One of the really great things about NotesConnect is its ability to connect on ports other than the Notes default NRPC (Notes Remote Procedure Calls) port of 1352. The diagram shown in Figure B shows just some of the available ports that NotesConnect can verify you're connecting on.

FIGURE B

NotesConnect can help troubleshoot connections to non-Notes specific ports as well. Click picture for a larger image.

If you've ever had to convince a network administrator that the router or firewall is blocking required ports (and thereby keeping your Domino server or notes clients from working correctly), this utility will quickly earn a spot in your toolbox.

NotesPeek
Another free utility that's available from the Notes.net Web site is NotesPeek at http://www.notes.net/sandbox.nsf/ecc552f1ab6e46e4852568a90055c4cd/6bcca234153471348525689a0070bc43?OpenDocument&;Highlight=0,NotesPeek. Lotus Notes databases are incredibly complex beasts internally, and if you've ever wanted to learn more about the way that Notes databases and the notes that compose them are structured, than NotesPeek is definitely for you.

According to the description, "NotesPeek was written for technical Notes users who want to see a more raw view of their Notes databases than the Notes client provides."

If you've ever had trouble with a LotusScript agent not copying documents correctly from one database to another, or if you've had issues with low level attributes of individual fields, then give NotesPeek a try. It's probably more useful to developers than administrators, but still, this is one tool that I use from time to time to troubleshoot database and document issues. It's particularly critical when working with the Lotus Notes API (Application Programming Interface).

When installed, NotesPeek displays the contents of your Notes data directory in a familiar tree format. By expanding the various nodes on the tree, you can click down into increasingly detailed information about your databases, as shown in Figure C.

FIGURE C

NotesPeek gives you the low-down on thousands of objects within the average Lotus Notes database Click picture for a larger image.

The information displayed not only shows you documents and design objects (forms, pages, views, etc.), but also high and low level database information such as ACL (Access Control List) details, replication history, deletion stubs, and profile documents.

Just the ability to browse profile documents might earn NotesPeek a space on your hard drive.

Come get your free databases
A moldy, oldy, but goldie on the list of free Notes stuff on the Web is the collection of Notes templates available off the Lotus customer support ftp site at ftp://ftp.support.lotus.com/pub/comm/notes/workstn/template/index.html. It's pictured in Figure D.

FIGURE D

Most of the templates have a readme text file that highlights its most noteworthy technical features. Click picture for a larger image.

Formerly known as the "Nifty-fifty," this collection has grown over time to include 78 different Lotus Notes databases and templates. Although some of these are beginning to show their age (do we really need a 1994 calendar database?), there are still some good templates in this set. All of the applications were designed for the R3 client, so you'll need to rework the UI a bit. Otherwise these applications can serve as the starting point for new projects.