TexasSwede – Page 35 – Notes/Domino, Computers, Programming, Technology, Photography, Cooking and more

Memorial Day

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Karl-Henry Martinsson Posted in Old Blog Post Leave a comment

Today the United States is celebrating Memorial Day, a day when the fallen soldiers are remembered/honored. In November, Veterans Day is celebrated, honoring all men and women who served in the US military.

I am originally from Sweden, a neutral country who have not been in a formal war since 1809. Despite this, Swedish soldiers have fought and died in several wars since then, though. In 1940, many Swedes volunteered to help Finland in the Winter War against the invading Soviet Union.
In the early 1960’s, Sweden sent ground troops as well as jet fighters to Congo during the Katanga crisis.

Sweden has also lost troops in Afghanistan, where about 500 Swedish soldiers currently are part of ISAF. Five Swedish soldiers and one dual-citizen Swedish-Norwegian who was serving with the Norwegian forces have been killed this far. They are pictured below.

So my Memorial Day is not just to honor the men and women of the United States armed forces who died over the years, but all soldiers who served their countries to the best of their ability and paid the ultimate price.

In my close family, I have my uncle Karl-Heinz, whom I am named after. He served in the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) during WWII, first as a glider pilot, later in an anti-aircraft artillery unit.

Unteroffizier (NCO) Karl-Heinz Groeling
1919-1945

Note: I wrote this entry over the weekend, but due to the BleedYellow blogs having technical issues, I was not able to post it until this morning.

Icon Collection for Notes Applications

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Karl-Henry Martinsson Posted in Old Blog Post Leave a comment

As of Notes 8.5.2 the Notes client now support prettyapplication icons, using thePNGformat. A handful of icons have been released on OpenNTF.org by Mary Beth Raven, but I have been looking for more.

I found a nice set of icons yesterday, and I thought they might look good as application icons.Imailed the page owner where I found them to find out moreThe icons were purchased from IconExperience, a full set of the X-Collection (XP look) is $289 and the V-Collection (Vista/Windows 7 look) is $379.I consider that a very good price.

In the mean time,I decided to just try some of the iconson a couple of my existing databases. I think it really makes a huge difference. See below for a sample.I believe I am covered under Fair Use when publishing this screenshot since this only are 8 of the 2,400 icons in the collection.

I think the important thing is to getthe look ofthe icons consistent, not mix different looks. I happen to know that The Lotusphere Widow plan to design some icons in the near future,that will match the icons posted on OpenNTF.So keep your eyes open…

To clarify, the upper row in each sectionare the applications, and the row below are the templates.

In previous versions of Domino Designer I used a solid red background colorbehind the icons to indicate templates, that would be a nice enhancement in un upcoming version of Domino designer, to have the chicklets in a different color for templates.

Product Review: Gillette Thermal Face Scrub

Posted on May 21, 2011 by Karl-Henry Martinsson Posted in Old Blog Post Leave a comment

This is a non-technology related post, but I wanted to share my experiences with this particular product.

I have always been shaving with a razor and gel, that is how my dad did it and I followed his lead. For the last 20 years, I have been using Gillette products. They simply worked the best for me. YMMV
As a true geek, I have always been using their latest model of razors, and I am currently using the Fusion Proglide Power. A couple of weeks ago, I had to buy new blades (they are getting pretty outrageously expensive, though!), and in the packet I got s small travel size sample of their Thermal Face Scrub.

I have always been very skeptical to that kind of products. Soap and water have worked for me the last 40 years”…” A year or two ago I got a face scrub to use once a twice per week, and even if I have to admit it felt nice, I dis not see a need to get another one when I ran out.
So I tried this sample from Gillette, and it was very interesting. I rinsed my face as usual, then applied a small amount of the product. The skin got nice and warm. I then rinsed it off, according to the instructions, applied the shaving gel I use and shaved.

