System i Addict

Erwin Early, whom is on the same SME team with me at COMMON wrote soem articles which I have found informative about PHP and the System i.

Use PHP to Bring i5/OS Resources to the Web

PHP: An Easy Yet Powerful Language Syntax

PHP on i5/OS: A Whole New Stack

If you doing PHP on Linux and your a System i shop, then stop now and look at what Erwin is doing with PHP on i5/OS. I have been dreaming of the day when all of this comes together and I am sure Erwin has a PHP - MySQL - i5/OS in the works.

So if LAMP is Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP then I guess we should cal it i5-ADP = i5/OS-Apache-DB2-PHP

WiMP = WEB-i5/OS-MySQL-PHP
PiMHD = PHP-i5/OS-MySQL-HTTP-DB2

Help me out. but I am now looking for a cheap System i to play with. I have tons of Linux boxes laying around but those are boring now.

Thanks Erwin.

Link to Demo

If you look toward the middle of the page they still have one of the hardest demo’s I did while I was there. I was looking around the site and ran across it. Kind of neat.

It was for the Court System in Alabama. It takes many screens on an IBM Main Frame and places them on one screen in the GUI. It was not easy but when it was done it was the thing that closed the deal. I think I worked on this for 4 days straight. Gathering screens and then making the default template, getting the colors right, adding the tabs and making it all work for a demo that was perfect. It’s really cool technology even today some seven years later. What it did for the user was take six screens that were all apart of a common work flow and placed them all on one page. This would increased productivity and gave the customer what they had been asking for. Now instead of putting info in six green screens they would place it in one made simple with drop downs and other items that we are used to via the web.

So I have made some nice scratch removing Vista from PCs and installing XP for them, in a couple of cases I was able to talk them into Ubuntu and those people have been the happiest of the group.

Once again Microsoft is reporting record profits but sales of Vista are off. LINK HERE

“The sales rate of Microsoft’s Windows Vista is gradually slowing down as the operating system reaches the one-year anniversary of its release to businesses, according to the company’s latest financial results. The Redmond, Washington-based company shipped approximately 28 million copies of Vista in the latest quarter ended September, or 9.3 million copies per month.”

I have started a Lotus Professinals group on LinkedIN.

If you want to join follow the link:

http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/37836/3A38310B213B

So I post from time to time a bit I like about Audi and such. Most of it comes from AudiWorld.com. I used to be an Audi owner and hoe that some day real soon I will be again. I had a 2000 Audi A4 1.8T Quattro that I loved. It was a super car. I would like to pick up a used Audi S4, 2002 or 2004. Not the 2003 and some of you know why. I like the idea of twin turbos and a V6. That just sounds awesome. I do like the V8 Audi makes as well. Not that I want to go fast all the time but the idea of being able to drop the clutch and make things happen is very exciting to me.

With all of that said I get anywhere from 50 - 100 hits a day on my Audi posts (HERE & HERE). I get more attention from my Audi post some days than my tech posts. Maybe you all are trying to tell me something. I just find the numbers interesting.

Thanks to all the Audi fans for coming. I love having you and hope you all go get an Audi because of sites like this. I was also looking at a 2004 Audi A8 the other day on eBay.com. It was just plain old cool!

Update: So this is what people are finding:

http://www.kvasir.no/nettsok/searchResult.html?offset=10&searchExpr=new%20audi%20a4%20%20b8%20avant&searchRegion=world&x=102&y=13

I think that is Russian? Anyone? I am also beating out Audiworld and another site as the top link. How cool is that?

More to come. I am going to let you all know if this changes things or did I just waste $150 bucks!

Let’s whoop up on some gator tail!

UPDATE:

Georgia WINS!

UGA 42
Gators 30

I got to see about 20 minutes in LAX and the rest as they say is history and lost somewhere between LAX and Denver…..GO DAWGS!

MacOSX comes out today. I am super excited about it. I think the new features are just what it will take to kill any ideas that Vista a good OS. Let me say, Vista is nothing close to a good OS, and MacOSX currently (10.4) as of this post is head and shoulders above what Vista is even close to doing. Vista is a sad excuses for Microsoft to sell more software. The Windows ME if you will of this decade.

Please if you need to order it I would ask that you get it from PowerMax.com and ask for Miaya please. Tell her I sent you and they will give you a Tee-Shirt and a Plush Leopard for the desk.

Link to PowerMax.com and MacOSX

My wife found this and I thinks it’s too good to be true.

Skybus.com is $10 a seat. 

