Sametime 8.5: Make sure you can ping your LDAP server

If you create a guided activity for installing a Sametime 8.5 meeting server you should make sure that you not only can reach you LDAP server via port 389 (resp. 636) but you also can PING it from the system console.

If PING is not allowed e.g. because of a firewall between the system console and the LDAP server you will always get the error message that your LDAP server is not reachable.

If for security reasons normally PING is not allowed you will need to temporarely enable it until your installation has been finished. Afterwards you can disable it again.

Sametime 8.0.x: Solution for “Meetings scheduled in AM are changed to PM

A customer complained that if some users schedule a meeting in Sametime 8.0.x which should occur before noon the time of the meeting is automatically changed from AM to PM.

This can happen if you have set your Internet browser to a country/language which uses AM and PM for the time (e.g. “English (US)”) and  the regional settings of your server is set to a a region which does not use AM/PM but 24h time display (e.g. German).

In this case the Windows registry entries for AM and PM on the server are blank which is the reason for that problem.

To solve the issue you need to add the values for AM and PM in the Windows registry on the server.

If the Domino Server is started as a windows service (which is normally the case), then these values need to be changed in the HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\International of the registry as programs running as a service are using the .DEFAULT settings.

The values to be updated are :

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\International]
“s1159″=”AM”
“s2359″=”PM”

After you have updated the registry and restarted your Sametime server the meetings should be scheduled correctly regardless of the language settings of the browser.

Overview of IBM WebSphere Application Server Concepts for IBM Lotus Sametime Administrators

A new document explaining the following WebSphere Application Server concepts in the context of Lotus Sametime is now available:

• Architectural terminology
• Common admin commands
• Servers involved in a Lotus Sametime deployment

Audience: IBM Lotus Sametime customers who are new to Lotus Sametime 8.5 administration.

Requirements & Prerequisites:  None. No prior WebSphere Application Server knowledge is needed.

Authors: Jessica Piziak and Ellen Tiberi

The document can be downloaded from here.

Solving an issue with DB2 Control Center no longer starting

I had the issue that the DB2 control center did no longer start. You just saw a command windows and the splash screen appearing and both disappeared after a few seconds. The solution was to cleanup some files.

On Windows go to “c:\documents and settings\allusers\application data\ibm\db2\db2copy1\db2”. Now delete the following files:

db2cache.prf
db2dbamr.prf
db2misc.prf
db2tools.prf

Go also to the “c:\documents and settings\allusers\application data\ibm\db2\db2copy1\db2\tmp” directory and delete the temporary files which are there. Afterwards you DB2 control center should start again.

Error installing FP2 for Lotus Notes 8.5.1

As I tried to install Fixpack 2 for Lotus Notes 8.5.1 today the installation failed with the message “Error encountered while installing Notes Core Hotfix component.”.

After some investigation I found that the JQS.EXE process (Java Quick Starter) seems to conflict with the installer (or has one of the Notes processes in use, although I cannot explain why).

As soon as I killed JQS.EXE with the Windows task manager the installation succeeded. Maybe this will help others with the same issue …

Upgrading my Virtualbox server to Ubuntu 9.10

I have a Ubuntu-based server where I do host several Virtualbox images for test and demo purposes. This server was still running on Ubuntu 9.04 and EXT3 as file system.

Although I do not have too much experience with Linux I successfully upgraded the filesystem on both disks to EXT4 and the operating system to Ubuntu 9.10.

Just for my reference for the next time and for anyone else who wants to do that, here are the steps (and links to the more detailed description) to do this without access to a graphical environment, just from the command line:

Continue reading …

Quickr (Domino) Customization Samples

I know, the stuff is already some time available. But I am often asked if there are any samples how to customize Quickr (Domino). Although I collect all kind of links about that subject on this wiki page, I want to highlight two very nice examples today:

The Quickr Domino Customisation Samples Template on www.OpenNTF.org

Lotusphere 2010 – SHOW202 – How to customize Lotus Quickr Using HTML, Javascript & CSS

If you know about other cool links about Quickr (Domino) customization which I haven’t already listed, let me know!