http://siipi.com/mika Mika Heinonen's Blog en-us Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:47:27 +0200 Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:47:27 +0200 Siipi RSS Feed 2.0 mika.heinonen@siipi.com Thu, 27 Mar 2008 01:14:27 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/61A3D67918DD9EFEC225741800800C36 Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:09:30 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/0748B0EC04251D2BC225741800013E4E Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:35:00 +0200 If you want the cheapest network area storage with the biggest harddisk space on the planet, then there is only one choice for you. Siipi Roc features up to 11 harddisk slots: 6 internal 3.5" slots, 4 external 5.25" slots, 1 external 3.5" slot, equipped with 750GB Western Digital drives in the Antec P182 black case, running at Raid 0,1,5,6,10 with the Asus P5K-E motherboard, an Intel Quad Core CPU, 4GB Kingston RAM, and even a GeForce 7 series 3D card on openSUSE 10.3 64-bit. For an amazing low price as 1800€ you can get a fully Raid 5 backed up NAS storage with 6TB and more free harddisk space. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/5B63C4DE64162131C22574170070F4E9 Fri, 07 Mar 2008 22:30:33 +0200 I tried Notes 8.0 earlier on Ubuntu, and it was a bit crashy. But with 8.0.1 on openSUSE it seems more stable, when you learn to avoid certain things :) I'll try to work with this setup a few weeks and see if I need Windows XP anymore. On my work Laptop, the ThinkPad T61p, I have also PCLinuxOS 2008 minime, it will be a good challenger against my home openSUSE. Also kubuntu 7.10 x32 is still in the run, when one of those fails. My server has been already running for a long time Domino 8.0.1 on openSUSE, and it has been running very smooth, without any reboots or crashes, and it hasn't even used the swap disk yet. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/96BAE49F386D7619C22574050070DDB8 Thu, 06 Mar 2008 01:18:26 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/6A5AA9E35EF368E0C2257403008037B3 Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:25:33 +0200 First we had e-mails. Our paper mails, artistic handwriting and other personalized communication was gone. Then we had websites. Our e-mails were reliefed and we could share information with everyone. Then we had blogs. Our websites were updated less frequently and all structured information was gone. Then we had rss feeds. Our custom look and style of blogs was gone and only raw information was left. Then we had technorati. Actually I forgot about it completely. Then we had ideajam. This was the first time we had a common place to share our ideas. Then we had planetlotus. Our rss feeds were gone and we got back our blogs, but this time all of them together. Then we had bleedyellow. Our blogs were still there, but we had also duplicate blogs, but we got also new ways of collaboration. Then we had twitter. Our collaboration tools screamed for integration into one single global place, as we have now to update information in 4 or more different places seperately. Planetlotus strikes again, and tries to keep all the places together. But it can do only so much, and it can't fix the source of the problem. I'd like to see one single place for global collaboration. I'd like to see it to running on Domino 8.0.1 on SUSE or AIX. I'd like it to have everything what all the above systems provide plus be easily expandable for future ideas. I'd like that the collaboration starts on the system level, and not only on the end user level. And actually I think it should be in IBM's own interest also to host a global server, as they have the iron. I'm sure they can hack some Blue Gene/P to run like an AIX, and I'm sure many companies and individuals would love to join for monthly fees to host their own virtual server, when they know their site is running on the best hardware in the world. And hey, collaboration could help also on the virtual server level, since not everyone needs their own virtual server, but they could be joined into communities, running on a common Domino server. Also those who prefer an own virtual server, could collaborate and share their idle time, then others, and themselves would have huge benefits from eachothers' idle times using IBM System p hypervisor technology. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/F41B4D09B8AFBA23C2257402005FE439 Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:31:19 +0200 I wonder if they are running on AIX also... ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/606526B4F136BB36C225740100606949 Mon, 03 Mar 2008 00:58:20 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/FF34DF1F297809C6C2257400007E5815 Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:30:05 +0200 Latvia Lotus User Group, and I told him already to ask Yancy Lent to put him up in the planetlotus.org member list. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/F9E9F49D7DB80A4CC22573FD0065C1F7 Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:44:34 +0200 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/bpmpblog.nsf/dx/performance-testing-technique ). My test agent looks like this:

Sub Initialize    Dim n As Long, ni As Long    n=10 ' number of test repeats    Dim t1 As Double, t2 As Double, tn As Double, tt As Double    Dim i As Integer, j As Integer, k As Long    Const x=10000    Const s="xxxxxxxxxx"    For ni=1 To n       t1=Timer       For i=1 To x          For j=1 To x             k=Len(s)=0          Next       Next       t2=Timer       tn=t2-t1       tt=tt+tn       Print ni & ": " & Format(tn,"00000.00000") & "s."    Next    Print "Average: " & tt / n & "s." End Sub

The line with k=Len(s)=0 varied and gave the following average timings over 10 tests:

Const s=""	k=Len(s)=0	7.532s
Const s=""	k=s<>""	58.938s
Const s="xxxxxxxxxx"	k=Len(s)=0	7.688s
Const s="xxxxxxxxxx"	k=s<>""	63.089s
Const s="xxxxxxxxxx"	k=s=""	65.770s