The result? Well, I almost hate it when the commercials or advertising is correct. But it was a noticeable difference. I shaved at 6.30am, and by 6pm, my face was still as smooth as in the morning.
I had used brand new blades, which might have made a slight difference, so I tested it a few days later by using brand new blades on one side of the face, and some well used (about 1 month) blades on the other side. The difference was hardly noticeable, with of course the side where I used the old blades felt slightly rougher. Still an improvement compared to not using the product.

I do not know if long-term use of this product will have any effect on the skin, but I usually don´t shave during the weekend, allowing the skin to rest. I really like the product and purchased a full size tube a few days later, saving the travel size one for travel.

Disclaimer: Sample received free, purchased full-size product.

CrashPlan online backup

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Karl-Henry Martinsson Posted in Old Blog Post, Software, Utilities Leave a comment

I have been thinking about using one of the many online/cloud services for backup. I have plenty of photos (200+ GB) and also other important documents I don’t want to lose. Today I have them mirrored on an external USB drive, but in case something happens to my place, like fire or burglary, that drive will most probably also be gone. So an online service would make sense.

There are a number of contenders out there. Carbonite and Mozy are perhaps the most high profile ones, because of their advertising. Mozy just switched from unlimited storage to plans where you pay more if you store more.

Carbonite still offers online storage for $59/year, but they don’t support backups of large files (4GB+), don’t include video files by default, and don’t support external drives. There are also bandwidth restrictions. Up to 35 GB you get full speed, then it drops to 512kbit/s up to 200 GB. After that the bandwidth is throttled down to 100 kbit/s. An online calculator showed that 250 GB would take me 83 days to upload.And I actually have closer to 400 GB that I want to backup. Both services also lack a Linux client, the clients are only available for Windows and MacOS.

However, I stumbled on a new service yesterday, called CrashPlan.Not only does it cost about the same as Carbonite, at $5/month or $49.99/year, they also claim not to have bandwidth restrictions (throttling). In addition they have clients for Linux and Solaris, as well as apps for Android and iOS.

But the really cool features are some that Carbonite and Mozy does not have, and that to me are very useful. You can backup not only to the online storage on the CrashPlan servers, but also to external USB drives, network drives or even a friend across town or in another country. You can create different backup sets, and have them being backed up to different places.

I installed the client at home, and created a few backup sets. My photos are backed up to my external 1.5 TB Seagate drive, as well as to the CrashPlan servers. My documents and images (like icons and graphics I use for my Notes/Domino applications) are backed up to the online storage only. My MP3 files are backed up only to the external drive.

I also plan to setup CrashPlan on my sister’s computer in Sweden and backup my photos there. The files are encrypted on the external drive and at the friend/family member, so they can not see the filenames or the content.

I think this combination of backups in multiple places is brilliant. I am currently using the 15 days free trial, but I intend to purchase theservice in the next day or two, if it lives up to the promises.

Update: CrashPlan is now $59.99/year or $5.99/month for the cheapest unlimited plan. Details here. Also, something both me and other noticed is that the upload does take time, about the same as Carbonite. So they have some kind of bandwidth limitation, but it seem to be constant, or possibly they just have so much traffic that their bandwidth is not enough.

Ubuntu 11.04 available for download

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Karl-Henry Martinsson Posted in Old Blog Post Leave a comment

As of today, the latest version of Ubuntu is available for download. If you alreadyhave Ubuntu runing, the update manager will give youthe option to upgrade your existing installation.
If you want to perform a clean install, simply download and burn the ISO file for Ubuntu 11.04 (with the code name Natty Narwhal) from www.ubuntu.com. As always, you can install the new operating system next to Windows, keeping your existing operating system working.

When I tried the update from within Ubuntu 10.10, I was told it would take about 7 hours for it to finish. To download the ISO will take about one hour on the same internet connection… This is of course unusual slow, and can most probably be contributed to everyone downloading the new version today.

