Andrew Pollack has published a paper overviewing the new Domino Designer 8.5 XPages development construct. Originally written to be published on IBM's site, he's released it now as a PDF with IBM's permission.  This PDF is worth a read if you want to understand new capabilities coming in Domino 8.5, as well as a higher-level thought about the future of Domino development.

The PDF file can be downloaded here .

In Vista SP1, XP SP3, and Windows Server 2008, the Remote Desktop Program has been updated to version 6.1 (6.0.6001) and one of the changes is that the functionality previously associated with the /console switch is now called the /admin switch. 

If you use "mstsc /v:servername /console" in a script file then the /console will be ignored (with no warning) and you will be connected to a normal session that is not the server console.  If you specify the /console switch in the RDC GUI connection dialog then it will tell you "an unknown parameter was specified in the computer name field".  

The people from turtleweb build a nice solution (free at the moment) which can be used to sync a shared Lotus Notes Contact DB with your BlackBerry devices. The basis of the solution is a fairly straight-forward 'persistent store & push listener' model. The idea is that the Notes database can push down contacts data (or other elements when you change the design), which is then stored locally on the BlackBerry. The BlackBerry app allows the user to search for contacts and to make calls and send emails directly from within the app.

 More information can be found here.

It seamed ORDB (ORDB.org was shut down on December 18, 2006) changed since yesterday their behaviour, and instead of timing out, they are blocking all IP addresses (every e-mail server queried is being reported as an open relay). If your mail infrastructure uses ORDB, the sender will get a message like this one (this is an example blacklisting the Gmail servers): 

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 13): 550-Message rejected because ag-out-0708.google.com [72.14.246.240]:20081 is
550-blacklisted at relays.ordb.org see ordb.org was shut down on December 18,
550 2006. Please remove from your mailserver.

The reason behind this active behaviour change is not clear yet, if we get more information we will update this entry here.

The new BlackBerries (8100 Pearl, 8300 Curve and maybe some other which I didn´t use) are prone to memory leak issues where email messages along with SMS & PIN get deleted for no apparent reason.

Rim released now a technote (KB13814) that this is a known problem. BUT at the moment there is no solution. Only some workarounds:

• reducing the size of allocated media memory to the lowest setting
• using a microSD memory card
• reboot the device after x days

More information can be found here (technote KB13814) .

Do you have a Sametime 8 Server? Do you like the Sametime Unyte advertisement on your Sametime Server?

No? Then open the sametime.ini and search for EnableUnyteHomepageUI=1 change it to EnableUnyteHomepageUI=0, restart your server and the advertisement is away.