We ran into this issue the past week and I wanted to share this.  We have a Sametime server that runs the 7.x code stream with the 7.x Sametime code on top.  It also has the Premier Audio Adapter for holding the audio bridge conference portion.  Well it suddenly stopped working and communicating with Premier to begin the bridge.  IBM seemed to be stumped and pushed us to Premier.  Premier says they don't totally "really" support it either since it was developed by IBM and handed to them.  So we get stuck in the middle.

Alas, never mind that portion we found the culprit of why it stopped working.  Premier updated their SSL certificate on October 4th of this year.  The local keyfile had the expired previous certificate.  So it just never connected.  No warning, no alert, no log.  No connection.

We could get no debug variables to place in for the adapter so after a clean install and replace some files I copy in below, all was well once again after a week of running in circles.  Good job to Chris O at my office for sticking this through and beating out of them that they changed their SSL after we told them that was an issue a ton of times before we got confirmation.

The AA install program installs a stkeys.jks file that I cant 'open' using Ikeyman, (haven't tried certsrv). So after a re-install i delete the stkeys.jks file that the audio adaptor creates, and then create a new one using Ikeyman. But the Equifax cert ( the SSL cert premiere uses )  isn't included by default so I had to download it and add it to the stkeys.jks.

Looking back to July of this year, Alan put the icon on his page showing the well known blue Sametime icon now all grown up and Web 2.0 - ified and morphed into the bland icons we see all over 8.  I say bland because they are all so similar in shape and color it is hard to tell them apart sometimes in your start or dektop menu.

Well it finally reared it's changing head in some recent code (I got permission to say so relax).  So when the recent stream got installed, it now becomes hard to find mixed in with the other Lotus icons.  See the image insert here.



So what do you think?  Will users miss the long time blue balloon or embrace the new icon?  I say it is a trademark of the product itself and should continue for some time to come.

You can grab it at http://www.blackberry.com/facebook.mobiledownload  by the way

You can read the article from yesterday right here, but the main quote:

Comcast officials say the Lotus Notes problems were caused by a software glitch, adding that the company does not block customers from using file-sharing applications. It does, however, manage its network so that a few subscribers using bandwidth-hogging programs don't slow everyone else's Web surfing.

This event was well run and on-time the entire day so far.  An interesting group after lunch that did on the spot comedy routines.  But as for content, it is what was expected.  Over 100 registered to attend, I would say around 80 arrived. Many were IBM employees however, here to learn more.  The sessions covered all the important parts of Lotus Connections, Notes and Domino 8, Quickr and Sametime.  A surprise session (since the agenda website always said TBD up to yesterday) was Antony providing a competitive landscape session.

Was there things missed?  In my opinion, a few here and there.  Not enough demos and too many slides for the technical session on Lotus Notes/Domino 8 deployment.  Otherwise, well balanced for 45 minute slots with two rooms running at once.

Since Lotusphere seems to be coming at light speed, (the Dolphin, Swan and Yacht are all sold out already),  Carl and I are planning on Lotusphere Live once again.  For those that don't know and are new readers, there was a persistent chat site where certain bloggers and IBM'ers got into the rooms and sent you live feeds, images and anything else about what was going on in the Opening and closing General Sessions.

We are also pondering adding something new to the mix, so give us your feedback!

I previously did posts and podcasts on this topic (I even took a humorous slant after upgrading countless servers).

• Listen to Episode 28 with Scott of Lotus that not only got downloaded an amazing number of times, but had tons of info.
• Listen to Episode 27 with Andy and Rob of Technotics as we talk all about DST impact

But I noticed one thing from listening to the callers this morning.  A lot of people have been doing upgrades, changes and deploying applications since the last DST time change.  Yet everyone has the same question.  What version has what fix and if I upgrade is it done?