One of the biggest changes in this release is the new desktop enviromnet called Unity, replacing the traditional Gnome shell. As soon as I have been playing around some more with it, I will report back on what I think about it. The main difference is that commonly used programs can be docked on the left side of the screen. It seems like Ubuntu users either love it or hate it…

Michael Brown blogged about how to install Lotus Notes in the (as yet) unsupported Ubuntu 11.04 this morning,so I will not repeat that here. Go read his instructions.

IBM Get Social Roadshow in Dallas

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Karl-Henry Martinsson Posted in Old Blog Post Leave a comment

Below is a summary of the event I attended yesterday. It will mainly be quotes from the different speakers.

Ed Brill, IBM (@edbrill)
People want to do business with people. They like to know something about the person they do business with. When I started my blog, I had to decide what my online presence should be. Am I Ed Brill the IBM executive? Or Ed Brill the father, traveler and photographer? The answer is all of them.
Historically, many companies (including IBM) had a policy that only the highest executive, or certain people, talked to customers. That policy, one face to the customer, does not work today, in the age of social business. Companies must decrease the distance between themselves and the customer.
It is important that you get a social media policy. When IBM developed one five years ago, we encouraged people to blog, be on social networks, etc. We said "do this" instead of "don’t do this".
According to the IBM CIO study, 95% of standout organisations will focus more on "getting closer to the customer" over the next five years, connecting people – customers, partners and employees – ast networks to drive innovation.
People don’t use the restaurant reviews in the Sunday newspaper anymore. Instead they use crowdsourcing. People go to Yelp and similar sites and read reviews by other people.
Who here in the audience would go to Best Buy and get a new big screen TV or a blue-ray player and trust the sales guy? How many of you would pull out your smartphone, go to Amazon.com and check the star rating and perhaps a couple of reviews right there in the store? (Most in the audience raised their hands at this point)

Marcia Conner, author and analyst (@marciamarcia)
96% of people under 30 are on a social network.
Companies with highly engaged employees have 26% higher revenue per employee.
9 in 10 adults trust recommendations from online friends and total strangers.
Many companies are afraid of social media and block it. People will work the way they need, using the tools they need, with our without you. They will figure out ways to get around limitations. They might just all use their smart phones and bypass any proxies/firewalls, and use the social tools they need.
What are the companies afraid of?
*"People will say the wrong things" – Help them say the right things. Have a social media policy. If someone says something wrong on the phone, you don’t take their phone away.
*"People will do other things" – And they will remain engaged. It is good to decompress, that actually makes them more productive. And giving them access to the tools makes it possible for them to get back faster to the task they are working on.
Link the network of networks together. Link what you know, who you know and who you are.
Give people permission, a path clear of obstacles, and they will participate.

Jon Raslawski, IBM
Retaining customers is linked to increased profitability.
2% increase in customer retention has the same effect as cutting costs by 10%. It is 5 times as expensive to get a new customer as retaining an existing one.
5% reduction in customer defection can increase profits by 25-125%.

Scott Souder, IBM (@sssouder)
Social business is engaged, transparent, nimble.
Embrace it or don’t embrace it, but social networking is here and will take place despite your firewalls.

Jason Dumont, IBM
"Email is where knowledge goes to die" – Luis Suarez
In the old days, some executives asked "why does everyone need their own phone? What’s the ROI on a voicemail system?".
Everyone want their 15 minutes of fame. Let people share their knowledge and expertise. And don’t let the knowledge walk out the door with the retiring employees. They are the experts, keep that knowledge even after they are gone.
Let people air the "dirty laundry", just do it internally, not externally.

