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Showing posts from 2014

A little more on the Poodle (IBM Domino 9.0.1 and the Poodle Vulnerability)

In my last post, I discussed the steps required to get your Domino 9.0.1 server patched against the poodle bug which exists in both SSL 3.0 and TLS.  At the end of the post, I mentioned that I still had one server which was refusing to apply the patch. This is how I got around the problem.  The Server that Wouldn't After taking the patches all the way back to Fix Pack 1 and slowly patching forward one-by-one with reboots in between, I realised that whatever was affecting my server had been installed for a long time. There was no easy way to resolve the problem and obviously I couldn't roll back forever.  I just had to accept the fact that the server would not take the patch and take some more drastic measures. Backup First Of course, before taking any drastic measures, you should always backup first. Personally, I like to have a proper backup as well as a local copy of the main domino files.  That way I don't have to worry about streaming and tapes. I manu

Taming the Poodle in IBM Domino 9.0.1

There's been a lot of talk lately about the Poodle Vulnerability and IBM have provided a rather slow and confusing response full of similarly named files across multiple web pages. We've mostly gotten our systems sorted now but as it was a difficult process, I thought I'd share some of the things I've learned.  If nothing else, I'm sure that other people could benefit from the fix lists being in the one place.  Huge thanks to the guys in the IBM Notes groups on LinkedIn who provided most of the best insights here. The poodle vulnerability isn't a new thing (it's 15 years old) but recently browser vendors, particularly Mozilla (and soon Google) have have issued upgrades which block access to vulnerable sites by default. I guess that means it's time to deal with it.  This is what the Firefox error message looks like. One more thing.... In case you've already dealt with poodle and you think that your system is safe because Mozilla Firefox is

IBM Notes: 25 Years and Counting...

Today marks 25 Years of IBM (Lotus) Notes. It's a pretty impressive lifespan for a product. Sure, Windows has been going 29 years and there are many older systems out there but few I suspect have retained the incredible levels of compatibility that Notes has. Can you still run Windows 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 or even 95 programs on the latest Windows? Sometimes, but not really. Not without emulation. Notes applications however still run fine on the newer notes platforms.   What is Notes? For so many years, people thought that Notes was email - in fact, they still do today.  I have no idea why they have that impression, after all, IBM/Lotus sold a separate product, CC:Mail for years before finally deciding that Notes handled mail well enough to not require it any more.  Nevertheless, Notes always drew comparisons with outlook and lots of companies moved away from Notes mail because it was fashionable (and a safe bet) to use Microsoft and because they figured that the new version

Using your Operating System Login for IBM Notes can "Poison" your IDs (and how to fix it)

For years, we've had it easy with Notes. We've had our ID files stored safely on a secure drive and whenever a user moved to a new desktop, we could simply copy their original ID over to their new machine and do most of the setup without them. All that changed somewhere between Windows 7, Notes 9 and getting Notes to use the Operating System login. It's a good change, don't get me wrong and it certainly protects the users privacy and makes things more secure. Unfortunately it also renders all of our ID's "Poisonous" and now we can't reuse them. Instead when opening an ID file on a new client installation, just after agreeing to "copy the file to the Notes data directory", we get messages telling us that Notes cannot open the ID File.   Eventually I tried other ID files only to find the same problem. Fixing the Problem As it turns out, there's a surprisingly easy fix for this. Simply generate a password protected copy of the ID from

Reusing Text in Word 2010 via Bookmarks - Part 2 Getting your formatting right

In my last post on reusing text via bookmarks in Word, I mentioned that there was a problem with the reused text retaining formatting.  Sure, you can reformat the text to look how you want but when you update it, then new text takes on characteristics of the old.  You end up with text that looks like this.... There's an easy (but not obvious) way to fix this; Getting into Reveal Codes Mode on Field So, first we need to know exactly what makes our fields tick.  So, click on one of your fields and then press Alt+F9.  The field will change to show the code. In my case, the code is; {REF Title \h \* MERGEFORMAT } This is more or less the default setting (the word title is the name of the bookmark I inserted).  Mergeformat means that the format of the original text is being merged. To change this option, simply click on the code and overtype it. In this case, we're going to change MERGEFORMAT to CHARFORMAT. Once this is done, Press Alt+F9 to turn reveal codes

How to Reuse Text via Bookmarks in Word 2010 (Update once and have it auto-update throughout the document)

I guess this is a bit of an oldie but I was surprised how many people didn't know about it.  Why would you do this? If you find yourself opening old documents and then doing a search and replace to change a name, a date or a version number, then this is the tip for you.  It allows you to write your key information down once and then have it auto-update. If you do a lot of contracts or quotes - or basically any kind of document based on a template, then you'll find this very handy. Getting Started (Bookmarking the Original Text). Open a Word document and type in some useful repeating text; eg: Customer Name:  MyCompany Limited 1. Highlight that text 2. Select the Insert Tab on the Ribbon. 3. Click the Bookmark Button A dialog box will appear. 4. Type a name for your bookmark.   This can be any name but it should be something that you'll recognise when you see it. 5. Click Add. Inserting the Bookmarked Text So, now that you have bo

How to do Bullets and Numbering in IBM Notes

I forgot the F8 shortcut key today and I looked it up via google. On the way I found a post about colouring text white to hide bullets in notes.  Crazy.  In any case, I wrote these instructions for my people and thought it was worth sharing on the blog; How to Do Bullets and Numbering in IBM Notes There are lots of cool things you can do with bullets in IBM Notes. To turn them on and off, click the bullets or numbering icons on the toolbar Getting Spacing in Bullets If you're in the middle of a bulleted or numbered paragraph and you want a few lines to yourself. Press Shift+Enter This gives you a new line inside the bullet. When you press ENTER again without holding down shift, then your bullets will start again. BTW: That trick works in Notes and Word and blogger and nearly every other application I can think of. Getting Indentation in Bullets If you're wanting to do sub-bullets; For example Just below and indented from the main bullet Like a sub-p