So Lotus, we need a simple scenario listing in a whitepaper or technote that shows the outcome of where they are now and what steps are needed.  Such as:

•  you already patched for spring and have not changed the server code
• you patched for spring and have now upgraded to X.xx version
• you just installed version 7.0.2, is there any patches I need or is it included?
• you were in a version 6.5.x and patched in spring, we then upgraded to 6.5.6.  Do I have to repatch?
• Other countries are now going into time changes, so if I have international servers/users I now need to patch those? (like Australia and Brazil)

I saw the link pop in my newsreader and jumped over.  Humorously there is a lot reporting wrong in the article that interviews Michael Karasick, director Lotus Software Development for China Development Laboratory in Beijing, China.  Some of my favorite quotes:

IBM still believes that enterprise customers use e-mail as its main application for collaboration.

I am not quite sure about this

Push e-mail service will become available soon, the executive said.

Asked how it works, Karasick said IBM was working with partners but declined to give details. The new version also revives a web access client.

"We haven't quite figured out how to make Notes available on a mobile device. We have no timeline," he said, when asked to provide more details about the push mail feature in Lotus Notes.

"But we will support mobile devices natively and through collaboration with vendors," he said.

He apparently has not seen Traveler or the anticipated timeline.

One application called Lotus SameTime version 8 is also offered on the Mac, PC and Linux platforms.

I know for sure this one is not available yet.  He is a little ahead of the timeline here.

So while I wait on hold for it to begin, I will take a few guesses at questions that might get asked.  This session is being recorded by IBM

• Provisioning
• Performance
• Policies
• Stlinks
• Telephony integration
• Peer to peer audio and video

Ok, here we go...  Bill McAnn was the call moderator. hey took some questions from the forum first to prime the call

• Lock a client to connect to a specific Sametime server geographically? Yes, point to a home Sametime server.
• I have installed Sametime 7.5.1 client and did the Outlok disablement hook after following the workaround.  But when upgrading to FP1 it came back.  This will possibly be fixed in a later version, but not 7.5.1  Technote #1259391 addresses the issue

off to the live calls

• I know the voice and name of this caller!  But I wont call him out.  He wants to build a silent install package to dump out with SMS.  There is some issues with this.  There is a new client with the proper fixes, including CF1.  It comes with the installer and since it is a full client you have to open a PMR to get the updated installer package.
• Provisioning the preferences in the Sametime client. One is the site update.  One is the plug-in customization.ini, but that only gets read once.  Does the site update have to be a feature jar file?  The feature jar file approach is delivering a new or updated piece to the plugin_customization.ini filer.  This file is read each time the client is started.  The ini provides the default settings preferences.  End user overrides in the client preferences will still overtake what is set in the ini file.  You cannot swap it out at install time.  An update site must be a jar file
• Policies regarding chat recording, with the value set to save or not save.  If you uncheck this does it force down to users not saving chats.  Lotus says unchecking this does not set auto-save in the client.  Checking this forces the user to save chats.  There is actually two policies.  One allows them to save at all and the other allows auto-saving.
• When was the silent install that includes the msi, when was it released?  Sep 21st or so was the release date.  Also, they want to fill in the community name and pre-configure TLS?  Craig jumped in to say he belive it is possible now.
• They have multiple servers, a web portal with stlinks, web conference server and chat servers.  People get logged off when the move around servers, why?  Jennifer at Lotus says Portal was giving a new IP address coming in so it was being seen as another user.  She gave the example to ignore when you come in twice that goes in the config section.  The user must also be homed to a Sametime server or cluster.
• The CF1 version of 7.5.1 takes care of a lot of issues but one they had.  When you install and launch the client the Terminal Services application continues to run?  Harry, dev manager at IBM, asked to clarify operating system and client.  It was OSX 10.4.10 with Sametime 7.5.1 CF1.  When you launch the Sametime client it also launches Terminal Services.  They do not quit and continue to stay launched.  The client works fine, but you must manually quit the Terminal Services.  The Sametime 8.0 beta weas brought up to try it there.
• The next caller wishes to turn off the resert button in the client.  Craig said there is no policy or previous request to turn this feature off.  The caller saysd for compliance reasons they muyst lock the user from being able to change communities.  Craig says 7.5.1 said you can change the host without resetting the user, which could be an issue.  He referred to the policy to force the default community.  Unless you have multiple communities, then this policy would apply.  The caller has Facetime in the middle to capture for compliancy.  Lotus suggests hiding the Sametime MUX so no user can directly connect to it.
• The user policy, user preference, and then plugin_customization.ini is the order of load for the Sametime Connect client.
• I missed one call for a person coming in, sorry
• The next caller asked about the StReflector being set up.  If you are doing many audio or video chats then moving it to another box will assist in performance.  Voice chats work fine internally but not over VPN nor outside, including NAT.  The reflector will let each clients see the others IP address.  Point to point will always be first, then the reflector.  With exxternal users with symmetric NAT you put the reflector outside the organiuzation.  A normal or non-NAT firewall, the clients will still try to do point to point.  The reflector must be able to go through the firewall.
• Prudential wants to deploy a basic client and send out the features, yet they cant lock them down.  They want a list of what cnd cannot be locked down.  The only settings available for lockdown are those in the policies on the server
• Can you secure audio and video to a particular group?  Yes, use policies

