Communicate with IBMers via Sametime

July 29 2005

Hey wow, I had my first Sametime chat with an IBM business partner today...Alan Bell from Dominux.
Image:Communicate with IBMers via Sametime
(anyone get the joke?)

So how did we do this?  Using IBM's "CollaborateNow".  It works with a browser, so you don't even need to install the Sametime Connect client.  You must have an IBM id and password which you can get here.

I have a feeling it's going to be an unproductive afternoon....

Ed Brill Highland Park, IL USA Category:  IBM  Add/View Comments [41]

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  1. 1  Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/bensblog.nsf | 7/29/2005 11:56:32 AM

    Kudos to IBM for this one. Very good tool, extremely useful. It's like being back at Lotus again...all my old contacts...well kinda ;O)

  1. 2  vowe http://vowe.net | 7/29/2005 12:02:35 PM

    You must have an IBM id and password AND MICROSOFT WINDOWS. :-)

  1. 3  Rob Novak www.lotusdigerati.com | 7/29/2005 12:28:26 PM

    Haven't gotten it to work yet, but looking forward to it.

  1. 4  Ken Porter  | 7/29/2005 1:21:00 PM

    It appears to work well with Firefox; that's good news.

  1. 5  david bell  | 7/29/2005 1:32:43 PM

    That pwd@dominux.... (supposedly Alan) said "Hi Alan!" ??

  1. 6  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 7/29/2005 1:54:23 PM

    @5: not quite...

  1. 7  Chris Whisonant http://cwhisonant.blogspot.com | 7/29/2005 2:38:38 PM

    pwd@dominux.co.u... is the first line

    The others from Alan are pwd@dominux.co.... (NO "u") - looks like a copy/paste job to exploit the "Sametime bug" where it appears someone else said something...

  1. 8  Bill  | 7/29/2005 2:59:35 PM

    Any reason they are using Sametime 3.1 for this and not Sametime 6.5.1? (I hate the new name!)

    Our Sametime server rrunning 6.5.1 works wonderfully on my SuSE Linux 9.1/Firefox system.

  1. 9  Cheyn Rushing http://www.heatlhylittleones.com | 7/29/2005 3:11:47 PM

    Alan? Hmmmm. That name rings a Bell.

  1. 10  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 7/29/2005 3:21:19 PM

    @8 - no need to use the new name...it's back to Sametime for 7.0. Not sure why 3.1 is in use.

    @7 no copy/paste, no bugs. and @9, still not quite there.

    Where's Mr. Lepofsky today?

  1. 11  Alex Hernandez http://alexhernandez.blogspot.com | 7/29/2005 3:29:32 PM

    No problems with Firefox 1.0.

    I've added my local IBMers as easy as addieng their emails.

    .::AleX::.

  1. 12  Brian Green  | 7/29/2005 3:33:06 PM

    Brill and Lepofsky are really the same person, although... one is great at ultimate frisbee!

  1. 13  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 7/29/2005 3:44:16 PM

    LOL, I'm here, but I am too busy answering all these "Dear Ed Brill" questions coming on via instant message. ;-)

  1. 14  Tim Latta  | 7/29/2005 4:07:53 PM

    When did Ed start playing Ultimate Frisbee?

  1. 15  Alan Bell http://www.dominux.co.uk | 7/29/2005 5:03:35 PM

    interesting to see my name from your point of view. From my point of view my name is dominuxconsulting (in fact I had totally forgotten that I had set up an alias for myself for the IBM ID). Yes the joke was a bit cyptic with my name being Alan as well, probably more understandable on the screenshot I posted in the partner forum which showed me adding Ed's email address with a nickname of Alan Lepofsky. (jokes are never funny when explained, sorry)

  1. 16  Andy Brunner http://ABData.CH | 7/30/2005 2:24:31 AM

    I have tried to add contact thru in my Trillian Sametime plugin, but the login to extst.ibm.com with my IBM ID does not work.

    Anyone else having success thru Trillian?

  1. 17  Randall Shimizu  | 7/30/2005 3:41:44 PM

    Tried getting the web sametime to work, but it does not work with Firefox. Tried again with IE and the nothing happens after you login.

    I guess Lotus still has a lot of the MS mentality. But overall its great to see that they are becoming truly open.

  1. 18  Richard Schwartz http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz | 7/31/2005 9:51:32 PM

    Actually, it does work with Firefox. At least it did on Friday. Today seems to be a different story.

    -rich

  1. 19  lyset  | 8/1/2005 2:46:09 AM

    Great tool!

    One disadvantage....

    Works at home, but not in the office ;-(

    I think our firewall blocks this traffic...

  1. 20  Chris Whisonant http://cwhisonant.blogspot.com | 8/1/2005 7:24:22 AM

    Mine worked fine Friday with FF 1.0.6 and it works now too.

  1. 21  Axel Janssen  | 8/1/2005 9:52:11 AM

    I comming :-)

  1. 22  Axel Janssen  | 8/1/2005 10:01:13 AM

    does not work from here :-(

    Exception in thread "Lil' Steve's connection initializer. 2" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: isAgentInstalled

    at com.lotus.sametime.core.util.connection.AgentLink.isAgentInstalled(Native Method)

    at com.lotus.sametime.core.util.connection.AgentLink.a(DashoA12574)

    at a5.a(DashoA12574)

    at i3.run(DashoA12574)

    at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

    google gives no result with query "java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: isAgentInstalled"

    I try again from home :-)

  1. 23  david bell  | 8/1/2005 11:26:37 AM

    Mozilla 1.7.8 - after launching connect and seeing the animated Sun Java logo, the window appears blank.

