Domino Administrator/Manager Blogs, Where are you?

Where are the real managers of the network? If you manage or have managed a Domino network, or a Notes network for those of us who have been around since before Domino was born, what issues do you see still today? Are you blogging it?

I see the same ones as I saw years ago.

Basic issues:
Person doc entries incorrect(names or domains or emails or duplicates), basic flaw but pervasively causes 90% of all mailbox problems and in some cases server failures. Usually this is caused by turnover in jr. admins over time.

Connection docs that make no sense or have incorrect IP addresses. Check your logs for this issue.

Server crashes at night same time or close to it - usually an Agent is at fault but maybe an index needs to be recreated.

One user "sees" data, another doesn't - template issues, ensure proper propagation of standard versions. Sometimes related to different versions of clients running 6.5.3 vs. 6.5.5.

Also make sure you have 2 things set up from day one. Server automatic restart on the first tab of the server doc. and notification to you via email or however you want it, when the server fails and restarts.

Mail Routing and No Option?

Mail routing mimics the real world. As long as there is a proper address, the mail, in theory, arrives at its destination.
Like the real world, bad addressing either gets returned to sender or ends up in the Dead Letter Office or in Domino, the mail.box.
When the mail.box starts getting full of bad emails, all mail stops.
This is NOT like the real world.
And so it happens under R7.0.1 FP1(some say all of R7). As soon as we start getting incorrect mail stuck in the mail.box it crashes the server.
How very disturbing.
Now what?
From forum discussions going to 7.0.2 will not fix this. So I am left to go backwards or face a failing server every day?
What about my SLAs?

Web 2.0 is it doomed?

Is there a difference? Do companies really think differently than consumers?
No.
But do consumers want to have workflow, or approval for posted documents?
Maybe.
Can Web 2.0 provide this?
Maybe, maybe not.

Schools come to mind as a primary target of this problem.

My kids and others in the nation, require signed parental approvals for different events, from pictures to field trips to sports teams to donations.
Now having us email the school our approval is not a secure way to do this, mostly because our kids can sppof emails as easily as the next one.
Do we have a keyring from Verisign with crypto code to enter to validate us?
Do we get issued a digital ID?
Nope.
So how do we get around this problem?
Schools don't have the infrastructure or money to hire devlopers for this and maybe someone like Google or IBM or Microsoft wants to take a look at this.
How many of us intercepted letters from teachers or principals sent home about behavior, grades, truancy? Now how do you think your kids do it today?
Spam blockers, simple mail rule agents :-)
Maybe you should take a look at your mail client.
Companies want to encourage interaction(if you work for one who doesn't my condolences and hope you get out soon) but not without tracking, security and backup because at any time they can be sued or need to bring it all back up, something which is not always available in the Web 2.0 world.

Lose the War, Win the Battle?

Many times over the years I saw this happen. We would convince a client to take Lotus only to be hung out to dry during the next regime.
Perhaps Lotus should get out to the CIO/CTO conferences that ARE NOT sponsored by IBM and sit on a panel or get some speaking time.
The battle is won at lower levels easily but rarely at higher ones as easily when it comes to Lotus vs. MS or anyone else. Why is that?

The Little Green Men(LGMs or Aliens) in Toy Story have a Unimind. Why can't we portray Domino as providing that to clients employees?
If you need everyone on the same page, it helps to have a software that can mix and match as your company grows?

R7, R8? But we are till on R4!

It's an odd bit of news perhaps to Lotus and my friend Ed Brill, but there is a boom in Notes admin positions lately.
Moving to R7 you think? Hell no!
These companies are plodding along and want to upgrade.....to R6!
Now you can say well you see Lotus built a VW and R4.5 can last forever.

So as we run up to Lotusphere 2007, how many companies out there still have R4 or R5 servers? And why have they not upgraded yet? We want to help you upgrade, but you need to take the first step.

That's Just What I Would Do

If I ran the zoo. To paraphrase a Dr. Seuss book.
But what would you do if you ran the zoo known as IBM/Lotus marketing?

At this point Lotus has come back from the brink of death and comes out swinging (the boxing gloves advertising campaign) but at who or what? Some people might say at customers. "Take Websphere or we will knock you out!"
The truth be told IBM has rarely had excellent advertising campaigns so we can't fault them on this one either. The "magic dust" was great, because that is so exactly the point. Every application is magic, created by hundreds if not thousands of developers. Disney should get into this, they would be perfect.
Maybe IBM can partner with Disney to handle some marketing/advertising.

Seriously, if I ran the shop what would I want to do or see?

For a start Lotus Notes 8 is old news naming, get modern, let people at least think there is a new release, not that Lotus 2007 is a genius idea, but at least it seems up to date. Maybe go with Domin8 for domino version 8?

Retro doesn't work in Software like on automobiles or clothing, well some clothing.
But, if Notes.net still existed(bring it back you fools!) perhaps it could be set up so people could look at the path Notes took as a client from 1.0 to today.
The changes have been good for the most part, but yoou know there is no convincing those who last saw it in R4 or R3.

Apps should be used for publicity. Too late now, but setting up a fantasy football draft template would be useful and perhaps get people to try it out via a web enabled db. Can we get this done for the next baseball fantasy league? Or Soccer (football to my EU friends)?

ok got ot go fix a dns

The Lotus years

Now before you get all jumpy, let's try to remember this was when Lotus 1-2-3 was king of the hill, bless Iris Asociates.
So when Lotus Notes 1.0/2.0 came out, sure people wanted to try it. But it was a failure of a flat database at first. BUT it did one thing really well.
Email
I was blown away, here was a program I was dreaming about, one which could talk to ther people in the building or around the world. It was beautiful and then came V3.3 which really got to working the way it should.
I immediately decided being a consultant would suck if I didn't learn everything about this great product. I tried many times to get a job with Lotus/Iris but they wouldn't answer my pleas to let me into the sacred sanctum.

Back when Ray Ozzie was a genius, well he still is relative to many people, and Microsoft and IBM were still doing DOS and supposedly doing OS/2 I thought I could get in there, but no dice. Oddly enough years later Groove wouldn't hire me either, evidently Floridians just don't work for Ozzie and his staff. But I did make it to Lotus, MANY years later.

History first?

Well I am not one to dwell on it, but my career started when Windows 2.0 came out.
Ah the funny little program which came with a mouse and MS paint program.
What do you do with it? Nothing, until windows 3.0.
But this is not about Windows.
This is about the early days of the IT world when anyone who knew how to turn a computer on was a consultant(circa 1989-1990). Did well, not even 21 and making 40K a year which was a great deal to me as my buddies who followed through on our accounting degrees barely made 30K.
I remember the first 486 when it came in. It dropped processing time to 8 hours overnight from almost 20 on a 386. Yes science advanced so fast. Now we measure the change in seconds or minutes. Maybe my smartphone in hours, even that is better than my old 486.

In the beginning

like many others it was so simple, you want a new job, you find a new job.
But that was before 9/11.
Since then it has been a up and down ride.
Being an entrepreneur has its advantages.
Started a company, found a line of business, started making money.
Just as we were going to go big in the 2nd year(looking at $3 millionin sales) the supplier dropped us.
Damn if we weren't dong 2-3% of their total sales in $$ but did they care? nope.
Once again proving working for yourself is the best way to work.

You never know

till you try, so like many others I am trying the blogosphere.