System i Addict

Big news in the IBM i market. Help/Systems acquires PowerTech.

Link to News on The Four Hundred

I have someone in my list of people I trust asking me if I know anyone in or around Denver or Salt Lake that is looking for a Job being a Senior System i Admin for a Bank in the Rocky Mountains, they run JackHenry’s software and you are going to need to move to the Colorado.

Oh and one last thing, they are a Lotus Notes shop so if you read this blog and are a fan of Lotus then I think you will be happy, you will have to convince them to run it on IBM i but knowing how stable the IBM i is you can help them out, they run Lotus Domino on Windows right now…

If you want to be considered I have the inside track to the IT team, send me your resume and I will forward it on and get you some exposure.

-David

david dot vasta at gmail dot com

So I got my session evals from COMMON. I didn’t do all that bad, but one comment made me laugh and sad. First it was my first year giving everything but, Do You Ubuntu? So all this material is stuff I know just need to work on the delivery, hey cut me some slack!

This comment was from my Shell Scripting Session:

“This session was a waste of time. The instructor is an embarrassment to IBM!”

My Comments: I didn’t that I did so bad I embarrassed IBM, good lord, do you think they know I am an embarrassment. The joke here is I don’t work for IBM and the last time I was even remotely connected to the was when I was a contractor in 1998. While I have been an embarrassment to many people in my life I didn’t know I stunk so bad as to offend a company that has nothing to do with me, and for that matter I am probably an embarrassment to Blogging too….

Thanks for the comments. Shell Scripting while important is not my best session, yet it got one of the nastiest comments and some of the better scores, hell the session I thought I knocked out of the park got crappy reviews. The Bloggers session was “average”. Lordy lordy we are in trouble.

I also got some other more useful and correct comments like:

“David is a great speaker and knowledgeable. “ - WOW thanks!
“Very simple and well shown - thanks! ” - That is nice
“Was very good. Was late and seemed a bit unprepared. Could be a great presenter. “ - In my defense I could not find the room? But at least I could be great!
“Found out about Web min - good tool!” - Webmin Rocks!
“We could have used more time, great handout.” - I miss being with you too!

So it’s not everyday that an IBM vendor gets nominated for advertising, and I know IBM might never fall into that category. It’s a cold hard fact of life. IBM has never attempted to really be bold in advertising. I digress. Bytware on the other hand has made is a bad habit to be bold, and to make advertising campaigns that “suck you in” and hold you captive until you reach the bloody end. They have gone the normal route and given away things over the years but the recent ads and videos on YouTube have been fun. NEWS

Link to System i News Blog Post

Please sign up on the Webbey Awards site and vote for them. I really want to see them win and it would only make other i based companies think about doing more to reach the world and not just the 7 customers they have now.

Also take a look at the i5Virus Game.

LINK to STORY

I was just at COMMON in Nashville with Al as most of you were. This past Friday Al Barsa Jr. passed away. I had to read it a few times as I did not think it was right or maybe it was some other Al Barsa but in the LIST I found people talking about it. I would like to send out my heart felt condolences to the Barsa family, this must have come as a shock. Al did not look great at COMMON this year and had a band-aid over his right eye the entire time. Sad sad news.

Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t get to talk to Scott as much as I would like but I get to hear about Scott plenty. He is one of the nicest people I know. He is alwasy wiling to help and he comes to COMMON for the people. He is here to help. Chris Maxcer got a chance to talk with him and this is what Scott said.

Thanks Scott for what you do. You a very kind person to give as much as you do. The community moves forward because you share what you know.

Since I started in this career path in 1990 I was constantly told by “others” the AS/400 is dead, then the iSeries is dead, after that the System i is dead. So now it’s dead right?

Wrong.

It’s larger than all the other systems in it’s space.Today during the Town Hall Meeting at COMMON, Mark Shearer released a gigantic can of industrial sized whoop ass on the competition. I know I have said it before and I meant it but this is the right move at the right time. The System p and System i become POWER. The i5/OS has become i, yeap just i. See it’s simple.

Mark showed a slide that was one of my favorites, where is showed IBM Power trending up while HP and SUN were both trending down and not even close to the number of installations or server IBM had. This gap is going to grow wider now and anyone thinking of moving off the i to Sun or HP should be sent home and consider a new line of work. IBM is the owner of the midrange space and now with a entry level server and a blade that runs any of three OSes, i, AIX, and Linux is just way to powerful a statement for the Solaris and HPUX people to ignore.

also showed off the Power blades for the “S” Blade Center. The idea some 18 years ago of running a i on a card about the size of an old SPD card or laptop was a silly thought. Now if I wanted to put my Websphere AIX server, my JD Edwards i server and my Linux File and print server all in one foot print with disk I can and I can do it with POWER. So what about Windows? You can place intel based bladed in the “S” and run it there too, right next to the i, AIX, and Linux.

What does David think about this move?

We now have a name that can work for the OS/400, i5/OS and it’s i, just i and it works for me. The i is for buisness logo is awesome. All the new logos are awesome and very nVidia like. I have been in the loop with IBM and nothing they have told me about today has made me think negative things at all. These changes are all what most of the forward thinking people in the community have been thinking all along.

