Wednesday, August 31, 2005

"Cell" Processor Chip

Reading an interesting article by Dr. Frank Soltis in the September 2005 iSeries News magazine. He's talking about the new "Cell" processor chip developed by IBM, Sony Group, and Toshiba. IBM always does great stuff with their chips and this Cell chip looks very promising to the iSeries future. Quotes below are from the magazine on pages 55-58.

What is the Cell chip? "At a very high level, you can think of the Cell chip as having a main processor and eithg I/O processors (IOPs)"

What is Sony Group doing with it? The PlayStation 3 will use this chip.

What is Toshiba doing with it? They have an HDTV coming out early next year with the chip. "Toshiba has already demonstrated a single-cell chip simultaneously decoding 48 differend MPEG-2 video streams. The 48 streams were read, decoded, and projected onto a large display that was divided into 8 by 6 cells, with each cell showing a different video. Future TV viewing might never be the same!"

Will the Cell be in an iSeries? The actual chip will probably not "but the Cell chip design will certainly influence the design of future iSeries processors."

"Consider that Intel delivered the first teraflops (one thousand gigaflops) supercomputer to the U.S. Department of Energy in December 1996. That supercomputer had 9,216 Pentium Pro processors packaged in 85 cabinets. It occupied 1,600 square feet of floor space and required 800 kilowatts (kW) of power. Today, just four tiny Cell chips produce the same performance as the world's fastest supercomputer did less than 10 years ago. That's impressive for a chip in your TV set."

However, he also says that the Cell is not made to run OS/400. The major influence for iSeries will be in the chip's design. This looks very interesting and I'm pleased to see IBM continuing the consortium to develop new chipsets.

BlackBerry Version 4.1

Apparently this was info taken from the partner presentation today. See information at Tony Kelleran's Site:

http://dominodude.com/personal/tmk/blog.nsf/d6plinks/TKEN-6FSM7N



Some things to note (
bold is directly from Tony's site):

Support for DB2
- Interesting, so I assume they will allow a DB2 backend as opposed to SQL

PIN to PIN/SMS Audit logs - Big brother, here I am!

Enterprise Device Authorization - limit types of devices attached to BES - I hope to have a Nokia 9300, so I will definitely allow this device!

Enterprise Instant Messaging - Nice! Wonder if it will work with the 9300?

BlackBerry v4.1 is an upgrade to existing BES installations and will cost money. Depending on the level of TSupport, you may get this for free. - Wish this were a "free" upgrade like IBM products...

ND7 Compatibility – v4.1 will be compatible with ND7 - I guess this means that 4.0 is not compatible. =)

Ability to read encrypted messages - Good addition!

Cluster-aware
- hopefully they will eventually get this working!

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

ND7 GA!

I checked yesterday and this was not at Passport Advantage. Time to download!

Monday, August 29, 2005

Why Choose GMail?

I decided to check my old Yahoo Mail account the other day and took a screenshot. While some may argue that GMail's use of context-sensitive ads may be somewhat intrusive, check this out from my Y! mail - it's an acual undoctored screenshot!



Come on! Who wants a truck, tent, boat, and hot air balloon advertisement going across the screen?!?

Saturday, August 27, 2005

High School Football

Well, it's on! Last night was the first full week here. My Alma Mater, the Northwestern High School Trojans in Rock Hill, SC got a win. They generally are a fairly dominant force along with our cross-town rival the Rock Hill High School Bearcats.

However, we have a new high school in town and this dropped us down from 4A to 3A. So in our season opener we played Charlotte Country Day school - the reigning 3A State Champs from NC. We beat them 20-9, so it appears that we will have a pretty good season in 3A! We also have a new head coach this year. We play Spartanburg High School next week (4A).

Go Trojans!!

