This week I gave away my old Lawn Mower and pushed my way through my yard for the first time with a 20" cordless electric lawn mower, a 24V one made by Earthwise (I've heard it is the same as the HomeLite one sold at Home Depot that did well in Consumer Reports tests).  Why did I make the switch?   For starters, my old gas one was getting tired, as in the more I used it, the less likely I would be able to start it again if I got interrupted or was bagging my grass.  The other reason is that those little gas engines pump out a lot of pollution.  The EPA found that "operating a typical gasoline-powered lawn mower for one hour produces the same amount of smog-forming hydrocarbons as driving an average car almost 200 miles under typical driving conditions!"

For more inconvenient facts see:
http://www.epa.gov/air/community/details/yardequip_addl_info.html

As some of you might be thinking, electric mowers aren't pollution free, that power still gets generated somewhere, but more efficiently than a small gasoline engine!  
When solar kits come down a little more in price, the ideal matchup would be to charge the lawn mower using solar panels!   Until that time comes, you can contact your energy company and ask to participate in alternate energy options like wind.  Here in Minnesota Xcel energy has the Windsource program.  Its a relatively inexpensive way to encourage the expansion of low pollution options like Wind for power needs.

Now, on to my experience:
I don't have a huge yard, but I don't think its tiny either; with my old self-propelled mower it took me about 50 minutes to mow the lawn.  The battery life on the Earthwise is between 45 minutes and an hour.  However, after mowing my lawn, Only 1 of 5 LED charge indicators went dark!  I'll guess that the first-time performance will change over time, but it eased my concerns about running of juice half way through my lawn job.  Generally it was not too hard too push, a little easier than the 6.5HP Craftsman it replaced.  What I really liked was being able to stop and start quickly and easily (with the key in you just pull a lever to turn it on and release to turn it off) to pick up toys and other debris I missed.  The bag was a little disappointing.  I bag the grass in my back yard and I had to basically pull the grass out, perhaps the opening is too small.

Finally, when I was all done I didn't smell like a gas station: excellent!  

Comments (0)
Richard Thomsen July 16th, 2008 09:43:06 PM

This is a first look at Lotus Quickr Entry 8.1 for Domino, from an Administrator's point of view.  I'll share my observations for installing, configuring, and using the product.    The scope of my review is the 4 hours I spent getting it to 'work', plus a couple hours of testing with a colleague.  I have never used Quickplace or Quickr prior to this week, so this should give you a good idea of how simple it is to get up and running with Quickr.  I'm not recommending you follow my methods.  I'm sharing my experience as someone who doesn't have time to pour over installation manuals.  If I can't get through most of it on my own, I probably won't have time to support it!  I appreciate any comments to make this overview more accurate and helpful.

What is the difference between Entry and Standard?
My IBM rep provided me with a comparison table that I am trying to obtain a link for, but based on what I have experienced with Entry, my perception is:
Quickr Entry is for storing, searching for, and sharing files and email attachments, with some effective desktop integration (the Quickr Connectors).
Quickr Standard adds the desktop application integration of Quickr Entry to updated team spaces that you may have used with QuickPlace (wiki, blog, etc).

Install:
My test environment was a Windows VMWare instance that was previously setup with Domino 8.0.1, using a Domino Directory, and routing mail for a handful of test mail accounts.  I had already configured Multli-Server SSO and Internet Sites prior to installing Quickr.  Installation of the software took about 20 minutes, with some stops to review information at the Quickr 8.1 Information center .  There was a question about whether to use personal or team spaces, which was basically the checkpoint for whether you are installing as Quickr Entry (Notes 8 entitlement) or Standard (separate Quickr licenses).  In addition, you have to create an administrative login and password that does not already exist.

After the install I started up Domino and immediately experienced a PANIC.  For lack of other options, I disabled the Java server controller and rebooted.  It started up fine.  Configuration was relatively simple.  We already had SSO enabled, using Internet Sites (though from my Quickr Forum searches, it sounds like IBM may not support Internet Sites yet with Quickr).

The next mystery to solve was what the default URL should be.  The install did not update my Domino configuration with any Home URL, so I looked at the directories and tried main.nsf within a LotusQuickr directory, which worked.  My first attempt to login (with my own account) failed.  At this point I checked the documentation to see what I missed.  There was an ACL group that resembled an Admin group in each database that I added myself to, and I was able to get in.  (Note to IBM: Why not ask for an administrator group name during install?)  However, to finish the configuration I still needed to access a 'Site Administration' link that I could not see.  I needed to use the original administrator account I created during install to make this happen.  However, that account did not work (perhaps due to an already configured Domino Directory and users?).  Quickr did not put the administrator user in the Domino Directory, but it did put it explicitly in the ACL of the databases.   I created a person record for that account and was up and running minutes later.

