The first time I migrated MS Outlook to Lotus Notes, most users complain about the speed, and they said that MS Outlook is faster in any operations when compare to Lotus Notes.
I had to agreed with them.
I had to live with it, and thought that because it just they way it is, because Lotus Notes is not only an email client, but also a collaborations tool, that why it is slower compare to MS Outlook.
But I was wrong.
When I brought this up to IBM support, they came with a suggestion that I modified a file to increase the performance of Lotus Notes. And they were correct, with it Lotus Notes performance is a faster than before.
These are the steps:
- Close lotus notes.
- Open the folder/directory where you install lotus notes client, in my case c:\lotus\notes
- Find the file “\Lotus\Notes\framework\rcp\deploy\jvm.properties” and edit.
- Within the file, find the line “vmarg.Xmx=-Xmx256m” and change it into “vmarg.Xmx=-Xmx512m”
- Within the file, find the line “vmarg.Xms=-Xms48m” and change it into “vmarg.Xms=-Xms96m”
- Save the file.
Now, try to run Lotus Notes and see the differences. You can also play the setting, depend on your work load and your RAM. If you have more than 2 GB ram, you can try to increase the settings to:
vmarg.Xmx=-Xmx1024m
vmarg.Xms=-Xms256m
This improvement not only affects windows client, but also Linux or maybe Macs.
Please note that, if you apply the fix pack, the setting will be restores, so you need to re-edit it again.
Added: 2011-09-26
This also come from IBM support
If you feel that you have a network problem while using Windows Vista or Windows 7, you can follow this suggestion.
Run this command (without the quotes) from command prompt from Windows vista or Windows 7, make sure you run it as administrator.
“netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled ”
This command will disable the windows network auto tunning, see here
And better to apply the latest fix pacth, the latest fix pacth as I’m writing this post for Lotus notes 8.5.2 is FP3.
Popularity: 5% [?]
About Lotus Foundation
The most interesting part of the event is Lotus Foundation.
Lotus foundation is a “software suite” that has it own operating system based on striped Open Suse linux, and a striped down version of Lotus Domino server. It has it own anti spam and anti virus software, file sharing, firewall and even VPN server, that why I called it a software suite.
This is a software suite, so it can be installed in any hardware, but maybe some IBM Business Partner will sell it with the hardware to reduce hardware compatibilities issues.
And for the email clients, it support webmail, lotus notes clients, ms outlook and any other email clients that support pop3 an
In the advertisements, it state that it can up and running in less than 30 minutes, and it designed for small office with no IT personnel.
The suite can self configured, it mean that it will automatically detect the network infrastructure and configure it self based on it founding.
If the suite detected that there are some malfunction in part of it software, it will try to heal it self, by restore the configuration from the last backup, and it will done automatically.
In the demo, the hardware come with two sata harddisks, on for the suite and the other one for the backup. If something really bad happen, it will only take 30 minutes to restore to it default stat, and maybe another 10-30 minutes to restore from the backup.
You can get the brochure here, and the datasheet here.
I guess it true, that the suite is designed for small office that has no IT personnel, and soon I’ll be out of the job 
.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Report from Introducing Suse Linux Enterprise in Jakarta
I was visiting Introducing Suse Linux Enterprise 10 Seminar on Wednesday, 7th March 2007 in Jakarta and hoping that I can see and learn new features from Suse Linux. The Agenda in the invitation card is really promising, but the time frame is to tight, start from 9:00 AM to 01:00 PM with a lot of topics to discuss. It’s weird, but because I’m a big fan of Linux (I use Open Suse at home), so I decided to go.
The seminar delayed almost an hour, just because (I think) the projector didn’t work. The seminar start an hour later after the projector was replaced with another one.
Now, the speaker (from Malaysia), maybe because of the delay, start to jump in live demo about High Availability Data Center with Xen and Heartbeat. The speaker doesn’t even start with a presentation about it. He talk about if one server having a problem, and the other one will take over and also try to restart to server which in problem (if possible). Most of us never heard of Xen and Heartbeat, so jumping to the live demo is really confusing.
Then he start talk about new topic, Thin Client. This is good topic, and he explain a little beat slower, so most of us can understand, at least I can. Thin clients works similar like Windows Terminal Server, where we can use stocks of old pc to do simple task. The thin client doesn’t even need a hard disk to boot, it boot directly from the network, and can be use for simple task like data entry.
