I hope this helps and makes some sense! Good luck, and let me know when your site is up!

Some ergonomic tips
This letter was written in response to Senior Technical Editor Dan Velasco's article, "Light at the end of the carpal tunnel," in the March 2001 issue of DominoPower at http://www.dominopower.com/issues/issue200103/dbcolumn0301001.html.

I have had just a touch of ulner problems (the other side of the hand) and definite problems with a herniated disk in my neck. I found the solution! It's a keyboard called the Ergonomic Split Keyboard. It looks futuristic, and you have to be able to type by touch, but it's saved my neck (pun intended). You can find it at: http://www.ergointerfaces.com. Go to Products and then Ergonomic Split Keyboard to see pictures, etc. While I was there, I found another handy product called WorkPace (at http://www.workpace.com). It's a piece of software that automatically keeps track of your keystrokes, etc. and prompts you to take mini-breaks and even gives you exercises. I've just downloaded the trial version. Anyway, thought I'd share.

Keli Moffat
Sr. IT Specialist
Notes Application Developer

P.S. Thanks for your articles. Lots of information and an occasional chuckle. Can't beat that.

Tip trouble
This letter was written in response to the DominoPower Tip, "Showing users the most recent documents by day, week, and month," by Senior Technical Editor Dan Velasco. It was sent out to our subscribers on March 23, 2001.

The conceptual nature of this tip is very sound: give the users the most up-to-date information as possible. However, your solution to this has to be one of the most irresponsible journalistic tips that DominoPower has ever published.

A lot of less experienced Notes and Domino developers read these tips, and it provides them a wealth of experience that can only usually be obtained through time. Because of their reading and/or reliance on these tips to help them do their jobs and to grow as Notes and Domino developers, it is essential that you and DominoPower are responsible and understand this responsibility in the tips you provide.

You need to look beyond just solving the problem and looking at what is the "best" solution to the advantages and disadvantages of every solution. It is important for all developers to understand how Notes and Domino really works, from the inside out, and understand how one decision can effect another decision. The more each developer is able to understand what makes Notes and Domino what it is, the better that developer will be.

Using any type of date calculation or comparison in a selection formula is one of the cardinal sins of Notes development. The usage of dates in view selection formulas should never be used, unless it is absolutely necessary and no other solution can be developed. However, in an application with a large amount of documents, it should never be used.

The reason for this is simple: efficiency. Because the value returned from @Now is continually changing, the view index has to be rebuilt every time the view is accessed. The value of the most up-to-date data can end up not being worth the performance of obtaining the data.