What the heck is this widget?

[Corona688]

It appears to be a standard VGA monitor connector, but it has no cable. It's not a plain connector, either, it's intentionally molded shut. It's like one of those null-modem connectors. What is it?

[Scotty]

So, is this just a quiz, you know what it is?

It doesn't have a connector on both ends? It is just 15 pins on one end and nothing on the other?

I mean, they have DVI/VGA adaptors etc.

A picture would help...

-Scott

[Corona688]

Nope, not a quiz. I'm not the sort of person to pull that thing on people. :P

And yup, I know what a DVI-to-VGA connector is, I'm using one, and this ain't it. There is no connector on the other end -- there IS no other end. It's like someone chopped off the very end of a monitor's cable, except, where you'd expect to see the bare ends of chopped wires, there's solid seamless molded plastic like it was meant to be that way.

Sorry I can't provide a picture, but the house is in a state of transition and I don't have a bare place to take a nice photo.

[Dingfod]

It's not some kind of wireless device for a keyboard or mouse or printer is it?

[Corona688]

It's not some kind of wireless device for a keyboard or mouse or printer is it? Since I don't know of any keyboards or mice that take 15-pin shrink-D connectors, my offhand guess would be no...

[Dingfod]

Then it's nothing. Throw it away, you don't need it.


Just kidding. Maybe it's just a dust cap or something. I dunno.

[wade-w]

It sounds like some sort of dongle. All of the dongles I've seen before are larger (i.e. more pins) but otherwise the description you give fits.

[viscousmemories]

I have seen software programs that require a license key similar to what you describe that plugs into a parallel port. Old versions of AutoCAD, for example.

Oh, and squian just told me it's called a dongle, so it fits with wade's answer.

I'd only previously heard the name dongle used to describe a pcmcia network cable.

[Dingfod]

A dongle? (http://gsm-market.pl/images/PICT0157.jpg)

[wade-w]

I have seen software programs that require a license key similar to what you describe that plugs into a parallel port. Old versions of AutoCAD, for example.

Oh, and squian just told me it's called a dongle, so it fits with wade's answer.


Yes, that's what I had in mind, vm. 3-D Studio Max is another example of an app that used a hardware license key.

I just thought of another possibility. It could be a terminator of some sort.

[Corona688]

Yes, it could be a dongle. I've seen those before. The weird part is, this one looks like it's supposed to plug into your video card. Imagine that dongle with a VGA connector on the end.

[wade-w]

A dongle? (http://gsm-market.pl/images/PICT0157.jpg)

That's right, warrenly. Though as corona688 has described it, his has a lot fewer pins.

These are used in some high-end applications as an anti-piracy device. If the dongle is not connected to the correct port, then the app will not start. Basically they are a hardware license key.

[Dingfod]

Search google images for dongle, there are all kinds, parallel, serial, USB, probably even VGA (for dog knows what reason).

[viscousmemories]

Well Google seems to think VGA terminators exist, though I couldn't find an image of one and I don't think I've ever seen one. So I think wade's got it still. :yup:

[Socratoad]

Its actually a status symbol door stop for the nerd that has everything.

[Dingfod]

Kind of like my brick cellphone.

[wade-w]

Its actually a status symbol door stop for the nerd that has everything.

Geek, Socratoad. Not nerd.

[Socratoad]

Its actually a status symbol door stop for the nerd that has everything.

Geek, Socratoad. Not nerd.

Oh dammit, can't even get my terminology correct. Guess that proves I'm neither as does my programming skills. :(

[Corona688]

Well Google seems to think VGA terminators exist, though I couldn't find an image of one and I don't think I've ever seen one. So I think wade's got it still. :yup: If VGA terminators exist, then this has got to be one. :> Thanks guys!

[seebs]

A likely suggestion: I have a VGA->video board which came with a couple of these.

Mac systems like to probe the monitor for a resolution. This sounds like a gizmo that does nothing but answer back saying what resolutions it supports, to be plugged into the passthrough port on a VGA->video board, so the Mac will boot with a video out.

[Corwin]

A likely suggestion: I have a VGA->video board which came with a couple of these.

Mac systems like to probe the monitor for a resolution. This sounds like a gizmo that does nothing but answer back saying what resolutions it supports, to be plugged into the passthrough port on a VGA->video board, so the Mac will boot with a video out.

