Yesterday two separate events made me think to myself “GroupWise is broken!”  Of course GroupWise wasn’t broken either time, but it made me chuckle, because as administrators and consultants we’ve all heard this from users at one time or another, and just shook our heads when it was realized that it was “User Error” pure and simple.  While normally I don’t go bragging about how dumb I’ve been, one of the issues could probably be experienced by any iPhone user in a hurry, so I thought I’d best document it here (and get ready for the snickering to come!).

Yesterday morning, in a daze that was precipitated by it being first thing in the morning and no coffee yet, I reached for my iPhone to check the mail that had delivered overnight.  I had one particular message open and could not read the attachment.  Now, if you are an iPhone user, you know that some attachments received on the iPhone simply are not properly visible (like messages “forwarded as attachment” or other document types like WordPerfect or OpenOffice).  Since I could not read the attachment, my next step was to go to GW Mail and look at the message in WebAccess.  I punched the little round “Home” button at the bottom center of the iPhone to get back to the Springboard, opened GW Mail, and to my utter dismay, the message was not there!  Indeed, the next message in the list, which I had not read, was marked open, and the message I was looking for was just GONE.  So, my first inclination was that somehow GroupWise was “mixing up messages” and also and messing with my caffeine starved brain.

Those of you with an iPhone will be aware that when you are reading a message in portrait mode, the soft “Delete” button is right above the hard “Home” button on the iPhone.  After my shock of “GroupWise being broken” so early in the morning, I did a little bit of testing and found that it is actually not that difficult to delete a message that is open in the Mail app while pressing the Home button if you are in a hurry, have big fingers, or are just clumsy (all of the above describing me!).  I’ve had an iPhone for 2 years now, and my guess is that I’ve deleted more than one message in this manner.  Just not one that I was purposefully looking for that very next moment.  The way to actively prevent this of course is to click the “folder” button at the top left of the iPhone (labeled Inbox if that’s the folder you are in) to return to the message list before pressing that Home button.  Or just being a lot more careful about how you rush through your day.  Slowing down is probably good for all of us!

The second incident yesterday that had me wondering why GroupWise had eaten my message, was even more mysterious.  I received an email that I wanted to convert to an appointment.  I’ve used “change to” so many times I could do it in my sleep (or so I thought).  So, I right-clicked on the message in the list, chose “change to” and the message disappeared.  I scoured the trash.  I did a full text search for something I knew was in the message.  Nothing.  So I did a right-click on another message just to look, and “archive” was right above “change to”.  Guess where my message was??

So, the moral of the story here is that we’re all “users” at one time or another.  No matter how long we’ve used GroupWise, no matter how much we think we know about the program, stuff happens.  Actually it’s probably more likely that those of us who really “do know what we’re doing” on most days are more likely to assume that “GroupWise is broken” than your average user, because we never make mistakes

This week is bound to get better!

Happy GroupWising.

Danita

Occasionally I discuss some of my geeky iPhone/iPad apps that don’t necessarily have anything to do with GroupWise.  Yesterday NewsTap was updated with an iPad version that is just awesome!  For those of you who don’t know about NewsTap, it is an NNTP client that allows me to download the Novell Support Forums via NNTP right to my iPad.

If you have an iPhone or iPad (but especially an iPad!!!), and you have need of an NNTP client, this is IT!  Find out more about it here.  I’ve also updated some of the info on my geeky apps page, so go check it out if you have and iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch!

Danita

I’ve had a number of people ask me recently about the availability of hosted archving for GroupWise.  As luck would have it, Sonian is having a couple of Webinars next week that will highlight their hosted archiving solution for GroupWise.  As many of us prepare to move our GroupWise systems from NetWare to Linux, it’s a good time to find out about the various archiving options available to GroupWise systems.  Take the opportunity to find out more about Sonian and there solution next week.  The Webinar on Tuesday is geared towards technology executives pondering the merits of archiving, while the Webinar on Wednesday is directed towards technology professionals.  Topics to be discussed include:

• 100% data capture from the GroupWise Post Offices
• Satisfy all regulatory/compliance demands
• 24/7 Searchability/Availability for multiple users
• Unlimited storage without adding to already constrained IT resources
• Predictable lower cost model than on-premise alternatives

Click the links above to register.  Attendees will receive a 20% discount on The Caledonia Guide to Moving GroupWise.

Danita

Our good friend Howard Tayler has been nominated for the second year in a row for a Hugo Award in the category of Best Graphic Story for his Schlock Mercenary web comic.  Many of you will remember Howard as a former GroupWise Product Manager.  My very first memory of Howard was at WordPerfect Corporation in 1994, where he presented a class on WordPerfect Office to the then online sysops who moderated forums for WordPerfect Corporation on CompuServe and The Source.  (We all looked a bit different then.  Howard had a pony tail down to his waist and was a Mac geek, and I had never seen a Mac and had no grey in my hair yet!)

For a limited time, we have 8-1/2 x 11″ prints of Howard’s caricature of  “The GroupWise Goddess” available for free – you pay the shipping and handling fee only.  If you don’t have one of these terribly fun works by Howard, now’s the time to get it!

But more importantly, if you are a science fiction/satire fan (or just really want to thank Howard for all of the fond memories of the PM in the big black boots!), we encourage you to find out more about Howard’s work at Schlock Mercenary.  There you can purchase some of Howard’s other works, including books, posters and miniatures.  And for the iPhone/iPod Touch owners, Schlock Mercenary has it’s own iPhone or iPad app for online subscription to the comic strip.

And of course, I can only wish I looked so good as Howard managed to even make a caricature of me look!

The GroupWise Goddess by Howard Tayler

Danita

In case some of you haven’t seen Dean Lythgoe’s blog regarding the next version of GroupWise, code named Ascot, future versions of GroupWise will run on 64-bit servers only.  This includes SLES/OES2 for Linux, and Windows servers, with no support for NetWare.  The drop of NetWare should come as no surprise to most of us, since NetWare has moved to “self-support” at this point.  The 64-bit server requirement has taken some by surprise, and it’s an important change to note!

Many of you have purchased our Guide to Moving GroupWise and have already begun your plans to move to Linux.  If you have not finalized your move yet, and were planning on using a 32-bit server for your GroupWise system, you might wish to rethink this now.  [Side note: I rebuilt my own GroupWise server back in January, and of course didn't think that far ahead.  It's on 32-bit SLES11!!]

Now is the perfect time to get your servers running a 64-bit operating system as you make your move, so you will not be required to do the move again any time soon!

Danita