Category Archives: Uncategorized

(Originally posted 2007-04-16.) The agenda this time is chock full of great sessions. I’ve “marked my card” for every single session. Bob Hoey – marketing guy though he is – is giving a keynote speech that fills one with a lot of hope for the mainframe. (Bob, if you know nothing else about him, participatedContinue reading “European System z Technical Conference Begins”

(Originally posted 2007-03-23.) This year’s IBM System z Technical Conference is 16-20 April in Munich. Now I’ve got my three presentations together I can relax and have just perused the agenda: There are some very good sessions and some excellent speakers. My sessions are: Much Ado About CPU I’ve worked pretty hard to move theContinue reading “IBM System z Technical Conference 2007”

(Originally posted 2007-03-22.) Here’s a nice picture from the Minding the Planet blog:

(Originally posted 2007-03-20.) My good friend Linda August (of the IBM Washington Systems Center and previously of the global Performance Management team I was a member of) has written a very good paper (and an accompanying presentation she gave at SHARE in February). The theme is highly topical: The management of uniprocessor LPARs. Topical becauseContinue reading “An Excellent Paper on Uniprocessor Performance Management”

(Originally posted 2007-03-20.) I guess I must be part of the “ungrateful peasant” generation of computer geeks… I never really liked FORTRAN. And now John Backus who led the team that developed it is dead. For me the elegance of other languages biased my view – but that’s to miss the point: FORTRAN preceded them.Continue reading “John Backus RIP”

(Originally posted 2007-03-18.) Some time ago a colleague pointed Scratch out to me. It’s a programming environment for children. When I was a kid I kind of learnt programming from the Elsevier Monographs my Dad had on his bookshelf. He (who’s probably going to read this) gave them to me for safekeeping some time ago.Continue reading “Scratch – A Great Way To Teach Children Programming”

(Originally posted 2007-03-18.) Here’s an interesting BBC News Article: Vehicle warning system trialled. So let me see now, when we said the fridge would talk to the microwave – as everything would have an IP address – did we really envisage that they would Twitter? 🙂 Can you imagine “The Bloggings of an uncleaned fridge?”Continue reading “Not Just People Twittering – Vehicles As Well”

(Originally posted 2007-03-17.) Here’s a useful contribution to the debate about Twitter: From a friend’s blog. There’s much mileage in the comments – which is where the action really hots up. 🙂 Actually her blog is in general a good read – but maybe I’m biased as she’s a friend of mine. She’s a WebContinue reading “Twittering and Blogging”

(Originally posted 2007-03-16.) Twice the “128GB” question has come up in newsgroups (the latest in DB2-L). This sort of thing freaks people out – so let me tell you what I know of the matter… I was fortunate to attend the T3 for DB2 9 in February. This question came up in the context ofContinue reading “DB2 9 Memory Requirements”

(Originally posted 2007-03-14.) On Twitter I once followed Steve Wozniak – but it turned out not to be him. 😦 Now I’m following John Edwards (and it really does appear to be him). See his Twitter page. I say “it does appear to be him” because the twitterings seem to support that conclusion, plus thereContinue reading “Famous Names on Twitter – And Is It Going To Change The Face Of Politics?”