So a few weeks back I blogged and called everyone in charge at Vision Solutions to get an interview and in that time no one has called me back, not even to tell me no. That is very rude and shows they don’t respect the community at large. I represent all of you and they know that so by not calling me back they of course don’t give a rats you know what about us, the people and members of the System i community. So let me say this is what you as customers should comes to expect from the fine Vision company.

So on Sept 7 they started a blog and posting something about HA and Banking, which I would like to point out they still have no idea about. We can get into that later…so with that said I know I posted a comment or two about the post, and they were of course a bit pointed but at the same time welcoming them to blogging. So far they have not posted anything new to the blog and also have not “approved” any comments. So I will come to some conclusions. First of all Visions Solutions is doing what we all expect from them, nothing!

They have always been a large lumbering company that has been unable to sell their own lump of software, so they purchased two other companies, tore them apart and punished them for being hard working until they quit rather than firing them with respect, and still can’t figure out how to sell their own software.

Lastly I urge you not to deal with the likes of Vision Solutions, people who used to run iTera and Lakeview are bailing out and off that sinking ship at a pretty nice clip. I got news the other day that the former owner of iTera has left and for some really good reasons which I have pointed out earlier in this post. Vision Solutions has turned his company, iTera, upside down. I have employees from all over each company calling me, emailing me and telling me the lackluster leadership that is coming out of Irvine California, home of Vision Solutions. They would rather people leave on their own then fire them with some type of package to take care of their families. I call that harassment and you can draw your own conclusions. What ever you call it, it’s just poor and sadly companies like Vision Solutions don’t care about people, then only care about making a profit and keeping the holding company happy.

Vision is bad and it would take a lot to convince me other wise. If I were looking at HA I would not be calling anyone associated with Vision Solutions. The decided to destroy the HA market in the System i and we should let them sink their own ship without any help from the System i Market. They are not good members of our community!

Shame on you Vision for doing what you have done. I hope that in the end some other company with morals and ethics comes in and purchases you and gets rid of the vermin that are destroying you and the lives of your employees. Karma is not something to be temped like you have over the last year!

Every time I post something “real” about Vision one of the Execs will call me and try to fix things and like a wimp I pull down the post, well not this time. If they do happen to call I am going to get the interview they have been promising me for the past year over and over again that I never seem to get.  I am tired of Vision ignoring the people the pander to. I am also not going to pull down another post because they call and promise me things that will never happen. I am a huge fan of the System i. Let me also define FAN, which is short for fanatic. While I am not huge about sports or other things people are fans of, I am a FAN of a few other things, I am a FAN about Apple, I am a FAN of Linux, I am a FAN of FreeBSD, and I am a Huge Fan of the System i, and as a FAN I see Vision Solutions as spoiler to my being a fanatic, more over they are trying as hard as they can to ruin the game we all admire and at the same time destroy what was once a very stable and competitive market.

This post is dedicated to all of the former and currently tortured employees of iTera, and Lakeview. You all worked your fingers to the bone only to be punished by Vision. I wish you all the best and would urge you to take your knowledge and skills and form a new HA company and never sell out to the like of a Vision.

“Fundamentally, Lotus Notes and Domino 8 aren’t about new mail and calendar features. Rather, this release is about a paradigm shift in the desktop client. Your inbox is now home base for integrating all types of business applications. A lot has already been said about the programming model, Lotus Expeditor 6.1.1, which employs eclipse.org open standards. So let’s spotlight the user experience and collaboration.”

Fundamentally, Lotus Notes and Domino 8 aren’t about new mail and calendar features. Rather, this release is about a paradigm shift in the desktop client. Your inbox is now home base for integrating all types of business applications. A lot has already been said about the programming model, Lotus Expeditor 6.1.1, which employs eclipse.org open standards. So let’s spotlight the user experience and collaboration.

Again I like this review. It’s more of an outsider review. I can and have been known to get wrapped up in Lotus and I want to like features that are pointless to most people because I see the big picture IBM is trying to get to. The DWA (Domino Web Access) is nice with Notes 8 as well. I hope IBM gets smart like Apple and other companies and offers the “widgets” that are able to plug into Sametime and Notes. They need to make it easy so that a community can create “widgets” and share them with others in Notes.

No it’s not German Steak Sauce. It’s what we Audi fans have all been waiting for. A sporty afforadable little Audi that is accessable to everyone.

Link to AudiWorld.com Audi A1      More Photos Here

That kind of snuck up on me. I didn’t see it coming with everything else that has been going on here.

So I will be trying to upgrade tonight and you can too.

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

His last Post is HERE

I am starting to think he is busy and we all run into that from time to time, but Trevor is always good about posting and I think that is what worries me.

Trevor Perry, white courtesy phone, Trevor Perry please come to the white courtesy phone and update your blog. 