As I get more details I will share them, the event was worth the price of admission. I am a proud member of the i community and today was what most people call an industry earthquake. IBM took it’s most powerful assets and leveraged them into POWER!

We hop to see many many more combined advertising and educational activities in the future, while IBM promised it I still don’t know if they have a plan. This was all very fuzzy and very PC at the same time. I would have liked to have seen a plan for advertising, and after years of being blasted for not doing much you would have thought they would have shown up with a marketing plan. That would be my only comment about the new release.

Lastly someone at IBM needs to take the i OS and find all the places where it says AS/400, OS/400, iSeries, System i, or anything other than POWER or i to remove it. The i needs a clean up.

IBM also released what has to be some of the best looking logos to date and I will post them all soon.
Thanks IBM for a great COMMON!

Sorry Ken no Video Card, but I can tell you this is way better!

Maxed Out - Please head over and read what Chris has written. He puts it all in such wonderful words.

So the TOWN HALL MEETING they usually have on Sunday is today. I will post an update ASAP if anything comes out of this meeting. I have a feeling that because of the timing, in that they changed the date and bumped sessions to do it there is going to be significant information.

I found my new friends at COMMON this year!

I have been wearing my kilt at COMMON every year since San Antonio which I think was 2004 sometime. I love wearing my kilt and at this COMMON there is a booth or company that has decided to sport a kilt or two, or even four.

ARCAD Software 

So as you may have read I did my first session yesterday. I have the day off today. So I have spent a fair amount of time practicing my session and at the same time have been rewriting them. I think I was trying to pack to much into them and in the end I am cheating the people who showed up for my session. I don’t want to do that.I have 3 sessions left to give and I am working on all three. The “Do you Ubuntu?” session is pretty much in the bag and I am making sure it flows right. The other two Linux Administration and Shell Scripting are in a huge state of flux right now. Hours before they are being delivered and I am nervous. I know I should have done this months ago, but with a new job, travel almost every week, moving from Denver to Charlotte, and a six year old I have been a bit busy and while I try to make time to work on them it’s never enough time. Wish me luck! 

While on the COMMON floor I was able to look at the new System i Power Blades that IBM is saying will fit in your current “H” & “S” blade centers. It’s a four core Power6 blade that you can use any number of ways. It’s important to me because now I have my “pizza box” and they are also talking about a 2 core blade on the way that will of course be much like a System i 515 or 520 depending on how you use it.

As a Lotus person now I get excited about the oddest things. I would love to get about 3 new 4 core bladed and run a few Domino servers on them on System i and System p? Wouldn’t that be fun?

I have made a post on my other blog about what I am presenting @ COMMON this year and some of my plans. I would like for you to head over there and take a look.Link : ITKE Presenting at COMMON 

I like to see a man who gets into his own work. I really like to see a man who gets into his System i RPG work!

Link to YouTube Movie 

I need some help people!

I need access to a System i for some very small tasks. Mostly to build screen shots of items I am going to be training on, and while we have a few at the company I work for gaining access is rather restricted. Soooo, if any of you know of a System i I can share, not abuse, just look around and write some QSHELL scripts them please let me know about it either in the comments on the post or you can email me. If you know of a service then post it here. I would like to know more.

I try not to get to “big headed” about my status in the System i community and other technical things. I have always had a profound respect for favorite my aussie blogger, Mr. Trevor Perry, and I have know him to sound a little like Angus the IT Chap at times as well.I just found out that I will be presenting at COMMON this year with Trevor,and oh what and honor that will be. I think Trevor is the reason I started all of this.There are many other fine bloggers that I hope we can have there as well and pay them some respect too. I would love to see everyone who attends COMMON show up and give us feedback, but I am not sure how that will happen without giving away a new System i Express to each of them. 

Here is a link to what I will be presenting at COMMON this year.Link : David Vasta 

So I am now confirmed to present at COMMON this year in Nashville. I am reworking all the sessions a bit to make them “much more better” as Captain Jack Sparrow would have put it. Here is the list of what I am presenting. Mostly Linux on System i and Do you Ubuntu?

Well, I asked and I shall receive. someone delivered System i tools for Linux. It’s about time. Help/Systems has put out some tools for the System i that can run on the Linux.

I will try to get my head around what it does and what the cost is over the next few weeks.

“Robot/CLIENT acts as agent software running on non-System i servers, including Windows and UNIX. It checks server operational status, receives job status information, launches processes, monitors server applications and services, and transfers data. With Linux support, users can integrate their Linux servers into their System i procedures.”

Link to Search400 Blog

I have taken the bait thrown out by the richeous dudes @ Search400.com and will let you all know that Vision Solutions, whom I have disdain for, has added a former Microsoft board member to their board of directors. While I could spend all day why Microsoft is now like the Titanic, and no one is concerned with it ability to sink, I will not. And I could spend the rest of that day telling you how Vision Solutions has a horrible reputation for treating employees of newly acquire companies like “poop”. I will not, but it seems odd that they would add someone like Robert J. Herbold to the BoD at a time like this.

Robert J. Herbold, while I do not know much about him and at this point think this is one of those pay no attention to the man behind the curtain moves it smells of political glad handing. I do wish Robert J. Herbold luck I don’t know what he can do to improve the over all tarnished standing of a company they gobbles up other small competition just because they can’t beat them….oh now the move all makes sense….

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.