March 2006 Archives

I was skimming through technotes on the Lotus Support site and came across a technote (193337) that I hadn't noticed before, and since it's Thursday I figured I'd share because I haven't seen it anywhere else:

Does Sametime scan files for transferred viruses?

Without posting the whole content of the technote, what it's saying is that this functionality will be in Sametime 7.5. When I deployed Sametime in my current environment, lacking the ability to scan files in transit is the reason why I wasn't allowed to enable the file transfer functionality.

This feature is going to be as big for me as the new pretty UI on the client. Thank you IBM!

Technorati Tags: Domino, Lotus, Show and Tell Thursday, Software, Technology

Since the iPod Nano needs Autofill post a while back I'm still thinking of how to manage my music on the iPod and in iTunes in general. On Thursday, I came across a blog posting called iTunes Smart Playlists at Andy Budd's blog.

I don't know why but for some reason, I never noticed that one of the rules you can set for a smart playlist is to have it use another playlist or set of playlists as a source. That helps a lot of the issues I have had in the past with keeping an interesting and fresh mix of my music available. I used the playlists in Andy Budd's post as a base and took some tips from SmartPlaylists.com and I've built a decent playlist. It'll get better as I get more music listened to and rated, but it's definitely a good start.

The playlist that I'm feeding the iPod with is limited by total size which I still have to adjust up and down as the size of my podcast list. The Autofill problem still isn't solved, but at least the mix is better.

Technorati Tags: iPod, iTunes, Playlist

Here the video of Will Wright speaking at the Game Developer Conference this year. He talks a lot about his philosophy on gaming on how the more empowered you make the player of a game to make their own content, the more the player will respond to the experience. You can't argue much with the kind of success he's had. During the talk, Mr Wright illustrates with a demo of his new game: Spore. Starting with evolving bacteria up to being master of the universe seems like a tough game to put together, but they're doing it and it looks incredible.

Technorati Tags: Software, Technology

We were downtown for the St Patricks Day parade today. On the way back, I was reminded that I'm walking by where our government works. The government lives in Georgetown and McLean. Might take some pictures out there sometimes too.

Sometimes it's hard to remember what's down there when you live so close. When I worked in DC I was up by the old convention center and Margo worked at the USDA South building. The only time I ever went into any of the monuments or museums was when I went to visit Margo...it was easier to walk through the Natural History Museum than it was to go around it.

Technorati Tags: Holiday, St Patricks Day, Washington DC

101 Cookbooks - Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream: I'm speechless. Why hadn't I tried this before? Probably because I assumed that LN2 was expensive. Lots of good links to get started on thinking about LN2 cooking. That'll definitely get me back in the kitchen. Started up the grill today and did some filets mignon. I got a taste for BBQ this week, so I'm getting ready to fire up the smoker if the weather holds.

Technorati Tags: Food, Gadgets

Here's the opinion piece.

I have mixed feelings on Show and Tell Thursdays. There's a lot of great information out there. The sharing of code tips and tricks is fantastic, but genereally not useful to me as an admin. Best case for development tips is that I'll see something I recognize and pass it along to a developer I know. Reading positive news and "I was able to accomplish X in my company with Domino" stories is always great too.

Maybe I'm just not seeing them but I don't see a lot of admin SnTT writing. It's hard to make admin interesting. There's a lot of things I do during the day that may be interesting or useful to other people but it's hard to pull it out of the context of my day job and put it out there in a way that's understandable and useful to other people in their environment.

If I think of something that I can write about I'll try to get it out for Show and Tell Thursdays in the future (like I did this week). What I have decided to do in the spirit of SnTT when I don't have anything blogworthy to post is spend more time in the Notes.net forums and answer whatever questions I can in there. That way at least I'm contributing something back to the community on a regular basis. I'm trying to make it a habit because I know that the more I give back in finding answers to people's issues, the more I'll be prepared to deal with new issues of my own.

Technorati Tags: Domino, Lotus, Show and Tell Thursday, Software, Technology

I'll put my thoughts on Show and Tell Thursday in a different post. Look for it (or not) soon. :P Here's an admin thing that popped up again recently for someone I know. It took me a while to remember what the fix was and it takes some digging in Notes.net or Google to find it so it sounded to me like a good SnTT post. This is for Sametime 6.5.1 on Windows. I can't vouch for other platforms. I haven't done this in R7 yet so I don't know if it has the same issue. If you do a lot of partitioned Domino servers like I do, you tend to try to keep all of your server-specific files in the server's data directory. Even servers that aren't partitioned I always put the notes.ini and the server.id in the data directory. It's one less step I need to do later if I need to migrate the server into a partitioned configuration. There's a problem when you do this with Sametime 6.5.1 servers on the install. You get throught the first part of the installation OK, but the second section of the install when it runs stsetup.exe, after you choose your directory type, the installer comes back with a "File does not exist" error. There are probably several conditions that can cause stsetup to throw this error, but in the environments I deal with, it's always been the same thing: stsetup is looking for notes.ini and the server id file in the program directory instead of the data directory. The fix is to just copy those files into the program directory before the Sametime install and then copy them back to the data directory when it's done.

Technorati Tags: Domino, Lotus, Show and Tell Thursday, Software, Technology

Yesterday, I posted a list of my favorite podcasts. I made a couple goofs. One of which was pointed out by one of the podcasters that I mentioned in my list. I'm still figuring this blogging thing out. Bear with me. :)

The Manager Tools podcast hasn't been doing interviews. I have no idea why I put down that it did. I guess that's what happens when I try to write a lot of words all in one post. I stand by the rest of it. Management is hard work, and it's harder work to do it right. I'm learning a lot from this podcast and I hope that I can apply their techniques effectively some day.