What occurred to me was possibly it's something to trick the computer into thinking there's a monitor plugged into the card? So that it will boot without a monitor? (Headless server?)

[JoeP]

A likely suggestion: I have a VGA->video board which came with a couple of these.

Mac systems like to probe the monitor for a resolution. This sounds like a gizmo that does nothing but answer back saying what resolutions it supports, to be plugged into the passthrough port on a VGA->video board, so the Mac will boot with a video out.

What occurred to me was possibly it's something to trick the computer into thinking there's a monitor plugged into the card? So that it will boot without a monitor? (Headless server?)
I like this suggestion. I don't believe it could be a (hardware licence) dongle, because they should always have pinouts for the pins in ... what kind of software requires a hardware licence key but requires you not use a monitor? :chin:

[Dingfod]

I suppose in some applications, some servers perhaps, the CPU wouldn't have a monitor of its own and thus would need to be tricked into thinking a monitor is in place in order to boot up. My company has numerous control and measurement devices in the field that contain a 80386 CPU but have no monitor, everything is read remotely via the serial port and/or modem. And, now that I think about it, they do have a dongle type thing attached to the VGA output plug. I've even seen the techs plug in a monitor when they were troubleshooting the device on site. Like I said earlier, I always thought it was just a dust cap, I didn't realize it might contain circuitry. News to me, but it makes perfect sense.

[wade-w]

Ummm... that is a terminator.

[Scotty]

There you go, a VGA dongle to terminte with something not having a monitor attached. Probably for a stupid fucking Windows/PC product that can't boot without a monitor attached.

Shit, use a real server! No wonder I had no idea why you would need something like that.

-Scott

[Corwin]

There you go, a VGA dongle to terminte with something not having a monitor attached. Probably for a stupid fucking Windows/PC product that can't boot without a monitor attached.

Shit, use a real server! No wonder I had no idea why you would need something like that.

-Scott

Because some people don't want to pay five grand for a server for a function that isn't enterprise/high load/mission critical? ;)

[Scotty]

LAME, I call LAME!

:)

Yeah, if they don't CARE about it, then I suppose that is fine. Or, you have to buy 4 of them to do the same thing because they crash all of the time ;)


-Scott

[Corona688]

There you go, a VGA dongle to terminte with something not having a monitor attached. Probably for a stupid fucking Windows/PC product that can't boot without a monitor attached.

Shit, use a real server! No wonder I had no idea why you would need something like that.

-Scott The real question is, what point is there in running a product that's exclusively GUI-based, headless?

[Corona688]

Because some people don't want to pay five grand for a server for a function that isn't enterprise/high load/mission critical? ;) Then buy a cheap windows PC, format it, install linux or BSD. problem solved.

[Corwin]

Because some people don't want to pay five grand for a server for a function that isn't enterprise/high load/mission critical? ;) Then buy a cheap windows PC, format it, install linux or BSD. problem solved.

Or do the same thing with NT4/2000/2003/XP. Problem also solved. ;)

[Corwin]

There you go, a VGA dongle to terminte with something not having a monitor attached. Probably for a stupid fucking Windows/PC product that can't boot without a monitor attached.

Shit, use a real server! No wonder I had no idea why you would need something like that.

-Scott The real question is, what point is there in running a product that's exclusively GUI-based, headless?

Space issues. You rarely log into a server locally... (or shouldn't anyway.) Why keep a monitor around that you don't need?

[Scotty]

Now, if only "Windows" wasn't such a security risk, using them as a server would be a little less painful.
Yes, running a GUI based system as a server seems counter intuitive, but when has MicroSquish ever been resonable?

I would never use a Windows machine as a server. Never. Too risky. Better to spend more money on a different server.

Actually, Sun has released Solaris on the Athlon 64bit processor, so this will make a fantastic server for the price.

Then again, this is off-topic. The owners of our company took a long time to understand about using the higher priced servers. They eventually came around when they realized the level of uptime with minimal equipment was so far beyond what they had experienced before that they finally gave in to paying the extra money.

Rambling, sorry.

I do use Linux for some of the servers I have (mail, some http servers etc).