I just got the recent DominoPower newsletter in my inbox.  The top article is why the author still recommends  Lotus Notes  over Exchange.  The ND8 Upgrade Seminar has an ad at the bottom that appeared on one of the pages even.  But this ad really caught my eye:

GSS Notes to Outlook migration
Global System Services announced its latest email migration tool, NSF2PST. The NSF2PST tool enables large-scale conversion of Lotus Notes email files ("NSF" files) to the popular Microsoft Outlook Personal Store ("PST") format. NSF2PST can be used for email migrations as well as for data recovery and computer forensics

The author of the article and the company pushing this migration tool away from Lotus Notes is exactly the same!!   In the same issue.  Maybe it is just me today..

Here is the link to the catalog I promised.  If you scroll down on the right to the 'Popular" section you will see the Lotus and Sametime plug-ins for Connections.  Have at it!  From there is you need help in adding the plug-in, you can find the online info center right here.

While we were here at the Notes and Domino 8 Upgrade Seminar, I needed a place to send the users to get as much information on deploying composite applications (aka shelf-apps, plugins, whatever) into the Notes 8 client.  Well low and behold a decent one existed..

Here is the page...

This web log is a joint effort by the key technical architects and user experience professionals to open a direct line of communication with developers about the capabilities of user facing composite applications.

I also had the link up on how to move a Sametime plug-in to Notes 8 client.  Here was that link.

While Andy blogs the pictures and what happens while he is not onstage presenting, we had a good conversation yesterday on message recall features in Domino 8 I wanted to recap from when I was presenting.  We learned some time ago that message recall would be on by default when you either install or upgrade the server to Domino 8.  Here came the comments.

The issue is that if you wish to have it on in the server configuration document, policies must then be used to turn it off.  Instead of enabling it further for certain users, which one would expect.  When I relayed info from the podcast that Susan and I did weeks ago about how the Domino 7 server will send the recall requests to the Internet by default and you can even recall mail sent in the past before the upgrade, eyes went wide.  The final straw was that no indication is left in the recipient mailfile that a message was even there.

This discussion and slide review covered about 30-40 minutes of the session itself.  Without giving away all the parts, just because it is a new feature doesn't mean it should be on was the general consensus.  Some said they would have it enabled after some time, but having it on when you install/upgrade was the wrong choice.

Rob, Andy and myself sit live together in Philadelphia as we prepare to kick off the Notes and Domino 8 Upgrade Seminar. Listen close for the 'fans' in the background.

Music today is again Beat Under Control from Stockholm, Sweden via Magnatune

This is something I did not know and never would have encountered due to the way I implement this solution at customer sites.  In the Gateway configuration you specify a local Sametime Community.  Which of course is where your users reside.  Well you only specify one server in this listing (or I should say one DNS name) for connectivity.  The Gateway then goes about it's business and starts serving presence awareness and chat services for the public providers.

