Author Archives: Martin Packer

(Originally posted 2011–04–21.) Thanks to Scott Drummond for reminding me of last Autumn’s DFSORT Function PTFs – UK90025 and UK90026. They’re mentioned in the preview for z/OS Release 13 so now is not such a bad time to be talking about them. So let me pick out a few highlights: Translation Between ASCII And EBCDIC,Continue reading “DFSORT – Now With Extra Magical Ingredients”

(Originally posted 2011–04–20.) William Gibson’s “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed” applies very well to HTML5. It’s even more true of CSS3. Despite that (or maybe because of it) it’s a good time to dive into HTML5 – before everyone else does. 🙂 So, a few months ago IContinue reading “HTML5 Up and Running – A Review Of Sorts”

(Originally posted 2011–04–19.) I wouldn’t want you to decide not to come to Vienna, just because I’ve made my slides available on Slideshare: I’d hope you’d come to Vienna anyway. It’s a great place and it’s going to be a great conference. Lots of people can’t make Vienna and I don’t suppose having the slidesContinue reading “My Slides Are Ready For Vienna”

(Originally posted 2011-04-15.) Every once in a while I come across a particularly good idea: Where someone has done something particularly clever to solve a problem. Here’s one very recent example: On the iPhone (and iPod touches) you can only display icons. They can be augmented with a numeric counter, but that’s all. (The ideaContinue reading “I’m A Sucker For Ingenuity”

(Originally posted 2011–04–12.) First a word of thanks to Ferdy for his insightful comment on Batch Architecture, Part Zero. And also to my IBM colleague Torsten Michelmann for his offline note on the subject. As I indicated in Part Zero I hoped to talk about jobs in a subsequent post. And this is that post.Continue reading “Batch Architecture, Part One”

(Originally posted 2011–04–11.) I’m working on my presentations for System z Technical University – Vienna, May 2–6 and I’m reviewing the agenda. As well as my four presentations there are lots of other goodies. These range from the Management level down to the purely technical. (I guess mine are towards the latter end of theContinue reading “IBM System z Technical University – Vienna, May 2-6”

(Originally posted 2011-04-04.) Inspired by two of Bob Leah’s posts on QR Codes – here and here I started experimenting with creating and consuming QR codes. But what is a QR  code? In short it’s a two-dimensional barcode that can contain e.g plain text or a URL. In the latter case a QR code readerContinue reading “Experimenting With QR Codes”

(Originally posted 2011-03-30.) In 2007 I posted twice on memory metrics. The original posts are Memory Metrics Now That z/OS Release 8 Is Upon Us and Mor(e )on UIC I should probably have posted an update some time ago. In the latter I said "Obviously copious free frames would suggest no constraint." That’s true butContinue reading “Memory Metrics – An Overdue Update”

(Originally posted 2011-03-29.) I’m not an architect. I don’t even play one on TV. 🙂 In fact real architects would probably say I’m in the babble phase, architecturewise. But I’ve been involved in a few situations over the past year or so (and I’m involved in a couple starting round about now) which have ledContinue reading “Batch Architecture, Part Zero”

(Originally posted 2011-03-25.) I hope you do. Special thanks are due to Bob Leah, Victoria Ovens and David Salinas for getting me this far: Bob created the new template I’m using (and it is discussed further here. Victoria created the new blog header graphic (of a z196 and a zBX) and David put it upContinue reading “Do You Like The New Look?”