If you’ve fixed the security problem described in my last post, you might have noticed that the GMail Notifier no longer works. It seems Google have also seen this problem occur, and they’ve even made a patch for it. Here’s how to get it, and how to apply it. Happy patching!
At this year’s DefCon, a security problem inherent to the default settings in GMail was unveiled. The problem is that, by default, GMail does not use encrypted sessions.
This can be a problem if you use public computers, because the session key might be retrievable. With the session key in hand, access is apparently simple enough to gain.
Luckily, this is simply corrected. Here’s how:
Lotus Notes is very wary of its database files, also known as .NSF-files, becoming corrupted. So much so, in fact that IBM has created a whole class of files designed to recreate these files. This class of files is called .NTF files.
NSF is an abbreviation of Network Storage Facility, and each, or at any rate most, NSF file has a corresponding NTF, or template file. Simply put, when, oh let’s say your bookmarks.nsf file gets corrupted (as they seemingly invariably do), you simply rename it, restart Notes, and Bob’s your uncle; the problem is no more.
I have written about Lotus Notes before. I have written about solutions to problems, and to what I like and/or dislike about it.
My main problem with Lotus Notes is a combination of two; on the one side, it has major usability issues, though these are adressed, to some degree, in version 8. My main issue with Lotus Notes is still there: They’re trying to do too much. Here’s a short, and most likely incomplete, list of the features of Lotus Notes:
The problem of having it do all of these things is that it bloats the software. Version 6, when installed locally, used 50-60 MB of RAM when running. Version 8, when installed locally, uses in excess of 250 MB of RAM. Let that sink in for a moment. From version 7 to version 8, it seems nothing was removed in the way of functionality, but a lot of stuff was added.
Now, I might be strange, but I am not a big fan of stuffing too much functionality into a single, limited package. These days, it’s almost surprising that your average cellphone does not make coffee, or at least heat your food.
Me, I like purpose-built. I use a digital camera when I want to take photos, a GPS when I want to navigate, and by golly, I use an Mp3-player when I want to play music. It is that simple. This is a train of thought I am missing in many large software suites.
A user called in with an error message I see from time to time in Lotus Notes. The error message in question is the not very informative “Toolbar configuration not found”. Though not overly informative, this error message is simple enough to resolve.
This error message is sometimes, though not always, followed by a second one; “File Already Exists“.
Once this is done, Notes will create a new bookmarks.nsf file, and your problem is solved!
For one reason or another, I have a stated preference for using webmail over some sort of locally installed client. There are many reasons, but the main one is that I want to be able to read mail wherever, whenever.
Now, at work, this is not really an option. We do have webmail access, but it isn’t all that usable, the reason being that we are running Domino server, Lotus Notes, and Lotus Web Access. Now, I know that I have griped about Lotus Notes before, and I’ll still gladly gripe about the uselessness of the Web Access solution (especially as compared to Outlook Web Access). This is not a gripe.
A while back I asked one of our Domino Administrators to help me upgrade to version 8. For those of you who don’t know, up till then I was running version 6, which is an OK tool, but is found wanting (a whole crapload) when it comes to usability. Version 8 is still suffering from usability problems, a bit, but many of my main gripes are, if not fixed, at least less blatantly obvious, which is always nice.
A few things I’ve noticed:
There are still a few things I’d like to see rectified. For example, why is this the location of my folders:
Overall, I have to say, Lotus Notes 8 is the best version of Lotus Notes I’ve seen so far. They’ve come far since version 5, which is the first version I encountered, but they’ve still got a ways to go. Even so, it works, and it works better.
As previously noted, my email client at work is Lotus Notes. For some reason, the Data folder is installed to each users’ home share on the network, and that home share is synchronised to the local drive using Offline Folders. Now, I cannot get over how bad a solution this is, for a few reasons:
Now, running Notes 8, as I am, Notes take up roughly 250 MB RAM. Notes 8, compared to Notes 6, is much more RAM intensive, but makes up for it by working a lot better. Notes 6, when loaded from a network share, will take up about 280-300 MB RAM. When loaded from local drive, it takes up roughly 60 MB RAM.
In addition, running Notes from a network share is the cause of a multitude of problems, even when most things are working as they are supposed to. I’ve been running it locally for over a year, first Notes 6, and recently Notes 8, and I am never going back to running it from a network share.
A user came by me last week, complaining that his install was unstable. Once I’d installed it to his local drive, all of his stability problems were null and void. Fun stuff, I can tell you!
Note: Said user came by me today to tell me that this had actually cleared up all of the problems he’d been having. It is good to be right!
Many users of Lotus Notes, myself included, at times get the error message “An Error Occurred While Opening a Window“. To resolve this, all processes that belongs to Lotus Notes have to be terminated.
From IBM, there’s a file available called “Killnotes.exe”, which does just that. The file can be obtained from Lotus.com. Simply unzip and run the file, to terminate all the processes. You should then be able to start Notes without a hitch.
I’ve been using email since 1998, and from the get-go I’ve been using various webmail-clients, in addition to locally installed clients such as Outlook Express (urg), Outlook (Yum-yum), Lotus Notes (Oh-so-bloated) and Thunderbird (Weighed, measured and found wanting). My first email address was a hotmail one, and although that specific incarnation of my online presence no longer exists, I still have a hotmail address.
In addition to my hotmail adress, I’ve got five other main emails, three personal and two professional. All in all, this is a whopping total of five. Two of my four personal addresses are hosted by traditional mail and web hosts, and normally speaking they’d be accessed using a locally installed email client. Not so with me, mine are forwarded to my non-hotmail webmail provider, GMail.
Now, you can like or dislike GMail, it doesn’t change the fact that GMail has garnered a large following, and I for one love the archiving system they’ve got, as I do tend to need old emails from time to time, and at times need to label emails with more than one label.
I’ve spent two years abroad, one in the South England town of Poole, and one all over Israel. Both places, email was a great way of communicating with family and friends back home. However, not having my own computer in England, and not wanting to risk my personal communication being spread for the winds in Israel, webmail was the perfect solution, for a few simple reasons:
•If you’ve got ‘net, you’ve got mail
•Read and reply to email when and where you can and want
•Read old emails at need
Nowadays, getting an email address costs nothing, you get loads of space, and it doesn’t take a lot of time to set up or learn how to use. Simply put; if you know how to use the web, you already have the tools to acquire and start using your very own email adress.
Working in a Lotus Notes environment, I have seen quite a few of the issues concerned with Lotus Notes. Running Lotus Notes with the data-folder located on a network share, combined with sync of Offline folders has a nasty tendency of creating corrupt files.
A typical error is “File Already Exists”. Experience has pretty reliably show this to be a problem related to the bookmark.nsf-file.
The Solution
Lotus Notes has *.nsf files, database files, and *.ntf files, database template files. Knowing this, the solution to this problem is as follows:
Lotus Notes will then recreate the bookmarks.nsf file using bookmarks.ntf
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