That means, even with small loops like 1 billion iterations, you get almost a minute faster results! Anyway, the number of iterations is not so important and you can't really judge on that, as someone might need even bigger iterations, but the fact that it's over 780% faster to use len(s) is important. I don't think it's concidence that several people started to blog about LotusScript performance practices, just after I started to think about revising the LotusSphere 2007 LotusScript speed presentation, even before I posted anything on my blog. I think there is somekind of shared mind, which we can't explain scientifically yet. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/D6BBAE5154ACDFDFC22573FC006192BB Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:20:59 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/FE9E38D4F877205FC22573F8005F6164 Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:29:33 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/45B473E316302DDCC22573F6006B2277 Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:56:10 +0200 And another 5 minutes later: Domino 8.0.1 64-bit with DB/2 9.1.3 64-bit running on Windows 2003 R2 Enterprise 64-bit on IBM System x3650 with Dual Quad Core (=8 cores). Oh, that reminds me I need to upgrade to DB/2 9.5 Viper next. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/6C4697683526985FC22573F50068114A Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:52:00 +0200 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/r5fixlist.nsf/(Progress)/801 Maybe 8.0.1 is released even this week, or latest next week. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/B3D4F2DC70A3C7BCC22573F40072AE2B Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:21:32 +0200 See Picture What's missing from the picture? You guessed it right: Lotus Notes 8.0.1 for Linux! But that will come very soon... ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/C30BDFB1D25961B8C22573F3006FDDD9 Sat, 16 Feb 2008 01:10:01 +0200 Finally I made the switch from Windows to Linux. I decided to go for openSUSE 10.3, as it has the fastest I/O of all operating systems in the world. This site, http://www.siipi.com is now running on openSUSE 10.3. The installation was just as easy as installing Ubuntu (which is actually easier than installing Windows), but openSUSE gives you more freedom to make choices. It was literally just like inserting the CD and turning the power on, I didn't need to install any 3rd party drivers or anything else, everything was done by the openSUSE CD. Of course I needed to convert the harddrives from NTFS to ext3 (I used a new harddisk for the "C:" drive), but that's just normal partitioning, formatting and moving files from one harddisk to another. openSUSE can read and write NTFS drives, but for production use only ext3 drives should be used (much better performance). I think I will use this combo also on our IBM System p570 servers, then we have a unified environment between Intel and PowerPC servers. Oh wait, I can't! There's no Domino for Linux on PowerPC, ok AIX is actually better since it has JFS2. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/11B8EA55F7CD224FC22573F0007F10DF Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:21:17 +0200 If you want a HUGE disk storage, for example for daily backups of multiple servers, then this baby - the IBM DS4200 Express - is the only choice for you: for an amazing price of 4600€ and 512€ per 750GB additional disk, one 3U rack supports 16x 750GB = 12TB, and with optional expansion units (3U, 16x disks each) this single SAN supports even up to 112x 750GB = 84TB! Similar systems with just 20x disks cost up to 20000€ from other manufacturers, and consume even more rack U space due to horizontal placement of the disks. And with up to 4x 4GB/s Fibre Channels the IBM SAN performs an effective transfer rate of 1550MB/s for applications (with Domino 8.0.1's database compression even more MB/s), which makes it even faster than some internal hard disks of servers. As we are getting more non-production Domino servers (stage, testing, development, research), there is a need to backup their data also on a daily interval. Once again IBM has proven their leadership and competence in server hardware. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/2130B6D0F6E0A6C0C22573EE006FCE87 Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:12:56 +0200 The guard riddle in the movie Labyrinth (with David Bowie) reminds me of the everlasting battle between IBM and Microsoft, which was brought up once again during the last LotusSphere 2008. Solve the riddle, and you will know the absolute truth between the claims of IBM and Microsoft. SPOILER WARNING! Don't watch the video before you have solved the riddle yourself. Here goes the riddle dialog: There are 2 doors. Sarah needs to find out which door leads to the castle at the center of the labyrinth, as the other one leads to certain death. Guard: "You can't ask us. You can only ask one of us." Guard: "It's in the rules, and I should warn you that one of us always tells the truth, and one of us always lies. That's a rule too." Gesturing to the Guard, "He always lies!" Guard: "I do not! I tell the truth!" Guard: "Oh, what a lie!" Sarah: "Alright," to the Guard, "answer yes or no: would he (Guard) tell me that this door leads to the castle?" Guard: "Uhhh...yyyes?" Sarah: "Then, the other door leads to the castle, and this door leads to certain death." Guards: "oooOOoooh." Guard: "How do you know? He could be telling the truth!" Sarah: "But then he wouldn't be. So if you told me that he said 'yes', I know the answer is 'no'." Guard: "But I could be telling the truth!" Sarah: "But then he would be lying. So if you told me that he said 'yes', then I know the answer would still be 'no'" Guard: "Wait a minute," to the Guard, " is that right?" Guard: "I don't know – I've never understood it!" Is Sarah right? Spoiler Video: Labyrinth Riddle Please note that there are also other hidden truths in the video... ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/3024CE32781B680FC22573E2006961E2 Sat, 26 Jan 2008 01:45:05 +0200 I already knew for many years how the Old Testament was compiled (using the Babylonian Enuma Elish and it's original source from the Sumerians), but Jesus and the New Testament remained a mystery to me, until today. Here is the full source code of Jesus and the New Testament, and it's all Open Source and Free: http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com It seems religion has been now completely disassembled and there is no mystery anymore. Way to go science! ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/5BDD3311AA0B17DBC22573DB00824BFD Fri, 11 Jan 2008 18:56:21 +0200 Today I installed Domino 8.0 on our POWER5 AIX 5L 5.3 test server, and it doesn't want to accept our existing server id files. I saw on a IBM SPR that a similar issue has been reported, but I don't know yet - until it's fixed in 8.0.1 - if that fixes also this issue. When I force it to eat the id file (by ftp:ing the id file to the server and using vi to edit the server's notes.ini file to use that id file), it runs fine for a few minutes, although still complaining that the public certificate does not match, but after a few minutes it brings up another error message related to the id file ("The subject's public key found in the certificate is not the one stored in the ID file for that entity."), and you can't connect to the server anymore. Now I have 3 options: 1) Wait until Domino 8.0.1 comes out. 2) Try Domino 7.0.3 on AIX 5.3. 