Lotus Nut

Someone sent me an email earlier today with an interesting question. Consider that you want to rollout Lotus Notes 8 Standard but only use the Basic configuration (let's consider that the computers only have 512MB RAM, but a memory upgrade will be deployed later). When doing this with Notes as the default mail application, the Standard configuration will be launched. How can you change this?

1. Open the registry editor.
2. Navigate to hkey_local_machine > software > clients > mail > lotus notes > protocols > mailto > shell > open > command
3. The (Default) value is C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus\Notes\notes.exe -defini %1
4. Right-click (Default) and choose "Modify"
5. Change the value to C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus\Notes\notes.exe -sa -defini %1
6. Open Internet Explorer and go to Tools > Internet Options > Programs
7. Change the mail application to Outlook Express and click Apply
   
8. Change the mail application back to Lotus Notes and click OK
9. Click a mailto: link on a webpage and this will launch the Basic Configuration of Lotus Notes!

Note: I should have looked at the devWorks posting that the person sent me along with the email because the solution was (partly) posted there as a response. Over there the solution does not detail what you change the registry value to - just that you change it.

Also, as another addendum to the solution posted at devWorks, this will work with IE and Firefox (I presume it will also work with Opera or whatever else you may use...)

First of all, this is not quite as easy as it should be. For one, you can't force an initial one-way push from iPhone to Google. It's either merging both or overwriting the iPhone's contacts with those from your Google account (the contacts are actually stored in GMail). Make sure you read all of the steps below before just going through them... :) Also note that these instructions are for Windows, although this should work in much the same manner for Mac. I originally had been synchronizing with MS Outlook, but on my new laptop Outlook was never loaded. So I decided that I would make all of this work with Google now that it's available.

In my case, I had a lot of good contact information on my iPhone that I did not want to lose. But after the initial merge there were a lot of duplicated email addresses. So I proceeded with the cleanup and came up with a nice little procedure below. Also, take note of step 17 - ongoing contact modifications are only one-way (for now) from Google to iPhone. Hopefully this will change with newer versions of iTunes.

1. Get iTunes 7.7 (for Windows)
2. I'm 99.9% certain you don't have to have iPhone 2.0 software to do this since it was available from Mac iTunes for a little while, so this should work with any iPhone.
3. Dock your iPhone and switch to the Info tab for the device and select "Google Contacts" for the contacts sync.
4. Put in your GMail account username and password.
5. Accept the license agreement and this should kick off the initial sync.
6. Choose to merge the contacts.
7. Open GMail in your browser and switch to the "Older Version" at the top right. In the newer/default version, none of the contacts from my iPhone were visible (even though the number of contacts reflected it). In the older version they are all visible - make sure they are all here!!
8. Export your contacts to GMail CSV.
9. Save a copy of that CSV as a backup.
10. Modify the CSV to have the contacts you want. If you're like me, there are probably a good many one-off contacts that you don't want synched to the iPhone. I deleted the vast majority of these. The deletion of the "extra" contacts can also be performed from GMail prior to step 8.
11. Switch back to GMail (should still be in "older version") and DELETE ALL of the contacts! You heard me right...
12. Sync your iPhone again and you'll be prompted to confirm the deletion of all contacts. Confirm this.
13. Switch back to GMail and Import the CSV that you saved in Step 10.
14. Verify that all of the contacts look OK.
15. Switch back to the "Newer Version".
16. I noticed that many of my Contacts were all listed under "Suggested Contacts". You will want to select them all and choose "Move to My Contacts".
17. Sync your iPhone again and all of the contacts will be pushed to the device.
17. Please note that if you modify a contact on the iPhone that it does NOT (yet) push that change up to GMail. You'll have to modify the GMail contact and this will send the changes to the iPhone at the next sync.

The other week I was made aware of something I did not know was possible. It turns out that the reason I never knew it was possible was that it is new with Domino 8. I found this out after attempting the trick on a Domino 7.0.3 server... :)

With previous releases of Domino, if you wanted to remove a line from the notes.ini, you had to manually edit the file. But now, with Domino 8, you can type set config Notes_ini_Setting= and this will remove the line completely. In previously releases, the line would still exist but it would just have a null value. Below is a screen capture of me doing this.



You can see that I show config to verify the entry exists. Then I set it to = null. Then I show config again and get "Invalid value for command option" (which means the entry does not exist. Finally, I set it back to its original value and show config again to validate that it exists.

Note: If you really want to make sure the entry is gone (and doesn't re-appear or stay enforced), be sure to look through your configuration documents and also remove the entry from the notes.ini section.

Not to be confused with the iPhone 3G (the newly-released hardware that I hope to acquire sometime), the iPhone 2.0 software is now available. I actually loaded mine yesterday after reading of the availability at iPhone Central. Although the 1st Generation iPhones can run this same 2.0 software, there are some extra features that the iPhone 3G will have due to the hardware upgrade. Obviously, it will take advantage of the 3G data networks and it has built-in GPS.

My upgrade to iPhone 2.0 went fairly smoothly. After loading it, I immediately went to the AppStore to get some applications. I was surprised at how many useful, free apps there are! Lifehacker has a list of some of these.

Some of the ones I have loaded are:

• Remote - remotely control your iTunes library over wi-fi. This will be even better if they allow streaming from iTunes through the iPhone! I have noticed some quirks with this when the display shuts off (volume control stops working, play/pause is confused, basically it just stops working!), but closing to the home screen and opening the app brings back the functionality.
• Facebook - works fairly well. I actually really like Facebook's iPhone web app. It actually has more functionality in general. However, the Facebook app allows you to upload photos as well as use Facebook chat
  
• Twitterific - I am not giving up on this yet. I have been using the Hahlo Twitter web app for a while and really dig it, but I will keep trying to use Twitterific.
  
• AOL Radio - Lots of streaming radio stations with options to look for local stations. Works well
• eBay - I like this app a lot so far.
• Bank of America - I am not a customer, but kudos to you for doing this. I have considered switching to BoA because of this. My bank tells me to just use Safari because all of the functionality works. Ok...thanks
• Contacts - So this is pre-loaded with the software. You no longer have to go to the Phone application just to see the contacts!
• WeatherBug - I think I will dig this one. I have been using Weather Underground's excellent web app (http://i.wund.com) for a while. I don't like the radar feature with WeatherBug

So there you go. Enjoy the software upgrade if you are not going to be going to the 3G anytime soon. You can also hold the "home" button and press the top button to take a screenshot!

Oh yeah, since this is a Lotus blog, here is iNotes:



I also have to mention that I find it funny that when adding a mail server that Microsoft Exchange is listed before Apple's mobileme product as an available mail server!! They must have really got in good with Apple! ;)

Over the past couple of weeks, I have had some people email/tweet me about connectivity to im.bleedyellow.com. In these cases, port 1533 was being blocked either at a client location or a public place (even in a hospital!). So the first thing I always mention is to try port 80 and voilà we're in business!

So while we are all thinking about it - change those connections on your laptops! :)