-Scott

[Corona688]

Because some people don't want to pay five grand for a server for a function that isn't enterprise/high load/mission critical? ;) Then buy a cheap windows PC, format it, install linux or BSD. problem solved.

Or do the same thing with NT4/2000/2003/XP. Problem also solved. ;) I wouldn't reccomend NT4, 2000, 2003, or XP for anything meant for more than one user. They are stable by windows standards, but not by server standards. There's more server software available for linux/bsd anyway, since they're not a monopoly.

[Corona688]

Then again, this is off-topic. My question was answered, so I don't see much problem. :P Derail away.

[Corona688]

The real question is, what point is there in running a product that's exclusively GUI-based, headless?

Space issues. You rarely log into a server locally... (or shouldn't anyway.) Why keep a monitor around that you don't need? Read that again. :P

GUI product...
Headless...

"Dental plan!" "Lisa needs braces." "Dental plan!" "Lisa needs braces."

There's few things less useful than a GUI system running headless.

[seebs]

A likely suggestion: I have a VGA->video board which came with a couple of these.

Mac systems like to probe the monitor for a resolution. This sounds like a gizmo that does nothing but answer back saying what resolutions it supports, to be plugged into the passthrough port on a VGA->video board, so the Mac will boot with a video out.

What occurred to me was possibly it's something to trick the computer into thinking there's a monitor plugged into the card? So that it will boot without a monitor? (Headless server?)

The only ones I've seen have been for use with systems that query the monitor to decide boot resolution; mostly macs, but some PCs will do this if you try to run them with, say, an S-video output.

[wade-w]

A likely suggestion: I have a VGA->video board which came with a couple of these.

Mac systems like to probe the monitor for a resolution. This sounds like a gizmo that does nothing but answer back saying what resolutions it supports, to be plugged into the passthrough port on a VGA->video board, so the Mac will boot with a video out.

What occurred to me was possibly it's something to trick the computer into thinking there's a monitor plugged into the card? So that it will boot without a monitor? (Headless server?)

The only ones I've seen have been for use with systems that query the monitor to decide boot resolution; mostly macs, but some PCs will do this if you try to run them with, say, an S-video output.

Right, in which case you need to terminate the vga output.

Also, as far as I know a winblows box will still boot even if it has no attached monitor. I could be wrong on that, but I have seen systems boot with a defective monitor.

[wade-w]

As far as serving GUI based apps from a headless server, well, that's done all the time in the *NIX world. On a SUN, for example, at boot if there is no framebuffer detected, STDIN/STDOUT are assigned to the first serial port. GUI based apps can be redirected to any network connection by setting the DISPLAY environment variable to the approriate IP address or hostname. It's not really a big deal, since the console is not a GUI.

[Scotty]

I think a while back, in older PC's, not necessarly Windows but on PC hardware, the BIOS didn't like things not attached and may have not booted without a monitor. Anyway, I know many of them need settings in the BIOS to boot without a keyboard or mouse attached even today.

-Scott

[wade-w]

I think a while back, in older PC's, not necessarly Windows but on PC hardware, the BIOS didn't like things not attached and may have not booted without a monitor. Anyway, I know many of them need settings in the BIOS to boot without a keyboard or mouse attached even today.

-Scott

Yeah, I've run into that stupid "keyboard not found" error before. I know a PC won't boot if it can't see a video card, but I didn't realize that no monitor attached could cause a problem as well. I've had boxes boot up when the monitor's cable was loose, and get no video. Reattaching the monitor to the video port was enough to solve the problem. (Yeah yeah, I know I shouldn't do that while the system is running, but hey, I was in a hurry!) Guess I've just never run into that particular BIOS version!

[Corona688]

As far as serving GUI based apps from a headless server, well, that's done all the time in the *NIX world. I'm aware of that, and I use this facility all the time... I can SSH into my box from the university and run graphical applications on my own machine, with graphics appearing locally. But that's not quite what I meant.

When the only effective way to administrate a machine is to log in locally via graphical user interface, a monitor is kind of necessary. Leaving the monitor off a windows server would mean having to lug one in everytime something goes wrong.

And strangely, my PC seems to be able to boot even without a video card. It is intended as a server/workstation board though.