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Top 100 Hits The Year I Graduated

Per Libby, "the instructions are: Go to musicoutfitters.com, and do a search on the most popular 100 songs from the year you graduated high school. (You can do this by searching on the year you graduated). Bold the ones you actually like. (Understand that the word "like" in this case means, at the very least, "wouldn't immediately change the radio station from.") Pick a favorite. Underline that favorite. And Strikethru the ones you loathe. Italicizethe ones you consider to be guilty pleasures."

Well, I can't do strikethrough, so I'll bold my favorites and most of them really are horrible anyway!

Top 100 Hits of 1996 (Oh my goodness, I cannot believe how lame #1 was....just shoot me!!! Sorry...) Judging by the following list, 1996 is officially the year of R&B.

1. Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix), Los Del Rio
2. One Sweet Day, Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men
3. Because You Loved Me, Celine Dion
4. Nobody Knows, Tony Rich Project
5. Always Be My Baby, Mariah Carey
6. Give Me One Reason, Tracy Chapman - was actually playing this in a band back then...
7. Tha Crossroads, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
8. I Love You Always Forever, Donna Lewis
9. You're Makin' Me High / Let It Flow, Toni Braxton
10. Twisted, Keith Sweat
11. C'mon N' Ride It (The Train), Quad City Dj's
12. Missing, Everything But The Girl - was doing this in a band too - lol!
13. Ironic, Alanis Morissette
14. Exhale (Shoop Shoop), Whitney Houston
15. Follow You Down / Til I Hear It From You, Gin Blossoms
16. Sittin' Up In My Room, Brandy
17. How Do U Want It / California Love, 2Pac
18. It's All Coming Back To Me Now, Celine Dion
19. Change The World, Eric Clapton - I really like this one. Two guys from a Christian band named "Dogs of Peace" helped Clapton write this.
20. Hey Lover, LL Cool J
21. Loungin, LL Cool J
22. Insensitive, Jann Arden
23. Be My Lover, La Bouche
24. Name, Goo Goo Dolls
25. Who Will Save Your Soul, Jewel
26. Where Do You Go, No Mercy
27. I Can't Sleep Baby (If I), R. Kelly
28. Counting Blue Cars, Dishwalla
29. You Learn / You Oughta Know, Alanis Morissette
30. One Of Us, Joan Osborne
31. Wonder, Natalie Merchant
32. Not Gon' Cry, Mary J. Blige
33. Gangsta's Paradise, Coolio
34. Only You, 112 Featuring The Notorious B.I.G.
35. Down Low (Nobody Has To Know), R. Kelly
36. You're The One, SWV
37. Sweet Dreams, La Bouche
38. Before You Walk Out Of My Life / Like This And Like That, Monica
39. Breakfast At Tiffany's, Deep Blue Something
40. 1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin' New), Coolio
41. The World I Know, Collective Soul -I was a pretty big Collective Soul fan - good stuff!
42. No Diggity, BLACKstreet (Featuring Dr. Dre)
43. Anything, 3t
44. 1979, The Smashing Pumpkins
45. Diggin' On You, TLC
46. Why I Love You So Much / Ain't Nobody, Monica
47. Kissin' You, Total
48. Count On Me, Whitney Houston and Cece Winans
49. Fantasy, Mariah Carey
50. Time, Hootie and The Blowfish - I had to like Hootie because they're from South Carolina. They had some great music on their first album!
51. You'll See, Madonna
52. Last Night, Az Yet
53. Mouth, Merril Bainbridge
54. The Earth, The Sun, The Rain, Color Me Badd
55. All The Things (Your Man Won't Do), Joe
56. Wonderwall, Oasis
57. Woo-hah!! Got You All In Check / Everything Remains Raw, Busta Rhymes
58. Tell Me, Groove Theory
59. Elevators (Me and You), Outkast - And we thought Outkast was a NEW band...
60. Hook, Blues Traveler
61. Doin It, LL Cool J
62. Fastlove, George Michael
63. Touch Me Tease Me, Case Featuring Foxxy Brown
64. Tonite's Tha Night, Kris Kross
65. Children, Robert Miles
66. Theme From Mission: Impossible, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen
67. Closer To Free, Bodeans
68. Just A Girl, No Doubt - Gwen Stefani...
69. If Your Girl Only Knew, Aaliyah
70. Lady, D'angelo
71. Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First), John Mellencamp
72. Pony, Ginuwine
73. Nobody, Keith Sweat
74. Old Man and Me (When I Get To Heaven), Hootie and The Blowfish - I didn't realize this was a radio release.
75. If It Makes You Happy, Sheryl Crow
76. As I Lay Me Down, Sophie B. Hawkins
77. Keep On, Keepin' On, Mc Lyte
78. Jealousy, Natalie Merchant
79. I Want To Come Over, Melissa Etheridge
80. Who Do U Love, Deborah Cox
81. Un-Break My Heart, Toni Braxton
82. This Is Your Night, Amber
83. You Remind Me Of Something, R. Kelly
84. Runaway, Janet Jackson
85. Set U Free, Planet Soul
86. Hit Me Off, New Edition
87. No One Else, Total
88. My Boo, Ghost Town Dj's
89. Get Money, Junior M.A.F.I.A.
90. That Girl, Maxi Priest Featuring Shaggy
91. Po Pimp, Do Or Die
92. Until It Sleeps, Metallica - The Black Album - you can't go wrong with that!
93. Hay, Crucial Conflict
94. Beautiful Life, Ace Of Base - OK, I'll admit it, I still have the Ace of Bace album...
95. Back For Good, Take That
96. I Got Id / Long Road, Pearl Jam
97. Soon As I Get Home, Faith Evans
98. Macarena, Los Del Rio
99. Only Wanna Be With You, Hootie and The Blowfish
100. Don't Cry, Seal

