How to ge the Economy on track…..

How to ge the Economy on track…..

While I am not some brilliant economist, you can see that from the title of the blog. I am just one tech guy living in Charlotte who is concerned about the world and the economy right now. I have posted before how much I want to see it turn around fast and I don’t understand how the failures of a few people have impacted the world this much. I also think we had a bit of a perfect storm of things that lead to this. For the most part the damage is done. I don’t think anyone had a silver bullet, ut in my house we don’t increase anything by spending more, we cut back and increase our savings or capital.

I have to wonder how the companies like IBM and HP are dealing with the lack of sales? I also wonder what the world needs right now so that we could get the world out there spending again? What will kick start the economy? I am sure looking back in we will all know what solved it, sadly my crystal ball is broken but I am sure it’s going to start with some big time spending some place. We just need to get back to spending, and not at Wal-Mart, but on a bigger level.

If we think happy thoughts will the economy get better?

If we think happy thoughts will the economy get better?

I am not one to “think happy thoughts” or be positive for the sake of being positive. I do think there is something to it, but it’s a hard pill for me to swallow sometimes. I have to firmly disagree with all the economist and politicians and let them all know they are wrong about the bad economy.

Dead wrong!

Why would I say that? I am a under-educated IT guy from Savannah, GA who scratched and clawed his way in IT over the past 20 years, and not a classically trained economist. I can tell you all this, while there are people who are out of work and there are indicators of some sore spots in the economy. I can provide you this bit of light.

In Charlotte the local malls have been packed. I mean like Christmas time. They are always busy. Either a lot of people are mall walking or there is some economic spending going on. There is a new IKEA in Charlotte and while I know people are excited to see it open and are seeing what it’s all about. There has been a traffic jam in that part of the world for over a week now. You can’t get in and out without a huge wait. They have a shuttle set up to get you to and from.  If the economy were really bad would people be traveling on the weekends? Would they not stay home and conserve?

I think this whole bad economy thing is real, but I have to wonder how much is just between our ears, well at least some between our ears.

I am not trying to po-po the facts, but if we start thinking happy thoughts maybe the economy will come back and we can get back to working hard instead of worrying about if we will have a job tomorrow!

DAOS Estimator from IBM for Lotus Domino 8.5

If you are paying attention then IBM has recently delivered Lotus 8.5, and let me be the last to tell you. It’s good. It’s really good. It’s on pace for being the best thing since R5 (R5 was a huge leap forward at the time.)

There is a new Domino Attachment Object Service that looks at email with attachments and removes them, places a link in the mail and stores them centrally on the Domino Server. The DAOS is a huge step in the right direction and places Domino and Lotus on par with being the best darmed mail server and client combo alive right now.

For those, like me, who can’t upgrade to 8.5 today, you can download the DAOS Estimator for every OS that Domino runs on and find out what your saving will look like. Lotus and IBM project it’s well into the 40 - 50 % mark, and this is what people have been reporting(LINK1 LINK2).

LINK :: Download the Domino Attachment and Object Service Estimator Tool version 1.2

Note: You don’t have to have 8.5 installed on the server for it to work. All you have to do is install the tool from IBM.

COMMON giving back - 5K Race/Walk & Blood Drive

You will not catch me at the blood drive. I have a fear of needles and blood and while I am typing this I am breaking out in a cold sweat. I know it’s ok to see blood and needles are just medicines great technological advances, but I must have been a CIVIL WAR solider reincarnate who had one of those half in needles and lost a limb, because I hate them all.

On the other side, I am also not a runner, but I would like to try to run all 5K of it. I am getting in shape and would love to see a good turn out for the event. So sign up now and race me to the end. I am planning on winning it. Wouldn’t that be grand, 5′11′ stout man from NC wins 5K technology race…I can smell the gatorade already!

LINK :: COMMON Cares - 5K Run/Walk and Blood Drive

Public Service :: COMMON is coming to RENO

Are you going to be in RENO? I am!

COMMON is having it’s convenetion in RENO and you need to be there. If you are an IBM i or an AIX person looking for POWER solutions, please come to the COMMON Annual Meeting in RENO, NV this year. We would love to have you.

