David on System i

Jul 18 2008   6:15AM GMT

Boring IBM i Week

Posted by: David Vasta
David on System i, i for business, i on Power, IBM i, i

I have not posted anything this week as I think it’s been a pretty boring week in IBM i land. So while other IBM I news people have the inside scoop and time to call every vendor I am all alone digging for scraps of really meaningless information about the IBM i.

 

There is a set of articles coming from me to be posted on Search400.com about Linux. You can find all kinds of information about Linux and how to get started in Linux, but I was writing it for the IBM i people out there. I wanted to give you a quick and dirty on getting started with Linux on POWER.

 

The IBM i or AS/400 birthday party has come and gone. IBM didn’t invite yours truly and I still to this day don’t know why.

 

System i Network recently posted an article in the monthly magazine about being an i evangelist and didn’t mention me either. They did however mention Trevor Perry, but you can’t not talk able being an evangelist and not mention him. I would have thought the same went for me, but since I have in the past been very vocal with the System i Network magazine I think they still, or at least it the only way I can explain it, hold a grudge about me criticizing their publication.

 

To set the record straight, I think the System i Network is by far the best thing in print right now. The have a great staff and great writers. They have turned the magazine around, the web site and a huge, never-ending supply of IBM I and now POWER information and I think they are poised to be apart of the larger POWER community that is coming. Good Luck to the System I News and Penton Media!

 

I will find something to post about I promise.

Jun 23 2008   10:31PM GMT

IBM i (AS/400) turns 20!

Posted by: David Vasta
Happy Birthday AS/400, David on System i, IBM i, IBM News

It was almost 20 years ago when I got into IT, and my first desktop PC was an IBM AS/400 e90…I think it cost $3 Million. I of course was sharing it with 700 other users, but what a great beast!

I just wanted to wish the IBM i (AS/400) a very Happy Birthday, next year we can all go out drinking!

Link to Chris Maxcer’s Blog about the Birthday and IBM 

-Oh I was not invited to the events in Rochester this week and to say I am hurt is an understatment. From the leading IBM i Blogger on the web to, some goofball at in Charlotte writting about technology. It’s a long fall!

Jun 22 2008   2:52AM GMT

Scott Klement Honored with Gary Guthrie Writing Award

Posted by: David Vasta
David on System i, IBM i, IBM News

Link to Post

 ”At the recent System iNEWS annual editorial conference in Boulder, Colorado, Scott Klement, tech editor extraordinaire, was honored with the Gary Guthrie Award for Excellence in Technical Writing, for his October 2007 System iNEWS article titled “RPG Rules.” The award goes to writers who exemplify the best in technical writing, content, and service to the System i community. Scott’s young son, Alex, proudly helped Dad accept the award. Way to go, Scott!”

Way to go Scott, Gary would have agreed. I was lucky to work with Gary at REAL Solutions and he always loved to share, just like Scott does, the award could not have gone to a more deserving person. I am kind of choked up right now. Bravo Zulu!

Jun 22 2008   2:48AM GMT

New Site is coming

Posted by: David Vasta
David on System i, i for business, i on Power, IBM i, AIX on Power, Domino on System i, i, Linux in System i, System i, Apple, SUN, Linux, FreeBSD, Ubuntu, Lotus, Linux on POWER, Lotus News, OpenSolaris, POWER Systems

I am working on a new site, so between work, this site, writting for Search400 (which I hope they change the name of soon) and family, I have also found little time to start building a new site that will in the end be a hub for all things POWER based. I have to bring the community together under one web site.

So with that said, I am going to need people to provide content for the site. I need really dedicated insane people to help build the community from all parts of this equation. IBM i, AIX, Linux on Power, and POWER hardware. We need to come together in a big way and share. I am also going to cover Lotus, Ubuntu, OpenSolaris, OpenSuSE, FreeBSD and other things that interest me that I think are changing the way IT does IT.

Please send me an email and I will get you in on the fun, and if you know Joomla that would be great too…I am no expert on that CMS kit.

Jun 13 2008   12:49PM GMT

IBM i Power Blades not selling….YET?

