I only ask because it seems that nobody sees them anymore. Sure, we had the Notes 7 launch, which was fun, but aside from that, it seems that some strange paranormal event has happened to remove them all from the face of the earth. I can think back some 8 or 9 years ago, when I worked at a major Lotus customer**, that barely 3 months would go by without a friendly visit from our Lotus rep to see how things were going - did we know about the latest, greatest thing?, any problems we were having trouble solving? etc etc.

Now, I don't believe Notes is dead, so don't flame me for this, but it still seems the message isn't getting out there. Of the last 4 (large) companies I have worked for - 1 has completely moved away from Notes, 1 is moving away from Notes for mail only, and a third is fighting a battle to stop a large portion of Notes & Java (Websphere) development moving to .NET. I was handling this ok, until over the last two days I have heard of 2 more - one is a highly visible, very long-term, large scale Notes company which is moving to Outlook/Exchange, the other company is starting to contemplate moving to Outlook/Exchange rather than migrating their 2000 users from 4.6 to 6. Talking to people I know on the inside, it seems that almost every migration decision was completely political rather than technical.

My main problem (aside from a shrinking employment market!) is that in no company does it appear that IBM even knew these discussions were happening, and no attempt seems to have been made to prevent these customer losses. I honestly think that some of them may have been prevented with some agressive input from IBM to counter the continual pressure coming from Microsoft. I believe the problem is that the people who know (technically) are very rarely anywhere near high enough in the organisations to prevent these decisions being made. Existing customers need just as much (if not more) attention than new or potential customers. Surely it would help if IBM Lotus would start sticking their heads back in the corporate doors and asking "How are things going here?" - they just might be surprised at the response.

** corporate names have been removed to protect... well me!

There are three things which have been dominating the Australian news in the last weeks and months, and these things all have the same underlying theme. At the centre of these issues is a questioning of what we, both as individuals and a society, consider fundamental rights. Now, we here in Australia do not currently have a "Bill of Rights", and so, aside from any international law protections, have no constitutional protection on issues such as privacy. This means that, by and large, we are at the mercy of the incumbant government of the time.

The first of the three issues is, as with most of the rest of the world, terrorism. More specifically, how to combat terrorism and prevent terrorist attacks. I have mentioned recent events previously here and here. The proposed new counter-terrorism laws currently being debated in the Senate very clearly attack several fundamental principles - both habeas corpus (the right against wrongful imprisonment and to face your accusers in a court of law) and "innocent until proven guilty" are threatened via the proposal for control orders (pre-emptive detention); the right to free association is threatened as it becomes a crime to associate with suspected "terrorists", or to be a member of a "terrorist group" as defined by the government; and finally the right to free speech is threatened through the re-introduction of archaic sedition laws. This, as well as some questionable issues regarding right to privacy, and a definite risk of these laws being selectively enforced with racial and religious profiling (particularly of middle eastern and muslim individuals).

As I mentioned previously, the successful raid of suspected "terrorists" recently in Sydney and Melbourne, coupled with existing laws which already make it a crime to incite violence or terrorism, and that is is a crime to have build or attempt to make a bomb, only serve to make it clear to me that our police already have sufficient laws in place to assist with countering terrorism. Let us not forget that in reality it is almost impossible to prevent an act of terrorism, just as it is almost impossible to prevent any other act of murder or violence, without a great deal of luck - community support (tips), and of course, having enough police working where it matters.

The second issue dominating the news is the proposed Industrial Relations laws - which remove almost all the workers rights which have been established over the course of the last hundred years. These proposed laws make us question how we fundamentally feel about the balance between work and private life. It also brings to light the battle between corporations and individuals - and where the power should lie. The scariest (in my opinion) rights being removed in these proposed laws are the ability for a corporation to be forced to collectively bargin with it's employees (even if the majority of employees want this), effectively removing any power of unions. Now, I'm not necessarily a huge fan of unions, and have not been a member for a long time, but I do recognise their importance in many industries. This, along with the removal of the Industrial Relations Commission to determine minimum wages, and the removal of unfair dismissal laws for a large portion of the working population will leave powerless the most vunerable members of our workforce - the young, the near-retirement, and the uneducated, who will have very little ability to effectively negotiate with their employers to protect their rights.

The third isssue is the impending execution of Nguyen Tuong Van in Singapore. State-sanctioned murder (capital punishment) has been outlawed in Australia for decades, but we are suddenly thrust back into the capital punishment debate because Nguyen (an Australian citizen) is scheduled to be executed this coming Friday. Yes, Nguyen committed a terrible crime (drug trafficking), but to me (and to many people), murder is never a justifiable action. Imprisonment at least allows for the possibility of redemption (if not rehabilitation). The concept that a life is sacrosanct in every major religion, as well as in most countries.

Interesting to me is that across all three debates the Australian Government is working against the will of the Australian people in each and every case. Although the majority of people want strict terrorist laws, most do not want to get rid of the basic rights outlined above, and feel there must be a balance between preventing crime and preserving civil liberties. An overwhelming number of Australians (as seen in many polls) are against the proposed IR reforms - except of course, for business and corporation leaders. Finally, the public has been tireless in it's demands that the Australian Government do more to try to prevent the execution of Nguyen Tuong Van.