The final topic is about SLED (Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop), but in this session he mostly talk about the new 3D desktop (xgl) that I think is direct competitor with Windows Vista 3D. After I see the demonstration, I think that the xgl is far more better than Windows Vista. While not that hardware hungry like Windows Vista, it can produce good and smooth 3D graphics desktop. I’m not sure how improvement in graphical user interface like 3D desktop can help you to enhance productivity, but it’s a nice touch.
He also talk about the new Open Office 2.0 that can run VBScript macro. He also give us a demonstration that Calc (similiar with Ms Excel) can run Ms Excel file with macro, and it running fine. If this true, than we really can migrate from Ms Windows to Linux. I have to try this with my own stocks of macro.
One of the best thing about MS Office is their Ms Excel, and the best thing about Ms Excel is their macro.
Personally, I have a lot of macro to help my job, mostly for reporting to my boss. Every month giving the same report, macro is a big help. Without macro, I will spend hours just to prepare a report. With macro, I can finish it less than 15 minutes. If Open Office 2.0 really can understand and run windows macro, at least 80% of it, its really a big help. It will give people more strong point to migrate from Ms Windows to Linux.
The good thing about Suse Linux compare with Red Hat that Suse Linux only have two versions of Linux, Desktop (client) and Server. That’s it.
While Redhat have many versions of Linux, there are clients, server, advance server… I lost count. But every linux is good, the different is the support. If you buying linux, make sure that you have a good support.
I believe linux is the future.
Popularity: 1% [?]
How to configure sendmail as a gateway
This is a simple how to about how to configure sendmail to act as a mail
gateway.
This how to will only talk about 3 files: access, mailertable and
relay-domains.
File relay-domains NOT included in sendmail distribution (at least in my
CentOS distribution), you have to create it manually.
All files (at least in my CentOS) located in directory /etc/mail
Access file
First, we put our host and our network to be able to relay through our
server.
localhost.localdomain RELAY
localhost RELAY
127.0.0.1 RELAY
192.168.1 RELAY
192.168.2 RELAY
If you use GreetPause feature, you can put no waiting for local email.
GreetPause:localhost 0
GreetPause:192.168.1 0
GreetPause:192.168.2 0
If you using DNSBL, and want to skip one or two domains from DNSBL check,
you can use this
Connect:friendlydomain.com OK
Now for the big part.
Put all the domain that you want to relay BUT put it as REJECT. This way by
default all emails to that domain will be rejected unless we specify
otherwise – in this case OK.
indomino.net REJECT
blablabla.org REJECT
something.edu REJECT
user1@indomino.net OK
user2@indomino.net OK
user3@indomino.net OK
user1@blablabla.org OK
user2@blablabla.org OK
user1@something.com OK
Finish. For access file, you can use make -C /etc/mail to ‘compile’ it.
Mailertable file
Now put this entry in mailertable, so sendmail will know to where it will
route the emails.
indomino.net smtp:smtp.indomino.net
blablabla.org smtp:[192.168.1.25]
something.edu esmtp:[192.168.1.50]
Finish. Do make -C /etc/mail to ‘compile’ it.
Relay-domains file.
Most forgotten file, I think because it’s not included in most
distribution. You have to create it manually. Simply as type touch
/etc/mail/relay-domains to create the file.
Now type all the domain that you want to relay.
indomino.net
blablabla.org
something.edu
Finish. Now restart the server.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Lotus notes client 7.01 for Linux
Maybe some of you remember when WE – Lotus Notes user and also Linux lovers
- ask when will the IBM release Lotus Notes client for Linux? The answer is
simple, NEVER because it will need to redesign and recoding the software
completely, and even IBM doesn’t have resources for that.
But now, there is.
IBM finally launching Lotus Notes client for Linux since June 2006. Thanks
to eclipse powerful software, IBM engineers able to run Lotus Notes client
as eclipse plug-in.
Some user report that the client is take a lot of memory because it run
under the eclipse software. While eclipse software it self take a lot of
memory. Users hope that maybe in future, respectful IBM engineers will able
to make eclipse software much thinner and lighter and of course faster. So
Lotus Notes client able to run under it with better performance.
Right now, only passport customers are able to download the software. There
is no trial version – yet.
Well, at least we have hope now. Not that simple answer NEVER.
Linux is the future, as simple is that. And IBM knew it, that why despite
the NEVER answer, IBM still looking for a way to make Lotus Notes run under
linux. Thanks IBM for great and wonderful software’s.
Popularity: 1% [?]