Getting out of the woods

After two weeks of non-stop work I’m eyeing the light at the end of the tunnel a.k.a. getting out of the woods. At the office we are handing a Domino website project over to a customer tomorrow and we are done in time. Great!

The next week is all about clearing out my inbox and getting the first part of my LotusScript.doc article for The VIEW done. It is currently in the layout and final proof reading stage and it’s scheduled for the Jan/Feb issue. Starting of it was supposed to be a single article but it has been split into an article on how to use LotusScript.doc and an article on the inner workings. The next part will be out in the Mar/Apr issue.

Apart from that it’s time to get ready for Lotusphere 2006!
According to the DK Lotusphere QuickPlace members page 64 people will be attending Lotusphere from Denmark. That’s a lot! Apparently a couple of guys I know is also going to attend so that’s great. It’s my first time going so I am reading up on all the newbie FAQ’s out there.

I’m leaving for Orlando on Saturday morning transiting in Washington DC, arriving at 8PM which I guess is a little late to catch in ESPN party which seems to be an event worth attending. I’m going to go anyway I think.

I’m really looking forward to going but I haven’t really had any time to check out the session database yet, but I guess I then will have something to do on the way over there. The goals for the week are:

  • Attend a lot of cool session and learn new stuff
  • Meet a lot of new people
  • Meet some fellow bloggers and put a face to the URL
  • Have a lot of fun
  • Get my picture taken with Mickey Mouse… 🙂
  • Catch the NFC and AFC championship games live (as I’m writing this Indianapolis Colts has just completed a 2-points conversion and now only trail the Steelers by a field goal)

Does anyone know of a blogger meet-up during the week?

Getting index values with @Formula

I’m doing quite a lot of @Formula coding these days and I’m finding the “new” index capability of @Formula very helpfull. I know it was introduced in release 6 but I’m just starting to use it – old habits die hard.

In that connection I frequently have two arrays of data where I need to find the index of a key value (“Key”) in the first array (“keys”) and get then get the entry at the same index in the other array (“data”). I have found no ArrayGetIndex-like function in @Formula so I’m resorting to a @For-loop to find the correct index and then getting the value from the other array.

keys := @GetProfileField("MyProfile"; "Keys");
data := @GetProfileField("MyProfile"; "Data");
result := "";
@For(n:=1; n<=@Elements(keys); n:=n+1;
   @If(keys[n] = Key;
      @Set("result"; profile_kortlink[n]);
      ""
   )
);
result

Anyone who knows of an easier way?

A patch for the “Windows image-file 0-day exploit” has been released

Ilfak Guilfanov has released a patch for the Windows metafile exploit that was reported last week. Technically the patch works by intercepting the calls to the user32.dll that causes the exploit to work. More information can be found at the beforementioned link.

While the patch isn’t released by Microsoft and since I have no prior knowledge of Ilfak Guilfanov I have chosen to install the patch anyway since it has been vouched for by Steve Gibson (of the Security Now! podcast) who I trust. Steves comments to the patch can be found at his website.

Please note: I had to reregister the DLL (“regsvr32 shimgvw.dll”) that I had previously unregistered to avoid the exploit before installing the patch.

Domino 5.0.13 –> Domino 7.0

Taking advantage of the slowdown of traffic on the day of New Years eve I just upgraded one of our production servers from Domino 5.0.13 to Domino 7.0. The only issue was that the installer complained about being unable to uninstall the Windows service althrough the service was uninstalled correctly. After restarting the installation it completed without any other issues.

First impressions? Everything seems to be running so I cross my fingers…

Windows image-file 0-day exploit

A new 0-day Windows exploit is out. The exploit takes advantage of a built-in feature of the Windows Metafile image format that allows code to be executed if the Windows Metafile fails to load. Since this is a core Windows issue you will not be safe just resorting to Firefox. Actually just surfing to a website embedding a crafted image could infect your computer.

The workaround for now is to unregister the offending DLL on your Windows system. For more information refer to the show notes for the Sucurity Now! podcast episode 20.

Supplemental Resources and Links for Episode #20

Writing a LSX (LotusScript Extension)

Does anyone have any experience writing a custom LSX? The LSX is going to wrap some third-party/legacy C/C++ code.

So far I dug out an article from The VIEW (May/June 1998: “The Why and How of Building LotusScript Extensions with the LSX Toolkit”) but it would be really nice with a comment from someone who actually did it.

Is it pretty straight forward?, is the LSX Wizard the way to go?, should I stay away from it?

Please let me know if you have any experience to share…