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

"Lost Books" of the Bible

On my website, I had begun a few years back working on gathering information on the Apocryphal literature (focusing more on the New Testament Apocrypha). That information may be found here.

Last night and tonight I worked on compiling information on the Gospel of Thomas. I have uploaded that information here.

Google Talk

OK everyone, go to http://www.google.com/talk/ and download it! FYI, though, the "Add Friend" feature doesn't just add them it also sends an invitation. You have to have a GMail account to sign in.

I'm online - topherssgtp

Friday, August 19, 2005

Search Engine Hits for August (So Far...)

6.5.2 'insufficient memory' 'index pool is full' on Google
6.5.4 domino web access warning sorry we were unable to process" on Google - get a lot of these, hopefully my little FAQ is helpful!
'6.5.4 fix pack 1'" on Google - Not here but IBM has it somewhere...
b6000901 on Google/MSN - Get several of these hits too - hope people aren't mad that they have to slip the LIC
blackberry '7100 g' ringtones on MSN - Love this smartphone - way to go RIM!
blackberry 7100g 7290 on Yahoo - 7100g is better
blackberry pros cons on MSN - pros - it's not running Windows! =)
can-spam act of 2003 (pub. l. 108-187, s877) on Google - what a joke...
'chris moody' mensa" on Google - see above - lol sorry Moody!
country song/'do you want fries with that' on MSN - get a lot of these hits too - prompted by Ed mentioning the phrase on his site
coworker on vacation office on MSN - I don't condone doing anything to coworkers offices! ;)
debug_tcp_all on Google - Sorry you're having to debug too...
debug_threadid on Google Again, see above
desktop6.ndk on MSN - Just delete it
dltdomsem on Google - A command that only shows up at my blog - not even on IBM's sites...
do you want fries with that on MSN - many iterations of this below too
do you want fries with that? on MSN
domino 6.5.3 - nsd dump set up on Google - I wish I could read NSD files better, but getting there
'domino 6.5.4' and 'lotus instant messaging' and 'iseries'" on Google - You've found the spot - I'll help where I can
domino 6.5.4 fixpack 1 on Google - Works well for me and fixed my Domino 6.5.4 issues so far!
domino stmux on Google - Lotus Support says they've been getting more calls about this - you better check with them.
domino web access warning sorry we were unable on MSN - Many more iterations of this
domino web access warning on MSN/Yahoo
'domino web access warning. sorry we were unable to process your request at this time.' on Yahoo
domino web access warning. Sorry, we were unable to process your request at this time. if you are unable to continue working in your mail file, please dismiss this warning and then select view, refresh from your browser's menu on Google - WOW, they searched the whole string...
download sametime 651 fp1 on Google - I believe it was finally ready for prime time!
im_show_status on Google - Nice hack here to change this globally with Desktop Settings documents.
'index pool is full' on Google - That's not good
inotes 'domino web access warning'" on Google
iseries b6000901 on Google
lotus domino 6.5.4 fixpack 1 (fp1) linux install on Google - Yeah, I installed this and it was OK. I'm running 7.0B4 on my Linux box now
lotus domino iseries delete semaphores on Google - I have you covered!
'lotus notes domino 6.5.4' system requirements on Google - Better check with IBM