3) Try Domino 8.0 on SUSE 10.3. Let's see: 1) I want to continue the migration testing, waiting must wait, so this is no option for me. 2) This will probably work, and it's what I will do on the AIX machine next. 3) This might work, but I don't want to trash the AIX installation just yet, since so far AIX has worked well. I will try this on a Windows 2003 server though. VNC server works great on AIX, it's very smooth and fast to use, much faster than Windows Remote Desktop on a Windows 2003 server. And it supports even multiple simultaneous users (multiple mouse cursors), while the VNC for Windows supports only 1 mouse cursor for simultaneous users. Windows Remote Desktop doesn't even support simultaneous users at all, which is a waste of valuable work time. The funny thing is that the AIX server (IBM System p) doesn't even have a graphics card, but well what is a graphics card anyway, just an additional CPU to focus on graphics operations, a POWER5 CPU can do that with almost idling: ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/64063B85ECE9BC8FC22573CD005CDF2F Mon, 07 Jan 2008 20:53:55 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/7B56A34C29C131AFC22573C90067A2EB Mon, 07 Jan 2008 20:43:09 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/64652F0C4CEA7F62C22573C90066A69C Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:49:19 +0200 #include "stdio.h" #include "time.h" class testclass {    public:    int x;    testclass(void) {        x=1;    }    ~testclass(void) {       x=0;    } }; int main(int argc, char **argv) {    double n=0;    long i=0;    long t1=0;    long t2=0;    long t1t=0;    long t2t=0;    t1t=clock();    printf("Speedtest 1.0 (c) 2008 Siipi\n");    printf("Counting 10 billion floating points...\n");    t1=clock();    while(n<100000.0)    {       n+=0.00001;       i++;    }    t2=clock();    printf("Done. i=%ld, n=%f, time=%fs.\n",i,n,    (double)(t2-t1)/CLOCKS_PER_SEC);    printf("Creating and deleting 1 billion class objects...\n");    t1=clock();    i=0;    while(i<100000000)    {       testclass *a=new testclass();       delete(a);       i++;    }    t2=clock();    printf("Done. i=%ld, time=%fs.\n",i,    (double)(t2-t1)/CLOCKS_PER_SEC);    t2t=clock();    printf("Total time=%fs.\n",(double)(t2t-t1t)/CLOCKS_PER_SEC);    return(0); } To compile and run Speedtest 1.0 under AIX/Linux/MacOSX/Sun/Cray/IRIX/AmigaOS, enter the following commands: g++ st.cpp time ./a.out To compile and run Speedtest 1.0 under Windows, enter the following commands: (Launch Visual Studio 2005 C++, select: File/New/Project From Existing Code/Console Application) (Select Release instead of Debug) (Choose Build/Build Solution) \programs\rktools\ntimer release\st.exe (ntimer.exe comes with the Windows 2003 Resource Kit Tools) You don't necessarily need to run Speedtest 1.0 with time/ntimer, I just used it to double-check that my time measurement was working fine. The program output will look like this: Speedtest 1.0 (c) 2008 Siipi Counting 10 billion floating points... Done. i=1410063201, n=100000.000003, time=15.078000s. Creating and deleting 1 billion class objects... Done. i=100000000, time=12.703000s. Total time=27.781000s. Unfortunately I don't have all systems which exist, but here are some precompiled binaries: Windows 32-bit Windows 64-bit AIX 64-bit Linux 32-bit ftp://ftp.siipi.com/st.exe ftp://ftp.siipi.com/st64.exe ftp://ftp.siipi.com/st64 ftp://ftp.siipi.com/st The source code can be also downloaded, to make it a bit easier on systems which have no web browser installed: ftp://ftp.siipi.com/st.cpp. I would be glad to know if someone's server/workstation can run this under 21s. I managed to get the POWER5 code twice faster with the following compiler options: g++ -O3 -fomit-frame-pointer -fstrict-aliasing -mcpu=power5 st.cpp The Linux code went also more than twice faster with these options: g++ -O3 -mtune=pentium4 st.cpp Furthermore, the AIX programs might also run faster when compiled with IBM VisualAge AIX 6.0 C++ (especially with the XL C/C++ addon) or Intel C++, although Linux GNU C++ beats Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 C++ in optimized machine code speed, which also surprised me, let's say vastly. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/E2A4779723C2F147C22573C600673696 Thu, 03 Jan 2008 21:20:39 +0200 For the first time in my life I got to see how a SuperComputer is. Well, it's just the smallest IBM System p server on the market, but it still beats the IBM DeepBlue '97 (the one which played chess against Kasparov, and was 2 racks in size) by miles. I'll test soon how it compares to our fastest IBM System x servers (they have 2x Intel Xeon Quad Core 2.66GHz), and I think it will beat them all too, maybe even all together in performance. The server was even easier to install than my previous x3650, well it was preinstalled. It seems IBM takes better care of their own babies than their Intel servers, which is of course understandable. The CPU is from IBM (btw, XBOX 360 CPUs were also done by IBM, it's a 3-core PowerPC CPU), and of course the rest of the hardware too. Harddrives and RAM might be from other suppliers, I haven't checked yet. The first thing which baffled me with this machine was that it was missing a video card! A quick call to the reseller solved this little "problem", as they explained that I have to use a serial cable to connect to the server with a terminal program. Alright, I checked on Google for more details about this setup, and found out that it is running on 19200,N,8,1,Hardware protocol parameters (IBM should really put this info in the AIX 5L manual, as it's kinda essential to get started). Fortunately the manufacturing machines service guys had one such cable to borrow, so I was able to make a first contact with this SuperComputer. Interestingly, the server is alive at the serial interface even when it's powered off (just the power cable connected to the power supply). And turning the power on is not just like pushing the power button, well it works too if you wait long enough, but internally it's still running a boot up sequence before the actual server with harddisks and stuff starts. After the first contact via serial terminal, I managed to setup the IP address and connect to it via telnet. Once I downloaded the VNC Server, I was even able to connect with the graphical VNC Viewer from my Windows XP workstation. So far so good, but another problem arised when I tried to install the GNU C++ compiler: the /opt mount was too small. However a quick Google brought the solution again: chfs -a size=+4 /opt and at once the size of the /opt mount was large enough for the g++ installation. Now I'm still missing some bos.adt.libm (that's IBM AIX slang, so mind me :) stuff to compile my C++ programs, but that came on a CD too, so I will continue my journey tomorrow. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/F2799057030B8DA6C22573C5006A14D3 Thu, 06 Dec 2007 01:12:33 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/82570D112F4D021FC22573A8007F7E46 Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:39:02 +0200 Bruce Elgort had a fantastic idea to make a web site where all people can post their ideas how to improve the IBM Lotus products, and also get feedback from other people and see how their idea succeeds by the "Promote and Denote" votes. Lots of IBM'ers are also aware of this site, including the Notes lead designer Mary Beth Raven. I'm hoping that this site succeeds and gets great popularity, then IBM might even consider of giving some official feedback if a particular idea is going to be implemented, at least registered IBM users could get a special "role" (it's a Notes database!) to be able to click the "Accepted or Rejected" button. This "Accepted or Rejected" indicator could be just below of the "Promote and Demote" indicator. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/0DFE61ADCD27900EC22573780060F373 Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:48:01 +0200 IBM is doing an interesting event, coming up in Oct/Nov 2007. I had a quick look at the presentations of the agenda, and it looks like this event is a MUST to see for all CEO/CFO/CIO/CTO/etc... decision makers in all companies, and why not for everone else too. The style of the presentations comes down to a level which everyone understands, while still providing interesting technical details. Finally IBM has a good presentation and shows directly why Notes/Domino/Quickr is indeed better than Microsoft's attempt with Outlook/Exchange/Sharepoint/Office 2007. I liked especially the question from the CIO type guy who asked if they could use Sharepoint, and the IBM Sales rep answered: "Lotus Quickr is better. Let me explain why...". But see it for yourself, the agenda with the presentations can be found here: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/offers/techbriefings/details/lotus.html ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/BD03233B60EB7180C22573780056C99B Tue, 16 Oct 2007 20:15:52 +0200 Today I started to install the hardware for the upcoming Domino 8 & DB/2 9.1 server. The IBM x3650 (rack version) was amazingly quick and easy to install. All parts are easily snapped in with no need for any tools except your hands. The configuration consisted of the following parts:

IBM x3650 with 1 Intel Quad Core Xeon E5335 2.0GHz 8MB cache and 2x 1GB self-correcting RAM

a second Intel Quad Core Xeon E5335 2.0GHz 8MB cache

a second power supply with 5 more fans

2x 1GB self-correcting RAM

2x 2GB self-correcting RAM

2x 73GB SAS harddisks for drive C: with RAID 1

4x 146GB SAS harddisks for drive D: with RAID 5

IBM ServeRaid 8k card with battery backup (if both power supplies go down, it still keeps the harddisks up to perform a clean shutdown in order to avoid file system corruption) So the complete server looks like this:

2 Intel Quad Core Xeons E5335 2.0GHz 8MB cache

8GB self-correcting RAM

73GB Drive C: RAID 1

438GB Drive D: RAID 5

2 Power Supplies

10 fans (+2 fans for the Power Supplies) I booted up the ServeRaid Support CD, which started Linux with X-Windows and created the raid arrays: RAID 1 for drive C: so one disk can go down and data is still available on the other, and RAID 5 (with 256K stripe-unit size, I guess that's the optimal for this purpose and hardware) for drive D: because I need 250GB free space, and RAID 6 is really only recommended for raid arrays with 12 or more harddisks. I'm still not sure if I should allocate a 4GB RAM disk for the Transaction Log, or put it in the C:\LOGDIR directory (C: drive has basically no activity if you make the Windows pagefile min=max=windows recommended size (which is about 1.5 times RAM)). Making a seperate partition for it wouldn't help much, since it's using the same physical harddisks. Tomorrow I will install Windows 2003 64-bit Enterprise Server, Domino 8 (unfortunately only 32-bit, since the 64-bit Domino 8.0.1 is not out yet), and get an IBM guy to install DB/2 9.1 64-bit on it via Remote Desktop. Next week I'll have a workshop with IBM so we can test Domino 8 using DB/2 9.1 thoroughly, and see how it performs on huge databases with lots of transactional traffic. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/CBFA3FEE06D1478CC2257376005ED4F3 Sat, 06 Oct 2007 21:38:43 +0200 I need to collaborate with people, using text chat, voice (and video) chat, application sharing and file sharing, self-made discussion and workflow web applications, and e-mail. I can't ask people to pay for commercial software like IBM Lotus Sametime, since Microsoft Window Live Messenger is free. I think IBM has missed the train here, as it's quite impossible to demand that other people have Notes or Sametime in the public world. At best they have only a web browser, and of course Windows, Linux or Mac. That's the greatest common divisor, and that only counts. IBM advertises to have a decent collaboration software suite, but it lacks the most essential requirements, like being free software which is available for everyone, and of course to work on a public sametime server. A clear win for Microsoft, as Windows Live Messenger works also with also Linux and Symbian clients which are also for free, so people can do Instant Messaging from basically any electronic device. I wish IBM would notice this and offer a Sametime lite version, no, a Sametime Live version, which would be free for all to use, and focussed on the end-end-users, while Sametime Enterprise could still have all the enterprise related stuff like Quickr integration, Notes integration, and so on. MSN is actually also a risk for IBM to lose existing Sametime users, since they could as well use MSN instead, and expand their reach and availability to public users and customers. You can contact me as mika.heinonen@siipi.com on Windows Live Messenger (=MSN) network. Now, how easy was it to say that, and how would it be as easy to achieve on the IBM Sametime network? ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/3C2A81FA43850321C225736C00666BB9 Thu, 04 Oct 2007 21:46:21 +0200 I decided to buy an ASUS G2S, since my Lenovo ThinkPad T61p was getting a bit old. Nah, just kidding :) The ASUS is for my hobbies and home use. There's only a few notebooks in the world which have a GeForce 8 series chip, as you can see on NVidia's page, and the G2S is one of them. The GeForce 8 series is about 32 times faster than any other NVidia series. Similar to the ThinkPad T61p, this also has a T7500 Core 2 Duo CPU and widescreen LCD, however 17". It comes with Windows Vista Ultimate x32 preinstalled, and has also seperate playback control buttons for Windows Media Center, which is part of Vista Ultimate. So you can play all kind of media without actually having to use the Windows UI at all. Interestingly the 160GB hard disk is divided into two partitions (C: and D:), which kinda hints to install Fedora 8 x64 on a ext3 filesystem in the second partition on side with Vista Ultimate, and having it install the boot manager also. The machine has also an integrated 1.3MPix web cam with mic, and lots of accessories including remote control, infrared tower, a LotuSphere style ASUS backpack with a well isolated and secured slot for the notebook (actually 2 of those slots), a DTV+FM antenna, and a optical mouse with very useful additional buttons, like back/forward windows/web control and even a Vista Aero 3D program switch button! It has also a very cool looking OLED (Organic LED) display which can be programmed to show scrolling texts and icons, caller ID (it actually shows also a Windows Live Messenger caller automatically on it, which I found pretty amazing), or a clock (that's good when Windows is busy and not able to show the desktop clock). ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/077626FA621A627FC225736A00671DAE Tue, 02 Oct 2007 22:39:29 +0200 Finally IBM Lotus has focussed more on the Web Application Development side in Domino 9. First of all, everything you do in Notes, will basically work as-is on the Web. I think this is the greatest improvement ever. Starting with Domino 9, also Web 2.0 will be introduced, as well as the quite powerful and modern interoperability between Web Browsers and Domino Designer. We've seen this before in Workplace Designer, but it was then drawn back, probably because IBM was still confident that these powerful features could be held back until 2009, as Domino 8 was going to be still way better than competing Web Application servers and Web Development tools. Notes 9 will have a 3D OpenGL based workspace, where all Application icons are organized and navigated in a 3D environment, each workspace tab represents a seperate space, which can be linked seamlessly together with other workspace tabs, appearing as clearly seperated clusters in the global 3D workspace. In addition each 3D workspace tab also allows the creation of folders (as well as unlimited subfolders inside each folder), like people are used from operating system file systems. Applications can be grouped and labeled using those folders. Actually even the workspace tabs are folders, so we are talking about 2 base elements here only. The Notes workspace also allows links to any kind of files, including Lotus Quickr based files. So it's basically a good alternative to current operating system file managements itself, which are far from being real 3D environments (Vista Aero and Linux Beryl). With the introduction of the Notes OpenGL graphics engine, also all slowness of the Notes 8 Standard client are now history. OpenGL draws so much faster 2D and 3D graphics, that a hardware upgrade is not needed anymore. Notes/Domino 9 Beta will start around Q4/2008, and the gold release is expected in Q2/2009. This article is pure fiction, but I hope that at least some of these points will come true :) ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/1408595520DE2BFDC2257368006BFB40 Tue, 02 Oct 2007 19:43:22 +0200 Today I got my new office laptop, a Lenovo ThinkPad T61p. As it has a Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 CPU, I decided to install only 64-bit operating systems on it. Since the harddisk was 93.2 GB, I divided it into two partitions, 46.6 GB NTFS for Microsoft Windows Vista 64-bit Enterprise, and the other 46.6 GB for ext3 Linux Fedora 8 64-bit. However, since Fedora 8 is not ready yet, I'll have to test Vista for a few weeks first. The Vista installation went absolutely smooth without any problems, and it was quite fast to install too, just about 30 minutes. Once installed, everything worked fine, but I needed to download NVidia drivers from Lenovo's site, since Vista didn't have the suitable drivers built-in. After the 3D graphics card drivers were installed, I could even enable the Windows Aero theme. This was the first time I've installed Vista and experienced it. It runs pretty well with all funky stuff enabled, and file transfers seemed even faster than in Windows XP 32-bit. I also installed Notes 8.0 x32 Standard (=Eclipse Java), as I wanted to go full funky mode :) Notes 8 looks damn cool with all the blurred transparent edges on Vista Aero. In addition to 64-bit programs, I'm also trying to get around with OpenSource/Freeware software only. The first 3rd party software needed was of course an Anti-Virus program. AVG worked OK, and it installed itself also with 64-bit drivers, but unfortunately it could connect over proxy only with a custom port over 3000. So I had to uninstall it, and use avast! Anti-Virus instead, it installs itself also with 64-bit drivers, and it was also able to connect via the proxy using Internet Explorer's proxy settings to the update server. The T61p has quite decent hardware for an occasional-multimedia business notebook:

• Intel Core 2 Duo T7500
• which means you can install a 32-bit or 64-bit OS, since all Core 2 Duo's are 64-bit CPUs
• NVidia GeForce FX 570M
• this is an awesome choice from Lenovo, since most notebooks still have ATI cards
• however, GeForce 8 Series would be much better like in ASUS G2S notebooks, but the FX Series will have to do for a business where multimedia is not the main area
• 15.4" WUXGA (Widescreen Ultra XGA) at 1920x1200
• very good native resolution, however it would work better on a 17" widescreen, but on the other hand, it makes the T61p slightly smaller and easier to carry around. I used 1680x1050 resolution which looked like it would be the native resolution too, since no pixel blurs occured. In comparison to the T40p or T60p, the T61p is not bigger in depth, but only a few inch wider, no big deal, it's still a very portable notebook. I really like the widescreen trend, and I was quite against the previous highscreen trend, where everyone wanted to make 5:4 ratio LCD's with native resolution of 1280x1024. I'm glad that this stupidity is now over, and manufacturers have started to make more natural displays, the widescreens.

