The easiest partition on a JS12 blade (is NOT Linux)

Posted on May 19, 2010 by admin

A few months back I participated in the IBM i 7.1 beta program and I absolutely marveled at how ridiculously simple it was to install i5/OS on a new partition.  Create the partition, activate it, use Operations Console to connect, bada bing!  start feeding the beast with DVD’s and …done.  It maybe took two hours start to finish.

Having experienced a quick and easy install with a “difficult” operating system, I decided to try something easy.  A well supported, well known, easy to install Linux distro.  Since Suse Linux Enterprise Server is supported in the Power PC 64 bit world, I downloaded SLES 11 and pulled up the install instructions and have now spent two days trying to get the distro to install.  I have posted to a few forums but apparently Linux on Power, particularly on a JS12 blade running VIOS and the IVM to install the OS is a bit of a mystery.

The maddening part is that I have done this somewhat successfully before but I am not making much progress at the moment. The issue is getting a terminal window to display so that I can begin the install process. The JS12 implementation guide says to start a Remote control session using the AMM (easy to do) and then activate the defined partition in the IVM (also easy to do), and use the IVM option to “Open a Terminal Window” (another easy step). So far so good. The part that doesn’t seem to be working is the “terminal window” popup in the IVM that is supposed to appear to authenticate only appears for a second or two and then it disappears without an opportunity to log in. The AMM Remote Control terminal window changes from displaying the VIOS console to a blank screen. Seems to me that in my last successful attempt at installing Linux using the IVM I saw all the installation prompts in the remote console of the AMM but I can’t be sure.

The missing terminal window is a show stopper since there is no way to install the OS headless.  In fact, the original install of SLES11 was deleted because I couldn’t get the GUI to ever run, even after installing the OS in text mode (which is no easy feat).

Ah! Would it were that Linux was as easy to install as i5/OS!  Whenever I DO get it installed, I will post the “trick” here (whatever it is) so at least I can find it again…

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Nothing to fear but … change itself…

Posted on May 17, 2010 by admin

There are few things that strike fear into the heart of a small business owner than changing Internet or telephone service providers.  These days those two are usually linked so the double fear factor looms when such a change is considered.

I have been a VERY satisfied QWEST customer for years.  I don’t know when Qwest originally deployed DSL in my area but I was an early adopter (could it have been 10 years ago?).  In any case, that move from 56k to 1.2mbps was fantastic.  And, in those many years I have never experienced an unanticipated interruption in service.  They have been as close to perfect and unchanging as is possible.  But, there’s is the rub.  No changes. DSL in the 21st century, especially as we begin a new decade, is the 56k of 90’s.  It is just too slow to sustain a growing small business.

I have to also blame Qwest’s wonderful market machine that has dropped monthly “bingo” cards into my mailbox extolling the virtues of “high speed” broadband.  YES.  I *want* high speed Internet up to 7mbps!!!  But, having developed the desire, they couldn’t produce.  After patiently waiting two years, it was time to move, so I pulled the plug on Qwest and switched to Comcast.

Now I gotta admit, this was more stressful than waiting for the birth of my first child.  I imagined all of the things that could possibly go wrong and each of them gave me buyers remorse on deciding to switch.  The installation day came and went with a smooth install of the modem and over less than an hours time I switched over the modem, SBS 2003 and then my DNS entries to the new IP addresses and….nothing broke!  Everything kept humming right along.  The only suspicious wrinkle is that my VOIP traffic seems not to be working on the Comcast network so I need to do more sleuthing to determine the cause (admittedly it took a while to fine tune my Asterisk server even on Qwest).  With a planned Asterisk upgrade in my future, I may wait until I upgrade and then do the troubleshooting.

But wait, there’s more!  Last week I cut the phones over and….nothing broke again!  The phones continued to ring, this time with the included Caller ID (which was extra and therefore not present with my Qwest account).  I know this is all too good to be true and a few of my Facebook friends have warned me of the coming Armageddon but I just can’t get over how easy this was.

To do’s: I had XO handling my 800 lines and due to some arcane rules for Comcast, I need to have a bill with activity on all 3 800 lines before I can swap them over.  But, sometime in July I should receive my very first consolidated Internet/Phone/Long Distance bill and it should be lower than the 3 bills I had before.  That is actually wrinkle #2.  I have gotten my first Comcast bill and I am having trouble reconciling the current bill against the promised costs.  It is about $30 more than I think I was promised.  Oh, and a $99 Comcast special arrived in the mail today.  I have a little bit more than a $99 bill in front of me….