nif global pool on Google - I think there were some issues with this and 6.5.4
'nif global pool'" on Google
originalmodtime on Google
passing the mensa test on MSN - Don't ask me! I haven't passed it (yet...) LOL
performance notes lotus 'cache.ndk' symantec on Google - Make sure your Symantec AV isn't scanning Notes b/c it makes everything SLOW...
prohibit running activex controls sametime on Google
'sametime 6.5.1 fp1' on Google - Still hasn't fixed my STMUX issues. IBM is making an STMUX trace fixpack for me
sametime 6.5.1 video .wmv on Google
server error: insufficient memory 6.5.4 iseries on Google - Better buy some more memory from IBM! Or just use the DLTDOMSMEM and DLTDOMSEM commands
song do you want fries with that? on Yahoo
stmux crash on Google - Still crashing
stmux debug on Google - Still de
the song-do you want fries with that on MSN
use60htmlcode on Google - This is a notes.ini entry apparently reverts the html fixes in 6.5.4 to the older code.
user inotes warning sorry we were unable to process your request on Google
zzyzx on MSN - Hope Zzyzx hasn't seen my post - I was a little livid that day...
song do you want fries with that? on Yahoo

Two News Stories for Concern

Below are two news stories I've heard about today. These two stories should upset every single American regardless of political persuasion!

1) Here is the latest fallout from the Eminent Domain case Kelo v. City of New London:

USA Today Article - It seems that the 7 homeowners who are having their land confiscated so that Pfizer can have more land are now really getting hit. First of all, they will get fair market value for their home. But the FMV they will get is not from 2005 but from 2000 (the time the city decided they wanted to confiscate the property). So they are being forced to sell their homes and lose 5 years worth of increases in property value. Secondly, they will likely be forced to pay backrent for the past five years they have been living on the "condemned" property. This is really ugly! But at least the city will be getting some more tax dollars...

2) ILLegal Immigrants win a ranch!

NY Times Article - Two illegal (that's the keyword!) immigrants came through Arizona and a citizen held them on his ranch for a couple of hours (from what I gather). These illegal immigrants sued the owner and won the 70 acre ranch from the lawsuit. Wow...

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Out of Commission...



Since I've been here at Comporium (May 2000), we have had some IBM Content Manager OnDemand data archived on an IBM 3995 Optical Library. This has two optical drives and stores 50 5.2 GB optical platters. We were using about 35 of these slots. It is LAN attached to our iSeries and runs off of an OS/2 controller.

We installed some disks last month for our iSeries as we had begun to migrate our data from optical to disk. We finished that migration and have now decommissioned the OS/2 controller and 3995 Optical Library. Not sure what we're going to do with it - if you're interested let me know...

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

iSeries i5 Woes

It is my understanding from speaking with an IBM hardware guy that the new iSeries i5 models (not certain of exact model #'s - could be all of them) are having some fairly consistent issues with the DASD Controller cards related to the cache. Seems that the cards are just dropping out and wiping out the cache. This is not good.

