A Portal to a Portal

Hot on the heels of my previous posts here  and here, I found that things weren't as smooth as they could be, with Compiz crashing out from time to time.

I've played around over the past two days ( well, what else is Christmas Day and Boxing Day for ) and have taken a slightly different path to the same destination.

Instead of using Synaptic, Envy or apt get install, I chose to download the proprietary ATI driver from here.

This downloads a 80 MB file ati-driver-installer-8-12-x86.x86_64.run. It's necessary to make this file executable ( chmod +x ati-driver-installer-8-12-x86.x86_64.run ) and then execute it with root privileges ( sudo ./ati-driver-installer-8-12-x86.x86_64.run ).

The installer walks you through a series of simple screens, and, following a reboot, you're good to go.

Will continue to play ...

Having solved my problems with the suspend/resume on Intrepid whilst keeping Compiz and spinny things going, I had one final thing to crack.

When I used the ATI Catalyst Control Centre ( amdcccle ) to set my display resolution, I noticed that the changes were not being saved through a reboot. As an example, I could set the resolution to 1600x1200 to get the best out of my Thinkpad's HUUUUUGE screen, when I rebooted, the resolution would be back at 1024x768, which is a bit annoying.

As usual, Google had the answer, Google is my friend. I searched for "amdcccle saving" and found this article - the answer is to run gnome-display-properties and click Apply to save the current configuration ( this applet can be as a command ( ALT + F2 ) or via System -> Preferences -> Screen Resolution.

Strange but true

Thanks to the BBC for this

Having had this working ever since I upgraded to Intrepid in early November, I somehow managed to break it on Wednesday whilst trying to get a strange projector combination working. I uninstalled/reinstalled the video drivers a thousand times ( ish ) but couldn't manage to (a) get video working on the internal LCD *and* via an external device and (b) suspend/resume Ubuntu.

However, I think I've cracked it - I went back in time in my blog and found this post from September, where I'd fickered with /etc/default/acpi-support and changed: -

POST_VIDEO=true
# RADEON_LIGHT=true
# DOUBLE_CONSOLE_SWITCH=true
ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE=false

to: -

POST_VIDEO=false
RADEON_LIGHT=true
DOUBLE_CONSOLE_SWITCH=true
ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE=true

If it helps, I'm using the fglrx 8.54.3 driver which I got via apt-get install fglrx* - as far as I know, this is not a proprietary driver BUT I MAY BE WRONG.

If it helps, this is how I can see what driver I'm using: -

lsmod | grep -i fglrx

returns: -

fglrx                1813960  32
agpgart                42184  2 fglrx,intel_agp

dmesg | grep -i fglrx

[   42.639040] [fglrx] module loaded - fglrx 8.54.3 [Oct 10 2008] with 1 minors

lspci -vv

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M56GL [Mobility FireGL V5200]
        Subsystem: Lenovo Device 2007
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
        Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16
        Region 0: Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        Region 1: I/O ports at 2000 [size=256]
        Region 2: Memory at ee100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at ee120000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: fglrx_pci
        Kernel modules: fglrx

sudo dpkg --list | grep -i fglrx

ii  fglrx-amdcccle                            2:8.543-0ubuntu4                            Catalyst Control Center for the ATI graphics a
ii  fglrx-kernel-source                       2:8.543-0ubuntu4                            Kernel module source for the ATI graphics acce
ii  fglrx-modaliases                          2:8.543-0ubuntu4                            Identifiers supported by the ATI graphics driv
ii  xorg-driver-fglrx                         2:8.543-0ubuntu4                            Video driver for the ATI graphics accelerators
ii  xorg-driver-fglrx-dev                     2:8.543-0ubuntu4                            Video driver for the ATI graphics accelerators

fglrxinfo -display :0

display: :0.0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI MOBILITY FireGL V5200
OpenGL version string: 2.1.8087 FireGL Release

Having got fglrx installed and having hacked acpi-support, I can now suspend and resume.

I can also switch to a single or dual display ( using my Sharp Aquos 26" LCD display ) using the  ATI Catalyst Control Centre ( command is amdccle ) to switch between screens.

I'll test a real projector later today ....

Thanks to Pete for this tip - with his help ( and some Googling ), I was able to configure the middle mouse button ( on a Thinkpad T60p ) to allow me to scroll through a web page in Firefox.

Simply put, open Firefox, navigate to the address bar and enter the URL about:config. Assuming you're happy to proceed past those dragons, change the setting general.autoScroll to true. Once you restart Firefox, you're good to go.

Following on from my earlier post about SA, here is a W-I-P of my notes and observations thus far.

I installed VirtualBox using Synaptic on my Thinkpad T60p ( running Intrepid Ibex ) earlier today, and built my first Windows XP virtual machine. So far, so good.

