It’s not fancy, but more than enough to run gcompris or other small games, and my wife to surf the internet.

I don’t know what I did, but suddenly , the computer reach the warning temperature very fast. It only 15-30 minutes, the bios will give the warning, and in the next 10 minutes the computer will shutdown it self.

I set the warning temperature in 70 celsius, and shutdown temp in 80 celsius.

The motherboard is ECS A780GM-A with AMD X2 5000 processor.

My first guess is the processor fan.

So, I take it out, clean it up from the dust, clean up the old thermal paste and then apply a new one.

But still the temperature of the processor increasing quickly, even when still  in bios, I can see that the temperature increasing.

My second guess is my processor fan is damage, but it less than a year old?

But I replace it any way.

But the problem still exist.

Than, my fist guess is that the stock fan is not enough, so I buy a third party fan and installed it.

The problem still exist, but now the temperature increasing not very quickly. but still it become a problem.

I’m running out of options.

But when I browse the ECS website, I notice that they have a new bios.

So, nothing to lose (I already plan to buy a new one), I download the new bios and installed it over the old one.

The result, the temperature now is very stable.

Then I realize that I did the bios upgrade before, and that the cause of the temperature become unstable. Silly me .

What are to consider?

Brand of the servers? Of course. The softwares? Sure.

Anything else?

These are three things that cross my mind.

Raid 5

If your data are important, and mostly are, than use server that support Raid, at least Raid 5.

With Raid 5, we use at least three hard disks with the same capacity (and better with the same brand and model) and configure it as one drive. If one hard disk failed, the data still can be accessible.

Without Raid 5, if you have three hard disk, and one hard disk is failed, that all the data in  that hard disk will be lost.  You need to rely on your latest backup and pray that restoring the data won’t be a problem.

Minor side with Raid 5 is that Raid 5 will use one hard disk capacity as it parity, so if you have three 1 TB  hard disks, than the total of your capacity is only 2 TB.

And also with Raid 5 , the performance is slower.

With at least Raid 5, you will have redundancy and more capacity compare to Raid 1. There is also Raid 6 that extend the Raid 5.

More about Standard Raid Levels

Hot Swap

Ok, now you use Raid 5 for your critical servers that should run 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

If one hard disk failed, at least your server still able to run with slower performance.

Now, you still need to replace the failed hard disk with a new one. If your server support Hot Swap capabilities like most IBM xseries, than it should not be a problem. You just need to unplug the failed hard disk, wait for 30 seconds and plug in the new one. Total time should be less than one minute.

But, what if your server do not support Hot Swap?

You need to shutdown your server (when? ), open the server case if necessary, detach the cables, unplug the failed hard disk, then plug in the new disk, attach the cables, close the case then power it on again.

How much time do  you need for that?

And you need a spare time to do it, you can’t just shutdown the server on office hours, you need to do it after office hours, or maybe before office hours or maybe on weekend?

Warranty

Make sure that your servers have good support and spare parts availability.

One thing that I like the most from IBM server is their warranty and support.

While I’m working with the IBM servers, I have two mainboards problem and four failed hard disks.

The longest time it need is to replace one mainboard from the old server (very old), because they need to ship it from Singapore.

Recently I have one failed hard disk (one of the reason why I wrote this), call IBM support and describe the problem, and all they need is our machine type, serial number and the FRU of the hard disk. Then hard disk replacement already in the office in the next morning.

That what I called a good support.

If they need a month to replace a failed a broken part, that the support, the warranty is useless.

If your warranty going to expired, or already expired, you should, you must extend it. It’s not cheap, but for me, very worthed.

With IBM, you can choose 5 days support, or 7 days support. With 7 days support, if you call them on weekend, they still come.

Not sure for other brand, if they support as good as IBM. I only works with IBM brand.

Note, I’m not an employee of IBM.

But recently, I have problem with my domino server, it crashed with error message that the transaction log is full.

I do full backup every week, and incremental backup daily, it should be enough. I check the web for what might cause the problem, and all point to the transaction log problem.

Restarting the domino server, fixed the problem, until than it crashed again, with the same error.  But now, I’m really curious, is there something wrong with my transaction log?

I found the problem accidentally, when I tried to backup individual mail file, I can’t found many mail files from Brighstor Arcserve backup user interface.

Than I realize that all the mail files that Brighstor Arcserve backup can’t found are under the directory link.

Recently, I added a new harddisk into the server, and make it as a additional drive (drive E). Than I moved several mail databases to that drive, and than created a directory link so Lotus Domino can see the mail databases.

Yes, the Lotus Domino can see the databases, but not Brighstor Arcserve backup. That maybe the problem.

I can’t found anything in the web, so join the CA forum and ask the question, the answer is that I should pacthed the software.

But, than I upgraded to Brighstor Arcserve backup R11.5 instead.

Now, with Brighstor Arcserve backup R11.5, it can see all the databases that are under directory link, I hope that it can solved the problem and no more crashed.

Jun  8 10:56:24 mail dccproc[13204]: continue not asking DCC 78 seconds after 5

Jun  8 10:56:27 mail dccproc[13207]: continue not asking DCC 75 seconds after 5

Jun  8 10:56:37 mail dccproc[13228]: continue not asking DCC 65 seconds after 5

Jun  8 10:56:44 mail dccproc[13247]: continue not asking DCC 58 seconds after 5

Jun  8 10:56:49 mail dccproc[13251]: continue not asking DCC 53 seconds after 5

Jun  8 10:56:49 mail dccproc[13252]: continue not asking DCC 53 seconds after 5

Jun  8 10:56:58 mail dccproc[13272]: continue not asking DCC 44 seconds after 5

Jun  8 10:57:05 mail dccproc[13288]: continue not asking DCC 37 seconds after 5

So, there is something wrong with my dcc process.
After several google, there is only two options.
-Problem with firewall/connection
-Problem with configuration

I know, this is not a problem with firewall/connection, because I did not changed anything and the server have direct connection to the internet.

So, there must be some configuration problems.

I run cdcc info from the console, and notice there problem with the map file.
Do some google again, and find this and this.
And I do exactly what it say.

cdcc -q info map.txt
cdcc “load map.txt”

That’s it, and DCC runs again.

If you are not (yet) use DCC in your spamassassin, than you should consider to install one.

DCC is a free software, as long as you don’t sell the device or the service to to others. Reade the DCC license here.

Installation DCC may be confusing for some people (including me ), but when it installed and configured properly, it will catch more spam that you already catch.

The good point is, if the DCC already installed, than is easy to update it.  You just need to download  the updatedcc script here, and copied it to /usr/local/bin (might be different with your OS ) with the rest of DCC files.

How to update? Just run the updatedcc and the process will run automatically.

After all the process completed, do a simple check to see if your DCC already updated.

dccproc -V

It will show the version of your DCC software.

She using windows vista and windows mail as her mail client. I tried to explain to her on how to solve the problem, but she still didn’t understand. Can’t blame her, she is not a computer geek, but a very good sales person.

She is at home, while I’m in the office, and her buyer waiting for the email, now what to do?

Luckily, the last time I visited her house, I downloaded a very good software called Team Viewer. I ask her to connect to the internet, and then run the team viewer software by double click the exe file, no need to install, then she get the session id and password.

And that is it.

She gave me the session id and password, I run my team viewer and than connected to her computer at no time.

Solved the problem in less than 10 minutes, the stuck email went away to her buyer.

She happy, her buyer happy, and I’m happy able to help.

For quick, and easy setup remote access software, TeamViewer really is the king. You don’t even need to install the software.

Not only for remote  access, with TeamViewer you can also chat or copy files between computers. Great for remote support.

And all of that without any cost (for home user).

TeamViewer is highly recommended software, that every support computer should have.

I’m not related in any way with Team Viewer. I am just a happy user.

And this only workable for worpress blog.

Do you have a blog?

Maybe you have a blog, or maybe you have two blogs or even more.

But now, do you blogs are mobile friendly? That your blogs are easy to access via mobile devices like smartphone or pda?

Probably, most of your blogs are not.

But now, more and more people, your readers, are on the move, they travels, and most of the time they will access your blogs via they smart devices, not via notebook or desktop anymore.

They will access your blogs via smartphone, pda, and now iPad and yet will to come is Google Tablet.

Even they can access your blog nicely via they smart browser like opera mobile, but it will be more attractive to them if you setup your blogs that still easy to read in a  small screen and less band with.

That why your blog, should be mobile friendly.

