Day 3: More shoveling

Another day, and even more shoveling. At least another 45 minutes. But at least I have a clean driveway. Here's a photo of the driveway after my evening on the roof the other day.

Back to 215

I've been bugged about a few things. One is this blog. The other is my weight. So, I'm going to see about bringing them together.

I currently weight about 230lbs. I haven't gotten much exercise recently, so that would have alot to do with it. My goal is to drop 15 lbs. My theories for doing this are going to be this to start:

1. Stop eating so much. I probably eat more than I should, so nows the time to cut back.
2. Stop eating crap. I like sweets, and they aren't good for me. I'm not going to go cold turkey, just limit myself.
3. Exercise. I'll spend at least 30 minutes every other day exercising, of some sort.
   

Day 1: Exercise

I spent 60 minutes taking snow off the roof tonight, and clearing the resulting piles off the driveway.

Refuctoring

Refuctoring is the process of taking a well-designed piece of code and, through a series of small, reversible changes, making it completely unmaintainable by anybody except yourself. Comprehensive regression testing guarantees that nobody will be any the wiser.

Link to Original Article

Prohibit users to trigger agents from web

Andrei's Blog about Lotus Domino and other things: Prohibit users to trigger agents from web: "Posted by Andrei Kouvchinnikov"

When developing agents, it's easy to forget that every agent can be triggered from web with agentname?OpenAgent URL. Such agent invocation can cause unpredictable results.
To avoid this, developer has these 2 options:
1) Hide agent from web using property "hide design element from: Web browsers"
2) Programmatically find out if the agent is triggered from web and exit

Sub Initialize
ev=Evaluate("@ClientType")
If ev(0)="Web" Then Exit Sub 'Do not run agent if triggered from web
'here goes the rest of the code
'which will be executed in Notes client but not on web
End Sub

Web Design Survey

I took the survey over at A List Apart. You should too…

You could win a great prize. Of course, if you enter, you could win… So don’t enter. I want to win…

Searching for the Wild Unknown

I did a web search on "Wild Unknown" tonight... It came up with this from a song by Jimmy Buffett... I think I'll finnd some way to use it...

Let me twirl
In my world
Out in the wild unknown

Don't bug me
Don't mug me
That's all I have to say.

Growing Domino Databases

We have this database at work that started growing last week. We only noticed it because we got a message from the server that we were running low on disk space. Upon investigation, an archive database had grow by about 12 GB over the past few days. No, it’s important to note that this database doesn’t get anything added to it, it’s only there for reporting purposes, nor are there any views being added to the database, it is essentially static.

It’s grown to the point that until we figure out what’s wrong with it, we’ve moved it to another server, but it’s still adding about 5 GB per day in space. We’ve compacted the indexes, compacted the database and nothing seems to work… If we make a new replica, it starts out at the correct size (about 29 GB) but then starts growing itself.

Anyone come across this before?

What is Stephen Harper reading?

Yann Martel wrote a book called Life of Pi. Among other things, it is about a tiger and a man in a lifeboat. It became a very popular book, and has brought him onto the national scene.

He's got a new project underway. It's titled "What is Stephen Harper Reading?". His goal is to ensure that Stephen Harper has things to do with his "stillness" that will enhance or extend his "stillness", and quite possibly enlighten his cultural knowledge at the same time.

Link: http://whatisstephenharperreading.ca/

Looking for a new host...

Due to some problems with the reliability of my webhost, I'm in the market for a new one...

I've found one that looks like it has potential... Jotahost.com is based in India, but their servers are in Miami, FL...

I think I'll give them a try...

Domino Web Clients and Attachments

So, I did some investigation today as to whether an authenticated domino web user still has access to attachments in documents that they have no access to. The easy answer would be no, but from what I’ve found, it seems that yes, the user may still have access to it.

There is documentation on the IBM website that brings up the entire web client and attachment access, you can read it here: http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21085155

It discusses the $v2AttachmentOption internal field that exists in Domino 4.6 an later.

I’ve followed their instructions, but found that as long as I had the exact URL of the attachment, I could still access the attachment, even though I didn’t have access to the document the attachment belongs to.

It turns out, that although it wasn't stated, $V2Attachment Option isn't a security measure, but simply one to hide the attachment on a web document.

Dynamic setting of urls in Domino

With a Domino .nsf file, occasionally you need to move a database from one server to another, but how do you keep your links intact when the new server has a new URL?

