Yahoo has scheduled a maintenance outage on Tuesday May 6th, 2008 starting at 5:00 PM PDT and ending at 9:00 PM PDT. This outage impacts the servers that IBM’s Sametime Gateway deployments communicate with.

During this time, Sametime/Yahoo users should expect some interuption in service (awareness/chat) between each other.

Please advise your user community of this upcoming outage.

For more details, see the following Flash alert/Technote:
http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=899&uid=swg21304230

Have you ever wanted to customize the default folder options of the Windows’ Save dialog box? I have wasted so much time traversing through my directories trying to get to the few folders that I always save attachments in.

You are thinking to yourself… why don’t you just optimize your folder structure.  Yes, I know.  I have , but my directory structure is heavily nested, and it takes time to drill down each and everytime that I have to save a file.

Why can’t I just have the folders that I save to most often appear on the left-hand side of the Save dialog ?

Well I CAN!

Thanks to TechBold, this article explains how to do it:
http://techbold.com/2007/07/customize-file-open-or-save-dialogs.html

Customizing the folders to which I can save files to has saved me a ton of time! So just wanted to share this with y’all to reap the benefits.

Hey guys, if you haven’t heard, Yahoo is migrating their gateways to new hardware with new hostnames & ips.

What’s this mean to you if you have Sametime Gateway deployed ?

Well, you have to update your firewall rules to include all the new hostnames/ips. If you don’t do that before April 24th, service with Yahoo will be interrupted.

Make sure you work with your firewall team , and update the rules accordingly to include all of the new hostnames/ips soon!

Here is a link to the public documentation regarding this issue:

http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=477&uid=swg21303292

UPDATE: Not only do you have to update the firewall settings, but you must update your GW configuration settings:

1. Firewall rules must be updated or modified to accept incoming and outgoing traffic for the following hosts on port 5061:
   sgw.ibm.msg.vip.ac4.yahoo.com 98.136.112.84
   sgw.ibm.msg.vip.sp1.yahoo.com 98.136.56.113
   sgw101.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com 98.136.113.23
   sgw102.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com 98.136.113.24
   sgw103.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com 98.136.113.25
   sgw104.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com 98.136.113.26
   sgw105.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com 98.136.113.27
   sgw106.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com 98.136.113.28
   sgw107.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com 98.136.113.29
   sgw108.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com 98.136.113.30
   sgw101.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com 98.136.43.128
   sgw102.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com 98.136.43.129
   sgw103.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com 98.136.43.130
   sgw104.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com 98.136.43.131
   sgw105.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com 98.136.43.132
   sgw106.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com 98.136.43.133
   sgw107.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com 98.136.43.134
   sgw108.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com 98.136.43.135
    
   
2. On the Gateway server, open stgw.properties in a text editor
   (located @ [Websphere Program Directory]\AppServer\properties\stgw.properties)The YahooSERVERCustomProperty line must be replaced to incorporate the new hostnamesCHANGE THE FOLLOWING LINE FROM:
   YahooSERVERSCustomProperty=iopibm.msg.yahoo.com, iopsgw1.msg.re3.yahoo.com, iopsgw2.msg.re3.yahoo.com, iopsgw3.msg.re3.yahoo.com, iopsgw4.msg.re3.yahoo.com, iopsgw5.msg.re3.yahoo.com, iopsgw6.msg.re3.yahoo.com, iopsgw7.msg.re3.yahoo.com, iopsgw8.msg.re3.yahoo.comTO:
   YahooSERVERSCustomProperty=iopibm.msg.yahoo.com, iopsgw1.msg.re3.yahoo.com, iopsgw2.msg.re3.yahoo.com, iopsgw3.msg.re3.yahoo.com, iopsgw4.msg.re3.yahoo.com, iopsgw5.msg.re3.yahoo.com, iopsgw6.msg.re3.yahoo.com, iopsgw7.msg.re3.yahoo.com, iopsgw8.msg.re3.yahoo.com, sgw101.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com, sgw102.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com, sgw103.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com, sgw104.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com, sgw105.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com, sgw106.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com, sgw107.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com, sgw108.ibm.msg.ac4.yahoo.com, sgw101.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com, sgw102.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com, sgw103.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com, sgw104.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com, sgw105.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com, sgw106.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com, sgw107.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com, sgw108.ibm.msg.sp1.yahoo.com

3. The Sametime Gateway must then be rebooted to pick up the new changes.

Hmmm.. tasty!

We had our 1st annual crawfish boil this past weekend, and it was a blast!