Posted by: David Vasta
IBM i, David on System i, i on Power, i, IBM POWER Blades, AIX on Power, System i, News, Linux, POWER Systems

COMMON 2008 announced the POWER platform. Which is of course just brilliant. The IBM i is now just an OS, and to beat all that IBM released some new blades that are POWER based, so in fact you could run any of the the greatest OSes on the face of the earth on them, IBM i, AIX, or Linux, so why are they not selling. I think it’s just a matter of time and IBM doing what they don’t do best, marketing.

I have tried everything to get the company I work for to replace some older System i units with Power Blades but they have the same fears that is pointed out by this article by Mark Fontecchio.

I would urge anyone who has a need for 515 and 525(520) based server to really take a long hard look at blades. I think over time you will see the blades are actually cheaper.

Jun 5 2008   2:40PM GMT

IBM Eye

Posted by: David Vasta
Other Blogs, David on System i, i on Power, IBM News, i, System i

I found this blog the other day and find it interesting. I just wanted to share it with you and hope you all enjoy it too.

LINK - IBM Eye 

May 20 2008   1:11AM GMT

What do you call your AS/System iSeries 400 in your IT shop?

Posted by: David Vasta
David on System i, i for business, i on Power, i, System i

I like every one still call the i all kinds of things. Which is of course bad but I like others in the industry want to know the following things?

1. What do you call the i now?
2. What do you call the i in conversations with peers?
3. What do you call the i in conversations with executives or senior level staff?
4. What do you call the i in private?
5. What do you call me in private?
6. Is the name change to i a good one?
7. Do you like the idea of one price on box?
8. Do you also run AIX in your IT shop?
9. Does it make you crazy when others call it the AS/400?
10. Does it make you crazy when others call it the iSeries?
11. Do you get a warm felling when someone says I still have a System/36?

I can go ahead and get the ball rolling:

1. i
2. i or System i
3. i or AS/400 - Most of them still call it the AS/400 so when in Rome…..I try to say AS/400 or i and then always say i
4.  My little treasure
5. David
6. Yes
7. Yes
8. I have and would if I could YES!
9. YES - CRAZY!
10. Not Really but YES
11. Of course - but not like if they said Macintosh Classic II

May 20 2008   1:03AM GMT

2008 IT Leaders Forum in Denver, CO

Posted by: David Vasta
David on System i, i for business, i on Power, IBM News, i, System i

Link to Site

Make sure you reserve your place at the 2008 IT Leaders Forum in Denver. If you are in Denver, and I know some of you are, this would be a great place to meet other IT Leaders from around the country. It looks like it will be a blast and has some really great speakers too.

“Combine business with pleasure at the 2008 IT Leaders Forum in beautiful Colorado! Enjoy the unmatched scenery and summer activities and learn from the industry’s top experts.”

May 16 2008   2:45PM GMT

Slow Tech Week

Posted by: David Vasta
David on System i, i, System i, Linux, Ubuntu, Just Blogging

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. It’s been a slow boring tech week for me here and I have been pondering what I should post about all week and I have a big empty bag of nothing to post about. At least not much in the POWER or i arena.

I am now living in Charlotte, NC and it’s kind of the home of NASCAR now and this week has been ALL-STAR week so not much going on here with that either. Sadly the city does not seem to give two winks about placing some local hype around the fact that the largest sporting event in the US right now is having it’s ALL-STAR weekend and you live here right next to all the fun,  maybe you should come on out. Instead we get nothing. I think Charlotte has mis-managed the presents of NASCAR int he area and forgets it brings over 1 Billion dollars to the state every year.  Once again local cities and state governments ignore the people. So that has nothing to do with tech but I thought about it all week and I read and searched for any information about NASCAR in Charlotte this week.

I did happen to find an old Navy buddy of mine this week after searching for him for over a decade (My Listing). He is just a few hours away. It was one of the highlights of my week. Stew and I spent our first three commands together and I really missed just cutting up with Stew. He is a blast most days and pretty easy going. If you have been in the service go check out Together We Served. They have one for each branch of service so it should be an easy way to connect up with others. ARMY NAVY AIR FORCE MARINE. For a small annual fee you get to be a full member and I think it’s well worth the cost.