[Corwin]

The real question is, what point is there in running a product that's exclusively GUI-based, headless?

Space issues. You rarely log into a server locally... (or shouldn't anyway.) Why keep a monitor around that you don't need? Read that again. :P

GUI product...
Headless...

"Dental plan!" "Lisa needs braces." "Dental plan!" "Lisa needs braces."

There's few things less useful than a GUI system running headless.

I read it, and you're wrong.

Two words: Exchange Server.

[Corona688]

I read it, and you're wrong.

Two words: Exchange Server. I see your debate tactics haven't improved from your time at II... no argument, just "You're Wrong!" :yawn:

For the sake of avoiding a long and pointless argument I'll concede that MS does have some server products. I just don't happen to like them, for what I think are very good reasons, that we'll probably never agree on.

[Corwin]

I read it, and you're wrong.

Two words: Exchange Server. I see your debate tactics haven't improved from your time at II... no argument, just "You're Wrong!" :yawn:

For the sake of avoiding a long and pointless argument I'll concede that MS does have some server products. I just don't happen to like them, for what I think are very good reasons, that we'll probably never agree on.

Actually it's 'You're wrong. Here's why' and always has been. ;)

I'll concede that ES has a problem or two... and isn't a perfect solution for everything, but it's the dominant business mail server for very good reasons. (We were looking at switching over to Linux at my last job. Couldn't happen. There were too many functions in Exchange and ADS that we used that there was no *NIX counterpart for, or the counterpart was inadequate.) We had a few Linux servers here and there, and even a couple of Sun boxes.... but the dominant server structure was 2000, and our company was anything but unique in that regard.

[Corona688]

Actually it's 'You're wrong. Here's why' and always has been. ;)
I read it, and you're wrong. Two words: Exchange Server. Hmm.I'll concede that ES has a problem or two... and isn't a perfect solution for everything, but it's the dominant business mail server for very good reasons. (We were looking at switching over to Linux at my last job. Couldn't happen. There were too many functions in Exchange and ADS that we used that there was no *NIX counterpart for, or the counterpart was inadequate.) Agreed. UNIX has never been and will never be a drop-in microsoft replacement... Replacing Exchange with some UNIX mailer daemon would mean rebuilding your mail system from scratch. I think could be a better system in the end, but it would take a great deal of work and diligence.

But we weren't talking about retrofitting an entrenched system.

What are they going to do when Microsoft decides to kill the particular product they're using, though? Lots of people have been screwed that way.

[viscousmemories]

I've always preferred Groupwise m'self, and I'll never forgive Novell for shuffling their way into irrelevancy. :grrr:

[wade-w]

I've always preferred Groupwise m'self, and I'll never forgive Novell for shuffling their way into irrelevancy. :grrr:

Groupwise? Groupwise?!?!? That is an evil, I say EVIL, application.

/me shudders

Did they ever fix it so you can actually send mail to people who aren't on the same system?

Next someone is going to put in a plug for Lotus Notes.

[viscousmemories]

LoL. Of course they did! Ever since Groupwise 5 it has been fully integrated with NDS (which of course at one time beat Active Directory like a red-headed stepchild. Not sure where it's at these days), supported all popular clients, and had gateways to every other major e-mail system - including support for pop3 access.

God I hope nobody comes in here plugging Notes :eek:

The one time I was forced to use it I was on assignment with IBM Global Services, and I was like, "Argh! Why do we have to use this SHITTY e-mail system!?" and my boss said, "Um, 'cause we own and distribute it?" And that's the story of how I found out that IBM had bought Lotus (or at least Lotus Notes). :D

[wade-w]

LoL. Of course they did! Ever since Groupwise 5 it has been fully integrated with NDS (which of course at one time beat Active Directory like a red-headed stepchild. Not sure where it's at these days), supported all popular clients, and had gateways to every other major e-mail system - including support for pop3 access.


Back in the mid-90's I was the lead sys admin for the Math & Computer Science department at a major university. The standard campus wide email system was Groupwise, version 4 dot something. It was a royal pain in the ass, since most of our professors needed to be able to communicate with their colleagues at other universities, and our version of groupwise didn't support that. So I ran sendmail on a Sun box for everyone, and only had Groupwise enabled for the chair and a few other key professors.