As you may know, I was born and raised in New Orleans, LA, but now live in the Lone-Star state; so I’ve been longing for some good ole-fashioned crawdads. My wife and I were finally able to host a crawfish boil, and the experience was great! I wasn’t really sure what I was doing, but it wasn’t that difficult once I got started. Lessons Learned: throw in a ton of spices!

The 1st batch was a bit bland, so I kicked it up a notch (as Emeril would say). The 2nd & 3rd batch was much better. Anyway… if you are thinking about throwing a crawfish boil, DO IT! It’s a blast. Feel free to hit me up and ask any questions. I was able to get all the spices and material locally here in Austin so it wasn’t that difficult at all (the price per lb of crawfish was a bit pricey, but worth it).

To be honest, most of you may already know this, but I get enough questions on how to customize the Windows services panel, I’d thought I’d share what I know…

 You ever get annoyed with how the Windows services panel always loads the Extended tab (less real estate) instead of the Standard tab (much more real estate)? Or would like you like the default size of the panel to be different than what it is… well you can customize the default look of the services panel very easily and very quickly…. here’s how:

1.  Right-click on the services short-cut (however you get to it), and select Author.

2.  Then customize the panel to how you would like the default look to be (i.e. click on the Standard tab, increase the window size, etc.)
3.  Then, select File > Save from the file menu bar, and you’re all set.

Now, everytime you launch the Windows services panel, it’ll be exactly how you configured it !

Neat, eh ?

Have you ever heard of Google Apps for your Domain ?

It’s basically a free all-in-one service offered by Google that consists of “all the functionality of Gmail, Google Talk and Google Calendar” (Google’s Blog) specifically for your domain. The following post also gives a more complete description of what the service offers:

Anil Dash’s View on Google Apps for your Domain

In any case, what does this have to do with the IBM Sametime Gateway ?

Well, if you happen register your domain for Google Apps for your Domain (GAYFD), you’ll notice that you won’t be able to federate awareness between the Sametime Gateway and Google Talk.

 Why not ? Well, when you register your domain with GAYFD, Google takes over responsibility for hosting your domain including federating awareness with Google Talk, whether you use the service or not. Therefore, it is not possible for the domain to be linked to another XMPP server (in our case, the Sametime Gateway), and have it  federate awareness with Google Talk at the same time.

To conclude, in order to communicate with Google Talk users via the Sametime Gateway, you’ll have to make sure your domain is not registered for Google Apps for Your Domain.

New education modules have just been posted on the Sametime Gateway via the IBM Education Assistant (IEA) . Check out Andy’s post for more detailed information on the content that’s available:  Andy’s post on IBM Education Assistant

Whether you are you just learning or getting ready to deploy the IBM Sametime Gateway, these modules well help you accomplish your objectives. Check em out and let us know what you think!

We would like to get your feedback and let us know if you like this format for delivering information. If so, tell us what else you’d like to see out there.

Starting in Sametime 7.5.x, IBM introduced the ability to preset a plethora of client-side preferences via the plugin_customization.ini configuration file. For a complete listing of what preferences can be set, see the following IBM technote (#1264766): http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=899&uid=swg21264766

The majority of these settings are applicable to 8.0 as well (even though the technote only lists 7.5.x), but you may find that you are not able to preset the Chat History preferences for a Sametime 8.0 Connect client (ST 8.0 CC).

The reason for this is that the name of the chat logging plugin (com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.chat.logging) was inadvertently changed to a different name (com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.chat.logging.impl) during the refactoring of the plugin for the ST 8.0 CC. Therefore, presetting the Chat History preferences for ST 8.0 CC will not work by following the currently listed (as of 2/7/08) examples in the technote mentioned above.

We are planning to fix this for Sametime 8.0.1 such that you will be able to use the original plugin name (com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.chat.logging) to preset the chat history preferences.

So then, how do you set the Chat History preferences for a ST 8.0 CC ?

Very easily! Just change com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.chat.logging to com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.chat.logging.impl. The flags remain the same. So for example, suppose you wanted to set the following flags:

logging.default=0
logging.service=service.file
root.location=C:\Documents\SametimeTranscripts\
days.context=true

Your plugin_customization.ini configuration file would look like:

[plugin_customization.ini]
com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.chat.logging.impl/logging.default=0
com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.chat.logging.impl/logging.service=service.file
com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.chat.logging.impl/root.location=C:\Documents\chats\
com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.chat.logging.impl/days.context=true

Note: this change only applies to the Sametime 8.0 version of the Connect client.

Hope this helps! Have a good day!

Welcome! This is my very first post! woo hoo! Please stay tuned for deep thoughts by Vinny.