The OLPC project I think is way over-rated. Way to much press on it and I think it all depresses me. I had the opportunity to use one recently and was not impressed with it and think while the idea is good and it’s nice it’s not vapor wear  but I don’t think it’s making it to the hands of the people who need it. I have nothing to support that only there are no big stories about thousands of kids in far off places getting big shipments of OLPCs? I could be wrong.

Ubuntu 8.04 is out and you all knew that but what I have not done is installed it on my PC at home. I have a pretty nice gaming rig, it has an ASUS mother board AMD 6000 64bit Dual Core CPU, 2 GB or RAM, 2 MSI nVidia 8600 GTS Over clocked Video Cards in SLi mode and some other stuff. I like to play America’s Army, COD4, and a few other games. It’s a nice rig and plays them all really well without glitches. I use XP as my OS on that machine. Ubuntu 7.10 and 7.04 would work once I installed the the second video card and placed the SLi strap on it. Ubuntu just was angry about that arrangement. So I had given up in it. I would run Ubuntu Server on a VM on my Mac and call it a day.  So I installed Ubunut 8.04 and you know what, it didn’t die or not work. Ubuntu 8.04 works, and i have the nVidia driver loaded and all seems well. I didn’t have some trouble with the boot loader but fixed it after a few minutes of working on it. The average user would have been stumped but there is a Super GRUB kit that helped me fix it. So me and Ubuntu are pals again.

I mostly tinker on Ubuntu as MacOSX is my main computer on my MacBook PRO but I have to use Linux for some things and I like to help out other Linux people from time to time so Ubuntu is working good for me most days. I considered moving to OpenSuSE but still don’t like what they have done with KDE. It’s ugly and to confusing. KDE 3 is a huge mess and I have not played with KDE 4 yet in hopes they get the ugly out before I see it.

Top Gear is my new TV addiction. I don’t watch that much TV but I have just fallen head over heals for the BBC program called TOP GEAR. I have watched in the past and have always enjoyed it but lately I have just really gotten into the show and even made a purchase from the web site to let people know “I AM NOT THE STIG”

I seem to spend a small amount of each day keeping up with my “peeps”, and one of the site where I like to keep track of people is LinkedIN. If you are not on LinkedIN please go sign up today. It’s a great site to help you find your way around and seek out new people who you can interact with on a business level.

Well that is all for me right now. I hope this makes up for not posting much. I am sure I will get a stern talking to by the HEAD BLOGGER about not posting. It was just a pretty boring week for me in IT, and I tried and tried to find something to share but could not bring myself to think anything was interesting. IBM did some releases this week with the i and I think they approved LTO4 for the i, but that is boring too in that it should have been out months ago when the LTO4 was released. Oh well….see nothing exciting.

May 6 2008   2:28AM GMT

Learning from Microsoft’s Mistakes

Posted by: David Vasta
i, MySQL on i, PHP on i, David on System i, i on Power, Linux in System i, i for business

Now I am no developer, and when I say NO I mean NO so I am going to need some help making the connection. Seems as if the move for developers from Windows XP to Vista was a big one and may have been mishandled by Microsoft. Are we as an i community doing the same thing? Should we abandon RPG, COBOL, FORTRAN for the likes of JAVA, PHP and C?

Now being someone who likes new and shiny things I would say yes. I think the i attaching itself to PHP and MySQL is a step in the right direction and of course IBM have no idea how to foster that growth, and when I say that I mean no disrespect to IBM but, IBM sucks at build new communities. They don’t make things open source, and they don’t see FREE as a way to help. The recent Lotus movement where after OpenNTF being open for god knows how long now gets some attention from IBM is truly sad.

IBM should of course support the older languages, but should really place more emphasis on the new technology that is going to drive the system into a new era. Are we as i people destined for the same ill reputation as Microsoft and Vista because we are not “done right” and are not “hip” and a bit “free”. It’s time for IBM to really take a long hard look at the POWER platform and the OSes it runs and figure out how to tackle the next 20 years of growth. I can say PHP, C, MySQL, Python, AJAX, JAVA and other fancy words but how to get get them inside the i before it to late?