Well unknown to me, if you do not run in a central clustered environment and have users spread across servers that may be geographical or just in the same place , but not clustered, the gateway needs and wants a port 1516 connection to each and every server, which it then holds in a local file.  This does not worry me as much as it appears some company security groups.

The Gateway is just what the name applies, a gateway.  Just how you deploy external SMTP servers and then only allow them in through the firewall, via trusted IP's usually, this acts the same.  So have no fear, the Gateway is doing it's job by not storing data and only offering a direct connection to the public providers and then 'proxying' the traffic to Sametime.  Your user directory is not affected as well as you can control which providers come into the Gateway and then how just the Gateway communicates to Sametime.

So do not freak out, it is all in how you present it to the team in most places.  Those that still don't get it, probably never will.

So it all started on Sunday when I went to the airport to head over to Finland via New York.  Of course I check my flight status, get last minute emails and other weird things people do to waste time on the Blackberry.  I land in New York and check the next flight as I walk across the terminal, looking with half an eye so I do not run into anyone.  Or anyone else checking their Blackberry or smartphone that happens to be walking towards me.  

We don't look anyone in the eye anymore, we stare at tiny few inch screens.  Or we walk with the Borg attachments in our ears in circles in the airline lounge talking to seemingly no one.  Quite loudly.  In circles.  Loudly.  Talking to no one.  We have cords strung from our ears to our waists and can type 40 words per minute without looking and with one hand.  We can re-book a flight while everyone else stands in line, but we can't remember how to communicate with people verbally.  Heck, half the people try to mimic smiley faces with gestures now just to act like they are sending chats

I shut down all electronic devices as required and prepare to get some rest on the flight.  Which does not go as planned, but not as bad as getting no sleep at all.  Once off the plane it is time to turn the Blackberry back on to check if the car service is there and if any other plans had changed.  All is well and on schedule.  I arrive at the customer site and get straight to work.  They don't have an extra network line ready for me in the conference room and I accept that I cannot get on the wireless.  No problem, the corporate housing awaits that evening (or 8am my normal home time)  So I would not have missed much of anything and I got email all day.  well the housing has one TV in a common area and one PC line in there also.  No lines in the rooms, no wireless.  I can live with that.  Until I discover that the PC line there only accesses their Intranet and you need a username and password for the proxy.  I send a quick email with the Blackberry to the team I worked with.  Some answers from their Nokia phones.  We can check tomorrow.  I say hey, I have email and a bunch of DVD's  haven't watched anyway!  Time to relax for a night.

The next day I load JiveTalk to consolidate all my IM services onto my Blackberry instead of individual clients.  More on that later.  I like it though.  I also have the office set me on tether modem on the Blackberry but overseas it gives me some weird error.  Maybe because you dial that weird #777, who knows.  I work on that later.  Word comes from the security team that they are very unfriendly and do not have or will issue a temporary proxy account so I can use the network there or at the housing.  So I am full fledged Blackberry and accept my fate.

• Lotus Notes email access - well duh, BES server
• Sametime - Yes, Sametime Mobile 8
• Chat - JiveTalk for AOL, Yahoo, ICQ, Google and MSN
• Google email - yes I have the downloaded Blackberry mail app from them
• Other emails already configured to go to the Blackberry device through BIS
• News and such - many choices.  Bloglines for Blackberry and Pocket Express
• Facebook - Blackberry access in browser at http://m.facebook.com
• Jaiku - Blackberry access via JaikuBerry
• Blackberry Messenger - for all the time chat to the wife on her 8830 and also friends with Blackberry that have connected
• Tethered Modem - heck no, Verizon Access manager needed which takes a PC to get.  Their website is not Blackberry friendly at all and really needs a WAP interface.  All the darn scripts drove me nuts using the Blackberry browser

So where do I sit now?  Thumbs really do hurt some, the battery goes faster when you constantly use it, I expect no less.  Could I make it my lifeline, sure.  Do I need some of the Domino apps, sure.  That is how we do business.  having them offline is great, but not being able to sync does no one any good.  The Blackberry stepped up when it needed to and covered all the basics.  It does have me on the hunt for even more and better applications for it too.