We can only hope that eventually the government will realise the will of the people, listen and act.

Much to my delight, my blog has suddenly had a large (well, large for me) number of hits - thanks to a link via Chris Bryne, and also via the Lotusphere 2006 Frappr.

It's nice to be part of such an active, international blogging community.

I hope to keep you interested, and to maybe catch up with some of you at Lotusphere

Now I just have to stop obsessively checking the stat counter!!!

The company I currently work is currently experiencing a problem with our personal network drives. It is extremely slow for users to access any data residing on their drives. Now, this problem shouldn't be a Notes problem - but alas, as with so many other things the "Notes is slow" calls were coming thick and fast.

Of course, the problem is that the standard set up here has a users' notes\data directory sitting on the network drive. Not a standard implementation, I know, and not recommended, but I've seen this setup in many companies over the years. (Roaming user will not get implemented, as the Notes client is being phased out here - outlook/exchange for mail, domino applications via browser - don't get me started!). The problem has been mostly resolved, with the exception of one issue - the spell checker process is very very very slow. This has been compounded by the fact that a user preference to automatically spell check messages has been turn ON by default for all users (don't get me started on that either).

So, why is it slow? Turns out that Notes will look for every listed dictionary, not just the dictionary specified in the user preferences. That's right - if your preference is for Australian English, the process will look to find user.dic, aus.dic, and then continue to look for all the other dictionaries. If the SPELL_DIR directory is specified as a network drive, this causes problems for the clients. This has been reported to Lotus and their solution - don't run off shared drives. My solution:

While Not (dictionary)
...search for default dictionary
Wend

Surely the brilliant coding minds who work on Notes can remember how to exit a function once the desired result has been returned.

Maybe something for "Hannover"?

There is a constant internal battle when developing for the web via Domino - quick and easy vs standards-based, fully accessible or "real" web development. Jake Howlett has recently commented on the latest step in his journey towards the second, and prompted me to offer my opinion.

While this battle also exists in Notes client development, the problem is exacerbated when developing for the web, mostly because it is most Notes/Domino developers generally only learn enough to "get it working". It can be time-consuming to learn how the arts and intricacies of web development - html vs xhtml vs xml; css positioning vs table layouts; when to use javascript - and to make things worse, there is really no definitive method. Methods which were considered "best practice" last month have been superseded this month. There are usually either no training courses available, or they are woefully out of date with current techniques. If you are willing to invest the time to follow the "self education" path, then you need to be prepared to spend alot of time googling and sifting through the hundreds of thousands of pages offering "The Right Way" to do any one thing. So, even if you have the time to try to learn, it can be a tough battle to fight. You can find yourself "fixing" one thing only to find it breaks other things.

How to resolve the battle then? To me, this is a difficult decision to make, and will often depend on your target audience. If you are building an external web application, then I think the aim should always be to produce (as far as possible given time/budget constraints) a standards-compliant, fully accessible web site. However, given that most of my work over recent years has been internally focused (intranet applications), then I usually have the luxury of knowing exactly what user environment is facing me. So, for instance, I know that if my application works in IE6 with Javascript, then I'm ok.

Now, as I'm a big fan of standards, I still try to provide cross-browser (at least Firefox), standard and accessible sites. I'm not so worried at the moment about Javascript, so I'll continue to utilise it, but I do try to use CSS positioning, and to make my sites as accessible as possible (allowing for clean degredation, labels, alt tags etc).

So, I try to break the bigger battle down into smaller skirmishes. First I have been battling with CSS positioning (flexible, variable width layouts). I think I have that one sorted out. Now, I'm dealing with CSS Form Layouts (using fieldsets, labels etc). Maybe next I'll start worrying about Javascript limitations and how to get around this. Anyway though, kudos to Jake for getting closer to winning his battle.

As part of their 10th anniversary The Webby Awards have released their "10 web moments which changed the world".

Overall, I think it's a pretty good list, although the one thing I would maybe have included is Hotmail - the launching of a free, web-based email client both brought email out of the corporate environment in a huge way, and, I think, is also largely responsible for the current spam problems - once people discovered they could anonymously register an address from which to send email, trouble was never going to be far away.

Still, it's an interesting perspective on world events over the last 10 years...

So, over the course of the last 24 hours, a series of raids have been carried out across Sydney and Melbourne and 17 men have been arrested and branded as "terrorists". Of course now the media is saying that the scepticism I showed with my last entry means I should now have egg on my face and realise that Honest John was right all along and has now been vindicated.

Well, I'm not all that sure how I feel about this series of arrests, other than sad. I feel like this will be looked back on as one of the darkest times in Australia's history. Why? Firstly, let me say unequivocally that I do not in any way support terrorist acts, and I strongly believe that the killing of anyone is wrong. Secondly, I am very supportive of our police force. I feel that they overwhelmingly perform an enormous service to our society with very little reward, and they should be congratulated and respected.

