Ramblings, ideas, problems, and solutions

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  • Lotus Notes: Resolving "File truncated – file may have been damaged" errors

    The error message “File truncated – file may have been damaged” is most often seen server-side, but every once in a while it will turn up on client computers, especially where Notes is installed on a network share (not a good idea) and synchronised to the local machine through offline folders.

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  • Innocent until proven guilty – or so I’ve always learned.

    The miscarriages of justice made possible by the two acronyms I loathe the most (RIAA, MPAA) just keeps piling on it seems. First it was the lawsuits against dead people and infants. RIAA recently announced their decision to stop pressing these lawsuits.
     
    Later on there was the suggestion of three strikes legislation to fight piracy – first accusation gained you a warning, the second meant your bandwidth would get strangled, and with the third accusation you’d lose your net connection altogether.
     
    Most recently, I learned that New Zealand are planning an even stricter law: upon the first accusation, you are immediately assumed guilty, and your connection is cut.
     
    Now, I believe very strongly in the principle of the accused being assumed innocent until proven otherwise. For an assembly of elected officials to even think of proposing a law like this should be anathema, never mind actually really looking to put it into legislation.
     
    You can think whatever you will of piracy, filesharing and so on, this is just wrong.

  • Lotus Notes: "Invalid or non-existent document"

    As I have noted earlier, Lotus Notes is not famous for having easily understandable error-messages, quite the opposite in fact. However, when you think a bit about it; some messages are clearer than others. An example of this is the “Invalid or non-existent document” error.
     
    The problem in this case is that an entry in an NSF-file (a document in a database) is corrupt. This can happen for various reasons. There are two ways to fix the problem, one server-side, and one client-side.
     
    Server-side
    On the server console, run the command load fixup %NAME OF DATABASE%
    This will remove the faulting documents from the index and from the database
     
    Client-side
    Some databases can be replaced client-side (basically any databases located in the Data catalog of Notes). To replace them, simply rename the file, then start Notes. Notes will then recreate the file from the .ntf. NOTE: This will delete any and all entries in the database.

  • Where old software goes to pasture

    Ever needed a specific version of a specific program? I sure have. An example of this is the fact that the application that many of my users use to report sales is dependent on an obscure and out-dated version of Java (1.4.09) to be able to run at all. Another example is when you need a specific function that has actuall been removed from a program at some point.
     
    There is an obvious solution to this: keep copies of old software handy. This is a bad solution, and inefficient at best. Much better than to be able to go to a website and download it from there.
     
    There is such a website, it’s called OldVersion.com. It’s got a load of software, divided into the following categories:
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  • Firefox – Displaying saved passwords

    One of the pracctical functions in Firefox is the option to save passwords. This also has a backward function, in that you can find out what your saved password is. To do so, simply go to the login-page in question. Then right-click the site and select View Page Info. Go to the Security-tab and find the button View saved passwords. Then click the button View passwords to see all saved passwords.
     
    Now, as I’m sure I’m not the only paranoid browser around, here’s how to set a master password to protect your saved passwords:
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  • Lotus Notes – Resolving "Illegal Circular USE" errors

    A client of mine called me up, saying she had a problem with Lotus Notes. She had recently upgraded from Lotus Notes version 5 to Lotus Notes version 6, and now got a lot of error messages every time she opened just about anything, really. The error message she received said: “Illegal circular USE: DocumentConversions”.
     
    As it turns out, the solution is pretty straight forward. The problem is that the design of the users’ mailfile is outdated. All you need to do is update it to the design for Lotus Notes version 6, and off you go.

  • Firefox – Use keywords for specialized search

    You’re sitting in front of your computer, surfing the web, and you find a website, let’s say this one, that has a nifty search function which you want to use. However, you don’t want to open the website every time you want to use the search. This is where keyword browsing comes in handy.

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  • Firefox – Tweaking the Awesome-bar

    The “Awesome”-bar, otherwise known as the address bar, has a few nifty little things you can tweak. First off, you can turn it back into a boring old address-bar. To do this you go to the (for now) awesome-bar, then direct your browser to about:config. In the filter enter browser.urlbar.maxRichResults, and change its value to -1.
     
    If you only want it to show you websites whose URL you’ve actually entered the address for, go to about:config and find the entry browser.urlbar.matchonlytyped. Change its value to true.
     
    To remove addresses from the Awesome-bar that you haven’t visited, you once more go to about:config. Find the entry places.frecency.unvisitedBookmarkBonus, and set its value to 0.
     
    Lastly, to remove all addresses from the Awesome-bar, you go to about:config, find the entry places.frecency.bookmarkVisitBonus, and set its value to 0.

  • Firefox – Change the close-button for tabs

    There has been so many discussions about where to place the close-buttons for tabs that Mozilla has created a config key for this specific option.
     
    To access the key, open a new tab, enter about:config then press enter. In the filter search for browser.tabs.closeButtons. Change this value according to your choice and the following table:
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  • Firefox – Open mailto:-links in GMail

    I use GMail a lot. I also send a lot of emails, many of those originating from mailto:-links. Hence, it is practical to have mailto:-links open in GMail.
     
    This is quickly and simply achieved by going to Tools, Options, Applications. In the search-field, simply enter mailto, then use the Action-field to select GMail, Yahoo Mail or something else, like so:
     

     
    Some installations of Firefox do not have the GMail-alternative. This is simply fixed. Open a new tab, then enter about:config in the address-bar. Into the filter enter
    gecko.handlerService.AllowRegisterFromDifferentHost, then doubleclick the value so that it is set to true. Then copy/paste the following piece of Javascript to your Addressbar: javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto", "https://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","Gmail"). When asked whether you want to add GMail as an application, answer “yes”.

  • Firefox – Getting the normalsized back-button back

    I don’t mind it, but I know that many users feel annoyed that in version 3, the “Back”-button in Firefox is large and round, as opposed to the same size as the “Forward”-button. Here’s what it looks like:
     

     
    Luckily for my users, this is easily rectified. Simply right-click any of the buttons close to it, click “Customize”, and then select the checkbox for “Use small icons” like so:
     

     
    The result looks like this: