Lotus (actually Iris) once wanted to hire me to do the mail template development. They had noticed that I knew more about Notes than anybody they had, and were hoping to benefit. They were a little concerned that I am willing to ignore "features" of Notes when those features make something impossible, but if I was an internal developer, than I could assist in making those features more usable. Then IBM froze hiring while considering the best ways to destroy Lotus, and my plane ticket for Boston that was supposedly already in the mail never arrived.
I have rewritten pieces of the mail template for every version since R4. Usually to add functionality, but occasionally to fix bugs. Lotus keeps changing it, but not all the changes are improvements.
--- Since IBM took control, they are dedicated to clean room interpretations of everything. I doubt they actually borrowed code from OpenNTF, even though OpenNTF wants Notes to improve, and would willingly sign any waivers.
I recently completely rewrote the user interface for one of their common applications. I had to send a list of all the improvements so they could be reimplemented because they refused to even look at my code.
They are also doing this with internal applications. I am responsible for several applications that run at IBM, and needed to upgrade one of them. I had to write a list of all the changes and how to implement them. I included the code, but they had to manually retype it. Many bugs resulted that I had to troubleshoot, even though my template had been fully tested and did not have any of the bugs.
No one cares that the datastore is different. (Notes changes it with every major release.) No one cares that the search algorithm is different. (Notes changed providers for R5.) No one cares that the indexing was rewritten.
Everybody cares that F9 refreshes the document or view. Everybody cares that CTRL+M opens a new memo, and CTRL+S saves the document, and CTRL+F opens a Find dialog. Everybody cares that F4 moves to the next document. They learned the keys to do what they need, and they would get very upset if those keys stopped working.
--- As everybody has noted, Lotus used the original standard key bindings. Microsoft created their own standard key bindings around 1990. Now people complain that Notes and any other program from pre-1990 is non-standard.
I like [to build] applications that allow complete customization, but key bindings should rarely be changed. Customizable key bindings may be very useful in games, but they are typically single-user. It could be very bad for productivity software, and worse for applications like Notes where multiple users are expected to use the same computer.
Notes could have a Preference that allows every CTRL+key to be remapped. Add buttons to set all to "classic" and "microsoft-like". Also allow the customizations to be saved to a file and linked to the ID, and even uploaded to the server in case you log in from a different computer. (They could be included in the ID file, but that is used for security and Lotus dislikes messing with it.)
The problem is that people get comfortable with their mappings, and many of the standards conflict badly.
MSOffice and Notes use F9 for refresh. - MSExplorer uses F5 for refresh. - Notes uses F5 to lock the ID (like signing off). It requires you to enter your password again. - MSWindows4/2K/XP use CTRL+ALT+DEL for signing off. - MSWindows3.1/95/98 use CTRL+ALT+DEL for choosing programs to close. - Notes uses CTRL+W to close windows, but it also allows... - Alt+F4 closes windows in Notes, and most other Windows programs.
CTRL+S is save. MS also sometimes uses F2. (I think they tried to force the change, but everybody insisted on the older method.)
"Find" is even more fun: - Notes, most older programs, and MSOffice use CTRL+F for Find. - But MS sometimes uses F3. (Again, everybody insisted on the older method being available.) - Notes allows quick search in Views just by typing. No command key is necessary, but CTRL+F opens the same dialog box. - vi and Mozilla use / for quick search without opening a dialog box. I like the lack of a screen-blocking dialog box. I dislike have to remember the keys to navigate to the next instance, or the previous instance, or the first or last instance. (Do the last 2 even exist in Mozilla?)
I bet you still use the old CTRL+ X, C, V for Cut, Copy and Paste. MS wants you to use CTRL+DEL for Cut and CTRL+INS for Paste. (I forget if MS even allowed for Copy.)
At least now I can know that THIS application can be used THIS way. If we allow the keys to be remapped, I would have to use the menus because I would be afraid that any key could destroy my current work.
Many Notes key mappings do not have standard equivalents. CTRL+N is often "New"; in Notes it is "New Database". CTRL+M is "New Memo". Should CTRL+N be context-sensitive? Would that be less or more confusing?
--- I wish the Notes innovation for double-right-clicking closing the current window would be used by other programs. Specifically, I want Mozilla to implement this. Then I would be able to use the tabbed interface (very similar to Notes) without accidentally closing the entire window where I just opened 10 tabs that I want to read. [Yeah, I know. If I want it enough I could add it myself, but my C skills are rusty and I have tons of other tasks with higher priorities.]
Not if I get there first. You only need one good developer for any size company if they use Lotus Notes. (Or we could work together for a year and then both get fired for lack of new work.)
The grandparent suggests there are companies that use Notes only for email. This is the direct result of IBM trying to market Notes as an alternative to MSExchange. IBM barely realizes that Notes should also be marketed as an alternative to IIS and many other products. Any application that allows business people to communicate is competing with Notes without the benefit of being integrated with all the other applications.
Notes natively does email, web serving, web applications, client applications, instant messaging, as well as integrating with every backend database. Any company not using Notes is at a disadvantage. Any company using Notes just for email has serious issues with technology. Any company taking full advantage of Notes is planning on entering the Fortune 500, or is already there. The cost savings from needing fewer developers and the ability to respond quickly to business needs from the rapid application development can differentiate any company from its competitors.
This does not always work, because your competitors can use Notes too. Both Ford and GM use Notes. But they do not always take full advantage of it. I know one of them spent millions of dollars over several years building a Java application that I could have built better in a few months using Notes.
The difference being, of course, that I (or someone not unlike myself) can create the fully-functional Notes version of the application in an afternoon with time to spare for coffee and conversation and make it more secure than your web version would be.
[If I had not been busy, I would have sworn I wrote that. Based on your timestamp, you are probably in Europe while I am in the Philadelphia suburbs. Slashdot thinks I responded before you posted.]
You forgot to mention that the Notes application would also be a web application. It would provide the forms as web pages to a browser. The email notifications would include the URL and an HTML HREF link to the webpage, as well as provide the document link for Notes mail users. Security could be improved by requiring SSL by checking the box "Web access: requires SSL connection". And it would still move from concept to production in an afternoon.
Anybody who has not seen the productivity a good programmer using Notes will never understand. Notes can do EVERYTHING that any other platform can do except consume tons of development time.
It is not the Lotus Notes company/division/brand that is trying to shoot itself in the foot. IBM is a hardware company and considers Sun to be the competition. We were lucky that IBM left Lotus to improve the product for 5 years. Then IBM realized that Lotus has many incredible applications that could be used in the fight against Sun, so it is chopshopping the brand to use the applications for its attack on Sun.
The Notes client could have been released free for home use. More people would use it, and more businesses would use Notes because it is familiar. Instead, they changed R5 so it could not be started without an ID file, and it is impossible to create an ID file with just the client software. Imagine if the client setup asked if you were part of an organization, and if you answered negatively, it created an ID file and completed the setup.
The Remail interface should be released as a Notes application. The Notes datastore was created for groupware applications, and Remail is attempting to put groupware functionality into the email application. I would like the ability to handle graphics in Notes to be improved so that the demo could be written natively.
Instead IBM will release it as a Java app to attack Sun's control of Java, yet it will probably not affect Sun in the slightest. But, - Remail will not help market Notes. - Remail will not integrate into corporate applications like Notes mail. - Remail will not be as customizable as Notes mail. - Remail will probably have a tiny audience, mostly MS and Mozilla developers looking for technology to steal.
The only reason IBM will even release Remail is as part of the attack on Sun. From any marketing standpoint, it will be a failed product. The technology deserves a better home.
Linux kernel hacking must be done in C. I believe actually having a submitted patch accepted would confer the title of "real programmer". Or does this programmer just change the options and recompile?
If programmer knows C, then writing the conversion in LotusScript, Java, or C should be relatively easy for them. The C API takes some work, because it is extremely low level, but if they can hack the kernel, they should be able to figure it out. Either LotusScript or Java allow higher level access to the Notes datastore, making the quantity of code much lower, and so a solution would be easier and quicker. This task does not require more access than those languages allow, so using C would be overkill.
--- I agree that Mbox and Maildir could be called standards since most email travels through Unix-like systems. I believe Mbox is the most used format in the world. Mozilla mail is in Mbox format, so it is even being used by some Windows users.
I forget about those "standards" since few business applications use them. I have never needed direct access to the mail storage files. That is why we have APIs.
--- Email is just another application for Notes. It uses its standard datastore for everything.
Most file formats that have their own APIs were designed to provide performance boosts over using a plain text format. Notes is competing against the older relational databases, which were designed for pure speed at the expense of flexibility. I do not remember any modern relational databases that used text for their datastore. Now computers have enough power that text formats are making a comeback, so we can even add extra information to the files to add flexibility. This modern text format for information is called XML.
Notes has a tool (DXLExporter) which will dump an entire Notes database into XML. (Some of the security items are lost, but that is not relevant for this discussion.) It would be possible to use a text-only processing tool to do the conversion from the XML.
I assume you would want the conversion to be incremental so it could be run multiple times and only process new documents. That might be difficult if the entire database was converted. It would be better to tell DXLExporter only to export new messages. Then the text conversion would be easy.
I could easily write an incremental conversion from Notes to Mbox that appends any unprocessed Notes mail documents to an Mbox file. LotusScript could do it in less than 200 lines of code.
I do not know the file format for messages in the Maildir format. I think it is similar to Mbox. The file naming is not difficult in any language. Once I had the file format, writing an incremental conversion would be easy. Or I could cheat and run mb2md.
I think IBM's recommended symbols are reversed for Thread Arcs. They plan to use solid dots for received mail and dots with holes in them for sent mails.
This is the reverse of every mail client I have seen. Received mail has no symbol, so would be the "hole". Sent mails usually have an envelope icon, making them the "filled".
I use Lotus Notes as my primary email client, although I was using Mozilla for months earlier this year, and have used other clients in the past. All of them use a "filled" envelope symbol to represent sent mail. All of them use no icon to represent received mail.
Has anybody seen a client that would suggest reversing these symbols may be a good thing? Will it confuse most users to have the visual clues reversed? Will IBM fix it before the product goes gold?
I apologize. I am actively writing a book that explains the Notes platform and database formats, and is targeted at "real programmers". But I am a consultant, and really big companies keep interrupting my writing with this stuff called "paying work". I hope to finish it soon, but it is not a top priority.
It would have higher priority if OReilly called, but I doubt if there is a market for the book. Most current Notes developers do not have any technology skills. Most technologically-talented people think Notes is too easy to challenge them. They are mostly correct. A good programmer can make Notes do anything so easily that the only challenge is finding enough business issues to solve, and techies are rarely interested in improving business.
The books I have seen are mostly aimed at users, or are rewrites of the manuals (except the examples work.) There were a few about web development that had promising titles, but then repeated the standard Lotus practices for building slow databases.
My advice is to learn programming on some other platform. Java is a good choice, and is one of the primary languages for Notes development. Learn HTML and JavaScript, and how to build a good user interface. Build a CGI based web site to demonstrate these skills.
Then use Notes for real work. Everything you have learned will apply. Most functionality can be developed by checking a box, or writing a really simple Formula, but it helps to know what Notes is doing and when you should write the functionality yourself to get that slight performance boost or that extra degree of customization.
And you need to understand the database format. Databases contain Documents. Documents contain Fields. A Field named "Form" tells Notes the default user interface for a document. If you want more rules, then you need to program them.
our resident email programming expert [did not say it was easy when] trying to write an application to convert Lotus' email format to a standard format.
There is a standard format for email? I have dealt with many email programs, and each had its own format. The only standards are for the transfers using SMTP, POP3, and IMAP, and Notes does those natively.
Notes does not have a special format for email. Email is handled just like any other document, except that you rarely need the standard MIME conversion functions for other documents.
(For you relational database types, a "document" is just like a "record" but without restrictions like being stuck in a table, or only having certain fields, or the fields being limited to some arbitrary length because your technology is obsolete.)
You can easily convert any Notes document to any file format you wish. Use LotusScript and a bunch of PRINT statements. Or use Java and java.io.FileOutputStream. You do need to understand the target format if you expect the conversion to work.
You may need a new expert. Take someone who understands programming. (You may prefer a real programmer, but for once VB skills are actually useful, since VB and LotusScript were very close until MS noticed that Java was winning.) Let the programmer play with Notes for a short while. (If they need more than a month, they are unsuitable for burger-flipping.) When they understand the database format, and can read and write FormulaLanguage and LotusScript, then hand them the specs for your "standard" email format. If they have not finished programming a converter in a few hours, start over with a new programmer. (I cannot imagine the project taking me more than an hour, including testing and coffee breaks, but this is their first attempt, so be lenient.)
You read Slashdot, so you may be slightly interested or talented in technology. Take a day and become an expert Notes Developer. If your manager can do it, so can you. Then see if you still enjoy your current job.
The Notes client has its issues, but so does every major program. The usual complaint is that it does not act like all other MS apps. I am surprised Slashdotters worry about that. Remember that Lotus Notes was released before MS released Windows3. It was MSWindows that changed all the key bindings from the standards used by Lotus and Wordstar. The only widespread program that did not use those keybindings was WordPerfect, and everybody required cheatsheets to use that it. MS pulled its usual "let's change everything so we can control it." Now it is considered bad that any software has survived from the pre-Windows era when dinosuars roamed.
I would guess that none of the "Notes sucks" comments come from programmers. I figured a discussion about mail clients would pull more from the techies than the comments from plain users that we are seeing. Lotus Notes mail is a programmer's dream. Every aspect of the application interface is built on open source, meaning you can read it and change it. The only closed source code is the code for the thin client, which handles security and encryption.
Development can be through interface settings and several languages: Formula, Java, JavaScript, and LotusScript. Most of the GUI can be programmed using JavaScript, for those who cannot learn advanced languages like the manager-targeted Formula Language.
copyright should require full disclosure of the source code
Software, and anything else that is copyrightable, are automatically copyrighted at the moment of creation. Registering the copyright gives a few bonuses, such as changing the amount of damages awarded.
Copyright is not based on something "working", just on something being similar. Our IP lawyer has a program that removes every 20th line from the source code that he runs before registering the copyright. What remains is (supposedly) enough to prove that plaguarism happened, if both sources are available. The code is not usable for a working (or even compilable) program.
There are several major flaws in this copyright method. One is that if we register every release of the code, then all the code might be available after a few releases. Another problem is that much of programming is very logical and repeatable. A skilled programmer should be able to replace the missing lines if he knows the code's prupose. (We also remove all comments to help avoid that.) A third problem is there are many functions that are not 20 lines long, so they are unchanged by his process.
The biggest problem is that there is no method to check for violations. Even if someone borrows major portions of our code, it will not be noticed unless a bug is found that affects both versions. [We never release software with bugs!] Unless they are a direct competitor, we may still not notice that we shared a bug. Check the list of all the various software products that were affected by the ZIP bug for a real world example of code being used everywhere.
--- Software patents should require the source to a working demonstration. Do you really think the patent office would attempt compiling it? Even if the code would work, who would provide production-ready code for a patent? Remove all error-checking; the demo works and nobody would steal your code.
Ouch. You may want to read my other post in this thread. I hope you are in a big city. The ATTWS GSM coverage in the Philadelphia suburbs is very spotty.
I have used ATTWS TDMA for 6 years. I have never had dropped calls, and rarely had any static. I lived in Reading, PA, and now in KingOfPrussia, and travel frequently to FL, NC, and NJ. I have convinced several friends to use ATTWS, and none of them have ever complained about the service, although they do complain about the expense.
Everybody I know on other cell phone services complains about the service all the time. Nobody stays on Verizon past the first year, with most cancelling in the first month grace period. The people I know on Sprint have so much dead area they won't talk while walking, never mind driving.
I know the "grass is always greener", but I figured that ATTWS was going to gain a ton of customers once people could keep their phone numbers. (Several people I know have given up their phone numbers to get ATTWS's good service.) Apparently my friends are a minority if (as the other posts indicate) everybody else wants to switch away from ATTWS.
--- About the contract extensions, I knew about them, and I stopped worrying about them when I realized I was already on the best service. (I do not worry about the expense. I switch plans to keep the price reasonable, and it comes off my taxes as a business expense, so I effectively pay 60% what I am charged.) I have to switch plans every few months because some consulting projects require tons of phone time. You can switch call plans during the month, if you remember which day your month ends. The contract extensions only happen if you switch between the major plans, not between levels within a plan.
Check the plan levels every few months. They often add minutes to every plan, and have "promotions" that add more minutes (why aren't they just included in the total?), but you have to call and "switch".
I checked the ATTWS web site. I currently have the Local $60=950min from September. Now I can "switch" to the $60=1150min. These plans include unlimited nights and weekends.
[I noticed they have changed the name of the midlevel plan to "National". I wish I could fix it in my other post.]
Your contract was extended because you switched from a TDMA plan to a GSM plan. They should have warned you, and I am happy that they cancelled the charge for you. Their customer service people have enough power to keep us happy. They have given me tons of extra minutes when I was at the limit of a plan, but it was a major charge to jump to a higher plan. They even cancelled roaming fees one month when I fell between their plans. (I was travelling, used tons of minutes, could not get a "Regional" plan to cover the minutes, and the minutes would have skyrocketed if I switched to "One Rate" because it did not have free nights and weekends. We basically haggled a price for the month.)
I wish ATTWS either chose the least expensive option each month, or saved roll-over minutes to cover the months my usage spikes. And automatically upgrading when the plans change would help.
--- The charge for dropping the contract is around $175. When I started with ATTWS 6 years ago, the fee was prorated. If I had 6 months left when I cancelled, then the fee was halved. It came out to $15 per month for the remainder of the contract. The first month you could cancel without charge, and nobody would extend their plan just before paying the cancellation fee, so nobody was ever charged the full $175. I do not know if the prorating policy is still valid, but I will complain heavily if I ever drop their service and they tell me that it is not.
If anybody really wanted to switch, that fee would not stop them. They would just stay within one major calling plan until it runs out, which is always less than a year (except for new users who get the 2 year contract.) It does stop people from switching just to save a few dollars each month.
I use the Motorola V60, which is TDMA. Excellent coverage on the US east coast. I have never dropped a call, and I often talk while driving. (Yes, I always use the hands-free ear piece.) The only issue is that the Cingular tower near my home "forgets" my phone if the phone stays on and in the same place (such as my house) for more than 2 days. After some troubleshooting, ATTWS told me I should reboot once per day, and that has cured it.
One of my clients is based in Ireland. Their management use GSM phones because they work in Ireland and here. They had no problems around Philly, even 2 years ago when GSM was not officially supported.
My business partner switched to a ATTWS GSM phone last year. It gets fuzzy often, and drops calls while he is driving in the suburbs. When driving, he pulls over when he has a good signal so calls do not get interrupted. He is our primary contact and uses more than 2000 minutes each month, so the GSM $99/month for unlimited minutes is a good deal, but the dropped calls are annoying. When we are together, we use my phone because the reception is always good.
(I thought it was impossible to have static on a digital network. Anybody know GSM technology well enough to explain?)
I have family in Charlotte, NC using ATTWS TDMA, and they have never lost a call.
Family in NJ use Sprint, and lose calls all the time. They are retired, do not care if conversations get interrupted, and stay with Sprint since it is inexpensive for travellers.
No one I know has stayed on Verizon very long. Their service is awful in the Philadelphia area.
-- ATTWS TDMA Call plans -- There are 3 plans.
"One Rate" is like Sprint's travel-anywhere no-roaming regular service, but it is very expensive.
"Local" gives you several states, which is great when it includes from Virginia to Florida, not so good when it includes from Connecticut to Maryland. It is priced like Sprint.
"Regional" is supposed to cover all the big cities, but have roaming charges when the phone says "Extended Area" or "Roaming". The problem is that the area can change while dialing, even when standing still, and there is no phone that will tell you which area you are in when the phone is ringing. No one I know who is on that plan has ever been charged for roaming, although they are stressed by worrying about it. I do not know how ATTWS came up with such a silly plan, or why they keep it.
--- My cell phone is my only phone, and as a consultant I depend on it for work. I look forward to switching to a GSM phone, but I am waiting until GSM has enough coverage for it to be as error-free as TDMA.
Many game development houses do not last long enough to have a reputation. [I wrote this from memory so do not use this as a reference.]
Sid Meier writes great games as Microprose. Microprose gets bought by Hasbro, Infogrames, Atari, and they won't let him play. So Sid splits and starts Firaxis. Sid wants to make historical games, so he gives the big money maker to Brian Reynolds. Alpha Centauri is great, and Brian gets a rep, so he splits and starts BigHugeGames. Civ3 is a collaborative effort between Firaxis and that other company that owns the trademark. It has gameplay issues, but nobody knows which company to blame.
Peter Molyneux has 3 divisions in his company that release under their own brands. If the next "Black and White" bombs, then say goodbye to "Lionhead Studios".
Will Wright is Maxis, and all his games' names begin with "Sim", so it does not matter what the development house is called.
New World Computing gets bought by 3DO. A few financial troubles (and the little problem of never hiring anybody who understands writing AI engines) and they disappear. Say goodbye to "Might and Magic".
id and Blizzard are still around, but they never release a game that will bomb. id releases a Doom or Quake every few years. You would think they live on subsidies from the video card manufacturers if their games were not so great. Keep watching Blizzard though, since it was bought and eventually the bean counters will take control.
The smaller dev houses sometimes change their name three times while developing one game. If the game bombs, everybody is fired. If the game is successful, the company is bought by a larger company and the sequel is released by the new company. And everybody from the original team quits since the new company changes the culture, and the developers have a win on their resume.
Feedback is great if you are Blizzard and can keep releasing patches to balance StarCraft 5 years after it is released. But most games will be in the bargain bin in less than 6 months. The day after one goes gold, the developers start working on their next game so they can keep eating. I think most feedback serves more as criticism the developers can use on their next job than as suggestions that will improve the current game.
Off-topic response to parent post: Why does Slashdot default to "HTML Formatted? Why is it even a setting? I use the "Plain Old Text", and can use bold,italics, links, and lists without worrying about putting <BR>s everywhere. (I just had to get cute with the tags.)
--- On-topic response to grandparent post: I agree with the great-grandparent post. This show does not seem to have any continuity with the original beyond the character names. The original series was all about finding Earth. That gave it purpose. (I liked ST:Voyager, but without the LostInSpace need to find Earth they would have been wandering around like ST:TOS. Actually, that is most of what they did, but anyway...) All that is left is just one more show with spaceships.
I hope they at least keep the Vipers. I dreamed about flying them when I was a child, then hoped for one of the transforming motorcycles after they found Earth. Put me on the waiting list for both of them for when the technology actually works.
This series would probably be marketed better if they called it something completely different. They would not even need to create new spaceship designs if they had permission from the original series owners. Of course, then we would be bashing them for copying BSGs vehicles.
--- I am trying to get rid of mod points, but I keep posting.
The grandparent's But if you're downloading data from a site, the site is not also uploading that data to you. The action exists at only one end of the operation, at the initiator of the action is correct.
Your machine requests something from a stationary location. That is a pull operation, and is called "downloading", (such as requestnig a drink and being given a beer.)
Your machine sends something of yours to the stationary location. That is a push operation, and is called "uploading", (such as giving money to the bartender.)
The remote machine responds to each request. It is "serving", (such as the bartender taking requests and returning drinks, also known as serving.)
--- Another poster suggested that the definition has to do with the size of the machines, but this is obviously incorrect. If a 300lb man gets a beer from a midget bartender, the man is still doing the requesting and the bartender is still serving.
Or think about P2P networks. The machines can be considered to be equivalent, but a computer with a 2GB hard drive and only 10 files still serves those files to the computer with a 200GB hard drive and millions of files. The latter computer is doing the requesting and "downloading".
The confusion may be because your ISP is limiting your upstream or "upload" bandwidth, which is used for the transaction whether you are serving (also known as sharing) or uploading (also known as posting) the files, even though that bandwidth is also used for requesting. English is great; the last sentence had five words for the process where bits move from your computer to another.
Thanks: RFI about IButtons
on
Real Security?
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· Score: 1
Thank you very much. That is what I needed.
I still do not know which model we would need, but if all you are attempting can be done with the lowest model, I am certain there is a model that can do anything I can dream. It seems to have the flexibility to integrate with our systems. We are not using ActiveDirectory, but when the docs seemed to make it useful for only Windows, I got scared.
We already have a distributed environment, so the joys of having one server handle all logins would not affect us.
I am a consultant. Having the other solutions be expensive is good because it means I can charge more for my solutions. It also means that I would develop a solution intead of integrating someone else's, but I find that to be fun. (I am that "capable programmer". Everybody else is involved to market my work.) Our entire package needs to be proprietary because we will be milking the martket for a few years, but I may be able to opensource peripheral pieces like this.
An AC suggested not merging a security system into other applications, but in our case, it is more a timecard system than a security system. We want to be resonable certain that the information (such as time of login) is coming from the correct user, but the system is mostly for input, so the users would not gain access to critical data if they pretended to be someone else.
Even $53 for the Java IButton is within our range. But it would not save much from a bottom-end Palm, which can be bought new for $70, and the Palm would be more useful and integrate better with the rest of our package. Of course, wear-and-tear on the Palms would also require more replacements, so the IButton is worth considering. (It is an accident-likely environment.)
You did not state it, but you imply the 4-digit PIN was arbitrary, so we could use a different standard. I doubt even the lowest IButton is limited to a single 4-digit code. (I wonder at the users who give you their ATM PINs. Will users never learn that that sharing passwords is bad? Even if they love and trust you, the administrator who replaces you may not be as trustworthy.)
Thank you for providing enough information for me to be able to decided the product is worth researching. Now the fun begins.
Thank you for pointing out the IButton. I infrequently advise companies about security measures such as you have designed, and was unaware of this product.
[I am actually working on a similar project now. We will probably use Palms so some mobile data entry can be done. If they are carrying an individually-identifiable Palm for other uses, we should be able to use it for security. The links on ibutton.com to products that use Java for computer security suggest that a Palm could do everything that an IButton can do. The IButtons could be used for employees that do not need the data entry capabilities.]
I ask for enough information to be able to judge when this would be a good solution, and approximately how much it would cost based on number of users. I (or my clients) would do our own research if this was seen as a valid solution. I realize you have not implemented your system yet, but you must have a detailed cost analysis if you are presenting to corporate.
One of the receivers is $15, but the IButtons range in price from $2 to $53. Which model will you use? - Would your system work with systems running non-MS OSes? - Was the decision to use 4-digit PINs arbitrary, or can other passwords be used? Can the users pick password without telling the administrators? - How secure is the datastore that verifies the passwords? Does it use one-way encryption for verification? Can the password encryption be bypassed? Or must you trust your administrators?
[I deal with a system that uses one-way encryption before storing passwords. It adds a character to the beginning of every password after it is encrypted. If the encryption routine sees that character, it assumes the password was already encrypted. These encrypted passwords are visible to the administrators. If an administrator sends the entire encrypted password (and the username) to the system, it passes because the "password" will not be mangled by reencryption and will match the encrypted password.]
Was the software you are using prepackaged or did you or your company write it custom? Is there an OSS version? If not, has your company considered releasing it?
[That is the purpose of OSS. You have something cool that others could use. You release it. Others use it. Everybody improves it and you benefit. - Unless your company is in the software business. Then you package it and license it to others and make much money every year.]
[The web site lists many different proprietary applications. Did you try them? Any advice from your decision-making process? - The security applications list only mentions Windows, but I am hoping you discovered a product that works with other OSes. The APIs suggest they work with C, C++, and Java as well as VB, so other OSes should be easy.]
What is your security server? Is it hardware intensive? Can it be a Pentium 100 or do we need dual-Xeons? [Not asking about minis or mainframes since it must work with MSWindows.] - Does it integrate with ActiveDirectory? Could it integrate with LDAP? - Are you using the standard Windows logins? Does the system protect the computer? Or does it protect access to the network?
we need incentives for artists and others to PRODUCE. Often the best incentive is financial. I don't program, e.g., just for the love of it.
The problem is usually the reverse: how to choose from all the music being produced. Artists will keep creating because that is what they do. Much of their production will be disliked by the majority of people, but the artists still produce it because THEY like it, even if it is only the act of creation.
I write music because I like to write it. I am different from most artists because I do not need acclaim from the masses; I am happy when a friend asks me to play a song again. - Most artists want to share their music with everybody, and want to be told their work is good. That is why they sign ridiculous contracts to get their music out. When they get screwed, their big complaint is not that they did not get the money, but that the distribution company kept the rights to the music so they cannot try to distribute it themselves.
The same principle applies to software, although it rarely counts as entertainment. I write software because I enjoy it. The entire open source community proves that people will write software because they enjoy it. - I started programming in the 80s by writing games. I had an audience of a few hundred people who enjoyed them. I did not attempt to make any moeny from them. My compensation was the enjoyment of the experience, plus some acclaim from my audience. - I prefer to write software that can make a difference in the world. Now I write for large corporations who benefit from my work and are willing to pay for it. Even so, they rarely pay more than a small portion of what the software is worth to them. We charged about $100K for a program that eliminated about 30 $40,000/yr jobs. The ROI for the first year was >1200%, and they have now been using it for 3 years with no additional charges. - I program even when I don't have paying work. I may profit from these programs someday, but I do it for the enjoyable experience as much as the possible financial rewards.
Would you really stop programming just because nobody else wanted your work?
"Got it for a song" used to mean that the price was extremely low.
The way I figure, if I lose I'm out a whole $20 (if that's the cost of downloading those 20 songs off iTunes legitimately) - I believe I could argue (in a civil court) that that's the value of the songs.
IANAL, and I am regurgitating what I've read on Slashdot, but I believe copyright violations give triple damages, so even with your logic, your 20 songs may cost $60.
Compare that to the RIAA estimating that providing access to thousands of songs has a value of many millions of dollars, but the settlements are in the $2,000 to $20,000 range. Even if you posted 20 songs on your free website, the penalty should be less than $1000.
I prefer to think of any posting of songs as distributing under the radio business model. Their rate is $0.08 per play. Subsidies on recording media are supposed to make up for those who tape the songs from the radio. Sharing 1,000 songs should be worth about $80. The question is how to count one "play", since songs on the internet are available whenever someone looks for them, rather than waiting for a radio station to play it (if ever in our ClearChannel dominated world.) How long can a song be shared to count as one play? I think it should be by number of downloads rather than time-oriented. How many people hear one "play" on the radio? Estimate that, then charge $0.08 for that number of downloads. (And give up quickly when realizing the tracking system costs much more than any gains from enforcing it.)
Another question is whether a song is worth more or less because it is rare. Is the unpopular song worth more because it is harder to find? Is it worth less because few people want to hear it? In the old world, an unpopular song was difficult to find, so the price went up for those few people who wanted it after the overstock was sold at drastic discounts. Now only one person needs to keep it available for anybody to find it.
--- I have written and recorded songs. I expect them to be popular, but I have not released them. When I started in the late 80s, I decided that the music industry was too controlled. Now I have difficulty believing it is possible to profit from them. That does not stop me from writing and recording, since it is something I enjoy, and something that I must do. I will probably release them on a website for free someday. If they do become popular, then I can profit from performances.
The value of music has always been low. Only by controlling the distribution channels could money be made. All the actions of the RIAA and the discussions about copyrights are the last gasps of a failing business model.
Apple got away with using "OS 9" despite the existence of an earlier "OS-9" on the grounds that no one could confuse an embedded product with a desktop OS.
I do not know how the law affects this, but it seems silly that version numbers can be trademarked. Why did Apple need to justify that version 9 of their OS can be called "OS9"? That would be like trademarking "OS2". Wait, IBM already did that.
IBM decided to avoid these issues with Lotus Notes. Everybody abbreviated "Lotus Notes Release 4" to "R4". Everybody abbreviated "Lotus Notes Release 5" to "R5". Most people abbreviate "Lotus Notes Release 6" to "R6", but IBM has requested that everybody refer to it as "D6" (Domino release 6) and "N6" (Notes release 6) to avoid difficulties with SAP, which already used "R6". If a company with the legal prowess of IBM thinks it is important to make an effort to convince the users how to talk about their product, there must be major legal difficulties that they are trying to avoid. I do not understand, since their trademarks are "Lotus" and "Notes", not the version numbers, although I think they did trademark the image of R5 with a hula hoop.
I always figured that MS changed their versioning for Windows so people would not ask "You need windows 4 what?" with the usual answer of "Because my computer is running too fast and I cannot catch it." If they can skip MSWord5, they can skip MSWindows4 through 94, although it was more impressive when they skipped 99 through 1999. (Yeah, I know they were different product lines.)
I should find a new word for versioning my software. "Variant" and "Volume" are still "V". "Rendition" is still "R". "Make" is "M", which might work if it does not upset the entire Unix and OSS worlds. "Publication" is too long and would allow "pee" jokes. "Issue" is the best word I found. Now I need the software trademarks for "I2", "I3", "I4", "I5"... so I do not have to worry about conflicts with the abbreviated forms.
How do we get the power down here? Use a very long extension cord.
Many sf books talk about "beaming" power from satellite's to the planet's surface. Heinlein used it in "Blowups Happen". But I do not think I have read a practical method for it.
retail stores do not know how to set up monitors for display
I was helping a friend build a new computer. After reading the reviews and getting the internet prices, we stopped at CompUSA (about a block from my house) to look at some actual products. (Do not worry. We would never buy anything there.) All of their LCDs were showing the same 1024x768 picture that was mostly black with a dark graphic including a human face.
All 17" LCD monitors have the natural resolution of 1280x1024. All of the 17" and larger ones were blurry compared to the 15" ones (natural 1024x768) because the image was the wrong resolution and had to be dithered to fit the display's natural resolution.
Always judge monitors with the screen mostly white. Most computer use (email, word processing, programming) is black text on a white screen. And the lines across a Trinitron CRT and the dead pixels on an LCD are not visible when the screen is dark. Displaying a black image is about as good as displaying the monitor without power.
--- If you follow the links in the article, Samsung USA lists the correct specs of 450:1 and 1280x768. Samsung Canada lists 700:1, which might appear as if Canadians get a better model, except they list the natural resolution as 1024x768. Knowing this must be wrong (see above) means you cannot trust their other specs. Why aren't both sites pulling the specs from the same database? Have they heard of Web Services, or even data normalization?
The Articles of Confederation left much power in the hands of the States. This was impractical because the Founding Fathers were attempting to create a nation, not an alliance, and although we were called the United States of America, the federal government could not write treaties, trade agreements, and other basic tools of nations without begging the individual States to approve every action. The second Revolution (what else do you call it when you rewrite the entire rulebook for a nation?) was designed to grant the federal government enough power to be recognized as a nation by the rest of the world (which meant the European powers.)
Under the Articles: 1. Each State was sovereign. 2. The States would join for the common defense, but the federal government had no military power of its own. 3. States could demand the return of criminals from other States. 4. Treaties and declarations of war BY THE STATES required the consent of the feds. 9 States had to agree before war could be declared. 5. The feds could print money, but there was nothing to back it. No federal taxes.
The federal government had no power. Period.
Under the Constitution: 1. Congress makes the laws, including money, taxes, trade agreements, limited patents and copyrights, war, treason, army and navy. States cannot do any of this. 2. The President runs the armed forces, and appoints all ambassadors to other countries. 3. The supreme court can judge all the laws of the land. (It was lowercase in the Constitution.) There was a provision for lower courts to be appointed. 4. Citizens belong to the nation, not the States.
The big changes were: 1. Money is now controlled only by the feds. 2. Military power is now controlled only by the feds. 3. All international agreements are now controlled only by the feds. The first two make the last possible, since the European countries would not negotiate with a "nation" that did not have its own money or military force.
Is that enough "evidence"? The rest of it you got correct. It was basically the same group of aristocrats that created both documents, and they did both without any real authority. The difference was what was acceptable because of how the people thought of themselves.
The Articles were written in 1781, about the time we started winning the Revolutionary War (1776 to 1783). During the war, the populace was about evenly divided into thirds: The Rebels who wanted independence, the Tories who wanted to stay under English rule, and those who did not care. But almost everybody thought of themselves as being from a State, not as an American. The Articles served to create a federal government, and although it was almost powerless, it was able to negotiate peace with England.
After the War, people's loyalties were still to the States. The question of independence from England had been resolved. Attempting to negotiate with France and Spain was difficult. The advantages of free trade within the national borders helped win the business sector, but international trade was suffering. Written 4 years after the War, the Constitution gave the feds enough power to handle the situation.
Much of this power was only on paper. Check out the history of the Civil War. The regiments were still known by their State. Lincoln asks for "the militia of the several States of the Union" (which were outlawed by the Constitution) and the southern armies had names like the "Army of Tennessee". But the Constitution was enough to let us deal with European countries as equals.
It is true that the "Founding Fathers" were divided about just about every issue. The whole State power versus Federal power took 2 tries because the States won the first time, but the Articles of Confederation proved impractical.
But when referring to the Constitution, we assume the "Founding Fathers" were the ones whose ideals were codified. Many of the ones about copyrights orginated with Thomas Jefferson, just like the banking system came from Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson and the rest of the Founding Fathers were able to find compromises between those who believed free spread of information was important, and those who believed that business would suffer without the monopolies granted by copyright. These compromises are what made our system flexible enough to survive. In this instance, the compromise was that there would be monopolies, they would be granted to the creators (rather than the publishers), and they would exist for a LIMITED time.
Today, we are violating the spirit of this. Big business has wrested control of many of the copyrights from the creators for music, and made a good effort to do the same for books back in the 1970s. And the time limit is almost useless. Rather than 17 years with one possible renewal, it is now life + 50 years and growing. We have also contracted with Europe to defend this practice, so it is unlikely that the U.S. can fix it internally.
Many stories published on the early internet came with copyright notices that allowed the works to become public domain after 120 days. There is little reason for computer books to keep their copyrights beyond a decade, as the technology could be obsolete in 4 years. Creators can limit their own copyrights, and many do. Big business will never relinquish anything unless forced by law. It will probably take another revolution for the public to win back control of ideas.
Technology has changed the need for copyrights. Historically, they were granted to a specific publisher to prevent other publishers from stealing popular works. Then they were granted to the creators, to encourage them to create more. Then the publishers bought them from the creators. But every law assumes that the COPYING takes effort, and that is no longer true. I did not need to publish this as a pamphlet and try to sell them on street corners for a penny each. I wrote it; I published it; you are reading it, and any costs in the process are subsumed in the overhead of having a computer attached to the internet.
--- I would like to use a well-thought license that allows works to enter public domain for most purposes within 20 years, but still allows me to benefit if Disney decides to turn my work into a movie. Of course, this clause in itself would prevent Disney from making a movie from my books, because they only publish material if they can retain all the profits. They wouldn't publish something like Star Wars because Lucas insisted on keeping the associated toy franchise. Why should they make my book into a movie when there are still tons of material already in the public domain from before their efforts to extend copyright into eternity?
Slashdot Mirror
Lotus (actually Iris) once wanted to hire me to do the mail template development. They had noticed that I knew more about Notes than anybody they had, and were hoping to benefit. They were a little concerned that I am willing to ignore "features" of Notes when those features make something impossible, but if I was an internal developer, than I could assist in making those features more usable. Then IBM froze hiring while considering the best ways to destroy Lotus, and my plane ticket for Boston that was supposedly already in the mail never arrived.
I have rewritten pieces of the mail template for every version since R4. Usually to add functionality, but occasionally to fix bugs. Lotus keeps changing it, but not all the changes are improvements.
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Since IBM took control, they are dedicated to clean room interpretations of everything. I doubt they actually borrowed code from OpenNTF, even though OpenNTF wants Notes to improve, and would willingly sign any waivers.
I recently completely rewrote the user interface for one of their common applications. I had to send a list of all the improvements so they could be reimplemented because they refused to even look at my code.
They are also doing this with internal applications. I am responsible for several applications that run at IBM, and needed to upgrade one of them. I had to write a list of all the changes and how to implement them. I included the code, but they had to manually retype it. Many bugs resulted that I had to troubleshoot, even though my template had been fully tested and did not have any of the bugs.
User interface is not a compatibility issue
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User interface is the ONLY compatibility issue.
No one cares that the datastore is different. (Notes changes it with every major release.) No one cares that the search algorithm is different. (Notes changed providers for R5.) No one cares that the indexing was rewritten.
Everybody cares that F9 refreshes the document or view. Everybody cares that CTRL+M opens a new memo, and CTRL+S saves the document, and CTRL+F opens a Find dialog. Everybody cares that F4 moves to the next document. They learned the keys to do what they need, and they would get very upset if those keys stopped working.
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As everybody has noted, Lotus used the original standard key bindings. Microsoft created their own standard key bindings around 1990. Now people complain that Notes and any other program from pre-1990 is non-standard.
I like [to build] applications that allow complete customization, but key bindings should rarely be changed. Customizable key bindings may be very useful in games, but they are typically single-user. It could be very bad for productivity software, and worse for applications like Notes where multiple users are expected to use the same computer.
Notes could have a Preference that allows every CTRL+key to be remapped. Add buttons to set all to "classic" and "microsoft-like". Also allow the customizations to be saved to a file and linked to the ID, and even uploaded to the server in case you log in from a different computer. (They could be included in the ID file, but that is used for security and Lotus dislikes messing with it.)
The problem is that people get comfortable with their mappings, and many of the standards conflict badly.
MSOffice and Notes use F9 for refresh.
- MSExplorer uses F5 for refresh.
- Notes uses F5 to lock the ID (like signing off). It requires you to enter your password again.
- MSWindows4/2K/XP use CTRL+ALT+DEL for signing off.
- MSWindows3.1/95/98 use CTRL+ALT+DEL for choosing programs to close.
- Notes uses CTRL+W to close windows, but it also allows
- Alt+F4 closes windows in Notes, and most other Windows programs.
CTRL+S is save. MS also sometimes uses F2. (I think they tried to force the change, but everybody insisted on the older method.)
"Find" is even more fun:
- Notes, most older programs, and MSOffice use CTRL+F for Find.
- But MS sometimes uses F3. (Again, everybody insisted on the older method being available.)
- Notes allows quick search in Views just by typing. No command key is necessary, but CTRL+F opens the same dialog box.
- vi and Mozilla use / for quick search without opening a dialog box. I like the lack of a screen-blocking dialog box. I dislike have to remember the keys to navigate to the next instance, or the previous instance, or the first or last instance. (Do the last 2 even exist in Mozilla?)
I bet you still use the old CTRL+ X, C, V for Cut, Copy and Paste. MS wants you to use CTRL+DEL for Cut and CTRL+INS for Paste. (I forget if MS even allowed for Copy.)
At least now I can know that THIS application can be used THIS way. If we allow the keys to be remapped, I would have to use the menus because I would be afraid that any key could destroy my current work.
Many Notes key mappings do not have standard equivalents. CTRL+N is often "New"; in Notes it is "New Database". CTRL+M is "New Memo". Should CTRL+N be context-sensitive? Would that be less or more confusing?
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I wish the Notes innovation for double-right-clicking closing the current window would be used by other programs. Specifically, I want Mozilla to implement this. Then I would be able to use the tabbed interface (very similar to Notes) without accidentally closing the entire window where I just opened 10 tabs that I want to read. [Yeah, I know. If I want it enough I could add it myself, but my C skills are rusty and I have tons of other tasks with higher priorities.]
Not if I get there first. You only need one good developer for any size company if they use Lotus Notes. (Or we could work together for a year and then both get fired for lack of new work.)
The grandparent suggests there are companies that use Notes only for email. This is the direct result of IBM trying to market Notes as an alternative to MSExchange. IBM barely realizes that Notes should also be marketed as an alternative to IIS and many other products. Any application that allows business people to communicate is competing with Notes without the benefit of being integrated with all the other applications.
Notes natively does email, web serving, web applications, client applications, instant messaging, as well as integrating with every backend database. Any company not using Notes is at a disadvantage. Any company using Notes just for email has serious issues with technology. Any company taking full advantage of Notes is planning on entering the Fortune 500, or is already there. The cost savings from needing fewer developers and the ability to respond quickly to business needs from the rapid application development can differentiate any company from its competitors.
This does not always work, because your competitors can use Notes too. Both Ford and GM use Notes. But they do not always take full advantage of it. I know one of them spent millions of dollars over several years building a Java application that I could have built better in a few months using Notes.
The difference being, of course, that I (or someone not unlike myself) can create the fully-functional Notes version of the application in an afternoon with time to spare for coffee and conversation and make it more secure than your web version would be.
[If I had not been busy, I would have sworn I wrote that. Based on your timestamp, you are probably in Europe while I am in the Philadelphia suburbs. Slashdot thinks I responded before you posted.]
You forgot to mention that the Notes application would also be a web application. It would provide the forms as web pages to a browser. The email notifications would include the URL and an HTML HREF link to the webpage, as well as provide the document link for Notes mail users. Security could be improved by requiring SSL by checking the box "Web access: requires SSL connection". And it would still move from concept to production in an afternoon.
Anybody who has not seen the productivity a good programmer using Notes will never understand. Notes can do EVERYTHING that any other platform can do except consume tons of development time.
It is not the Lotus Notes company/division/brand that is trying to shoot itself in the foot. IBM is a hardware company and considers Sun to be the competition. We were lucky that IBM left Lotus to improve the product for 5 years. Then IBM realized that Lotus has many incredible applications that could be used in the fight against Sun, so it is chopshopping the brand to use the applications for its attack on Sun.
The Notes client could have been released free for home use. More people would use it, and more businesses would use Notes because it is familiar. Instead, they changed R5 so it could not be started without an ID file, and it is impossible to create an ID file with just the client software. Imagine if the client setup asked if you were part of an organization, and if you answered negatively, it created an ID file and completed the setup.
The Remail interface should be released as a Notes application. The Notes datastore was created for groupware applications, and Remail is attempting to put groupware functionality into the email application. I would like the ability to handle graphics in Notes to be improved so that the demo could be written natively.
Instead IBM will release it as a Java app to attack Sun's control of Java, yet it will probably not affect Sun in the slightest. But,
- Remail will not help market Notes.
- Remail will not integrate into corporate applications like Notes mail.
- Remail will not be as customizable as Notes mail.
- Remail will probably have a tiny audience, mostly MS and Mozilla developers looking for technology to steal.
The only reason IBM will even release Remail is as part of the attack on Sun. From any marketing standpoint, it will be a failed product. The technology deserves a better home.
Linux kernel hacking must be done in C. I believe actually having a submitted patch accepted would confer the title of "real programmer". Or does this programmer just change the options and recompile?
If programmer knows C, then writing the conversion in LotusScript, Java, or C should be relatively easy for them. The C API takes some work, because it is extremely low level, but if they can hack the kernel, they should be able to figure it out. Either LotusScript or Java allow higher level access to the Notes datastore, making the quantity of code much lower, and so a solution would be easier and quicker. This task does not require more access than those languages allow, so using C would be overkill.
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I agree that Mbox and Maildir could be called standards since most email travels through Unix-like systems. I believe Mbox is the most used format in the world. Mozilla mail is in Mbox format, so it is even being used by some Windows users.
I forget about those "standards" since few business applications use them. I have never needed direct access to the mail storage files. That is why we have APIs.
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Email is just another application for Notes. It uses its standard datastore for everything.
Most file formats that have their own APIs were designed to provide performance boosts over using a plain text format. Notes is competing against the older relational databases, which were designed for pure speed at the expense of flexibility. I do not remember any modern relational databases that used text for their datastore. Now computers have enough power that text formats are making a comeback, so we can even add extra information to the files to add flexibility. This modern text format for information is called XML.
Notes has a tool (DXLExporter) which will dump an entire Notes database into XML. (Some of the security items are lost, but that is not relevant for this discussion.) It would be possible to use a text-only processing tool to do the conversion from the XML.
I assume you would want the conversion to be incremental so it could be run multiple times and only process new documents. That might be difficult if the entire database was converted. It would be better to tell DXLExporter only to export new messages. Then the text conversion would be easy.
I could easily write an incremental conversion from Notes to Mbox that appends any unprocessed Notes mail documents to an Mbox file. LotusScript could do it in less than 200 lines of code.
I do not know the file format for messages in the Maildir format. I think it is similar to Mbox. The file naming is not difficult in any language. Once I had the file format, writing an incremental conversion would be easy. Or I could cheat and run mb2md.
I think IBM's recommended symbols are reversed for Thread Arcs. They plan to use solid dots for received mail and dots with holes in them for sent mails.
This is the reverse of every mail client I have seen. Received mail has no symbol, so would be the "hole". Sent mails usually have an envelope icon, making them the "filled".
I use Lotus Notes as my primary email client, although I was using Mozilla for months earlier this year, and have used other clients in the past. All of them use a "filled" envelope symbol to represent sent mail. All of them use no icon to represent received mail.
Has anybody seen a client that would suggest reversing these symbols may be a good thing? Will it confuse most users to have the visual clues reversed? Will IBM fix it before the product goes gold?
I apologize. I am actively writing a book that explains the Notes platform and database formats, and is targeted at "real programmers". But I am a consultant, and really big companies keep interrupting my writing with this stuff called "paying work". I hope to finish it soon, but it is not a top priority.
It would have higher priority if OReilly called, but I doubt if there is a market for the book. Most current Notes developers do not have any technology skills. Most technologically-talented people think Notes is too easy to challenge them. They are mostly correct. A good programmer can make Notes do anything so easily that the only challenge is finding enough business issues to solve, and techies are rarely interested in improving business.
The books I have seen are mostly aimed at users, or are rewrites of the manuals (except the examples work.) There were a few about web development that had promising titles, but then repeated the standard Lotus practices for building slow databases.
My advice is to learn programming on some other platform. Java is a good choice, and is one of the primary languages for Notes development. Learn HTML and JavaScript, and how to build a good user interface. Build a CGI based web site to demonstrate these skills.
Then use Notes for real work. Everything you have learned will apply. Most functionality can be developed by checking a box, or writing a really simple Formula, but it helps to know what Notes is doing and when you should write the functionality yourself to get that slight performance boost or that extra degree of customization.
And you need to understand the database format. Databases contain Documents. Documents contain Fields. A Field named "Form" tells Notes the default user interface for a document. If you want more rules, then you need to program them.
our resident email programming expert [did not say it was easy when] trying to write an application to convert Lotus' email format to a standard format.
There is a standard format for email? I have dealt with many email programs, and each had its own format. The only standards are for the transfers using SMTP, POP3, and IMAP, and Notes does those natively.
Notes does not have a special format for email. Email is handled just like any other document, except that you rarely need the standard MIME conversion functions for other documents.
(For you relational database types, a "document" is just like a "record" but without restrictions like being stuck in a table, or only having certain fields, or the fields being limited to some arbitrary length because your technology is obsolete.)
You can easily convert any Notes document to any file format you wish. Use LotusScript and a bunch of PRINT statements. Or use Java and java.io.FileOutputStream. You do need to understand the target format if you expect the conversion to work.
You may need a new expert. Take someone who understands programming. (You may prefer a real programmer, but for once VB skills are actually useful, since VB and LotusScript were very close until MS noticed that Java was winning.) Let the programmer play with Notes for a short while. (If they need more than a month, they are unsuitable for burger-flipping.) When they understand the database format, and can read and write FormulaLanguage and LotusScript, then hand them the specs for your "standard" email format. If they have not finished programming a converter in a few hours, start over with a new programmer. (I cannot imagine the project taking me more than an hour, including testing and coffee breaks, but this is their first attempt, so be lenient.)
You read Slashdot, so you may be slightly interested or talented in technology. Take a day and become an expert Notes Developer. If your manager can do it, so can you. Then see if you still enjoy your current job.
The Notes client has its issues, but so does every major program. The usual complaint is that it does not act like all other MS apps. I am surprised Slashdotters worry about that. Remember that Lotus Notes was released before MS released Windows3. It was MSWindows that changed all the key bindings from the standards used by Lotus and Wordstar. The only widespread program that did not use those keybindings was WordPerfect, and everybody required cheatsheets to use that it. MS pulled its usual "let's change everything so we can control it." Now it is considered bad that any software has survived from the pre-Windows era when dinosuars roamed.
I would guess that none of the "Notes sucks" comments come from programmers. I figured a discussion about mail clients would pull more from the techies than the comments from plain users that we are seeing. Lotus Notes mail is a programmer's dream. Every aspect of the application interface is built on open source, meaning you can read it and change it. The only closed source code is the code for the thin client, which handles security and encryption.
Development can be through interface settings and several languages: Formula, Java, JavaScript, and LotusScript. Most of the GUI can be programmed using JavaScript, for those who cannot learn advanced languages like the manager-targeted Formula Language.
copyright should require full disclosure of the source code
Software, and anything else that is copyrightable, are automatically copyrighted at the moment of creation. Registering the copyright gives a few bonuses, such as changing the amount of damages awarded.
Copyright is not based on something "working", just on something being similar. Our IP lawyer has a program that removes every 20th line from the source code that he runs before registering the copyright. What remains is (supposedly) enough to prove that plaguarism happened, if both sources are available. The code is not usable for a working (or even compilable) program.
There are several major flaws in this copyright method. One is that if we register every release of the code, then all the code might be available after a few releases. Another problem is that much of programming is very logical and repeatable. A skilled programmer should be able to replace the missing lines if he knows the code's prupose. (We also remove all comments to help avoid that.) A third problem is there are many functions that are not 20 lines long, so they are unchanged by his process.
The biggest problem is that there is no method to check for violations. Even if someone borrows major portions of our code, it will not be noticed unless a bug is found that affects both versions. [We never release software with bugs!] Unless they are a direct competitor, we may still not notice that we shared a bug. Check the list of all the various software products that were affected by the ZIP bug for a real world example of code being used everywhere.
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Software patents should require the source to a working demonstration. Do you really think the patent office would attempt compiling it? Even if the code would work, who would provide production-ready code for a patent? Remove all error-checking; the demo works and nobody would steal your code.
Ouch. You may want to read my other post in this thread. I hope you are in a big city. The ATTWS GSM coverage in the Philadelphia suburbs is very spotty.
I have used ATTWS TDMA for 6 years. I have never had dropped calls, and rarely had any static. I lived in Reading, PA, and now in KingOfPrussia, and travel frequently to FL, NC, and NJ. I have convinced several friends to use ATTWS, and none of them have ever complained about the service, although they do complain about the expense.
Everybody I know on other cell phone services complains about the service all the time. Nobody stays on Verizon past the first year, with most cancelling in the first month grace period. The people I know on Sprint have so much dead area they won't talk while walking, never mind driving.
I know the "grass is always greener", but I figured that ATTWS was going to gain a ton of customers once people could keep their phone numbers. (Several people I know have given up their phone numbers to get ATTWS's good service.) Apparently my friends are a minority if (as the other posts indicate) everybody else wants to switch away from ATTWS.
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About the contract extensions, I knew about them, and I stopped worrying about them when I realized I was already on the best service. (I do not worry about the expense. I switch plans to keep the price reasonable, and it comes off my taxes as a business expense, so I effectively pay 60% what I am charged.) I have to switch plans every few months because some consulting projects require tons of phone time. You can switch call plans during the month, if you remember which day your month ends. The contract extensions only happen if you switch between the major plans, not between levels within a plan.
Check the plan levels every few months. They often add minutes to every plan, and have "promotions" that add more minutes (why aren't they just included in the total?), but you have to call and "switch".
I checked the ATTWS web site. I currently have the Local $60=950min from September. Now I can "switch" to the $60=1150min. These plans include unlimited nights and weekends.
[I noticed they have changed the name of the midlevel plan to "National". I wish I could fix it in my other post.]
Your contract was extended because you switched from a TDMA plan to a GSM plan. They should have warned you, and I am happy that they cancelled the charge for you. Their customer service people have enough power to keep us happy. They have given me tons of extra minutes when I was at the limit of a plan, but it was a major charge to jump to a higher plan. They even cancelled roaming fees one month when I fell between their plans. (I was travelling, used tons of minutes, could not get a "Regional" plan to cover the minutes, and the minutes would have skyrocketed if I switched to "One Rate" because it did not have free nights and weekends. We basically haggled a price for the month.)
I wish ATTWS either chose the least expensive option each month, or saved roll-over minutes to cover the months my usage spikes. And automatically upgrading when the plans change would help.
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The charge for dropping the contract is around $175. When I started with ATTWS 6 years ago, the fee was prorated. If I had 6 months left when I cancelled, then the fee was halved. It came out to $15 per month for the remainder of the contract. The first month you could cancel without charge, and nobody would extend their plan just before paying the cancellation fee, so nobody was ever charged the full $175. I do not know if the prorating policy is still valid, but I will complain heavily if I ever drop their service and they tell me that it is not.
If anybody really wanted to switch, that fee would not stop them. They would just stay within one major calling plan until it runs out, which is always less than a year (except for new users who get the 2 year contract.) It does stop people from switching just to save a few dollars each month.
I use the Motorola V60, which is TDMA. Excellent coverage on the US east coast. I have never dropped a call, and I often talk while driving. (Yes, I always use the hands-free ear piece.) The only issue is that the Cingular tower near my home "forgets" my phone if the phone stays on and in the same place (such as my house) for more than 2 days. After some troubleshooting, ATTWS told me I should reboot once per day, and that has cured it.
One of my clients is based in Ireland. Their management use GSM phones because they work in Ireland and here. They had no problems around Philly, even 2 years ago when GSM was not officially supported.
My business partner switched to a ATTWS GSM phone last year. It gets fuzzy often, and drops calls while he is driving in the suburbs. When driving, he pulls over when he has a good signal so calls do not get interrupted. He is our primary contact and uses more than 2000 minutes each month, so the GSM $99/month for unlimited minutes is a good deal, but the dropped calls are annoying. When we are together, we use my phone because the reception is always good.
(I thought it was impossible to have static on a digital network. Anybody know GSM technology well enough to explain?)
I have family in Charlotte, NC using ATTWS TDMA, and they have never lost a call.
Family in NJ use Sprint, and lose calls all the time. They are retired, do not care if conversations get interrupted, and stay with Sprint since it is inexpensive for travellers.
No one I know has stayed on Verizon very long. Their service is awful in the Philadelphia area.
-- ATTWS TDMA Call plans --
There are 3 plans.
"One Rate" is like Sprint's travel-anywhere no-roaming regular service, but it is very expensive.
"Local" gives you several states, which is great when it includes from Virginia to Florida, not so good when it includes from Connecticut to Maryland. It is priced like Sprint.
"Regional" is supposed to cover all the big cities, but have roaming charges when the phone says "Extended Area" or "Roaming". The problem is that the area can change while dialing, even when standing still, and there is no phone that will tell you which area you are in when the phone is ringing. No one I know who is on that plan has ever been charged for roaming, although they are stressed by worrying about it. I do not know how ATTWS came up with such a silly plan, or why they keep it.
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My cell phone is my only phone, and as a consultant I depend on it for work. I look forward to switching to a GSM phone, but I am waiting until GSM has enough coverage for it to be as error-free as TDMA.
Many game development houses do not last long enough to have a reputation. [I wrote this from memory so do not use this as a reference.]
Sid Meier writes great games as Microprose. Microprose gets bought by Hasbro, Infogrames, Atari, and they won't let him play. So Sid splits and starts Firaxis. Sid wants to make historical games, so he gives the big money maker to Brian Reynolds. Alpha Centauri is great, and Brian gets a rep, so he splits and starts BigHugeGames. Civ3 is a collaborative effort between Firaxis and that other company that owns the trademark. It has gameplay issues, but nobody knows which company to blame.
Peter Molyneux has 3 divisions in his company that release under their own brands. If the next "Black and White" bombs, then say goodbye to "Lionhead Studios".
Will Wright is Maxis, and all his games' names begin with "Sim", so it does not matter what the development house is called.
New World Computing gets bought by 3DO. A few financial troubles (and the little problem of never hiring anybody who understands writing AI engines) and they disappear. Say goodbye to "Might and Magic".
id and Blizzard are still around, but they never release a game that will bomb. id releases a Doom or Quake every few years. You would think they live on subsidies from the video card manufacturers if their games were not so great. Keep watching Blizzard though, since it was bought and eventually the bean counters will take control.
The smaller dev houses sometimes change their name three times while developing one game. If the game bombs, everybody is fired. If the game is successful, the company is bought by a larger company and the sequel is released by the new company. And everybody from the original team quits since the new company changes the culture, and the developers have a win on their resume.
Feedback is great if you are Blizzard and can keep releasing patches to balance StarCraft 5 years after it is released. But most games will be in the bargain bin in less than 6 months. The day after one goes gold, the developers start working on their next game so they can keep eating. I think most feedback serves more as criticism the developers can use on their next job than as suggestions that will improve the current game.
Off-topic response to parent post:
Why does Slashdot default to "HTML Formatted? Why is it even a setting? I use the "Plain Old Text", and can use bold, italics, links, and lists without worrying about putting <BR>s everywhere. (I just had to get cute with the tags.)
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On-topic response to grandparent post:
I agree with the great-grandparent post. This show does not seem to have any continuity with the original beyond the character names. The original series was all about finding Earth. That gave it purpose. (I liked ST:Voyager, but without the LostInSpace need to find Earth they would have been wandering around like ST:TOS. Actually, that is most of what they did, but anyway...) All that is left is just one more show with spaceships.
I hope they at least keep the Vipers. I dreamed about flying them when I was a child, then hoped for one of the transforming motorcycles after they found Earth. Put me on the waiting list for both of them for when the technology actually works.
This series would probably be marketed better if they called it something completely different. They would not even need to create new spaceship designs if they had permission from the original series owners. Of course, then we would be bashing them for copying BSGs vehicles.
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I am trying to get rid of mod points, but I keep posting.
The grandparent's But if you're downloading data from a site, the site is not also uploading that data to you. The action exists at only one end of the operation, at the initiator of the action is correct.
Continuing haystor's beer analogy, the remote machine is called a server.
Your machine requests something from a stationary location. That is a pull operation, and is called "downloading", (such as requestnig a drink and being given a beer.)
Your machine sends something of yours to the stationary location. That is a push operation, and is called "uploading", (such as giving money to the bartender.)
The remote machine responds to each request. It is "serving", (such as the bartender taking requests and returning drinks, also known as serving.)
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Another poster suggested that the definition has to do with the size of the machines, but this is obviously incorrect. If a 300lb man gets a beer from a midget bartender, the man is still doing the requesting and the bartender is still serving.
Or think about P2P networks. The machines can be considered to be equivalent, but a computer with a 2GB hard drive and only 10 files still serves those files to the computer with a 200GB hard drive and millions of files. The latter computer is doing the requesting and "downloading".
The confusion may be because your ISP is limiting your upstream or "upload" bandwidth, which is used for the transaction whether you are serving (also known as sharing) or uploading (also known as posting) the files, even though that bandwidth is also used for requesting. English is great; the last sentence had five words for the process where bits move from your computer to another.
Thank you very much. That is what I needed.
I still do not know which model we would need, but if all you are attempting can be done with the lowest model, I am certain there is a model that can do anything I can dream. It seems to have the flexibility to integrate with our systems. We are not using ActiveDirectory, but when the docs seemed to make it useful for only Windows, I got scared.
We already have a distributed environment, so the joys of having one server handle all logins would not affect us.
I am a consultant. Having the other solutions be expensive is good because it means I can charge more for my solutions. It also means that I would develop a solution intead of integrating someone else's, but I find that to be fun. (I am that "capable programmer". Everybody else is involved to market my work.) Our entire package needs to be proprietary because we will be milking the martket for a few years, but I may be able to opensource peripheral pieces like this.
An AC suggested not merging a security system into other applications, but in our case, it is more a timecard system than a security system. We want to be resonable certain that the information (such as time of login) is coming from the correct user, but the system is mostly for input, so the users would not gain access to critical data if they pretended to be someone else.
Even $53 for the Java IButton is within our range. But it would not save much from a bottom-end Palm, which can be bought new for $70, and the Palm would be more useful and integrate better with the rest of our package. Of course, wear-and-tear on the Palms would also require more replacements, so the IButton is worth considering. (It is an accident-likely environment.)
You did not state it, but you imply the 4-digit PIN was arbitrary, so we could use a different standard. I doubt even the lowest IButton is limited to a single 4-digit code.
(I wonder at the users who give you their ATM PINs. Will users never learn that that sharing passwords is bad? Even if they love and trust you, the administrator who replaces you may not be as trustworthy.)
Thank you for providing enough information for me to be able to decided the product is worth researching. Now the fun begins.
Thank you for pointing out the IButton. I infrequently advise companies about security measures such as you have designed, and was unaware of this product.
[I am actually working on a similar project now. We will probably use Palms so some mobile data entry can be done. If they are carrying an individually-identifiable Palm for other uses, we should be able to use it for security. The links on ibutton.com to products that use Java for computer security suggest that a Palm could do everything that an IButton can do. The IButtons could be used for employees that do not need the data entry capabilities.]
I ask for enough information to be able to judge when this would be a good solution, and approximately how much it would cost based on number of users. I (or my clients) would do our own research if this was seen as a valid solution. I realize you have not implemented your system yet, but you must have a detailed cost analysis if you are presenting to corporate.
One of the receivers is $15, but the IButtons range in price from $2 to $53. Which model will you use?
- Would your system work with systems running non-MS OSes?
- Was the decision to use 4-digit PINs arbitrary, or can other passwords be used? Can the users pick password without telling the administrators?
- How secure is the datastore that verifies the passwords? Does it use one-way encryption for verification? Can the password encryption be bypassed? Or must you trust your administrators?
[I deal with a system that uses one-way encryption before storing passwords. It adds a character to the beginning of every password after it is encrypted. If the encryption routine sees that character, it assumes the password was already encrypted. These encrypted passwords are visible to the administrators. If an administrator sends the entire encrypted password (and the username) to the system, it passes because the "password" will not be mangled by reencryption and will match the encrypted password.]
Was the software you are using prepackaged or did you or your company write it custom? Is there an OSS version? If not, has your company considered releasing it?
[That is the purpose of OSS. You have something cool that others could use. You release it. Others use it. Everybody improves it and you benefit.
- Unless your company is in the software business. Then you package it and license it to others and make much money every year.]
[The web site lists many different proprietary applications. Did you try them? Any advice from your decision-making process?
- The security applications list only mentions Windows, but I am hoping you discovered a product that works with other OSes. The APIs suggest they work with C, C++, and Java as well as VB, so other OSes should be easy.]
What is your security server? Is it hardware intensive? Can it be a Pentium 100 or do we need dual-Xeons? [Not asking about minis or mainframes since it must work with MSWindows.]
- Does it integrate with ActiveDirectory? Could it integrate with LDAP?
- Are you using the standard Windows logins? Does the system protect the computer? Or does it protect access to the network?
Thank you for your time.
we need incentives for artists and others to PRODUCE. Often the best incentive is financial. I don't program, e.g., just for the love of it.
The problem is usually the reverse: how to choose from all the music being produced. Artists will keep creating because that is what they do. Much of their production will be disliked by the majority of people, but the artists still produce it because THEY like it, even if it is only the act of creation.
I write music because I like to write it. I am different from most artists because I do not need acclaim from the masses; I am happy when a friend asks me to play a song again.
- Most artists want to share their music with everybody, and want to be told their work is good. That is why they sign ridiculous contracts to get their music out. When they get screwed, their big complaint is not that they did not get the money, but that the distribution company kept the rights to the music so they cannot try to distribute it themselves.
The same principle applies to software, although it rarely counts as entertainment. I write software because I enjoy it. The entire open source community proves that people will write software because they enjoy it.
- I started programming in the 80s by writing games. I had an audience of a few hundred people who enjoyed them. I did not attempt to make any moeny from them. My compensation was the enjoyment of the experience, plus some acclaim from my audience.
- I prefer to write software that can make a difference in the world. Now I write for large corporations who benefit from my work and are willing to pay for it. Even so, they rarely pay more than a small portion of what the software is worth to them. We charged about $100K for a program that eliminated about 30 $40,000/yr jobs. The ROI for the first year was >1200%, and they have now been using it for 3 years with no additional charges.
- I program even when I don't have paying work. I may profit from these programs someday, but I do it for the enjoyable experience as much as the possible financial rewards.
Would you really stop programming just because nobody else wanted your work?
"Got it for a song" used to mean that the price was extremely low.
The way I figure, if I lose I'm out a whole $20 (if that's the cost of downloading those 20 songs off iTunes legitimately) - I believe I could argue (in a civil court) that that's the value of the songs.
IANAL, and I am regurgitating what I've read on Slashdot, but I believe copyright violations give triple damages, so even with your logic, your 20 songs may cost $60.
Compare that to the RIAA estimating that providing access to thousands of songs has a value of many millions of dollars, but the settlements are in the $2,000 to $20,000 range. Even if you posted 20 songs on your free website, the penalty should be less than $1000.
I prefer to think of any posting of songs as distributing under the radio business model. Their rate is $0.08 per play. Subsidies on recording media are supposed to make up for those who tape the songs from the radio. Sharing 1,000 songs should be worth about $80. The question is how to count one "play", since songs on the internet are available whenever someone looks for them, rather than waiting for a radio station to play it (if ever in our ClearChannel dominated world.) How long can a song be shared to count as one play? I think it should be by number of downloads rather than time-oriented. How many people hear one "play" on the radio? Estimate that, then charge $0.08 for that number of downloads. (And give up quickly when realizing the tracking system costs much more than any gains from enforcing it.)
Another question is whether a song is worth more or less because it is rare. Is the unpopular song worth more because it is harder to find? Is it worth less because few people want to hear it? In the old world, an unpopular song was difficult to find, so the price went up for those few people who wanted it after the overstock was sold at drastic discounts. Now only one person needs to keep it available for anybody to find it.
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I have written and recorded songs. I expect them to be popular, but I have not released them. When I started in the late 80s, I decided that the music industry was too controlled. Now I have difficulty believing it is possible to profit from them. That does not stop me from writing and recording, since it is something I enjoy, and something that I must do. I will probably release them on a website for free someday. If they do become popular, then I can profit from performances.
The value of music has always been low. Only by controlling the distribution channels could money be made. All the actions of the RIAA and the discussions about copyrights are the last gasps of a failing business model.
Apple got away with using "OS 9" despite the existence of an earlier "OS-9" on the grounds that no one could confuse an embedded product with a desktop OS.
I do not know how the law affects this, but it seems silly that version numbers can be trademarked. Why did Apple need to justify that version 9 of their OS can be called "OS9"? That would be like trademarking "OS2". Wait, IBM already did that.
IBM decided to avoid these issues with Lotus Notes. Everybody abbreviated "Lotus Notes Release 4" to "R4". Everybody abbreviated "Lotus Notes Release 5" to "R5". Most people abbreviate "Lotus Notes Release 6" to "R6", but IBM has requested that everybody refer to it as "D6" (Domino release 6) and "N6" (Notes release 6) to avoid difficulties with SAP, which already used "R6". If a company with the legal prowess of IBM thinks it is important to make an effort to convince the users how to talk about their product, there must be major legal difficulties that they are trying to avoid. I do not understand, since their trademarks are "Lotus" and "Notes", not the version numbers, although I think they did trademark the image of R5 with a hula hoop.
I always figured that MS changed their versioning for Windows so people would not ask "You need windows 4 what?" with the usual answer of "Because my computer is running too fast and I cannot catch it." If they can skip MSWord5, they can skip MSWindows4 through 94, although it was more impressive when they skipped 99 through 1999. (Yeah, I know they were different product lines.)
I should find a new word for versioning my software. "Variant" and "Volume" are still "V". "Rendition" is still "R". "Make" is "M", which might work if it does not upset the entire Unix and OSS worlds. "Publication" is too long and would allow "pee" jokes. "Issue" is the best word I found. Now I need the software trademarks for "I2", "I3", "I4", "I5"... so I do not have to worry about conflicts with the abbreviated forms.
How do we get the power down here?
Use a very long extension cord.
Many sf books talk about "beaming" power from satellite's to the planet's surface. Heinlein used it in "Blowups Happen". But I do not think I have read a practical method for it.
retail stores do not know how to set up monitors for display
I was helping a friend build a new computer. After reading the reviews and getting the internet prices, we stopped at CompUSA (about a block from my house) to look at some actual products. (Do not worry. We would never buy anything there.) All of their LCDs were showing the same 1024x768 picture that was mostly black with a dark graphic including a human face.
All 17" LCD monitors have the natural resolution of 1280x1024. All of the 17" and larger ones were blurry compared to the 15" ones (natural 1024x768) because the image was the wrong resolution and had to be dithered to fit the display's natural resolution.
Always judge monitors with the screen mostly white. Most computer use (email, word processing, programming) is black text on a white screen. And the lines across a Trinitron CRT and the dead pixels on an LCD are not visible when the screen is dark. Displaying a black image is about as good as displaying the monitor without power.
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If you follow the links in the article, Samsung USA lists the correct specs of 450:1 and 1280x768. Samsung Canada lists 700:1, which might appear as if Canadians get a better model, except they list the natural resolution as 1024x768. Knowing this must be wrong (see above) means you cannot trust their other specs. Why aren't both sites pulling the specs from the same database? Have they heard of Web Services, or even data normalization?
The Articles of Confederation left much power in the hands of the States. This was impractical because the Founding Fathers were attempting to create a nation, not an alliance, and although we were called the United States of America, the federal government could not write treaties, trade agreements, and other basic tools of nations without begging the individual States to approve every action. The second Revolution (what else do you call it when you rewrite the entire rulebook for a nation?) was designed to grant the federal government enough power to be recognized as a nation by the rest of the world (which meant the European powers.)
Under the Articles:
1. Each State was sovereign.
2. The States would join for the common defense, but the federal government had no military power of its own.
3. States could demand the return of criminals from other States.
4. Treaties and declarations of war BY THE STATES required the consent of the feds. 9 States had to agree before war could be declared.
5. The feds could print money, but there was nothing to back it. No federal taxes.
The federal government had no power. Period.
Under the Constitution:
1. Congress makes the laws, including money, taxes, trade agreements, limited patents and copyrights, war, treason, army and navy. States cannot do any of this.
2. The President runs the armed forces, and appoints all ambassadors to other countries.
3. The supreme court can judge all the laws of the land. (It was lowercase in the Constitution.) There was a provision for lower courts to be appointed.
4. Citizens belong to the nation, not the States.
The big changes were:
1. Money is now controlled only by the feds.
2. Military power is now controlled only by the feds.
3. All international agreements are now controlled only by the feds.
The first two make the last possible, since the European countries would not negotiate with a "nation" that did not have its own money or military force.
Is that enough "evidence"? The rest of it you got correct. It was basically the same group of aristocrats that created both documents, and they did both without any real authority. The difference was what was acceptable because of how the people thought of themselves.
The Articles were written in 1781, about the time we started winning the Revolutionary War (1776 to 1783). During the war, the populace was about evenly divided into thirds: The Rebels who wanted independence, the Tories who wanted to stay under English rule, and those who did not care. But almost everybody thought of themselves as being from a State, not as an American. The Articles served to create a federal government, and although it was almost powerless, it was able to negotiate peace with England.
After the War, people's loyalties were still to the States. The question of independence from England had been resolved. Attempting to negotiate with France and Spain was difficult. The advantages of free trade within the national borders helped win the business sector, but international trade was suffering. Written 4 years after the War, the Constitution gave the feds enough power to handle the situation.
Much of this power was only on paper. Check out the history of the Civil War. The regiments were still known by their State. Lincoln asks for "the militia of the several States of the Union" (which were outlawed by the Constitution) and the southern armies had names like the "Army of Tennessee". But the Constitution was enough to let us deal with European countries as equals.
It is true that the "Founding Fathers" were divided about just about every issue. The whole State power versus Federal power took 2 tries because the States won the first time, but the Articles of Confederation proved impractical.
But when referring to the Constitution, we assume the "Founding Fathers" were the ones whose ideals were codified. Many of the ones about copyrights orginated with Thomas Jefferson, just like the banking system came from Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson and the rest of the Founding Fathers were able to find compromises between those who believed free spread of information was important, and those who believed that business would suffer without the monopolies granted by copyright. These compromises are what made our system flexible enough to survive. In this instance, the compromise was that there would be monopolies, they would be granted to the creators (rather than the publishers), and they would exist for a LIMITED time.
Today, we are violating the spirit of this. Big business has wrested control of many of the copyrights from the creators for music, and made a good effort to do the same for books back in the 1970s. And the time limit is almost useless. Rather than 17 years with one possible renewal, it is now life + 50 years and growing. We have also contracted with Europe to defend this practice, so it is unlikely that the U.S. can fix it internally.
Many stories published on the early internet came with copyright notices that allowed the works to become public domain after 120 days. There is little reason for computer books to keep their copyrights beyond a decade, as the technology could be obsolete in 4 years. Creators can limit their own copyrights, and many do. Big business will never relinquish anything unless forced by law. It will probably take another revolution for the public to win back control of ideas.
Technology has changed the need for copyrights. Historically, they were granted to a specific publisher to prevent other publishers from stealing popular works. Then they were granted to the creators, to encourage them to create more. Then the publishers bought them from the creators. But every law assumes that the COPYING takes effort, and that is no longer true. I did not need to publish this as a pamphlet and try to sell them on street corners for a penny each. I wrote it; I published it; you are reading it, and any costs in the process are subsumed in the overhead of having a computer attached to the internet.
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I would like to use a well-thought license that allows works to enter public domain for most purposes within 20 years, but still allows me to benefit if Disney decides to turn my work into a movie. Of course, this clause in itself would prevent Disney from making a movie from my books, because they only publish material if they can retain all the profits. They wouldn't publish something like Star Wars because Lucas insisted on keeping the associated toy franchise. Why should they make my book into a movie when there are still tons of material already in the public domain from before their efforts to extend copyright into eternity?