Prize Drawing? As in - should I have one?

Simply because I'm curious as to who else may follow me, or be subscribed to my blog, I've been thinking about having a drawing.  But I'm not sure for what, or when I should do it or how the rules would work.

If you think I should have a drawing, drop a comment here or shoot me an email at wmnug at yahoo dot com.  Given enough suggestions, I'll have  a drawing.  Just let me know in your comment or email what I should draw for...I have all sorts of Novell and partner (i.e. GWAVA, MA, Omni) swag, from old BrainShare backpacks to portfolios/pens/cups/gizmos and tons of t-shirts.  Granted, my smallest size t-shirt is a large.  I may - big may here - have a Ximian monkey laying around in a bag with no dog fur on it yet.

We're re:turning to the Novell we all once knew and loved...perhaps it's time I "re:turn" some of my swag to the daylight (and clean up my basement at the same time).  :)

Shame, Shame, Shame on you VMWare and Zimbra!

Those of us in the GroupWise community have been chattering about this all day.  VMWare sent out an email full of FUD and outright lies to drum up business on a webinar regarding Zimbra vs. GroupWise.  Very poor practice in my book, and very disheartening as I like VMWare but despise companies that knowingly lie out right.

Here's what the hubbub is about (go see Danita's blog for the exact email at

http://www.caledonia.net/blog/?p=482).

VMWare/Zimbra is using a JPG of an old wiki page, removed the disclaimer noting that the site is not an official Novell site and is instead a wiki page for the solutions community.  They've lied outright about no new versions of GroupWise being on the horizon and that GroupWise 8 support ends November 17, 2011.  GroupWise 8 General Support doesn't end until 2012, with extended support until 2013.  And GroupWise 2012 (a.k.a. Ascot) is already in public beta and was well received at BrainShare.

To top it off, the wiki that the original Zimbra email points to has been updated, so they resorted to using the old screenshot of the page rather than the direct link and resending the email.

I like VMWare and I did like Zimbra, but I abhore these types of marketing practices.  I am strongly leaning towards leaving VMWare out of the sponsors list of the next big event that I plan, and instead will let Microsoft and Novell represent their product lines unencumbered.  Including their respective virtualization product lines.  We may be a small group, but we're a vocal group.

VMWare you may be the big dog right now, but take a page from IBM and don't think that you'll never be toppled by a smaller dog.  Look at where Microsoft is in comparison to IBM now.

I hope the marketing team and execs at VMWare are hanging their heads in shame - as they rightly should.  Bad dog, VMWare, bad, bad, bad dog!

In fact I hate to refer to them as a dog...my dog's know better than to behave like this.  Heck, even the high-and-mighty Queen Tink (all 6 lbs. of her) knows better.

BrainShare Buddies - Thank you!

This year I had my own BrainShare Buddies of sorts.  I've been uncharacteristically un-organized for BrainShare.  I dont' know my schedule, don't have the extra ones I usually do, and have not *gasp* finished getting all my stamps for the various games.

Even bigger lapse and huge *GASPS* - I haven't mooched!  So atypical of me...so instead I stole one of the new geeko's from my buddy Paul LaMontague who was teaching an ATT class.  (I am evil after all).

Rhonda took my rolling backpack for me as we walked to a session today so I could inhale some lunch while getting to the other side of the Salt Palace.  Lee went and got me a 12-pack of water bottles the first day here so I'd have some for the trip back.  I've had doors opened, things picked up that I drop, extra CDs and such offered to me, and Rusty's been taking my backpack back the hotel when I can't get back but don't want to haul it for the evening events.

I've truly been spoiled this year and am very grateful for it.  Tonight GroupLink feed me dinner (I didn't really ask, I told them I'd be there).  Friday GWAVA's treating (I love them!).  I appreciate it all..and it reminds me again how BrainShare is like my summer camp.  I get to see my friends from Germany, Austria, UK, Europe, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and the rest of the globe.  And I miss the ones who aren't here.

What will I ever do without BrainShare?

BrainShare 2011 - Quick Update

We're at the mid-point of BrainShare 2011. I apologize for not posting earlier, but I've been so busy and disorganized this year that I'm only averaging about 5 hours of sleep a night...not a good thing for a cranky old broad.

There's so much energy here this year, even though there's fewer folks and I'm missing some dear friends this year, but still making new ones. And there's all sorts of good news. One of the very subtle changes – that many may not have picked up on – is the sheer accessibility and approachability of Bob Flynn, Novell CEO, and Jeff Hawn, Attachmate CEO, along with the other business unit executives. They are ALL willingly handing out their cell phone numbers to partners and customers alike.