I also listen to another podcast that does do interviews that I failed to list in my favorites list.

The Cranky Middle Manager podcast. Another management-oriented podcast whose primary focus is on the issues that middle managers face. The host interviews various authors, consultants and managers about topics like how to lead geeks, getting over disciplinary xenophobia, and many others (the latest episode is #38).

Also while I'm thinking of it, I starting to lean back in the direction of iPod Nano's needing Autofill. The variability of the size of my Podcast playlist is making it really difficult to fill the rest of the device with music.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, iPod, Podcast, Productivity, Technology

I'm behind on putting a proper blogroll on the site. One of the categories I have is for podcasts that I listen to. Someday that'll go out on the left or right margin of the blog.

I mentioned some of the podcasts that I get to Jonvon a couple days ago, and I was reminded that a good place for this kind of list was my own blog. So here it goes.

Music:

Discoslut
This is the newest podcast in my list. It's been up for a couple months and there are only two episodes. The most recent one is the result of a project from the IDM-Making list. IDM electronic music here.

Electronic Periodic
More electronic music including ambient, IDM, electro, trance and experimental. Not as regular as it used to be, but when they come, updates are high quality.

Industrial Radio
Industrial electronic music. Spans a lot of subgenres of industrial...the mood of an episode seems to heavily depend on Jon's mood when he's putting it together. Not on a regular schedule anymore either but I really enjoy them when new episodes come out. Currently, I'm making my way through the episode archives on this one.

Mark Rushton's Ambient Downtempo Electronica Avant-Garde IDM Drifty Music Podcast
Very very ambient most of the time. Mark Rushton uses his podcast to showcase his own musc. Most of the episodes are remixes of live improv performances. I find it interesting, if not always musical.

SMtv
Weekly podcast by a very talented singer songwriter. The first and maybe the second episode (the latest episode is #37) feature her music, but the rest of the episodes, she interviews and plays some music from musicians that she finds interesting. The music tends to go between acoustic singer songwriter to light punk.

Spacemusic
Live from Rotterdam the Netherlands! Ambient sound scenes, space music, sometimes dancable electronica. Sometimes TC's own music is mixed in but usually the podcast is about other musicians and occasionally ambient soundscapes from around Rotterdam. This podcast updates every other week. I really enjoy the variation in the format of the shows with this one in addition to the great music.

Video

(I don't have a video iPod, BTW)

Ask a Ninja
You got questions, ninja got answers. Silly but entertaining. I can't get enough of it. The most recent episode is titled, "Ninjas hate Clooney." I look forward to killing you soon.

Waveform
Electronic music videos. 3-4 per episode usually. I'm enjoying it so far, but what I'd like to see is an audio-only version too.

Non-Music

43 Folders
Organization and productivity centered around the Getting Things Done framework. The blog historically has had a focus on implementing GTD on Mac's, but there are a lot of tips and info that aren't necessarily platform or software specific. The podcast isn't specific to software either. Merlin talks about more general and practical ideas for personal productivity that aren't necessarily GTD-specific, but are GTD-compatible.

Manager Tools
Management and leadership techniques podcast. Solid, if labor-intensive, management technique for new and experienced managers. Some interviews.

Taking Notes
It's the Lotus Notes and Domino podcast! I never thought I'd see one of these. Generally developer-oriented but it's hard to make administration and administrators interesting (disclosure: I'm an admin).

Update: I should probably point out here that some of these podcasts are not worksafe at times. Industrial Radio, SMtv and Waveform are marked "Explicit" in iTunes

Technorati Tags: Blogging, iPod, Music, Podcast, Productivity

I know I don't have enough readers to staer a meme or a movement but....

iPod Nano's need Autofill!

How does it make sense that 512MB and 1GB Shuffles get autofill in iTunes, but 1GB, 2GB and 4GB Nanos do not? I would think that most people that would own an iPod have more than 4GB of music to put on it. Autofill on the Shuffles is great! You point it at a playlist and have iTunes dump music onto your iPod til it fills up. Good stuff.

If you spend the extra $$ to upgrade to a Nano, especially if you owned a Shuffle previously, you're actually taking a downgrade in functionality. Suddenly, you lose Autofill and have to do it like the big iPods do....pick a playlist to sync it up to.

That's OK when you have +20GB of storage, but when you're working with as little as 1GB, you now have to create a playlist small enough to fit the Nano and figure out how to populate it with a variety of music from your library.

It gets worse if you have iTunes download your Podcasts. If you sync your Podcasts list to your iPod, now you have a second playlist to deal with that could vary greatly in size. So you have to either short the "iPod Music" list or keep adjusting its size to fill up what the Podcasts list doesn't.

If anyone knows of a less labor-intensive way to handle space/music management on a Nano, I'd be glad to take a look.

Nanos are cool, but not as usable as Shuffles. Yet. Too bad, really. I'll be submitting an enhancement request for iTunes soon.

Update -

I should have looked more before I posted. The Apple support forum has a pretty good discussion on this subject and some of the posters make a pretty good argument that with good use of iTunes' Smart Playlist functionality, you can approximate some of the functionality.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=874883&

This still doesn't really address how to do Autofill-like functionality when you have a variably sized Podcast playlist on the Nano as well. It is enough to get me thinking of other ways to work around it though. Will do a follow-up if I work together something interesting or satisfying.

Technorati Tags: Music, iPod, puppy, Software, Technology