So I am still trying to get my head around ideaJam but I like it. I think it’s inovative and smart plus damn good looking and running on a Domino Server to boot!

LINK 

“So you say you have a great idea on how to improve Lotus software products that you want to share with others? This is the place to post it. Others can then promote, demote and offer feedback about your idea. Popular ideas will bubble to the top.”

While it’s not secret. Smart people use Macs! ergo I use a Mac!

In less than 9 days the next version of MacOSX is coming out. You need to see what Apple does with this while Windows Vista flounders I am going to bet this flies off of the shelves. I have my order in, do you?

Highlights:

• Finder - Not new but improved!
• Quicklook - New!
  
• Desktop - Not New either but way cooler!
• Spaces - Much needed for busy Macs
• Time Machine - Windows has this but Apple perfected it.
• Parental Controls - Only on the Mac!

See all the new features HERE.

So I am not going to hide it from you, I think Gore is a dufuss!  He lied in his horrible movie and now he is being prasied for being a lyer. Just proof the world is going to hell in a hand basket.

Link to Article 

“…he theory that helped Al Gore share the Nobel Peace Prize “ridiculous” and the product of “people who don’t understand how the atmosphere works”…”

“We’re brainwashing our children,” said Dr Gray, 78, a long-time professor at Colorado State University. “They’re going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It’s ridiculous.”

Here is the IMPORTANT line:

But Dr Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicised, said a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures - related to the amount of salt in ocean water - was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place.

However, he said, that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years.

Had some trouble with the last post. Sorry about that. Sure hope everyone finds this one. The other post was jacking up the blog. Some kind of formatting problem.

So if your a Lotus Domino/Notes shop and your running R7 or even R6 you need to stop all the other crap you are doing and watch this video and upgrade this weekend, or at least come up with a plan. The Lotus you had yesterday is nothing like R8 of Lotus Notes. Your users will thank you doe the next year. If you using Outlook/Exchange then first of all I am sorry your company loves to waste money and you need to call IBM and have them give you “a talking to” as some of the boys down south would say.

Things to do this week:

1. Plan the upgrade
2. Test the R8 Notes Client
3. Educate your users
4. Upgrade
5. Take a year off for changing the world! You deserve it.

Here is an excellent new video showing some of the various ways you can access Lotus Notes in the upcoming 8.0.1 release. You get to see the new Domino Web Access, Domino Web Access Lite, Lotus Notes Traveler (push email/calendar/contacts to mobile devices), as well as Lotus Notes on a Blackberry.

So for all of you out there I have been on Notes 8 now and testing it. Lets just say it still have some issues, but they do not out-weight the significance of Notes 8. It is truly a damn good looking and well done client. I am going to give a 40K foot over view of some of the things I think need to be looked at.

• The Workspace Area is still dull and boring. Lotus needs to make it look shiny and new. I am tired of the old workspace look and feel. Please fix that up.
• Lotus Notes 8 and Blackberry do not play well together. The BES does not know what to do with the Notes 8 mail box either. There is a fix slated for next month and this may be why so many are not moving to Notes 8. I don’t know who was dragging their feet but the fact that both IBM and RIM knew this was coming and did nothing is sad.
• The Notes 8 template is nice but really not as feature rich as I would like it out of the box. I expected to be blown away and was not. in order to make Outlook cry “uncle” you have to step up to the template.
• Sametime is great I just want a way to use short names with one click not having to edit each person.
• I want the ability in Domino 8 NAB to be able to add a picture to the NAB entry and it show up in Sametime and in the NAB too. I don’t like the idea of editing the NAB to make the faces in Sametime work. Make this simple
• Please Lotus, and I know you have it on the table, get rid of the .id file. I knwo why you use it, but I do not know why you continue to use it.

I think that is all for now. I will post more as I find it.

I found this today as well. It’s pretty cool. I am a fan of Linux and think IBM is starting to get it when it comes to Linux. Here is a video of a guy using Lotus on Linux. Pretty nice.

“The Solution Editions of the System i product line have come full circle. Originally, the iSeries and System i5 Solution Edition machines were variants on regular Express configurations with OS/400 or i5/OS Enterprise Edition or Standard Edition that were preconfigured to support a reasonable number of users of popular ERP software for the platform. Then, in October 2006, IBM tested out the idea of user-based software pricing with special i5 520 Solution Edition machines. Last week, the user-priced System i5 525 was converted back to a Solution Edition for Oracle and SAP suites.”

Read “New System i 525 Solution Editions Debut, 570 Gets Tweaked”

And yes I am cheating this AM, I have read them and wanted to share. It’s what I do.