So, why the mixed emotions. Firstly, I still feel like this has the distinct smell of a political act - "Wag the Dog", anyone? From what I have read over the course of the day, and seen & heard from the media, it seems that these men have been charged with belonging to a terrorist organisation, and have been arrested for "planning" a terrorist attack which was "imminent". It also seems that the police have been watching these men for around 16 months. So, what triggered these raids - apparently there was increased "chatter". I say, so what? This to me feels very much like arresting someone for being a member of the communist party in the 1950s. I don't think talking is something which should be against the law. Let them talk. I don't care. Surely if there was no specific time or place for this terrorist attack, it can't have been very "imminent". Surely the police could have just kept listening - it's not like they didn't know who the men were. What if they never progressed beyond talking? What if they changed their mind? Should they still be arrested? I think not. My gut feel is that the police probably could have waited a bit longer, until the political debate had subsided, and collected more concrete evidence that an actual plan was in place.

That said, I also feel like if they had progressed to the point where they were stockpiling illegal explosives, then maybe it was time to act? I don't have all the information, and unfortunately I don't trust either the media or the government to give me truthful information, so I'll have to wait and see on that one. In reality, I believe that we will never know whether it was the right time to act, unless these men get off, as the laws are untested in a courtroom. Then, all we have accomplised is taking a group of societal outcasts, and given them yet another reason to hate.

I also believe is that it is fundamentally wrong for these men to be paraded about in front of the media and branded as "terrorists" before a fair and impartial hearing. Surely these men could have been arrested under illegal explosives or firearms offences without such a media brouhaha.

Time will tell how this period of time will be stand up under the microscope of hindsight, but I fear it will not get a favourable review.

Call me cynical, but I have to wonder how long the Australian Government has known the "specific" terror threat which has been publicised today. It seems very convenient that just as "tough" new terror laws are being proposed, there is a "threat" which can be used to allow the government to justify rushing these highly contentious laws through parliament.

These laws, which have been publicised and debated over the last few weeks, have been quite controversial as they include the ability to pre-emptively detain terror suspects, and sedition provisions that have civil libertarians worried. For weeks the media has been reporting about the concerns over the constitutional legality of some of the new laws, and the federal opposition, state leaders, constitutional lawyers and community leaders (including leaders of the Muslim community) have been expressing grave concerns over this legislation.

Now, all of a sudden, there is a "specific" terror threat which Howard can use to scare people into thinking that rushing these proposed laws through parliament is a good idea, and necessary to protect Australia from an imminent terror threat. I have to wonder whether this is just a ploy by the government to rush these laws through without sufficient debate.

Of course I would never want to see a terrorist attack in Australia, or anywhere else in the world. That said I still believe that governments need to be held accountable and that laws should exist which protect, not reduce, personal liberties.

I certainly don't have the answers, and don't pretend to understand the delicacies of defending against terror attacks but I sincerely hope that we, as a global community, can look to find other ways to help eliminate the threats of terrorism without us having to give up the very foundations on which our society was founded - "innocent until proven guilty".

“Those who sacrifice essential liberty for temporary safety are not deserving of either liberty or safety.” Ben Franklin

Melbourne Cup 2006: 1. Maykbe Diva 2. On a Juene 3. Xcellent (4. Leica Falcon)

Maykbe Diva has made horse racing history by becoming the first horse to win the Melbourne Cup 3 times (a "three-peat", if you will). A champion horse who is now destined to forever be known as "Phar Lap II" (why do we insist on always trying to prove that something new is better than something in our history?).

Apparently, something like 65% of the gambling public had some sort of bet on Maykbe Diva (as a sentimental favourite), myself included. There is one punter out there who had a $AUD1million bet - so that person is now around $2M richer - not bad if you can afford it! The bookies are screaming as they now have to pay just about everybody - not a successful day for them.

As for me... well, I did get my win/place bet on Maykbe Diva, and so made probably $30 (I haven't checked yet), but spent well over that in total on bets on other horses. Most disappointing is my box trifecta, as I had the horses who finished 1, 2 & 4 - so close and yet so far - I guess that's why they call it gambling!

Well, the first Tuesday in November is here again which, for most of Australia, means that today is Melbourne Cup day - the one day a year when everyone is a horse racing expert, sweeps abound in offices, and frocks and hats can be seen in everywhere. This is also the day which signals the beginning of the end of the year - the fun of Christmas and summer seems just around the corner, and the party season begins in earnest.

Why this is "the race that stops the nation" is beyond me, but it certainly makes for a great day, and allows those of us who hardly ever have a flutter, the chance to feel the excitement of the horses.

As always, I seem to have backed most of the field, as I can't resist a sweep, or putting on a bet on this one day. So, for the record, here are my horses:

1. Railings (7) $10 each way
2. Leica Falcon (22) $5 each way
3. Maybe Diva(1) $5 each way
4. Maybe Diva (1), Leica Falcon (22), Distinction (3), On a Jeune (16) - box trifecta
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5. Greys Inn (4) - $2 sweeps
6. Mr Celebrity (23) - $5 sweeps
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So, tune back in later today for news on how good a gambler I am! (My honest tip - not good at all!)

P.S. For those who don't know, sweeps are when you randomly draw a horse from the entire field.