For the Site Administration, you've got Security (who can create places and administer the server), User Directory (set this to Domino if needed, right away), and Other Options.  Other Options contains settings, like Calendar Notifications that I don't believe are relevant to Entry, and others, that I have not yet configured, like Sametime integration.  You can also specify file size limits and off-line options here.  

Place Administration is also straightforward (and limited).  You can see the sites (user file spaces for Entry), lock, unlock, and assign policies.  The policies allow you to lock a place when it gets too big or is inactive for too long.

So it's installed, what's next?

Usage (after some troubleshooting)
Web interface:  Looks clean and modern: I like it.  The Site Administrator and Place Administrator screens don't have many options so you shouldn't be spending a lot of time with web-based administration.  As a user you have two tabs, My Files and Find Shared Files.  From My Files you can upload, edit, replace, and 'recommend' (send email links to) files.  Find Shared Files is simply a search through all available files.  More on this when we get to Security!

Now, on to the Quickr Connectors. This is what I have observed the last few Lotuspheres, and anxious to see.  The 8.1 connectors are under 20mb and include Office, Notes, Explorer, and Sametime.  Installation was quick.  After installation, you will have a Quickr icon in each application, with an option to 'Add Places'.  You need to know the server name and an http login/password to access the list of places.  This is where I ran into problems again.

I kept getting a 302 "Error Logging into Server as " error and could not access Quickr to obtain the place list.  Forum postings suggested that the Connectors need to reach the right URL when they access the Quickr server, and that Quickr does not like redirection.  For the URL I changed the home url in the Internet Site for the server to lotusquickr/lotusquickr/Main.nsf .  I couldn't find this in the documentation, but looked to the Quickr forum.  Given I used the main.nsf to determine the default URL before, this made sense.  The next thing I did was search the documentation for URLs and paths, and came across the document on setting the sign-in form mapping.  This may not have mattered, but the Quickr one looks a lot better than my 'key' session authentication page.  After these 2 changed, it still didn't work.  Thinking back to the redirection idea, I noticed that I had my Internet Site set to redirect to HTTPs.  Mind you, SSL does work with Quickr, but for my test server, I did not need this on.  I turned it off and was then able to add a place using the Connectors.

Which brought me to my next problem.  'No places found'?  You have to prepare the Entry Place for each user.  From Domino qptool createentryplace -e allowed me to create a space for myself and a couple other testers.  Once I was up and running I could add files, search for files (from the website or browse via connector), and manage them from Place Administration.

Along the way I came across 2 important Notes.INIs for troubleshooting:

QuickPlaceAuthenticationLogging for general login to Quickr

QuickPlaceWebServicesLogging for Connector troubleshooting

You can access your Quickr place from within Notes 8 Basic or Standard.

Security
When you add files, you can check them as 'unlisted'.  Why?  Because any files you add to your place, are visible to all other Quickr users .  If they are unlisted, you can send users a direct link to access the file, but it won't be available via search results.  I was wondering how IBM would make the file sharing self-serving on the security front, and this is how they did it.  However, I'm not sure what kind of data people would really be willing to attach to reap the benefits of sharing this way.   If it's unlisted you lose the benefits of sharing and editing a single copy stored on the server.  My opinion is that most listed files would end up being personal (Hmmm, maybe that's why it used to be called Quickr Personal Edition?).  My understanding of the unlisted document is that you share it by sending an email link, but they can't see it from the web-site like public files.

(Jumping to) Conclusion(s)
I'm very interested in learning more about Quickr Standard, but I don't see the value in Quickr Entry.  It's not like Notes client-integrated Sametime where there is a real benefit to all from the get-go.  The unlisted file method of 'securing' documents is not robust enough for any enterprise purpose I can think of.   C'mon IBM... this is Domino, couldn't you have come up with something more creative and secure for Entry file sharing (Readers fields anyone?).  Perhaps this is the whole point, to simply entice Administrators to take a look.  After all, installation was not difficult.  I had a few problems, but still had everything up and running within 4 hours.   I like the overall look and feel and can imagine the benefits of Standard.  I'll post an update when I am able to evaluate Quickr Standard.

If you made it to this page, I imagine you'll also be looking for some kind of rating.
Here's my current take:
(based on comments and new information I reserve the right to change any portion of this page and my opinion!)