IIRC, the campus was upgrading to version 5 about the time I left and started consulting.

We were considered a "rogue" department by the central IT staff, since I ran my own DNS and mail servers, etc. Essentially, my network was independent of the rest of the campus.


God I hope nobody comes in here plugging Notes :eek:

The one time I was forced to use it I was on assignment with IBM Global Services, and I was like, "Argh! Why do we have to use this SHITTY e-mail system!?" and my boss said, "Um, 'cause we own and distribute it?" And that's the story of how I found out that IBM had bought Lotus (or at least Lotus Notes). :D

Heh. I had to use it at a couple of client sites in the late 90's. Never did like it much.

[livius drusus]

Lotus Notes is a bitch from hell, and LN 6.5 is the worst one yet: a nightmare to support; living hell on servers.

[wade-w]

I've heard it's pretty bad, liv. It's annoying enough to just use the crap. Fortunately I've never had to support it. Most of the e-mail servers I have had to support ran sendmail, and I've worked with qmail and Netscape Messenger. All on *NIX boxes.

sendmail is arcane and entirely command line based, but once you have it set up and running and tuned, you never have to touch it again.

[Scotty]

IMAP on Linux, fuck the rest of that noise. Simple, easy to backup (because you can READ the files, not like MS Exchange where you have to take it off-line to back it up, stupid shit).

I know, I have an Exchange server that has been hacked once and I had to build from scratch right after we laid off a bunch of people who knew how it worked (the hack took the system down and it wouldn't reboot, RIGHT AFTER I had loaded the patch that was supposed to keep it from being hacked, but it was a new hack). Piece of crap.

I still have to use it, but I have just made everybody use IMAP and a local calandering service, using LDAP for authentication (which I still have to integrate).

I can't find it right now, but there are replacements for Exchange that drop in place. I am working on using LDAP with Samba (www.samba.org) as a Domain Controller, thus removing all MicroSquish servers from the network. Can't stand them. Although, I have to admit, the Exchange server does stay up and running most of the time (unless it gets a bad email... :doh: ), or gets hacked, or a user has bigger then 2 gigabytes of mail, or the file size of the database goes over 8 gigabytes, blah blah blah. Hate only begins to describe the feeling. (this all on NT, which isn't supported anymore, shows you how much I want to upgrade).

Thunderbird is a good email client so far too.

Oh, and I had to reply on the sendmail thing. I got to using postfix, and it is ONE HELL of a lot better system. Faster, easier to manage and not as hackable. I highly suggest it.

-Scott

[wade-w]

You have to take Exchange off line to back it up?!?!?! :eek:

I thought IMAP was a protocol. There's an e-mail server with the same name now? Shows ya how long I've been out of the game. Dammit.

I'm with ya on LDAP; it's everything you need in driectory services.

[Scotty]

You have to take Exchange off line to back it up?!?!?! :eek:

I thought IMAP was a protocol. There's an e-mail server with the same name now? Shows ya how long I've been out of the game. Dammit.

I'm with ya on LDAP; it's everything you need in driectory services.

Well, my version of Exchange 5.5 needs that done. Plus, you have to take it off-line and compress the database file if it gets too big

You know, I hadn't thought about IMAP being a protocol, I just thought it was how it served the mail. I mean, the processes on the machine are called "imap", and companies like cyrus have cyrus imap. I dunno, I could have it wrong, it wouldn't be the first time I confused terms, because it took me a long time to realize that LDAP was a protocol and not the software underneath it.

I get confused easily ;)

-Scott

[wade-w]

You know, I hadn't thought about IMAP being a protocol, I just thought it was how it served the mail. I mean, the processes on the machine are called "imap", and companies like cyrus have cyrus imap. I dunno, I could have it wrong, it wouldn't be the first time I confused terms, because it took me a long time to realize that LDAP was a protocol and not the software underneath it.

I get confused easily ;)

-Scott

OK. Yes, IMAP is a mail protocol, like POP3. The primary difference being that by default, POP downloads mail to the client every time you connect, while IMAP keeps the mail on the server. This allows you to read mail from any imap compliant client on any box, and have the same inbox, etc. Many POP3 compliant servers now offer this as well, so it's not as important as it was when IMAP was first proposed.