Next things to install and test:

• Notes 8.0.1 64-bit for Windows and Linux (Windows 64-bit version will come out with 8.0.1, the Linux 64-bit version will come out in 8.0.2)
• OpenOffice 2.3 for Windows and Linux
• TeamSpeak 2 for Windows and Linux (Ventrilo doesn't support Linux)
• ext3 driver for Vista 64-bit and NTFS driver for Linux 64-bit

To be continued... ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/D4912EB995C6FAB1C2257368005BDB98 Mon, 01 Oct 2007 20:28:59 +0200 Ed Brill had a quite fun topic (=fun in an intellectual sense) about "subject level submissions" of a specific area of LotuSphere sessions. I thought immediately that something was wrong about that idea, something was wrong if it was not differentiated and specified further. While a majority of people seemed to accept that it's OK to have IBM arrange LotuSphere sessions solely by the speaker's opinions, I agree only partly on that. In my opinion the voice of the customers should count more than anything else, and only if the customers' opinions are not available, or differing too much to form an majority decision, then the experienced speakers and teachers should be allowed to choose the session content, but even then only based on the major groups of customers' suggestions. Ed has now closed the discussion, which I can accept, since the discussion was not going effectively forward (too many people were just fighting against something they didn't understand or believe in): 200 submissions A good example of the illusion of the impossibility to change was said by Ed himself: "IBM's privacy policy prevents us from posting session abstract proposals publicly. In fact, access to the submissions is very strictly controlled, because we do not ask any permissions around external publication of submissions (accepted sessions is a different story)." IBM's policy. Is that the law, is that something which can not be improved or negotiated? I don't think so. I think it was just an easy solution which was decided so by some manager or CEO level of person, who perhaps thought it was a sufficient solution to restricting it that way. All that was needed would have been to have a simple radio button on a Form which let the users choose whether they wanted to have their suggestions public or secret. The most powerful and correct solutions are often the most simple ones, like in nature. On his last response Ed mentioned the announcement of new NDnext releases. Ok, those things which come straight from the dev labs should be of course always announced and as detailed as possible (including the possibilities for change from people's suggestions), as obviously people can only guess or dream about them. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/B748F9E01FC5D625C2257367006003AF Fri, 28 Sep 2007 23:30:39 +0200 In addition to that, IBM resellers rock, literally! Recently they even offered a Black Metal (you know, it's a cool paradigm: IBM servers are black and made of metal) concert in a well known music arena in Helsinki, including first prizes like Harley Davidson Motorbikes, and Stratocaster Guitars :) ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/DCEF17A99E7F4634C22573640070A599 Thu, 27 Sep 2007 22:21:12 +0200 It's too slow, and it gets jammed for several seconds from time to time, especially when changing settings in Preferences

The integrated Java Sametime sucks too, it's also too slow and sluggish, and it also crashes from time to time, and it lacks of context-sentive smiley interpretation: 8) is not always a smiley with sunglasses!

Windows focus goes nuts and you have to click and click to get the previous focus back

The selection bar is missing completely (does IBM really think people want to do keyboard acrobatics using Ctrl, Shift just to mark documents? Do they think it's more convenient than the old selection bar? And how on earth should people with accessibility restrictions come clear with that, have you thought about that too? Actually the old selection bar functionality should be even developed further so that you could save and load the selection to disk (=to a notes database))

There's no documentation about the .jar files and how to fix and customize the Notes 8 UI, the keywords and tags found in the .xml code can not be found on Google either

You can't just move Notes 8 Standard installation to another PC, but you have to reinstall the whole crap (using the Windows registry should be forbidden! You can do the same thing much more user friendly with .ini files)

It's Beta 4, or Beta 5 at best. IBM's quality control on Notes 8 has slacked horribly, it was released abrubtly in the middle of the most bugs in Beta 3

Scrolling up and down in the mail file using Ctrl-End and Ctrl-Home loses the selection focus also

The production tools are a joke, why would someone use an buggy and obsolete OpenOffice version? As long as "Edit Attachment" works with OpenOffice 2.3 and saves the changes back to the Notes document, there's no need for an integrated obsolete OpenOffice in Notes. As if Notes 8 Standard isn't big enough, I was shocked how long it took to copy the files to a 4GB USB stick, also lots and lots of small files, look at Quake2, they had everything in one single .pak file.

The running apps tab doesn't have "Open in Designer" anymore, also the "Open in New Window" is missing. This is also something many customers have complained about.

I just opened Notes 8 Standard while writing this line. What the hell is it doing? The busy flash blinks, the Windows cursor is an hourglass, and I can't do anything for 1 minute (the same time it took me to install the whole OpenOffice 2.3 suite earlier this evening). Also the -nosplash switch which worked fine in Beta3 is now removed or bugged, and I have to watch the spash screen for several seconds, I can't even click it away like in McAfee Enterprise. Notes 8 Basic opens instantly at any given time, and there's never any unknown delays or business. All those things work fine in Notes 8 Basic. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/58ABE650D5AF11D4C2257363006A4A50 Tue, 25 Sep 2007 23:21:56 +0200 After deploying our last Intel/Windows based server, it was already clear that IBM can not keep up with Intel based CPU server performance for the coming years. While the x3650 (x3950 didn't even support Quad Core, and everyone knows that 2 Quad Cores is more than 4 Dual Cores) with two Quad Core Xeon at max GHz runs pretty smooth at 1% under Domino 7.0.2CF2 all the day, it is still possible to jump the CPU load to over 50% by doing some additional tasks, like compacting files with WinRAR*32 at maximum compression. That is not acceptable for a high end business critical server. However, it's not IBM's fault, it's Intel's fault. Yes, I know Intel CAN also do CPU vector arrays as they have shown before, but there's no official solution on the market for that. IBM however has an official solution: pSystem and zSystem. I prefer pSystem since it grabs on the line of the world leading supercomputers, and Power6 CPU sounds very sexy (IBM Blue Gene/Q). The time has come, and it starts now. Workstations are not using Windows XP or Windows Vista anymore, but Fedora 8 is the only solution. It remains to be seen if Fedora 8 Server optimized setup can keep up with SUSE Linux in I/O performance, but it's also good to remember that Fedora has many other benefits over that. The future is here and now. Fedora 8 will rule the world and there's nothing you can or want to do about it. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/D3F28A19C60356C5C2257361006FDA6A Wed, 19 Sep 2007 20:03:41 +0200 ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/9F4559B643DFD80CC225735B005DB53A Wed, 12 Sep 2007 21:26:39 +0200 After the fine tuning it looks like this: The fine tuning can be done by any Notes Developer, or even Notes Administrator in about 10 seconds: 1) This value is originally 0, so change it to -1. This makes the icon of the mails which you have sent disappear, thus making the icon column have some sense. 2) Reverse the Date column sorting, change it from "Ascending" to "Descending", and change the "Click on column header" option also to reverse, from "Descending" to "Ascending": Now you're good to go, and can use the Notes 8 Mail template much more efficiently! ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/63D15EACB8C9D8D8C225735400654F71 Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:41:06 +0200 News article on arstechnica.com ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/96F9FA9FEC0913C8C225735400354189 Wed, 22 Aug 2007 18:57:12 +0200 CCleaner (which was also not able to uninstall or simply delete the entry in Add/Remove programs), but it was able to RENAME it. So I renamed the "Lotus Notes 8" entry in Add/Remove programs as something unique which I could easily find in the registry, I called it something like "PokunNutosZapDing", and then I opened regedit and searched for that string. It found it, and I was able to remove the whole tree branch where it occured. After that I could Install Notes 8 without any problems. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/B8313F610F9943B9C225733F0057DE4E Sat, 28 Jul 2007 19:17:06 +0200 XFX NVidia GeForce 8800 Ultra XXX transfers 103.7 GigaByte per second, and has full DirectX 10 hardware support, at a reasonable price of 749.99 USD. The EVGA NVidia GeForce 8800 Ultra Standard version costs only 574.99 USD: ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/9F4CE3D8B0D98DA8C225732600599E50 Wed, 13 Jun 2007 23:50:31 +0200 Nokia Communicator E90. What makes this phone interesting?