LINK :: COMMON in RENO

IT needs the POWER Platform

Right now IT in the world needs the IBM POWER Platform, yet no one is getting the message. Right now we are being told there is an economic downturn and that companies are cutting back. The timing is perfect for IBM to load up the guns and go big game hunting. Now is the time to crush Microsoft. Now is the time to put SUN out of their misery. Now is the time for everyone to run the POWER Platform.

But I don’t see it coming out of IBM. I don’t hear the gun rack being filled with weapons. I don’t see the legions of bloggers talking about how easy it is to consolidate servers into one platform and manage it all with one HMC. I see companies buying more Windows Servers and More small pizza box servers with SAN attached. I want to think that IBM is sneaking around in the middle of the night spreading the word, but I can’t find it on their events calendar or anywhere on the their web site.

Everyone is looking to save money, go green and all IBM has is a few adds with cartoon rabbits and green leafed vines, while more and more intel servers are being added to the data center and at what cost?

If IBM were on top of things and were trying to save the world would they not be on every TV show and every night telling the world how they can save IT. I want them to save IT, I want to go GREEN, I want there to be flowers and rabbits in my data center. Problem is sometimes I think IBM is having trouble drinking thier own coolaid. Sometimes I think IBM knows they need to explain it to everyone and consolidate all the POWER Servers into one platform, but I think they are afraid of being bold and over bearing. Hell Microsoft does it everyday with crap products, why can’t IBM do it with decent upstanding software and hardware we can all use?

DragonFlyBSD 2.2 is out

For those of you who are wondering…why is David talking about BSD? I am a closet BSD Fan. I am just in love with it. While the rest of the world is out lov’in on Linux and Ubuntu ( I do love them too..) and I one who would rather see BSD make it into Enterpise IT and more widley accepted.

The Developers at DragonFlyBSD are working hard to get this out and working. Hope you enjoy the new release. I know I can’t wait to get home.

LINK :: DragonFlyBSD 2.2 is out and ready for Download

DragonFly Release 2.2 - 17 February 2009

The DragonFly 2.2 release is here! The HAMMER filesystem is considered production-ready in this release; It was first released in July 2008. The 2.2 release represents major stability improvements across the board, new drivers, much better pkgsrc support and integration, and a brand new release infrastructure with multiple target options.

Three release options are now available: Our bare-bones CD ISO, a DVD ISO which includes a fully operational X environment, and a bare-bones bootable USB disk-key image (less than 512M).

AiX Most Secure UNIX & MacOSX is the least secure

“Me Sad!” as my rough and tumble nephew in Colorado would say.

Well I am kind of sad and kind of happy in that AiX, which is an IBM product, is the most secure. I would have thought OpenBSD would have been the top pick.

LINK :: OSNews - IBM: ‘AIX Most Secure, Mac OS X Least Secure’

“It’s time for another security report. You know, those reports that tally vulnerabilities, and then plot or graph them in such a way that their benefactors or clients come out most favourably. Ok, that might be a bit cynical, but fact remains that there is usually something wrong with such reports. The one that’s making its rounds across the internet today is certainly one of them. According to IBM, AIX is the most secure operating system, and Mac OS X the least secure. Not only is the report rather slim on details when it comes to operating system vulnerabilities, it seems like most websites reporting on this story have misunderstood what it was about.”

UCLA - FDR’s policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate

LINK :: UCLA - FDR’s policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate

While this has nothing to do with the IBM i or POWER Systems, it has everything to do with the IBM i and POWER Systems. We can’t afford what OBAMA and the Government is offering right now. It would cripple the world as we know extend the problems for years to come.

Holy Countersuit Apple Man!

I know, I know…..It’s not IBM i news, but Apple once used a POWER chip and I am a hug fan of MacOSX. Pystar won round one of the countersuit in court the other day. Apple I would think is not worried, but this has serious implications, and now there is a company in Gernamy doing the same thing Pystar was doing……

“February 8, 2009 (Computerworld) A federal judge last week ruled that Psystar Corp. can continue its countersuit against Apple Inc., giving the Mac clone maker a rare win in its seven-month-old battle with Apple.

He also hinted that if Psystar proves its allegations, others may then be free to sell computers with Mac OS X already installed.

In an order signed on Friday, U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup gave Psystar the go-ahead to amend its lawsuit against Apple. According to Alsup, Psystar may change that countersuit, which originally accused Apple of breaking antitrust laws, to instead ague that Apple has stretched copyright laws by tying the Mac operating system to its hardware.”