[Corona688]

Is IMAP used for sending mail as well, or only recieving? And is it more secure?

One of my biggest beefs with the POP/SMTP combo is the lax authentication -- you need a password to recieve mail, but none to send! I know this for a fact, haven written a brute-simple commandline mail-sender. The security issues are unimaginable.

[wade-w]

AFAIK, IMAP is just an alternative to POP, and you still use SMTP for sending.

[Corwin]

AFAIK, IMAP is just an alternative to POP, and you still use SMTP for sending.

It is.... and there's more to exchange than just email. Our company lived and died by the calendar functions, and the fact that Exchange would interface with Goldmine was a huge plus. (Neither function available under Linux.) We also looked at using Samba for ADS logins and at least at the time, it wasn't ready for prime time.

Since someone brought it up.... could someone please explain the venom in some people's response to Lotus Notes? I've used it, I'm pretty ambivalent to it. It was kludgy.... but it (more or less) got the job done. How come I hear from people that despise it so much?

[viscousmemories]

Since someone brought it up.... could someone please explain the venom in some people's response to Lotus Notes? I've used it, I'm pretty ambivalent to it. It was kludgy.... but it (more or less) got the job done. How come I hear from people that despise it so much?
Kludgy is a good word. I'd also say counter-intuitive and bloated. I only used it as a client on one project three years ago, though, so I can't say I remember much detail.

[livius drusus]

Kludgy is definitely a good word, but you need to apply to everything Notes touches to get the full appreciation of how much it sucks. We just recently had to double the RAM for every single person in the office because Notes was hogging system resources on such a vast scale that people were literally unable to run calculations or even manipulate a big spreadsheet with Notes open.

From what I hear (which is not a whole helluva lot since IT headquarters is secretive and obsessive), LN and AD don't seem to want to dance together, and even though AD is a total wench just in and of itself, all attempts to get those two to interact reasonably well have failed miserably. One big shot told me (during a "have you started installing the extra memory" panic phone call) that none of them had any idea how server intensive LN 6.5 would be, that they would never have upgraded had they known.

So far we've had 2 template ugrades, each one worse than the one before it. Even with the extra RAM Notes itself runs like a 10 year old app: you click, go get some coffee, mosey on back, chat with a cubmate, sip on said coffee, and maybe by then the window will have opened.

I didn't mind Notes so much when we were running version 5. Oh it was still clunky, overproduced, excessively complex, but this latest thing is on a whole other scale of suckery.

[Scotty]

Is IMAP used for sending mail as well, or only recieving? And is it more secure?

One of my biggest beefs with the POP/SMTP combo is the lax authentication -- you need a password to recieve mail, but none to send! I know this for a fact, haven written a brute-simple commandline mail-sender. The security issues are unimaginable.

Actually, you can do this now (even though I haven't implemented it yet, one of the guys here has it his email server), but you can use postfix with TLS (Transportation Layer Security) with SSL and it is all integrated into postfix. It works very well, just takes a bit to get it right at this time.

But, it is there.

-Scott

[beyelzu]

Kludgy is definitely a good word, but you need to apply to everything Notes touches to get the full appreciation of how much it sucks. We just recently had to double the RAM for every single person in the office because Notes was hogging system resources on such a vast scale that people were literally unable to run calculations or even manipulate a big spreadsheet with Notes open.

From what I hear (which is not a whole helluva lot since IT headquarters is secretive and obsessive), LN and AD don't seem to want to dance together, and even though AD is a total wench just in and of itself, all attempts to get those two to interact reasonably well have failed miserably. One big shot told me (during a "have you started installing the extra memory" panic phone call) that none of them had any idea how server intensive LN 6.5 would be, that they would never have upgraded had they known.

So far we've had 2 template ugrades, each one worse than the one before it. Even with the extra RAM Notes itself runs like a 10 year old app: you click, go get some coffee, mosey on back, chat with a cubmate, sip on said coffee, and maybe by then the window will have opened.

I didn't mind Notes so much when we were running version 5. Oh it was still clunky, overproduced, excessively complex, but this latest thing is on a whole other scale of suckery.


Damn, that sounds brutal, how much memory are we talking about?