Domino Designer for Eclipse

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Karl-Henry Martinsson Posted in Old Blog Post Leave a comment

For the last few weeks, I have been working full-time in Domino Designer 8.5.2, the version based on Eclipse. I had previusly just been playing around some, but as we are upgrading to the latest version of Notes and Domino at work, I am now able to use this version almost exclusively.I am currently still doing only Classic Notes development, as we still have some users on Notes 7.0.2. Also, from what I understand, the performance of Xpages in the client is not fully where one wouold expect it. So I am holding off on putting Xpages into production for a little bit longer.
So what is my impression of Domino Designer for Eclipsethis far?Both good and bad, but the good is far outweighing the bad.Let’s look at a fewkey points.

Performance
I went from a3 year old Core2 Duo @2.0 GHz and 1 GB of RAM running Windows XP to a Core2 Duo @3.06 GHz and 8 MB of RAMrunning Windows 7 (64-bit). Performance is obviously better, partially due to more memory and partially from the new computer being a clean install, but honestly it is not a huge difference.

Stability

I recently switched from 7.0.2 to 7.0.3 on my old system. I am not sure if it was because of that,because the computer needed to be rebuilt (I saw a lot of other issues) or because of the code I wrote,butDesigner kept crashing fairly frequently. I still manage to crash Designer 8.5.2, but not as frequently (unless I do really weird things with lists).

Functionality

There are a few things I love about DDE, and a few things that really irritates me.Let’s start with the negative ones.
You have to double click on design element groups in order to see themin the right pane. For example, if you want to see all agents, in earlier versions of Designer you simply clicked on "Agents" and they were displayed in the right pane. In DDE you have to double click. Very annoying, and slowing me down.

I love the working sets. Using them makes it much easier for me to organize ~~databases~~ applications I work on, for example for different departments. If you are not using this gem, take a look at it right away!

There are several other little gems, like the asterisk (star) in the tab when adesign element is dirty (has been modified) and need to besaved. I like the tabsin the bottom pane, with properties, events and problems. And one of the features i like the most is the real-time compilation and that errors are being displayed at once. I like the popup help in the Lotusscript editor when I hover over a function, but I am not happy with how F1 works, it usually just opens a generic help page about the editor.

Also frequently the code completion tooltip is not showing up. I am not sure if this has to do with the fact that I (like probably most developers these days) use two monitors side-by-side.

Conclusion

Maureen and her team has done a good job, and I enjoy using DDE on a daily basis. Sure, some things are a bitcludgy, but I amd sure 8.5.3 andlater versions will fix most of that, as well as adding more functionality.

Import CSV from Excel into Notes documents

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Karl-Henry Martinsson Posted in Lotusscript, Old Blog Post, Programming 5 Comments

The other day there was a post on LinkedIn regarding importing Excel data into Notes documents.

Someone suggested to save into Access format, and then export from there intosome 1-2-3formatthat Notes can read.

I suggested to save the Excel spreadsheet as a CSV file, and then import it. So I decided to write a small generic importer.

I built a class called “csvFile”, which I put in a script library called “Class.ImportCSV”.

Below is the code for the actual import agent. It creates a new csvFile object, which load all the CSV data into an array in memory. Each array element is in turn a class, containing a list of entries. This is because you can not create arrays of arrays or lists, they have to be in another object/class.

If you know the row number and column label (the first row in the CSV file will be considered the column labels), you can address the value like this: csvfile.row(r).entry(“ColumnLabel”).

Option Public
Option Declare
Use "Class.ImportCSV"

Sub Initialize
  ' *** Import CSV file and create matching documents in Notes
  ' *** By Karl-Henry Martinsson, April 8, 2010
  Dim session As New NotesSession
  Dim db As NotesDatabase
  Dim doc As NotesDocument
  Dim csvfile As csvFile
  Dim rowcnt As Long
  Dim r As Long