Only one little niggle - USB support didn't work; I was getting

Failed to access the USB subsystem.

Could not load the Host USB Proxy Service (VERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND). The service might be not installed on the host computer.

Result Code:
NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x00004005)

when I attempted to edit the virtual machine's configuration.

However, as usual, Google had the answer ( and is my friend ).

As per this post, there are some post-installation incantations that you need to run.

Once done, we're good to go.

Next, I'm going to install WebSphere Portal or, perhaps, Lotus Connections onto the VM and see how it performs ....

Just working to show how WebSphere Portal's Site Analytics service works, in terms of generating logs in the NCSA Combined Log format that can then be analysed by an appropriate tool, such as the free-as-in-beer GPL tool AWStats, Nihuo  or a chargeable product/service such as WebTrends.

I'd previously set this up in an earlier release ( I even found a developerWorks forum post from myself back in 2006 ), but had forgotten precisely how to do it.

I confused myself by reading the formal documentation so ended up hacking around and stop/starting the portal several times.

In the end, the trick was to: -

a) Amend C:\IBM\WebSphere\wp_profile\PortalServer\config\SiteAnalyzerLogService.properties and add/change: -

SiteAnalyzerFileHandler.fileName=logs/$APPSERVER_NAME/sa.log
SiteAnalyzerPageLogger.isLogging=true
SiteAnalyzerPortletLogger.isLogging=true
SiteAnalyzerSessionLogger.isLogging=true

( there are a number of other isLogging parameters to choose from )

b) Push the updated properties into the portal configuration, using the command: -

ConfigEngine.bat update-properties

from the directory C:\IBM\WebSphere\wp_profile\ConfigEngine.

c) Restart the portal

Once this has been done, you can see/change the properties by logging into the WebSphere Application Server administration console ( https://localhost:10041/ibm/console ) and then navigating to Resource > Resource environment providers > WP SiteAnalyzerLogService > Custom properties as per the screenshot.

Having restarted the portal, and logged in, I now see data such as: -

192.168.44.1 - - [17/Dec/2008:11:33:14 +0000] "GET /Page/6_CGAH47L0082M302B566VO730M6/null HTTP/1.1" 200 -1 "" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.4) Gecko/2008111318 Ubuntu/8.10 (intrepid) Firefox/3.0.4" "pSite=http%3A//www-304.ibm.com/jct03001c/services/learning/ites.wss/us/en%3FpageType%3Dcourse_description%26courseCode%3DPW510;sasidp=S420311311229505852077;90130510_clogin=l=1229505853&v=1&e=1229514686475;CoreID6=62742661401312295058533;ibmSurvey=1229505848905;sauidp=U420311311229505852077;satst=test"
192.168.44.1 - - [17/Dec/2008:11:33:14 +0000] "GET /Portlet/5_CGAH47L0082M302B566VO730E4/Login_Portlet?PortletPID=5_CGAH47L0082M302B566VO730E4&PortletMode=View&PortletState=Normal HTTP/1.1" 200 -1 "http://stargate.uk.ibm.com/Page/6_CGAH47L0082M302B566VO730M6/null" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.4) Gecko/2008111318 Ubuntu/8.10 (intrepid) Firefox/3.0.4" "pSite=http%3A//www-304.ibm.com/jct03001c/services/learning/ites.wss/us/en%3FpageType%3Dcourse_description%26courseCode%3DPW510;sasidp=S420311311229505852077;90130510_clogin=l=1229505853&v=1&e=1229514686475;CoreID6=62742661401312295058533;ibmSurvey=1229505848905;sauidp=U420311311229505852077;satst=test"

being logged to C:\IBM\WebSphere\wp_profile\logs\WebSphere_Portal\sa.log.

I can now use my log analyser tool to see what's going on within my portal.

I'm actually using AWStats on my Ubuntu host whilst the portal is running within a VMware image.

I'll use the AWStats documentation as well as this excellent article from Stefan Liesche on developerWorks.

Note to self - the URL to use is: -

http://hostname.domain.com/dm/atom/introspection?login=true

to force authentication to Quickr, and allow one to see the list of
Quickr places, whether public/anonymous or not.

This is useful when using the REST model/portlet within WebSphere
Portlet Factory.

Thanks to a colleague for posting this on his internal blog. I've referenced a number of the various Lotus product wikis, including those for WebSphere Portal and WebSphere Portlet Factory.

This useful page on developerWorks listing all the available wikis, together with their URLs.

Nice, wiki'd but nice.