Now, to make your blogs mobile friendly are easier than ever, it’s only takes five minutes of your time.

And this only workable for worpress blog.

1. Please download the WordPress Mobile Pack, and save it in your local hard disk.
2. Go to your WordPress admin – > plugins -> add new
3. Upload the zip file and then activate.

That’s it, nothing more simple than that.

Optionally, they are few setting to be set nothing more than a few clicks.

See the different using my Windows Mobile 6.1 and Internet Explorer.

This is the homepage of my blog, the left one is the standard view and the right one is using WordPress Mobile Pack.

And this is one of my post.

If you going to see blogs with your smart devices, which one that you’ll prefer?

Happy Blogging.

But, luckily we also have local anti virus, that mainly able to detect and clean those local viruses, like pcmav and smadav.

But, compare to them, personally I like smadav most because of it small size and able to work together with mainstream anti virus. My smadav 2010 rev 8 able to work together with Symantec End Point 11.

As stated in their website

Smadav was made to clean and protect your computer from local viruses that many spread in Indonesia.

If you using anti virus like symantec, mcafee and esset, you can use smadav as second layer of protection against virus without a problem.

You can download the smadav for personal use for free in here. The website and user interface are in bahasa, but it’s will not be difficult to understand the interface because it so easy.

If you want to try pcmav, you can download it in here.

Be secure.

But, Formula have many method that Lotus Script do not have, like @Implode and @Explode. Even we can write our ownLotus Script function to do that, it just a waste of time and energy.

But, we have Evaluate in Lotus Script.

Evaluate  function is one of many of my favorite functions, because it able to run Formula and than pass the result of that Formula intoLotus Script variable (variant).

This is the syntax of Evaluate

variant = notesSession.Evaluate( formula$, doc )

We can use Evaluate function to pass the result from any kind of Formula,  from simple formula like @UserName to more complex formula like @Implode.

Recently, I use Evaluate in my program, to shorten the length of theLotus Script.

I need to calculate the difference in days between two date, but only in business days ( so saturday and sunday will not be counted also holidays).

Formula already have the function to calculate that, so I don’t need to create another lengthly Lotus Scriptfunction just to calculate that. I use the formula instead, so I need the Evaluate function.

varDay=Evaluate(“@BusinessDays(@Date(datFinal);@Date(@Now);1;datPublicHoliday)”,doc)

Remember that Evaluate function return value is variant.

With Evaluate, Formula and Lotus Script can coexist together.

One of the important thing in workflow is email notification, to let users know that they have one job to do, or just simply notification.

Example,  if a staff create a leave request and when he or she submit the request, his or her manager will get an email notification about the request.

I have this one of my favorite sub program to create an email notification, well I named it “CreateEmailNotification” .

If you like, you can use it for free. Just copy the sub program in one or new Script Library.

This is the sub program.

=====Start of Sub Program
Sub CreateMailNotification(doc As notesdocument, strSendTo As Variant, strSubject As String, strCopyTo As Variant)

Dim session As notessession
Dim db As notesdatabase
Dim docMail As notesdocument
Dim rtitem As Variant

Set db = doc.parentdatabase
Set session = db.Parent
Set docMail=db.createdocument
Set rtitem=docMail.CreateRichTextItem(“Body”)

If strSendTo(0)=”" Then Exit Sub

‘=====set mail
docMail.Form = “Memo”
docMail.From = session.UserName
docMail.Principle = session.UserName
docMail.SendTo = strSendTo

If Isarray(strCopyTo) Then
If strCopyTo(0)<>”" Then
docMail.CopyTo = strCopyTo
End If
Else
If strCopyTo<>”" Then
docMail.CopyTo = strCopyTo
End If
End If

docMail.Recipients = strSendTo
docMail.Subject = strSubject
docMail.PostedDate = Now

‘=====set body field
Call rtitem.AppendText(“Please click this doclink to see more details about the status ” + ” “)
Call rtitem.AppendDocLink( doc, “click to open document”)
Call rtitem.AddNewLine( 2 )

‘=====send mail
Call docMail.send(False)
End Sub
=====End of Sub Program

Feel free to do some modification if necessary.

You can call it from any lotusscript with simple line like this.

call Call CreateMailNotification (doc, doc.nmSendTo, strSubject,doc.nmCopyTo)

Don’t forget to put use “Script Libary Name” first.