  Set db = session.CurrentDatabase  
  Set csvfile = New csvFile("c:\Book1.csv")
  rowcnt = Ubound(csvfile.row) + 1
  ' *** Loop through the rows and create a new document for each
  For r = Lbound(csvfile.row) To Ubound(csvfile.row)
    If (r+1 Mod 10) = 0 Then    ' Update status bar every 10 documents
      Print "Importing " & r+1 & " of " & rowcnt
    End If
    Set doc = New NotesDocument(db)
    Call doc.ReplaceItemValue("Form", "MyFormName")
    ' *** Loop though entries for the row and populate corresponding fields in doc
    Forall e In csvfile.row(r).entry
      Call doc.ReplaceItemValue(Listtag(e), e)
    End Forall
    Call doc.Save(True,False)
  Next
End Sub

Here is the script library. Simply create a new script library, call it “Class.ImportCSV” and paste the code into it’s Declaration section:

' *** Created by Karl-Henry Martinsson on 2010-04-08
' *** Email: TexasSwede@gmail.com
' *** Blog: http://blog.texasswede.com
' *** ----------------------------------------------------------
' *** You are free to modify and edit this code, but please keep
' *** all comments intact, and publish any changes you make so
' *** the Lotus community can benefit. You are allowed to use
' *** this code in commercial/closed source products, but are 
' *** encouraged to share your modifications.
' *** Disclaimer: Use this code at your own risk. No warranties
' *** what so ever. Don't run code you don't know what it does.
' *** ----------------------------------------------------------

Class RowData
  Public entry List As String
End Class

Class csvFile
  Public row() As RowData         ' Storing the rows in the imported CSV file
  Public column List As String    ' List containing column labels
  Private fileno As Integer       ' File number

  Public Sub new(filename As String)
    Dim temprow As String
    Dim temparr As Variant
    Dim fixedarr() As String
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim flagQuoted As Integer

    fileno = Freefile            ' Return an unused file number
    Open filename For Input As fileno
    Redim row(0) As rowdata
    ' *** Get column header
    Do While Not Eof(fileno)
      ' *** Read row and split into cells.
      Line Input #fileno, temprow
      temparr = Split(temprow, ",")
      ' *** Commas within quoted values will cause the value
      ' *** to be split across array items, so we have to fix this.
      flagQuoted = False
      Redim fixedarr(0) As String    ' Size array to just one element, has to be done
      For i = Lbound(temparr) To Ubound(temparr)
        ' *** Check if value start with quote
        If Left$(temparr(i),1) = |"| Then  
          flagQuoted = True
        End If
        If flagQuoted = True Then
          If Left$(temparr(i),1) = |"| Then  
          ' *** For first item, just set array item to value, remove leading quote
            fixedarr(Ubound(fixedarr)) = Right$(temparr(i),Len(temparr(i))-1)
          Else
          ' *** Append value to previous array item with a comma to replace the lost one
            fixedarr(Ubound(fixedarr)) = fixedarr(Ubound(fixedarr)) & "," & temparr(i) 
          End If
          ' *** If it end with a quote, reset flag, rmove trailing quote and increase size of array
          If Right$(temparr(i),1) = |"| Then
            flagQuoted = False
            fixedarr(Ubound(fixedarr)) = Left$(fixedarr(Ubound(fixedarr)), Len(fixedarr(Ubound(fixedarr)))-1)
            Redim Preserve fixedarr(Ubound(fixedarr)+1) As String  
          End If
        Else
          ' *** Set array item to value and increase array size by one
          fixedarr(Ubound(fixedarr)) = temparr(i) 
          Redim Preserve fixedarr(Ubound(fixedarr)+1) As String  
        End If
      Next
      temparr = Fulltrim(fixedarr)    ' Remove empty items in array
      ' *** Check if this is the first row (index 0), i.e. the column header and no object exists  
      If Ubound(row) = 0 And (row(Ubound(row)) Is Nothing) Then
        ' *** Loop through temparr and build list from labels
        For i = Lbound(temparr) To Ubound(temparr)
          column(Cstr(i)) = temparr(i)
        Next
        ' *** Create an object so the code above will not be true again
        Set row(Ubound(row)) = New RowData
      Else
        ' *** Create new row data object, populate with data and increase size of row array
        Set row(Ubound(row)) = New RowData
        For i = Lbound(temparr) To Ubound(temparr)
          row(Ubound(row)).entry(column(Cstr(i))) = temparr(i)
        Next
        Redim Preserve row(Ubound(row)+1) As RowData
      End If
    Loop
    ' *** Remove the last row, as it is always empty
    Redim Preserve row(Ubound(row)-1) As RowData
  End Sub
End Class