    However, if you resize the window slightly it is repainted properly. Weird.

    I had assumed, like others maybe, that the launch had failed entirely - for example in 17 Randall said "nothing happened after login".

  1. 24  Randall Shimizu  | 8/1/2005 1:03:01 PM

    The applet loaded today, but it was very slow to load.

    The Sametime web chat is interesting, but there is some issues.

    One problem is that the contact is not very intuititve. For example if wish to find a IBM employee such as Ed. I cannot simply add his email to find him.

    Now I am not certain, but it seems as though the chat is meant for IBM initiated meetings...??

  1. 25  Esther Strom  | 8/1/2005 2:09:40 PM

    I had the same issue/experience with Filreox as @23 - resize the window and it works.

  1. 26  Nolan Eakins http://nolan.eakins.net/ | 8/1/2005 3:31:06 PM

    All I can say is welcome to the world where what's old is new. You should poke around { Link } some.

    - Nolan

  1. 27  Randall Shimizu  | 8/1/2005 7:17:58 PM

    Dead help url on the Samtime web client applet

    (https://v25ms016.mkm.can.ibm.com/collaboration/instantmessaging/help/

    help_home.htm ). I contacted IBM earlier today and recieved a acknowledgement message. So perhaps they will have it fixed by tomorrow.

  1. 28  Till  | 8/2/2005 4:11:43 AM

    Is there a standalone client? Tried to use ICT, but they don't seem to support HTTP connections.

  1. 29  Lukas http://lukas.knup.de/ | 8/3/2005 4:10:31 PM

    So, this isn't really exciting, as Nolan says. Use the standard, Luke, use XMPP, use Jabber. Now mor then half a decade old.

    And working.

  1. 30  Carl  | 9/23/2005 6:49:56 AM

    Is this now dead? It hasn't been up for a few weeks?

  1. 31  Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net | 9/28/2005 9:58:22 AM

    Seems to be dead, agreed.

  1. 32  Peter Toogood  | 12/12/2006 8:39:29 AM

    Hi, just recently I cannot see the online status of IBM employees that I used to be able to. I cannot send messages to them. This has happened recently. Also the availability of the IBM extst server has been very intermittent.

    Secondly SameTime 7.5 client does not work using the HTTP proxy derived from my Internet Explorer settings. SameTime Connect v3 works fine.

    Regards

    Peter

  1. 33  Forrest Smith  | 2/1/2007 4:39:19 PM

    I installed the sametime 7.5 client and I could see IBMers online this morning for the first time in two months; however, it did not work with the older sametime v3 applet from the collaborationnow website. I've tried opening a help desk ticket with IBM (because IBMers haven't appeared online since December), but the help desk doesn't know who supports this function. I just tried again with the 7.5 client and it's back to showing everyone else off line... Anyone else having this problem?

  1. 34  Chris Pepin http://www.chrispepin.com | 2/2/2007 9:23:50 AM

    Thanks for your feedback. While the service is up and available for both 3.1 and 7.5 clients, we are investigating an issue where some users are experiencing intermittent awareness. Stay tuned, we hope to have the issue resolved soon.

    Regards,

    Chris Pepin

    Solution Owner for IBM internal Sametime deployment

  1. 35  Forrest Smith  | 3/16/2007 10:17:09 PM

    Still having problems with the 7.5 client. I can login, but I can't see anyone online. Any ideas as to when this might get fixed?

  1. 36  Daniel Barrera  | 3/21/2007 11:45:38 PM

    anyone knows when will the solution be available again? I try every other week w /same results. I am the only user online. No Ibmers on green.

  1. 37  Marco Foellmer http://www.ebf.de | 7/5/2007 12:04:43 AM

    until today the connection is not fixed, some days the extst.ibm.com works, some days not. why not a sametime.lotus.com which has a connection to ibm and to business partners and customers?

    Ciao Marco

  1. 38  David Dingley http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=3620742 | 11/4/2007 12:37:40 PM

    Anyone know how to make this work with Trillian? I can make the web based version work (mostly!!) and Pidgin works just fine - but always error messages with Trillian.

  1. 39  Imre Sandor  | 6/13/2008 11:24:48 AM

    Hi,

    I tried Pidgin, but it does not seem to work for me.

    Could you give me some hints on what version did you get working with extst?

    Regards,

    Imre

  1. 40  jammie  | 1/2/2009 1:48:22 AM

    I still got the same error, no way to online for past month.....who can help ?

    Exception in thread "Lil' Steve's connection initializer. 71" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: com.lotus.sametime.core.util.connection.AgentLink.isAgentInstalled(Ljava/lang/String;)Z

    at com.lotus.sametime.core.util.connection.AgentLink.isAgentInstalled(Native Method)

    at com.lotus.sametime.core.util.connection.AgentLink.a(DashoA12574)

    at a5.a(DashoA12574)

    at i3.run(DashoA12574)

    at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

  1. 41  Hemant  | 3/5/2010 12:00:54 PM

    This doesn't work any more.. I am an IBMer working at client office, I tried this solution and got "Sametime Server seems to be temporarily unavailable. Please try again"