So, it may all just be too good to be true.  We’ll see.  I have faster Internet and free outbound long distance.  Oh, and I also have cable TV, for the first time in my life, so things are looking up (maybe).

With Qwest being sold to CenturyTel (whoever they are) I may have gotten out just in time.  In fact, time will tell…

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A successful Common Experience

Posted on May 12, 2010 by admin

The 1960’s returned, for a few days at least, during the Common Conference and meeting and 50th anniversary celebration in Orlando. If you didn’t attend, you missed a great conference. I’d say this: If you didn’t attend for economic reasons I can understand, but the investment for me was worth every penny. If you didn’t attend because you thought Common’s best years were behind it, then you missed an opportunity to experience some of it’s former glory. It was a vibrant and fun week.

That is not to say everything was perfect. The austerity measures taken by the board last year did impact the evening activities, particularly the “Ask the experts” night and the “fun and games” night. Without substantial food and at least subsidized alcohol (the staple of the IBM i user) the events were poorly attended. I *can* tell you that the Common staff did their very best to provide as much as the budget allowed but when some budgets were cut completely (like the CaN budget that provided those evening activities) there is only so much you can do. My hope is that next year the CaN budget will receive some attention so that the “community” activities aren’t shortchanged.

The BEST part of the conference were the great, well attended sessions. Although the conference was smaller in the number of sessions offered, it still felt “large” because the facilities were “right sized” for the event. Overall I’d give the conference a B+ grade.

It will be interesting to see how the San Antonio event turns out. It is structured much differently in terms of speaker/volunteer compensation and size. If successful, it could point the way back to the restoration of some of the benefits cut last year (we hope!).

If you missed the Common Conference then you really MISSED a great conference. Make sure you register and get in on the fun in Minneapolis next spring!

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The swirling vortex of commitments

Posted on April 5, 2010 by admin

How often have you committed to do something thinking: “I have *months* to get this done, no problem!”  Only to find out the months are suddenly gone and you are at the commitment vortex, trying to traverse it with being totally sucked into the maelstrom?  You drop the oranges you are juggling.  You step on the trip wire of overcommitment.  Basically, you end up in deep kim chee.

Alas!  That is were I find myself now.  *Months* ago I committed to one presentation for the Common Conference in Orlando on May 3rd. Then I found out that the one was actually three.  Then I committed to deliver a totally new module in my time and attendance system. Now I find myself heading out on a two day trip to volunteer for more development work (gratis) and wanting to add yet another consulting trip in the next couple of weeks.  What is wrong with me???  I haven’t even touched my new presentation yet and have no idea of the amount of code I’ll have to crank out in order to get it done.

On top of that, I am *blogging* when I should be working!!!  I have to stop right now and…

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Some March Musings

Posted on March 11, 2010 by admin

Shortly after I posted the Busybox post I received an email from the vendor whose device I was working with, offering assistance.  Nice!  I really haven’t leveraged it (yet) because the toughest nut I had to crack was the roundtrip to the clock on the update and retrieval of data (which IS done).  THAT would still be much, much easier if I could access the clock  using JDBC but there have been a few advantages I have uncovered in working with just the http server and shell scripting. My next challenge is to get the whole thing as secure as possible, but security isn’t critical here: The data doesn’t carry any personally identifiable information and although someone who intercepted the data could manipulate it (I guess), there is a verification step that takes place that makes erroneously paying someone doubtful.

Adding to the mix is the need for checking to see if the clocks are online, updating the data en-mass and clearing data that has been retrieved without losing anything.  Still working through that as well.  The UI is pretty much done but I am not 100% happy with it.  The difficulty is viewing the time clock “punches” in a way that is easy to view.  If someone punches in and out 8 times in one day, how do you present that?  As a horizontal row or as a set of vertical transactions?   Best way to handle it is with agile, iterative steps I think.  See how it works and then improve it.

Lots of chatter about Flex over on the midrange.com list today.  I have seen some demos and sooner or later I’ll take the plunge.  But right now, jQuery and Web 2.0 techniques are my bread and butter for now.  I need to get the application done, and sell a few dozen, before I even think about moving to a new development platform.  All of the data I/O is using Ajax at the moment.  Seems like the most flexible way to go.

I have about a week or two left with this project and then I need to return to ASAAP for some additional polishing work and then jump into the IVR replacement.  Nice to have work, but it would be better to have some income (still working on that!).