I have come up with 3 ways that I make use of that all return the same result. One is in formula language, one is in lotusscript and one in javascript.

Formula Language

[code]"https://" + @GetHTTPHeader("Host") + "/" + @ReplaceSubstring(@Subset(@DbName; -1); " " : ""; "+" : "/") + "/"[/code]

Lotusscript

[code]Dim Session As NotesSession
Dim dbase As NotesDatabase
Dim path As String
Set Session=New NotesSession
Set dbase=session.currentdatabase
path = "https://" & Strrightback(Strleftback(dbase.HttpURL, "/"), "/") & "/" & dbase.FilePath & "/"[/code]

Speed up your pages

Jake's running a week-long "Speed Week" on how to speed up page loads in Domino (and in general) over at Codestore.

Monday - Analyse Your Page

Tuesday - Limit Use of Images

Wednesday - Combining Resources

Sheepwalking

Seth Godin has a good post on Sheepwalking.

"I define "sheepwalking" as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a braindead job and enough fear to keep them in line."

I think we've all worked with someone like that...

Neat tool from IBM

IBM has released a web page timer program. It allows you to see how long it takes to download a webpage, and all the elements that download, as well as how long they take.

Check it out.

http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/pagedetailer

Of Architects and Web Developers....

I came across this, thought it was cute...

If Architects were Web Developers...

Dear Mr. Architect:

Please design and build me a house. I am not quite sure of what I need, so you should use your discretion. My house should have somewhere between two and forty-five bedrooms. Just make sure the plans are such that the bedrooms can be easily added or deleted. When you bring the blueprints to me, I will make the final decision of what I want. Also, bring me the cost breakdown for each configuration so that I can arbitrarily pick one.

Keep in mind that the house I ultimately choosemust cost less than the one I am currently living in. Make sure, however, that you correct all the deficiencies that exist in my current house (the floor of my kitchen vibrates when I walk across it, and the walls don't have nearly enough insulation in them).

As you design, also keep in mind that I want to keep yearly maintenance costs as low as possible. This should mean the incorporation of extra-cost features like aluminum, vinyl, or composite siding. (If you choose not to specify aluminum, be prepared to explain your decision in detail.)

Please take care that modern design practices and the latest materials are used in construction of the house, as I want it to be a showplace for the most up-to-date ideas and methods. Be alerted, however, that kitchen should be designed to accommodate, among other things, my 1952 Gibson refrigerator.

To insure that you are building the correct house for our entire family, make certain that you contact each of our children, and also our in-laws. My mother-in-law will have very strong feelings about how the house should be designed, since she visits us at least once a year. Make sure that you weigh all of these options carefully and come to the right decision. I, however, retain the right to overrule any choices that you make.

Please don't bother me with small details right now. Your job is to develop the overall plans for the house: get the big picture. At this time, for example, it is not appropriate to be choosing the color of the carpet.

However, keep in mind that my wife likes blue.

Also, do not worry at this time about acquiring the resources to build the house itself. Your first priority is to develop detailed plans and specifications. Once I approve these plans, however, I would expect the house to be under roof within 48 hours.

While you are designing this house specifically for me, keep in mind that sooner or later I will have to sell it to someone else. It therefore should have appeal to a wide variety of potential buyers. Please make sure before you finalize the plans that there is a consensus of the population in my area that they like the features this house has. I advise you to run up and look at my neighbor's house he constructed last year. We like it a great deal. It has many features that we would also like in our new home, particularly the 75-foot swimming pool. With careful engineering, I believe that you can design this into our new house without impacting the final cost.

Please prepare a complete set of blueprints. It is not necessary at this time to do the real design, since they will be used only for construction bids. Be advised, however, that you will be held accountable for any increase of construction costs as a result of later design changes.

You must be thrilled to be working on as an interesting project as this! To be able to use the latest techniques and materials and to be given such freedom in your designs is something that can't happen very often. Contact me as soon as possible with your complete ideas and plans.

PS: My wife has just told me that she disagrees with many of the instructions I've given you in this letter. As architect, it is your responsibility to resolve these differences. I have tried in the past and have been unable to accomplish this. If you can't handle this responsibility, I will have to find another architect.

PPS: Perhaps what I need is not a house at all, but a travel trailer. Please advise me as soon as possible if this is the case..