• GPS device and real-time map navigation system using it
• Decent keyboard and display
• Usable quality loudspeaker for conference calls
• Stable multiple mobile network connections
• Quad Band GSM
• 3 week lasting nonstop use battery

Of course it also has 3.2Mpx camera, video, FM radio, mp3 player, WLAN, 3G, etc... but those can't be used as business requirements as clearly. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/AA563C34BC92BEEDC22572F900728464 Wed, 13 Jun 2007 22:14:12 +0200 Looks even easier to use than Lucid in my opinion, since you don't need a mouse or keyboard, but can use your fingers directly. However it's only 2D, but then it also has touchscreen and image detection which is really cool and useful. Lucid then again is 3D and works also on computers without touchscreens, and considering that you need to move a mouse only a few centimeters, it might be still more convenient than having to stretch you fingers, hands and arms around a table. So I guess both are still quite good for different computer types, and don't exclude eachother. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/05B22EF2BBE7E79CC22572F90069B302 Tue, 12 Jun 2007 21:44:09 +0200 Project Majami is going forward again, as I got an opportunity to meet the singer of the band soon. I've started to create some sound samples for ModTracker, so we can record the vocals while he can sync his singing speed to the final song. After the singing is recorded, it's just up to me to play the final instrument tracks and finish the song. I think this will be the main guitar, as it has some unique distortion and sound: Main Comp Guitar (this is just a quick test, so it contains life errors in rhytm and note accuracy). Now THIS is wierd: I just bought the newest CD from Obituary, called Frozen in Time, and the first song is very similar to our planned main comp guitar (same notes, but slightly different playstyle - well, the typical Obituary notestep style of course). I swear I never heard of their song before today, and the original riff for Majami was done over a year ago. Somekind of telepathy? Then again, this pattern has been probably played by hundreds of bands before, as it's very simple yet metal genre specific one. But still a wierd coincidence that it happened almost at the same time (around 10 minutes before) when I played it, before I opened the CD case and listened to theirs... EDIT: Now I listened again to the original Majami working draft, and it was not exactly what I just played. It was similar, however inversed down, and shifted 4 notes up. Ok, it could be explained that I have tested some new sound patterns since then, and probably just assumed that I originally played it using the improved sound pattern. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/39A4DC7272C76E66C22572F80066F128 Sat, 09 Jun 2007 02:36:46 +0200 When you launch the Domino 7.0.2FP2 incremental installer on an Domino 7.0.2 server, it gives you an info that a few files will be updated. When you launch the Domino 7.0.2FP1 incremental installer on a Domino 7.0.2 server, it gives you info that some other files will be updated. When you launch the Domino 7.0.2FP2 incremental installer on a Domino 7.0.2FP1 server, it gives you the info that the files which were updated in 7.0.2FP1 are going to be "updated" again, and also the files which the Domino 7.0.2FP2 incremental installer wanted to update on a clean Domino 7.0.2 server. This brings me to the conclusion that the Domino 7.0.2FP1 incremental installer was a too quick and dirty emergency fix, which has been revoked in Domino 7.0.2FP2. This also means that you should NOT apply the Domino 7.0.2FP1 incremental installer on a Domino 7.0.2 server, but just apply the Domino 7.0.2FP2 incremental installer directly on the Domino 7.0.2 server, as the Domino 7.0.2FP2 incremental installer apparently tries to fix what the Domino 7.0.2FP1 incremental installer messed up. If you have already upgraded your Domino 7.0.2 server to 7.0.2FP1, then upgrading it to 7.0.2FP2 should do no harm, and it's probably better to upgrade it to 7.0.2FP2 than to degrade it from 7.0.2FP1 to 7.0.2 and then upgrade it to 7.0.2FP2. I just have a feeling that the newer upgrade is better in fixing the 7.0.2FP1 problem than the older 7.0.2FP1 itself, plus it's more of a "mainstream" action, than going down and back up again, and thus probably more likely tested by Lotus. And what about the picture? It's just an ironical joke to make a nerd topic look more dramatic and interesting, plus it looks nice! :P ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/2DBFA236742C85D6C22572F40081B7BB Wed, 06 Jun 2007 22:54:37 +0200 The Greenhouse Effect. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/CF008593671283C1C22572F2006D5D4B Wed, 06 Jun 2007 21:53:31 +0200 Wow, that was fast, it was really Quickr! I totally missed Quickr 1.0 as it's now already version 8 :) Hmm, well this starts to look like a true companion product of ND8, so should we start talking soon in terms of NDQ8? Maybe you can see where I'm coming from, as IBM Lotus has made this new trinity to look very synergetic: | Lotus Notes 8 | Lotus Domino 8 | Lotus Quickr 8 | And stay tuned also with the latest headlines on The Quickr Blog. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/9F805A74F4022E3DC22572F20067C579 Wed, 06 Jun 2007 03:07:32 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/2183B9B33CB28F93C22572F20000AFD7 Tue, 05 Jun 2007 23:32:36 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/8F917378D65BAFDBC22572F10070D86C Mon, 04 Jun 2007 17:35:19 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/49094FF496C8317DC22572F000502588 Wed, 30 May 2007 19:43:42 +0200

• 3D online/offline world
• Fully parametrizable environment
• Secure, closed system
• Portal, Collaboration, Chat, E-mail, File Sharing, Newsreader, Web Browser, Operating System Frontend, Programming Environment
• Modular programming environment using a pseudo BASIC language which is compiled via an integrated C-compiler into native machine code and OpenGL/DirectX instructions. No Java slowness!
• Available for Windows, Mac, Linux
• Free and commercial versions available for all audiences
• Launch Summer 2007 as core version, which will then auto-update itself in the future

]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/B5CB75FD2B141970C22572EB005BE015 Fri, 25 May 2007 18:45:37 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/8B09C769B1DA237DC22572E6005695DE Thu, 24 May 2007 21:34:55 +0200 Just saw Ed posting an article about Lotus Notes related GTD, and that reminded me to do things. It seems that GTD is even a registered trademark of David Allen & Co, which seems to have some good ideas about organizing your time and tasks. Some years ago I had an related idea, the Case Classification Code, but compared to GTD it was a more specific approach to a partial solution of the whole process. Before you can start to do things, you need to brainstorm what you have in mind, and categorize them by which you want to do and when. Time for some brainstorming then:

• Posting bugs I found ND8 Beta 3 to Lotus Beta Forum.
• Seems that HTTP retrieval of images in MIME mails over a proxy doesn't work anymore, worked in Beta 2.
• Writing an review about Notes 8 Beta 3 (not just about the mail box template!).
• Adding last modified date of last response document to Blog Area display.
• Coded this just a moment ago, need to verify the code and inject it into the template by tomorrow.
• Maintaining my mountain bike and start to ride to office.
• Bought some tf2 teflon insulation spray for the transmission chain, gears and wires. The chain looked rusted but after closer inspection it seemed to be just superficial rust, as the links of the chain moved easily.
• Vectorizing my company logo and mail it as EPS file to the sticker manufacturing vendor.
• Tested already Inkscape, and it can save as clean EPS and vectorize bitmaps using the "Trace Bitmap" menu option. But I need to hurry with this as the manufacturing of the stickers takes approximately 2 weeks.
• First version ready: siipi.svg. It's not perfect, as editing bezier curves needs quite some accuracy and skills to find the correct turn point.
• Publishing some info about my new project: Codename Lucid.
• This is a project which is aiming to replace the internet, including browsing, mail and collaboration technologies in a way how Linux replaced Windows and Mac in the OS area.
• Start to develop project Toiveita.
• Checking availability and price of IBM System p570 with Power6 CPU, this should be my next Domino 8/DB2 9 server.
• Making an IBM Blue Gene/L looking (black tower with slant front side) sound isolated (pyramid shaped foam technology inside) "dog hut" for my current Domino 8 server, as it's very noisy.
• Bought some new Western Digital harddrives on 2007-05-25, as they had no Samsung in stock before tuesday. However, the salesman said that WD is the best brand at the moment, we will see about that.
• Leveling up my Minstrel and Guardian in LOTRO.
• Ok, only when "time allows" :)
• Continue mine and Marko's musical project Majami.
• Project will continue on a set date (which is depending on other processes to be completed first), and subsequently a new project was inspired, lets call it "Modular Mobile Music", which will help musicians to utilize their music workstation's productivity effectively without actually needing to carry it around.
• Write more enemies, arcade sound effect and stuff into my game ARCLITE.
• Inject UDP engine into my game Ancient Myths, and write more stuff in it.
• Designing and letting get manufactured a designer collection of unique women's handbags.
• Developing an on-line web site for taking measures of dogs and letting get manufactured custom sized, ergonomically designed, dog coats for the cold weathers.
• And then there's a few hundred ideas and tasks in my primary work site.
• To be continued and edited...

]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/A307F744F1FDE888C22572E5006614B7 Sat, 19 May 2007 23:00:13 +0200 Hi,

We have received an considerable amount of spam mail from your domain @finnfour.fi.

Hereby we ask you politely to elimate the spam causers, or to shut down your servers.
If the spam does not stop, we are obliqued to contact the Finnish Police and via them to remove your spam.

