I have a new bi-weekly column on MC Press Online called In the Wheelhouse. It's partly an industry analysis column but I try to focus towards any IBM related news.
It's been going pretty well for the last 6 weeks but I realized I haven't mentioned it at all on my blog! With that in mind, here's links to the most recent colums. Please have a read. Especially the IBM i Access Client Solutions one as it's a great product and well worth the read if you maintain IBM i Access for Windows installations.
In the Wheelhouse: Cloud, Services, and Kicking RIM While They're Down (Again) This week, I'm trying to make sense of what the heck is going on with Research in Motion and how it will affect BlackBerry customers. Plus, there are some new announcements on IBM SmartCloud and IBM PureSystems you need to know about.
In The Wheelhouse: Vol 1 This week we'll talk about IBM PureSystems, IBM Collaboration Solutions education, Betamax vs. IBM i, and the striking similarities between RPG and Freddy Krueger. Really.
IBM Connections on IBM i - DB2, JDBC and IASPs
Mon, Apr 29th 2013 9:21p Steve Pitcher For anyone looking to do an IBM Connections install on IBM i, the biggest "gotcha" I encountered was due to the fact that I have an Independent Auxilliary Storage Pool (IASP) defined in my relational database directory entries list (think WRKRDBDIRE). If you're using IBM PowerHA for replication then you'll have an IASP defined. I would log into the Connections homepage successfully but then get an error that the request couldn't be completed. I found errors in the systemout.log for each a [read] Keywords: connections
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Installing WebSphere Portal and IBM Web Content Manager
Thu, Mar 7th 2013 10:13a Steve Pitcher The installation instructions for WebSphere Portal on IBM i could be a little more clear. I'll be submitting my suggestions to IBM to update them. Here's what I did in order to install Portal and WCM on IBM i. If you're not using IBM i, but want to do a silent installation using response files, you may still get some value out of this. I downloaded the following images from IBM Passport Advantage. All these images need to be consolidated in a single repository. More on that below. CI7 [read] Keywords: ibm
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A Lotus Domino Server Installed/Patched In 57 Seconds
Fri, Feb 15th 2013 8:23p Steve Pitcher I had to load a new Domino server this afternoon for a new product we've purchased. Once I hit the Enter key to set the server installer program into action I got up, walked twenty feet and refilled my cup with black coffee. I had a quick look out the window and walked back to my laptop with the server ready to rock n' roll. That was pretty fast...so I did another installation test and timed it at 76 seconds. I traded tweets with Keith Brooks who interestingly did a upgrade time trial on [read] Keywords: domino
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Chocolate Chip Cookies
Sun, Jan 20th 2013 11:17a Steve Pitcher OK, this post is far from technical but I wanted to share it because I'm a big food guy. I do a lot of the cooking in our house. In the last few months I've been trying my hand at baking sweets, cookies, breads, etc. I may even start a different blog for that type of content. I've made some decent chocolate chip cookies in the last little while but they turned out flat like a normal homemade cookie. I wanted to get more "fluff" so I began playing around with cream cheese as a partial [read] Keywords:
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Business Agility and Efficiency with Consolidation
Mon, Jan 14th 2013 11:00a Steve Pitcher At IBM Connect, Tim Rowe, Roxanne Reynolds-Lair and I will review how business value can be achieved with the state-of-the-art collaboration solutions running on Power Systems while keeping a simplified, agile and efficient IT environment. http://www.vivastream.com/events/connect2013/sessions/CUST112 [read] Keywords: collaboration
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Goodbye Active Directory?
Sat, Dec 29th 2012 8:21p Steve Pitcher For me, just maybe. I'm going to at least give this a solid look. We have a loose migration plan for all of our x64-based Microsoft Windows servers to IBM Power Systems. All except our Active Directory servers. We use those for Group Policy, Domain authentication, Domino web authentication, DNS and a few other familiar functions. As per ZDNet, the release of Samba 4 appears to be a viable alternative to Active Directory. More to come once I dig a bit more information about it. I wonder i [read] Keywords: domino
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Selling the Metal!
Tue, Dec 18th 2012 7:07a Steve Pitcher Here's a piece I wrote for MC Press Online. Check it out. In the Wheelhouse: Selling the Metal Let's dissect two studies that put IBM i at the top of the list for lowest total cost of ownership, total cost of acquisition, and total amounts of awesome! You want justification? You got it. ITG Studies to Help You Sell the Metal International Technology Group (ITG) recently published two studies that talk about total cost of ownership, total cost of acquisition, risk exposure, cost of downt [read] Keywords: ibm
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We're Speaking At IBM Connect 2013!
Fri, Dec 14th 2012 7:50p Steve Pitcher Yes! Now the real work begins! All sessions are listed here. Session Business Agility and Efficiency with Consolidation Program Lotusphere - For IT Practitioners Track Track 08: Customer Case Studies (from an IT perspective) Activity Type Lecture Speaker(s) Tim Rowe, IBM; Steve Pitcher, Scotsburn Dairy Group; Roxanne Reynolds-Lair, Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising Abstract In todays flat world, successful businesses have their staff, customers and business partne [read] Keywords: collaboration
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