Domino Designer Frustrations

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Karl-Henry Martinsson Posted in Old Blog Post Leave a comment

I have a database template (I am still on Notes 7.0.3, so I will keep using "database" for now), containing a number of forms, views, script libraries and agents. A whole lot of them, actually. Over the years I found out that occasionally I have to use the recompile all function to get changes in script libraries to be recognized.

This is the result:

Well, I open the forms (these are all forms) and save them again. No error/warning.
I make some small changes to the code. No error/warning.
I change the order the script libraries are loaded. No error/warning.
I open the script libraries, make a small change and save them again. No error/warning.

Finally I open the database using Domino Designer 8.5.2, perform yet another recompile all, and I now see five (5) warnings/errors at the bottom. I still am not able to locate the actual error, Domino Designer 8.5.2 is not giving me enough to work on.

So either I am very stupid, or there is something buggy with the recompile all function in Domino Designer… Anyone can shed any light on what might be going on? I am sure it is related to the script libraries, some of them contain references to other script libraries in turn.

Coolest Calculator Ever – and now you can have it!

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Karl-Henry Martinsson Posted in Old Blog Post Leave a comment

I have been using HP calculators since the mid-70’s, when my cousin (who worked for Hewlett-Packard in Sweden) brought an HP-21 to us. When I was in 8th grade and we finally were allowed to use calculators during math class, I purchased the HP-15C, a programmable scientific calculator. In 1987, when I was in high school, the HP-28C was released, and I got it as soon as it came out. The next year I upgraded to the improved HP-28S (32kB instead of 2kB and a 1 MHz processor instead of 640 kHz). Both were clamshell designs. I also got a HP 82240B infrared printer, which used thermal paper.

In April 1990 I was getting the HP-48SX as soon as it came out. I could use the same infrared printer I already had, and I also got an expansion memory card (128 kB, I believe). I used this calculator for many years, and still have it, even if it is not working fully, due to a faulty on/off switch (which seems to be a known issue on these old units). My next project will be to open my calculator and fix this problem…

The HP-48SX had a serial port, built-in Kermit file transfer and infrared communications. There was a large set of programs and utilities available on several bulletin board systems (BBS) and later on the Internet. Most notable were Joe Horn’s Goodies disks. Many programs can be found at hpcalc.org.

Back in the late 1990’s I found some emulators that let me run a HP-48 on my Windows computer. It required a ROM image from the original calculator, which I of course still had. Then in 2000, HP released the ROM images for free downloads. Very cool!

The emulators have evolved, and now everyone can get a HP48SX, or it’s successors 48G and 48GX, on their desktop. It is actually very simple. You just need three small downloads to do this:

* The free Emu48 emulator by Christoph Gie?link

* AHP-48SX ROM image

* A photo realistic skin, for example this one by Arno Kuhl or the one to the right by Growik

Simply unpack the Emu48 installer and run it. Put the ROM image in the Emu48 directory and use the convert.exe program to convert the ROM image. Then copy the files for the skin into the same directory. Launch the program, and you have a really cool calculator. Everything works, including programming! More skins, as well as other programs, can be found at hpcalc.org.

HP calculators, with the exception of the business models (designated by a B in the model name) use Reverse Polish Notation (RPN). It is a faster and better way to calculate, especially more complex computations, but can be confusing to non-engineers/technical users. I highly recommend to learn this, though.

So go get this calculator for your computer and start playing!