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A Busybox encounter

Posted on February 15, 2010 by admin

If you have worked with embedded systems you have probably bumped into Busybox. If you are a long time Linux geek, you probably know Busybox.  My first encounter with Busybox started last weekend and has been almost non-stop since.  Here is the scoop:

You know that I have a Java based Absence Management System called ASAAP .  I have recently been contracted to develop an automated time clock system and make it work seamlessly with a payroll package.  I naively figured it would be a snap.  This being the 21st Century, I figured I’d just find a electronic time clock  that had a JDBC compliant interface and within a couple of weeks hook it up to ASAAP which already has payroll posting capabilities.  After poking around the Internet, attempting to contact sales people and gather information, I settled on a clock that had a “polling” package to collect the data on a scheduled basis and also push the employee information up to the clock.

After receiving the clock and having a chance to try it out, I was less than enamored with the user interface and my attempts to interface with the DB were frustrated by the fact the DB was an MS Access DB and the JDBC-ODBC bridge is slow and unreliable.  What I wanted was something that allowed secure access to the data over a network.  So, back to square one.

The company I had purchased the timeclock from had a “barebones” configuration that basically had nothing but a scripting api that accessed clock functions in a embedded Linux distro called Busybox. So, I went with the “start from scratch” approach and have been learning (and re-learning) Linux commands and their particular implementation in Busybox.

This tiny footprint Linux distro is pretty cool and the folks on the Busybox mailing list have been very tolerant of this noob as I have bumbled my way through the learning curve.  At this point I have a functioning application that will take input from the keypad or the Proximity badge scan (RFID), look up the employee in the database, display the employee name, prompt them for a punch in or out and store that information in the database.

Next step is to work on data import/export.  Unfortunately the Busybox distro I am working with has a relatively old version of Sqlite3 which doesn’t support JDBC, so my plan is to use the HTTP server and CGI to post data to and retrieve data from the DB.  THAT should be fun!

So I’ll keep you posted on the progress (or lack thereof).  All in all, Busybox provides enough to work with to build this application, I just need the smarts to make it work.

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Pondering when to change from proprietary to Open Source

Posted on January 25, 2010 by admin

I engaged in a round of discussions on open source on the Midrange-L list regarding the use and merits of open source software in the enterprise.  I wasn’t really surprised all that much by the content of the discussion, there seems to be some folks who naturally share code and those who don’t, and there isn’t really any way to convince either side to switch. But that discussion did surface some licensing discussion that opened my eyes a bit to the issues of using open source.  Some of that information may influence my projects so it was worth participating.

I play in both camps.  I have some “proprietary” solutions that use open source code and I have some projects that I share freely.  The one “proprietary” solution I sell may eventually become open source when fully completed and if there are enough customers to sustain a “support only” business model.  I estimate that I would need about 50 individual school districts to be licensee’s in order to have a critical mass to move to a purely open source model.  But that is a guess.  The first step is to get 50 customers!  The ASAAP product is basically done after two years of solo work and although I have a long list of things I want to add and much code I want to rewrite, it is “ready to market”.  Just in time (barely) to be considered in this (bleak) budget year.

If you need a new attendance solution for your school district that will handle absence recording, substitute dispatch and time card management, drop me a line.

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Technology: The gift that keeps on…taking.

Posted on December 30, 2009 by admin

Amid many of the bits I am juggling at the moment, I was gifted with a new Blu-ray drive to add to the video server here at the Helgren household. My son, Jonas, who has done some work for Sony and has seen some pretty nice High Definition video, said that the Blu-ray standard was awesome.  Unfortunately, the video server is low in the pecking order in the rack so I knew it would be a job just to get to the server, let alone replace a drive in the case.  But, I went ahead and pulled the thing, added the drive, got it back in the rack, fired it up and booted back into Vista Media Center.  No joy! No new devices found!

So I pulled out the server again, opened the case and was told by my son to put the SATA cable on the S-O connector and then fire it back up.  Having dutifully done that, returning it to the rack and then firing it up again, no joy!  So my son took the matter into his own hands that inexplicably lead to the dreaded “No Post” condition.  After considerable trial and error, research and diagnostics, I determined that the CPU (Xeon) had given up the ghost, based mostly on the clogged condition of the cooling fins and the diagnostic LED that indicated a power or CPU error.

So, off to ebay to find and order a CPU replacement and, of course, this being a holiday weekend, nothing would ship until Monday.  The CPU arrived Tuesday ($100 including shipping and handling).  I popped it in and….no joy.  More grousing, researching and diagnosing ensued.  Finally, taking the power supply failure route, which was counter intuitive since all the fans spun up and MOBO lights lit up, I noticed that the cooling fan in the power supply wasn’t running.  A clear sign of a power supply failure.  Some frantic, end of day calling around located an acceptable power supply for *only* $175.00!  Granted 850 watts was overkill but it would at least get this monkey off my back.