Following my own earlier post about WAS administration ports, it's also worth noting that WebSphere Portal 6.0 and 6.1 have differing default ports: -

WebSphere Portal 6.0

Portal         http://hostname:10038/wps/portal
WAS Admin      https://hostname:10039/ibm/console

WebSphere Portal 6.1

Portal         http://hostname:10040/wps/portal
WAS Admin      https://hostname:10041/ibm/console

Hope this helps me next time oldtimer's kicks in.

Have just downloaded the most excellent Lotusphere 2009 sessions
database from Genii Software's website here: -

http://www.geniisoft.com/showcase.nsf/LS2009_SessionsDB

I used this last year ( well, this year 'cos we're still in 2008 ) and
found it be of great use in planning my way around.

This year, I notice that they also have iPhone and Blackberry versions;
will try the iPhone version as well.

Having blogged here about my success with the WAI portlet on WebSphere Portal 6.1, I was kinda surprised when I was unable to get it working earlier this week, on a couple of WebSphere Portal Express 6.1.0.0 installations; both on Windows - one native and one on VMware.

Despite my best efforts, I never saw the portal/page navigation appear on the imported web page, even though I made a conscious effort to place the JavaScript code immediately after the body tag.

Instead, I saw: -

[12/12/08 17:05:40:640 GMT] 00000041 SystemOut     O Inside-Out, Default.jsp: Exception raised: java.lang.NullPointerException

When I looked at the fix list for WebSphere Portal 6.10.1 at: -

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=688&uid=swg27014411#6101

I can see: -

PK74444     WebAppIntegrator throws a NullPointerException when urlFindInTheme tag is used in a Portal 6.1 theme

so I immediately went looking for the fix - sadly, it's not available as a standalone fix, but only as part of the fixpack.

Given that I wanted to get 6.10.1 installed, I started the download - thanks to the power of broadband, this 400 MB file didn't take too long.

However, whilst I was waiting, I was fickering around with my portal, trying to reproduce another issue with SSL/HTTPS. As part of my fickering, I toggled the theme for the top-level Content Root -> Home page from Portal Default Theme to PortalWeb2 and back again.

This seemed to "kick" WAI into life, and it's now working perfectly.

I can only assume that the theme toggle forced one of the theme JSPs to be recompiled or, perhaps, magic occurred.

In either case, WAI is now working WITHOUT needing to apply any fixes or fixpacks.

Thanks to Ed Brill for posting this

IBM and Business Partners Introduce a Linux-Based, Virtual Desktop

IBM (NYSE: IBM), Virtual Bridges and Canonical today announced general availability of a Linux-desktop solution designed to drive significant savings compared with Microsoft-desktop software by amplifying Lotus collaboration software and Ubuntu to a larger user base through virtualization.

This solution runs open standards-based email, word processing, spreadsheets, unified communication, social networking and other software to any laptop, browser, or mobile device from a virtual desktop login on a Linux-based server configuration.

A virtual desktop looks like a traditional desktop but is not limited to a single physical computer. Instead, many virtual Linux desktops are hosted on a server. The combined solution includes: 

• Virtual desktop provided by Virtual Bridges called Virtual Enterprise Remote Desktop Environment (VERDE);
• Ubuntu, the worldwide leading Linux desktop operating system, from Canonical; and
• IBM Open Collaboration Client Solution software (OCCS) based on IBM Lotus Symphony, IBM Lotus Notes and Lotus applications. IBM Lotus Symphony is built on the Open Document Format (ODF).
  

http://tinyurl.com/5wo9d4

Oooo, nearly missed this one.

This fix pack includes a cumulative collection of fixes and updated support for several underlying components. This fix pack updates the IBM WebSphere Portal 6.1 (6.1.0.0) level to the 6.1.0.1 service release level. This fix pack can be used to upgrade the IBM Workplace Web Content Management 6.1 (6.1.0.0) level to the 6.1.0.1 service release level. This fix pack can also be used to upgrade IBM WebSphere Portal Express 6.1 (6.1.0.0) level to the 6.1.0.1 service release level.

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24020387

The complete list of fixes integrated into this refresh pack may be found in the technote Fix list for WebSphere Portal Version 6.1 and an updated set of system requirements.

A colleague asked me why Lotus Notes was no longer sending emails immediately when he was working from a replica copy of his mail file.

It was a most excellent question to which I didn't have an immediate answer. However, thanks to my social network ( actually knowing the man who knew and finding him on Sametime ), I was able to help solve it.

It turned out to be a location preference/setting, which can be set as follows: -

a) Choose File -> Preferences -> Locations
b) Edit the location that you usually use
c) Navigate to the Mail tab
d) Set "Transfer Outgoing Mail If X messages pending" to 1
e) Click OK to save the location change
f) Click OK to save the preference change

Hope this helps someone as it helped Mike and I

( with thanks to Chris for his most timely and excellent help )