So you're probably thinking what's the big deal about a cell phone number? Think about it. Do you have YOUR CEO's cell phone number? Did he give it to you the day one of you started at the company or did you get it only because he had a system failure of some sort and expected a call at some god-awful hour of the early morning? How many CEO's of large private or public organizations do you have cell phone numbers for?

This one “small” gesture shouts volumes. The team wants to hear from us, expects to hear from us, and wants the good, the bad, and the ugly. And they got the bad and the ugly at the partner lunch. Punches weren't held. No I didn't speak up, because I didn't need to...others have the same questions and issues as I did and covered it better than I would have. We heard a lot of the same answers we've been hearing for years, but they are listening, and they have plans. Even bigger, they admit the mistakes of the past.

There are big changes coming by November 1^st. We're talking hiring...of people to get in front of the customers AND developers. The execs have spent time with the TTP group, getting the first round of the bad and the ugly. They spent time one on one with partners. Yes, I've already been in Bob Flynn's face, and Ron Wilson (Support), and John Delks, and I had a nice chat with Jeff Hawn while helping him find where we were schedule for lunch.

Tomorrow I get to have cocktails and bend their ears some more. And yes, I do have their cards, and their cell phone numbers, and they have mine. Unlucky for them, Ron and John never warned them about me...poor guys.

NoRM Seems to be Missing Pieces

I ran into an oddity today looking at Novell Remote Manager (NoRM) on fairly fresh servers that we had migrated a for a customer.  It looks as though Novell Remote Manager isn't installed properly.  (Please forgive my bouncing between NoRM and the full name as I'm trying to help other people's searches out).

The symptom on an OES2 SP3 Linux box with eDirectory installed is that Novell Remote Manager shows only the "View File Locations" option, and none of the other normal NoRM components.  I looked at the other servers and same issue.  Until...I came to their GroupWise WebAccess server.

The straight SLES 11 server hosting GroupWise WebAccess wouldn't let me login as admin or any other eDirectory account.  Which is not unexpected as it doesn't have any instances of eDirectory installed.  I could login as root though, and when I did I had all of the normal NoRM options available.  Made me scratch my head and go "hmmmm".

I discovered that logging on as root on the OES boxes worked too, and low-and-behold, ALL of the NoRM options were there.  Logged out, back in as admin and ta-da, only got the "View File Locations" piece.  I started digging, and digging, and digging.

After several frustrated attempts to find a TID on Novell's KB, I finally worded it in a way that I happened upon TID #7009282 which didn't quite fit, but had me double checking if my admin was definitely LUM enabled.  Then just two spots away I found TID #7007338 which points to a NAM / LDAP issue and TID #3401691.  Big SMH on this one.  TID #3401691 is a nice short tutorial in troubleshooting LDAP.

My customer's servers have been migrated from physical NetWare boxes to virtual OES2/SLES boxes - along with all of the services.  We moved the replicas off of the NetWare boxes and onto the OES2 virtual servers.  Let me repeat that: we moved ALL OF THE SERVICES.  Guess which one I forgot to update?  Yep, forgot to change the Preferred LDAP server from the old NetWare box that we pointed to during configuration and installation into their existing tree.

A quick change of the IP number for the Preferred LDAP server in nam.conf and a restart of namcd did the trick.  Here's what I did to fix the problem (in case you're in the same boat and don't fell like visiting Novell's KB).

1. Open a terminal window
2. Do a tail on the messages file using:  tail /var/log/messages
• You're looking for errors related to LDAP, such as "LDAP bind failed" or "Unable to get LDAP handle"
3. Used vi to edit the conf file:  vi /etc/nam.conf
4. Changed the IP for the preferred_server
5. Saved the changes
6. Restarted namcd using: rcnamcd restart
7. And to be on the safe side I also ran: rcapache2 restart and rctomcat5 restart
8. Tested NoRM login on both the OES2 and SLES-only servers

If this helps anyone, I'm happy.  But for me, I'm tucking this into my virtual purse for future reference.

And in case you're wondering what searches I used here's the list:

The Winner:

• only root user can login to novell remote manager

Losers:

• novell remote manager is only showing view file information
• NoRM doesn't appear to be installed properly
• NoRM not showing all options
• novell remote manager not showing all options
• NoRM has only limited functionality
• novell remote manager limited options
• novell remote manager not fully installed