• (4/5) Look and Feel: I like it!  It lost a point due to some irritating places where you add a user and instead of a 'Finish' option you click Next...but there is nothing 'Next'!
• (3/5) Access Controls: Entry has limited options.  You should be able to grant people or even groups the ability to access your unlisted documents within the web-based Place.
• (4/5) Installation and Configuration.  Most of my problems were resolved by reading the documentation or consulting the Information Center.
• (4/5) Usability: Good, though I'd like to drag a file right onto 'My Files' in my place.
• (2/5) Management: Simple, but too simple.  The whole point (for me) of looking into Quickr is to address exploding unstructured content needs and provide an easy means for people to work with data outside of email ("ecm-lite").  The business value of Entry is diminished greatly by the lack of basic records management controls for categorizing and expiring content.  We don't want to create another mess of shared folders (or places) that never get cleaned up!
• (3/5) Overall: Good for the main purpose it serves (sharing public documents).  The problem is that I don't know of many business cases for doing this that is worth installing and supporting, beyond what people already have (A shared folder). What do you think?  It's like we just added a prompt to Notes to store a document in a shared folder, but what's the benefit if it is secured less than can be done with a shared folder?

Jack Dausman's Blog  reminded me about some free IBM Quickr training.  I hope to check that soon to see if any of my concerns are addressed in Standard.

Comments (1)
Richard Thomsen April 29th, 2008 07:02:29 AM

The Retrofit Companies is hosting electronics recycling events over the next few months.  One just occurred this last weekend in Little Canada.  It was the fastest drop-off I have ever done, they were very efficient!  I seem to miss these when they occur near my home, but this time those old power supplies, motherboards, and cd drives found a home....

Link:
http://www.retrofitcompanies.com/collections.html

Comments (0)
Richard Thomsen April 27th, 2008 08:12:29 PM

This is a great idea for a great creek ride:

http://www.threeriversparkdistrict.org/news/news_detail_special.cfm?&id=2620&action=View&startrow=1

I love paddling on the Minnehaha Creek.  There are lots of nice sections you can do in 2-3 hours!  Now I don't need two vehicles to go with a friend!

Comments (0)
Richard Thomsen April 27th, 2008 10:15:25 AM

Email archiving and discovery tools are needed now more than ever.  If your organization is tired of fighting email quota battles or wasting time on inefficient discovery processes for litigation, its time to take a look at the latest archiving solutions for Domino.  In my latest The View article, I provide my experience, via guidelines and checklists to get you on the right path. When it comes to the topic of mail management, email retention policies, and legal discovery requests, I found that lots of people are 'in the process' of researching solutions, either for legal or capacity/performance reasons, but it can be a long journey to get to the end.  It doesn't help that research firms and the leading archiving vendors don't put much emphasis on our platform.  What has your experience been?  I'd love to hear from others out there who are beginning, in the middle of, or have completed a project to deploy archiving and discovery solutions beyond native Domino Archiving or Journaling.

For The View article description, click here: Best practices: How to choose the right e-mail archiving solution and sell it to management
This article was published in the March/April 2008 issue of The View.
To view the whole article, you need a subscription to The View: Subscription Info

Comments (1)
Richard Thomsen March 7th, 2008 07:30:00 AM

Is anyone really using the Message Tracking Collector?

MTC indexing puts a big hit on your Domino server's CPU usage and doesn't provide results when I try to run reports against the data, most of the time.  That said, I find it to be an easy way to verify that user A sent a message to user B, who deleted it.  I also like the ability to issue a tracking report right from your Sent folder.  I could really use those reports on message volume and top senders also, but even if I run it against a single day of data, I can usually expect a blank report, or one that says there was too much data to process.

Is there a known upper limit to the volume of mtdata documents the report tool can process?  

Further has anyone found a sweet spot for the number of minutes to configure the collection interval in the configuration document?  I've tried longer collection intervals (2 hours) so my CPU doesn't ramp way up repeatedly, but then I find events in DDM indicating it can't keep up with the volume of data.  I've tried short intervals (the default 15, 5, etc), but I get the same message?  

I don't find a lot of feedback from users on the forum, nor useful documents in the KB about these issues, so I figure noone uses it because of the issues I face, and IBM gave up on it from the get-go.  True?  What other tools do you use besides normal statistics collection to create the kind of reports that the MTC data and Reports database can (potentially) provide?

Comments (5)
Richard Thomsen February 5th, 2008 06:34:05 AM

If you're looking to add some failover options for your outbund SMTP delivery, keep reading...  The scenario is one where you have a Domino server that can utilize two or more SMTP Servers as its next hop out to the internet, perhaps an AV or email security gateway.  It's not readily apparent whether Domino can direct email to more than one server or not.   However, there is a way do this, in your Configuration document under Router/SMTP>Basics:



They key is that you separate your 2 outbound mail servers with a comma.  If you enter them on separate lines it won't work.  With this configuration in place, Domino will alternate delivery between each host!

Comments (2)
Richard Thomsen February 3rd, 2008 01:26:12 PM