Thanks in advance,
Mika Heinonen, CEO of Siipi Finland ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/AEC8583BE7A0FEBCC22572E0006DF7D9 Wed, 16 May 2007 23:33:59 +0200 The sheer power of IBM System p servers is simply amazing. Nearly 300 Unix servers can be easily consolidated into just 6 System p servers, according to this IBM Press Release. This is not just the tip of an iceberg, but an remarkable factor to reduce also the global warming. Global warming has already gone too far. If you want to be helpful somehow, save at least planet earth. Although this is about an Hollywood movie, it's not all fiction, not even nearly all. The point is to give you an motive to start studying about it. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/D0421B74A83BEF12C22572DD0070F7DE Mon, 14 May 2007 21:49:02 +0200 IBM System p! With a (or as many as you want) Power5-7 based (vector scalable) CPUs. Yes, it's the good old RS/6000 system in new clothes - the system which has also earlier beaten all world records in speed and performance. Even the God of Supercomputers, IBM Blue Gene/L and it's honorable ancestor, the Deep Blue, is a System p after all. Macintosh made the wrong choice, they switched from Power5 to Intel. Windows' limits are breached. Customers who want the maximum performance and value for their money of Domino 8 and DB2, should definately have a look at System p. The future is about consolidation and clustering of potential supercomputer child nodes (while not forgetting about the network topology of course). Even a single core System p runs at amazing 8.33 GFlops/s. For a price as low as $2,995 everyone can start today their journey into the world of supercomputers. The only limit is your need (ok, and money :). ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/64F2DE789CBF8C0EC22572DB00675A64 Mon, 02 Apr 2007 21:26:42 +0200 While the 7-Zip packer has been out since Year 2000, it has been relatively unknown. It's always amazing how the ZIP format is the best known packing format, while it's packing ratio is plain horrible. I've used RAR format for years, and it's has become also quite known in the professional computer scene. However, the 7-Zip format is the most advanced packing format known today, using the LZMA compression algorithm. It's simply amazing how much better it can pack than ZIP or RAR (ZIP 5 means WinZIP with maximum compression, 7Z means default compression): Original Size Packed Size Packing AntiRatio Saving Size Format Original File Type 2353875814 1855209107 78.81508 498666707 ZIP 5 2.19 GB MPG 2353875814 1854309536 78.77686 499566278 RAR 5 2.19 GB MPG 2353875814 1847655459 78.49418 506220355 7Z 2.19 GB MPG 2353875814 1840583498 78.19374 513292316 7Z 9 2.19 GB MPG This test file was pretty hard-to-crunch since it's an already packed MPG file. The packing differences are much bigger with unpacked files. There was also a very good packer around a few decades ago, called Quantum 0.97. It was quite slow though, but had the best packing ratio at that time. For a complete and quite up-to-date list of most existing packers, visit: http://www.maximumcompression.com/data/dict.php?historic=true ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/CAF720FE6662371AC22572B100653033 Fri, 30 Mar 2007 02:05:52 +0200 one. Similarly fatal problem were also reported with earlier Microsoft OneCare versions, and now their latest OneCare 1.5 is worse than any virus you could ever have. Some people have lost 3.5 years of their work and life because of this, some have lost even more. It deletes whole e-mail databases of Outlook when it detects a virus, which might not even be a virus. I've seen also McAfee think that my "Open CD drive bay" Blitz3D source code was a virus, and I don't think OneCare is better in detecting viruses than McAfee, not after this incident. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/ADE4F78863ACEDA2C22572AD007EBAD9 Thu, 29 Mar 2007 20:01:38 +0200 ) ■ Added Paragraph break after the Referers List to avoid automatic line feed in the first displayed Blog ■ Changed the "ND8 POWERED" logo to point to www.lotus.com/nd8 (=Notes & Domino 8), instead of to Domino 8, as this Blog is indeed additionally powered also by Notes, since you can use Notes RichText formattings in the Blog entries (and also maintain and see more details about the Blog using the Notes Client than just with a Web Browser) ■ Added Body title to the Blog Editing Form ■ Removed 1 line gap before the Blog title when reading a single Blog on the Web (stupid Notes bug: you need to add one space which is marked as PassThru before the field) ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/AC756FD4575CAA6DC22572AD005D6204 Sat, 17 Mar 2007 18:28:57 +0200 Technorati Profile ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/EBF7567599F81981C22572A1005AB6B8 Sat, 17 Mar 2007 12:22:21 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/095C2948BC7D60E0C22572A10039269D Sat, 17 Mar 2007 03:35:21 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/43696EDC6BA6B7B1C22572A10008E642 Fri, 16 Mar 2007 22:54:02 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/3E92F14ED2F1DAA8C22572A00072FAD1 Thu, 15 Mar 2007 09:18:31 +0200 When you open the Workspace while holding down the Shift key, you get the full page bookmarks, and can right click on any of the bookmarks and choose "Set Bookmark as Home Page". You can open the Workspace by setting it either as the "Home" link in the Open menu, or making a Toolbar Icon with the formula: @Command([WindowWorkspace]). Shift-Clicking the "Home" link or the toolbar icon opens the full page bookmarks. Also, when your Notes starts with the Workspace you can Shift-click on your Notes icon on the windows desktop to start Notes with the full page bookmarks. Don't move the bookmarks in the full page mode with your mouse though, as it will crash Notes, and I have reported this as Bug to IBM already. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/3377EE89DDDE9D4DC225729F00284FC1 Wed, 14 Mar 2007 19:46:56 +0200 ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/2505548F61809675C225729E0061D716 Sun, 11 Mar 2007 15:30:42 +0200 Mary Beth Raven's Blog: My suggestion was: And now we have them in Notes 8. However, Lotus made also a small improvement to the model by replacing the "opened folder" icon with a Folder- icon, way to go! They didn't add the dotted lines though, which I would have liked, since I have sometimes huge and complex trees. What Lotus did: ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/17B588D72497FAC5C225729B004A5EE2 Thu, 08 Mar 2007 22:20:31 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/C92142434B154A5DC2257298006FE340 Thu, 08 Mar 2007 22:03:41 +0200 Notes 8 Home Page. Enjoy your experience! ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/A3BB7EE252B6DF13C2257298006E58BF Wed, 07 Feb 2007 23:41:02 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/news.nsf/rootaeburn Looks like somekind of AE point blank fire nuke to me. However, only f, g, l, m root servers seem to have insufficient fire resists, or are just targeted. For online information see here: RIPE NCC 2007-02-05. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/AC21C420B8DBF8B2C225727B00774F76 Wed, 07 Feb 2007 22:14:27 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/7C0C33337A264B32C225727B006F6231 Tue, 06 Feb 2007 22:31:37 +0200 Formula Engine Rewrite (btw, his exposure is a very good reading, and I really appreciate that), I could not post this: Maybe IBM killed the spirit, but without IBM, Iris and Lotus would maybe also not have gotten the marketing force and publicity which IBM Lotus Notes got now. Now it's Big Blue vs (or and?) Microsoft. Although I also see IBM as a big dinosaur, I also see Lotus and Iris still as teams within. They know it themselves, using their "secret upside down" codex in LotuSphere :) Microsoft and IBM both have their bad and good sides, and I could list hundreds of things which I don't like about both, and which I like about both. However, in the end all what counts is what you use. I use certain Microsoft products, certain IBM products, and I think those are the best of both worlds, and those are the best not only in their worlds. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/1395A3452DBC6C9DC225727A0070EF73 Mon, 05 Feb 2007 20:33:55 +0200 official press release about it. Be prepared to update your production workstations, since this will be a very stable release, as we saw already on R6 and R7 Beta 1 releases. Anyhow, it beats any R5 or R6 client in bugfreeness, as there are already thousands of bugs fixed since R5. Plus that R5 has not been supported for long time ago, and R6 support also ends in the coming months. Your work motivation and productivity will be raised to new heights, and you have the chance to report bugs to the new Notes 8 Beta Forum when it comes out simultaneously with the Client Release, and improve this product even more when it goes Gold. I want a better Notes 8, you want it, and everyone else wants it too! ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/BD7390754BBA3B97C22572790065D138 Sun, 04 Feb 2007 19:43:55 +0200 Marko Vesapuisto). The Forum is a bit different from conventional Message Boards as it automatically archives posts by month. The areas are also not strongly seperated from eachother, but appear all on the same page categorized. This gives in my opinion a better overview what has been recently discussed, as other boards show only the last post per area. Features: ■ Anonymous can read and write posts, however not edit or delete them. ■ Registered users can also edit and delete their posts. ■ Easy registration, only username and password are asked. ■ Registered users have also a profile page, where they can upload files and other information. ■ The board supports also World of Warcraft item links, which are dynamically retrieved from wow.allakhazam.com and then stored in a domino database for fast access. The World of Warcraft item links appear as hovering layers on the mouse cursor, which can be clicked off with the left mouse button. The icon of the item and all stats are displayed. ■ Board adminstrators and moderators can mark posts as sticky, and this sticky is not a static one, but it's done via a "Sticky Until" date, which means you can choose when the stickyness wears off. ■ The board supports virtually any number of access levels, as they are done via domino groups. For example you can have a "Private Area", "Moderator Area", etc... The pricing policy for this tool is that same as for all web based products from Siipi: You only pay 10€ per started GB per year, no matter if you use a Blog, Forum, or your own custom database. Which means you don't pay anything for the tool itself, just for the disk space used. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/33B28C56B2CBA0FFC225727800613BD7 Fri, 02 Feb 2007 19:18:13 +0200 Godwin Ikegwuonu). With this web based tool you can create complete web sites running on a Domino server. You can choose to run it under a user site under siipi.com, for example siipi.com/yourname or under your own domain, for example www.yourname.com. The price for this tool (used disk space is counted as total sum of your applications) is 10€ per started GB per year. If you want additionally your own domain to run it, a domain (.com, .net, etc..) costs 10€ per year when ordered from Siipi, but of course you can also choose to have your domain hosted by an other provider. No additional tools are needed, only a web browser. You can also choose your own graphical web site editor, for example Nvu (which is a free, open source, cross platform web editor), and configure it to publish the web pages directly to the Siipi Web Site tool. You can deploy web pages and all kind of files into the tool, and all known protocols are also supported: ftp://, mms://, http://, https://, etc... Especially easy is the linking of web pages and files in this tool, you just need to say "/files/bagname/filename" or "/pages/pagename" in your HTML source. The tool is available in English and Finnish language. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/71E014FEAF231103C2257276005EE4B2 Thu, 01 Feb 2007 21:07:17 +0200 I don't know what it is, but everytime I listen to turkish music, I can barely hold my tears back. I am crying from pleasure, pure joy and passion. No other music does that to me (and yes, I listen to everything from all metal via pops to classics and romantics), and as a I am (usually) a rationally thinking man, I wanted to find out what causes this and came across this study of turkish and middle eastern rhythm patterns: http://www.shira.net/arabella/me-rhythms.htm, but it's not only the rhythm, it's also the language, the singing style, the violin patterns, and many other things which all come together. I must admit that I was also a bit embarassed when I was shopping CD's in a shop in turkey, and probably looked like I was about to cry :) It's hard to try to shop and listen to that kind of music, because your emotions stir you up totally. If you have a chance, try the songs Ahdım Olsun from Ebru Gόndeş, Ben Seni Sevduğumi from Kazım Koyuncu, Beni Unut from Serdar Ortaη, or Aşık Olma from Sibel Can (Don't you just love that turkish i without the dot on top :). If one thing in my life is for sure, it is that I will go back to turkey on my next summer vacation (impressions of my first trip to turkey: http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/9D1DB19610705C4EC225706F007A527D). Should I start to believe in reincarnation, soul mates, and memories from past lives? My heart says yes, my mind says study. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/E9982982F419AE4BC22572750068DFB2 Thu, 01 Feb 2007 03:25:02 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/C87D35DE1E146EC5C225727500079ECA Wed, 31 Jan 2007 21:25:48 +0200 http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/759377D6D63D2BCFC2257274006A90E0 Thu, 09 Mar 2006 21:31:57 +0200 The number of files in directories can grow huge on industrial Domino servers. Not necessarily in the Domino directories itself, but in all kind of support directories around the whole file system. When you have over 20000 files in a directory, it can take several minutes to open the directory with Windows Explorer, locally from the server, and especially over a network drive. I found a solution how to reduce the waiting time from 3-5 minutes to 3-5 seconds (!). Using a native C++ engine (xdir.exe), which is located on the Domino server, and a simple Web based UI, you can now explore file system directories lightning fast, and even searching for some text string inside the files is speed up in the same manner. ]]> http://siipi.com/public/mika.nsf/blogs/0F7ABC7414C5491DC225712C006B4D9F Sat, 03 Sep 2005 17:13:55 +0200