The "fix" is that now you will need to have a mirrored cache card. This will take up a full PCI slot and you will need one of these for every DASD Controller IOP. I also understand that new systems will default with these installed on the order form. Rumor has it that a large bank has lost a system because of this...

Monday, August 15, 2005

"AMGR Lost Its Mind"

To quote Jerry (more on him when he opens his blog soon...), this is apparently what happened to my amgr today. I was getting some freaky "cannot find external name: CONVERTTEXTDATE" errors with some agents. It wasn't just happening with a particular custom workflow database. It was happening with a CRM db and several Lotus Workflow databases. Well, I initially thought that if I recompiled all LotusScript that it would fix it. Nope! After that didn't work, I decided to just TELL AMGR QUIT and then LOAD AMGR. Seems the errors went away after that. After I told Jerry he just said that "amgr lost its mind".

I think he was right on that one!

Notes people, why does this happen?

Here lately, I've been getting some "certificate has expired" errors from certain users. Since I have generally been the one doing renames in the past, I know that all of these users getting the error have gone through the rename process sometime in the past. Any idea why this is happening? When I just certify their ID file with cert.id all is well. Also, the ID file does reflect the correct name.

Anyone else seen this?

Tuesday, August 9, 2005

Somehow it seems they still aren't getting security right

While I'll concede that it's still in Beta, there is already a virus targeting Windows Vista's command shell.

From Symantec:

Written in July, the viruses take advantage of a new command shell, code-named Monad, that's included in the Windows Vista beta code.

The viruses were published last month in a virus-writing tutorial written for an underground hacker group calling itself the Ready Ranger Liberation Front, and take advantage of security vulnerabilities in the new command shell.


However, it appears that the shell may not even be included in an actual release of the OS. See report here.

Welcome Home!

A welcome home to our astronauts!

ETA was 8:12 ET and the landing gear hit the runway at 8:11 ET - not bad.

Monday, August 8, 2005

Lotus Notes 6.5.4 Rollout Update

We've been doing some more Smart Upgrades, and I have an update on my previous client rollout figures.

6.5.4 - 70.1%
6.5.3 - 17.6%
6.5.2 - 4.5%
6.5.1 - 6.2%

Domino 6.5.4 and Sametime 6.5.1 Fixpack 1 Updates

Domino 6.5.4 FP1

Well, since I loaded the Domino 6.5.4 FP1, I haven't had a mail server hang (yet...). It's been over two weeks - which is longer than prior uptime! I'm actually feeling pretty good about this one.

Sametime 6.5.1 FP1

Since loading ST 6.5.1 FP1 just over a week ago, I have still had a hang. As mentioned previously, this is a problem with my STMUX task just ending. From talking with Lotus Support again today, I was told that they are receiving more reports of this happening. Lotus is going to be sending me a debug hotfix that will have some more tracing code in it. Maybe we can find out what's happening.

Saturday, August 6, 2005

Happy Birthday Ed, You'll always be our Lotus Ranger!

Consider Aug 6, 2005 to be Birthday Spam day for Mr. Ed Brill!

Happy Birthday to a Lotus Ranger who is pressing IBM and the Lotus community forward beyond the checkered history of the competition! I guess this is the kickoff to Lotus' Ranger initiative? =)

Friday, August 5, 2005

5 Years Ago Today...

I was walking down the aisle with my beautiful wife!

Here is a picture of Jen and I back in the day:



And here I am with my boys:


L -> R:
Chris, Joe, David (Dad), Me, Stephen (Bro), Bill(y)

Monday, August 1, 2005

Domino Web Admin Logo

This logo is looking more like the Star Trek logo with each release!



By the way, if you haven't seen the new 7.0 Web Admin client, it's a great improvement. Way to go Lotus - loads much faster and seems to have the same feel as the lite UI used for 6.5.4+ DWA.