Author Archives: Martin Packer

(Originally posted 2019-01-01.) While some beer was tasted over the vacation period, this post is about a different kind of tap. During my Xmas and New Year holiday I’ve been experimenting with ways of kicking off automation that don’t involve talking to a device, or tapping on it, or typing anything. Specifically what you canContinue reading “Automation On Tap”

(Originally posted 2018-12-11.) I seem to spend a lot of time working with DB2 DDF, and it’s no wonder: Many modern applications accessing DB2 are built using it, whether through JDBC 1 or some other connective software. This post is a by-product of a serious customer situation with DDF Performance, which I don’t intend toContinue reading “DDF TCB Revisited”

(Originally posted 2018-12-08.) We released this episode a few days ago. But I only got round to writing this post today, 5 days later. That’s because I (and probably half of our listenership 🙂 ) were involved in a rather urgent piece of customer business. There are some learning points from that one, but that’sContinue reading “Mainframe Performance Topics Podcast Episode 21 “Fits and Starts””

(Originally posted 2018-11-10.) I’ve moved from editing audio on my Mac with Audacity to editing it on my iPad with Ferrite. So I thought I’d give you my impression of Ferrite. And this is an early impression. In some ways I’m as much interested in encouraging people to record as anything else. The more voicesContinue reading “Appening 7 – Ferrite Audio Editor On iOS”

(Originally posted 2018-10-31.) Recently I wrote code to “flatten” SMF 89 records – in REXX.1 Now I want to share with you some of the insights I’ve acquired from early experiments with the data.2 There are three things I’d like to share with you that you might not realise you can get from SMF TypeContinue reading “Three Early SMF 89 Results”

(Originally posted 2018-10-30.) Episode 20 marked a departure in editing terms… Previously I’d been adding chapter markers in Ferrite on iOS and editing the sound on my Mac using Audacity. However, as you’ll see in the Feedback section, some listeners wanted less aggressive (or even no) stereo. This is much easier to achieve in FerriteContinue reading “Mainframe Performance Topics Podcast Episode 20 “Two Is One And One Is None””

(Originally posted 2018-10-13.) About 18 months ago I built some automation on Mac that I found rather handy. Since I mentioned it on various forums people have wanted it – or at least to know how I built it. Given its extensibility as a method, it seemed more appropriate to dedicate this post to howContinue reading “Invoking Keyboard Maestro From PopClip”

(Originally posted 2018-10-10.) I can’t say I’ve learnt much about screencasting since I published Screencast 12 – Get WLM Set Up Right For DB2 but it’s certainly been a while. I have, of course, learnt quite a bit about other stuff. So I just released Screencast 13 – Topology Today. It pulls together a coupleContinue reading “Screencast 13 – Topology Today”

(Originally posted 2018-10-06.) This summer has seen the most travel I think I’ve ever done, and I would imagine Marna feels much the same. We like to record together – which has made the logistics difficult. We actually met in the summer but thought recording in the same room would be difficult. We’ve stayed withContinue reading “Mainframe Performance Topics Podcast Episode 19 “You’ve Lost That Syncing Feeling””

(Originally posted 2018-09-23.) This post is an update to Batch DB2 And MQ The Easy Way, which I wrote back in 2016. There’s nothing wrong with what I wrote then – but there’s something extra I want to impart now. In that post I said you can answer the question “What are the big CPUContinue reading “MQ Batch CPU”