And as a general note, I am not sure why I have read all the pages of this thread as I have nothing to offer and all the abbreviations make it nigh incomprehensible.

[wade-w]

My own experience with Notes is strictly as a user. I found the UI to be very poorly designed, and configuration was far more difficult than it should have been. As I said, I've never had to support it, and after reading liv's last post, I'm even more glad I can say that.

[livius drusus]

Our default was (a measly, I know) 256 MB, bey. We've upped it to 512 now, but it's barely been an improvement, truth be told.

Wade, you should be very glad indeed, although as I grudgingly admitted above, older versions didn't have anything like this kind of horridly detrimental effect on the end users, so had you had to support it back in the day you wouldn't have encountered quite the agony I describe.

[beyelzu]

Our default was (a measly, I know) 256 MB, bey. We've upped it to 512 now, but it's barely been an improvement, truth be told.

Wade, you should be very glad indeed, although as I grudgingly admitted above, older versions didn't have anything like this kind of horridly detrimental effect on the end users, so had you had to support it back in the day you wouldn't have encountered quite the agony I describe.


what the hell is it doing with the 512 megs of ram?

you can play most high end games with that much. My experience with apps has been that they are not nearly as much of resource hogs as games are.

[livius drusus]

what the hell is it doing with the 512 megs of ram?

Man, if I knew, I'd have this company by the balls. I didn't think it would be the panacea IT thought it would be simply because individual RAM isn't going to fix shitty server response time and all its ancillary problems, but I never expected to get feedback from pretty much everyone saying that there's basically no difference between their machine with 256 MB and 512 unless they're working offline.

Doubling memory usually has some kind of an effect, after all. Well, not with Notes 6.5, it don't.

[wade-w]

It sounds like the problem isn't with the machines the client is running on, but that the box the LN server itself is running on doesn't have enough oomph. At least, that's the next thing I'd consider if I had to solve this issue.

[Scotty]

I bet it is network infrastructure problems. The amount of data passed across the network is probably just bogging down at the server and it can't respond fast enough.

I can't tell you how many times I have run into stupidity in the IT department, they just don't get it. Especially ones working on Windows products that really don't tell you what is going on unless you buy expensive software.

They probably need a RAID array for speed and go to gigabit network at least for distribution from the server, if not to all the clients. It really isn't that expensive anymore (or multiple NIC cards in the server)

Sounds like your IT department needs a lobotomy, hire wade-w, he will fix it for you.

I hate stupid IT departments.

-Scott

[livius drusus]

I think that's a strong possibility, wade, and would make a very reasonable next step, but needless to say, ain't nobody in corporate IT looking to replace the Notes servers of 80 worldwide offices. Given the integration problems with AD, even that might not end the nightmare and there's definitely no way they'd spend that kind of money on hardware upgrades without a guaranteed fix.

They just should have never upgraded. It's not like they weren't warned. Even IBM doesn't use 6.5 in their offices because of the known issues. Stupid corporate entities... :rolleye2:

[wade-w]

I hear ya liv. If my own experience is any guide, they'd have to do some testing to prove to the bean counters that spending that much money would show a significant increase in usability. It may very well be that in the idealized test environment, what you have now runs OK, but when faced with the increased demands of the entire office coming in Monday morning and accessing their mail, well, the server and network just can't handle the load.

As Scotty mentioned, network infrastructure could well be another part of the puzzle. I have no idea what kind of bandwidth you have internally, so I left that part out of my post.

[wade-w]

The discussion of liv's employer's recent nightmares with upgrading to the latst version of Lotus Notes is an excellent example of something I've always believed. Specifically, I am not a fan of upgrading to the latest and "greatest" version of any app just because it's available. I much prefer to stay one or two revs behind, and let somone else be the guinea pig.

[Corwin]

The discussion of liv's employer's recent nightmares with upgrading to the latst version of Lotus Notes is an excellent example of something I've always believed. Specifically, I am not a fan of upgrading to the latest and "greatest" version of any app just because it's available. I much prefer to stay one or two revs behind, and let somone else be the guinea pig.

That's a good way to look at it, and is the standard idea in any intelligent IT department. (And frequently in idiot IT departments.... it's frequently the one idea people get right.)

[Dingfod]

71 72 posts in a thread about some electronic wickerbill? Bah!