratory infection after Lotusphere, took me about 2 weeks to get well. Went on a cruise to Mexico the week before the move (was planned way before the dates of the move was set), so that added to the stress… Felt like I was deserting the rest of the team, even if I was not that involved in teh actual move as a developer. And finally I finished an article for The View.

Well, things are slowing down. Some personal issues still have to be solved, that will take some time. But now I should have time for some more blogging.

Back from Lotusphere with a bunch of new knowledge and new contacts. Back to the regular routine with development and support.

Well, not exactly. We ran into an interesting problem this week, affecting application performance.

We currently mostly run Notes 5.0.12 clients, but have a handful users that are on 7.0.2.

Our Domino servers run a couple of different versions. 5.0.8, 5.0.12, one 6.0 and (since a few weeks) one 7.0.2 server. The new 7.0.2 server is on a faster/newer box, so we can now run the full database, not a filtered replica.

So here is the layout:

* DomApp1 is running 5.0.12, having a full replica of the database.

* Dallas is running 7.0.2, having a filtered replica containing Dallas and Little Rock documents.

What we then found was that certain operations were much slower when performed by a Notes 7 client against the Notes 5 server DomApp1 than if a Notes 5.0.12 client is being used agianst the same server. If we use a 7.0.2 client or a 5.0.12 client against the 7.0.2 server, there is no problem.

I was running TeamStudio profiler, and the calls that took much longer were:

Call templatedoc.ComputeWithForm(False,True)
and

success = templatedoc.RenderToRTitem(rtitem)

What the code does is looping through a collection of documents, building a template document for each processed document and populating fields in it, then rendering it into a "container" document with just one rich text field. See http://www.flickr.com/photos/texasswede/2235410624/sizes/o/ for an example.

Anyone seen this behaviour before? Network compression is not turned on, as far as I know.

Of course, Lotus does not support Notes/Domino 5 anymore. Management at my current workplace does not believe in upgrading, for some reason…