After installing the new power supply and successfully booting the server, still no Blu Ray device.  Rats!  After much trial and error and some counter intuitive settings in the BIOS (Set the IDE channels to PATA ONLY and suddenly the SATA channels appear! Whoda thunk?) the Blu Ray device is found and configured by Vista.  Hooray Blu Ray!  Fired up the copy of “District 9” that Jonas has also gotten me and it began to play!  No sound but I didn’t have speakers plugged in.  So, shut down, back in the rack, an hour or so getting it to recognize the HDMI video again and Voila!  I have a Blu Ray ready video server!  Fire up District 9 and ….. no sound!  Rats! Whats up the THAT!?

A little more research and then a 75mb update to PowerDVD 9.  Now PowerDVD won’t even start !  Going backwards!   Futz around with that for a few hours and admitted defeat last night at midnight.

This morning is a new day, new possibilities but everything I try won’t get the latest version of PowerDVD running on Vista!  Finally, in desperation, I uninstall everything and reinstall the “old” version from the supplied CD.  Now the Blu Ray video plays again with no sound.  More research, which basically confirms that PowerDVD is a POJ, but a couple of posts point to changing settings in the PowerDVD audio setup.  It is set to HDMI but that doesn’t work.  Recommendation is to set it to s/pdif which also doesn’t work but, when I change it back to HDMI (not the default HDMI) it begins to work! Dumb luck wins again!

So it only took 12 or so hours of my time and $300 to get it all working.  So simple!  Technology gifts are just the thing at Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

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Tis the season

Posted on December 21, 2009 by admin

To be busy.  No matter how much I try,  I never achieve the goal of having very little “business” programming to do this time of year so that I can play.  I always look forward to the break in the business action so that I can play with some of the ideas/projects that have accumulated during the year.  So what does that list look like?  Here are a few (in no particular order):

  • GWT – I really want to take a look at GWT but I haven’t gotten to it.
  • Andriod – Yet another Google tool that needs to be explored.
  • tn5250j – This needs some attention and although it isn’t my project, I have wanted to get in an clean it up a bit.
  • Ruby (JRuby) on Rails – the www.roroni.com site has been down for over a year.  I have tried a few things over the past couple of days but I am still running into the odd issue here and there.  Andrea Ribuoli has been working on a native port of Ruby to i that won’t require the DB2 Connect bit, but I haven’t had a chance there either.
  • Updates to the ASAAP, Valadd, Open Source for i and helgren.com web sites.  I got Joomla installed to do this but haven’t done anything since.
  • Updates to web5250

The list goes on.

The reason I am not accomplishing what I set out to do is not for lack of effort, it is simply that I am a lousy estimator.  Things are taking 5-10 times as long as I *think* they will.  If I could just reverse that ratio, I’d be rocking and rolling.

Before I forget, I wish you all NOT a “Happy Holiday” (bland, benign, worthless expression as THAT is) but a heartfelt “Merry Christmas”.  May the wonder and love of this season bless you.

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Losing our Common relationships

Posted on November 10, 2009 by admin

For those of you NOT involved in the i community, this is probably irrelevant news.  But to us folks who spend most of their time in the i trenches, this is big.  The “this” is the blog post from Jon Paris and Susan Gantner found here: http://ibmsystemsmag.blogs.com/idevelop/2009/11/au-revoir-common.html .  Basically Jon and Susan, for financial and other reasons, will not be speaking at Common this year, bringing a lengthy run to an end.

The immediate question some may raise is why even have a conference at all? After all, this IS the twenty first century and certainly the technology has matured to the point to where an on site presence is no longer needed in order to learn technical content.  That, of course, IS true.  If the Common Annual Conference was just about delivering educational content and IBM “first hand” information then it would be as passe as polyester leisure suits and disco balls.  But the value THIS annual conference brings to the the IBM i professional is relationships.  In fact, at the bottom of it all, it is ALL about relationships and that is why Jon and Susan’s absence will be so keenly felt.  They are truly good people to know, as many in the i community are, and not seeing them there and spending time with them will be a loss.

As the technical world has advanced, our personal worlds have contracted.  Email has replaced hand written letters.  Skype has replaced face to face meetings. GoToMeeting has replaced the valuable practice of of forcing people into a room to work through difficult issues until they are resolved.  We are slowing becoming less human as we further remove opportunities for us to interact at a personal, one on one, level.  Nothing can replace the value of an in person meeting.  Period.

However, the financial realities of bringing humans together is something that has to be reckoned with.  Common *had* a unique and distinguishing practice in the industry of compensating speakers by reducing conference fees  for each presentation given.  That could extend into hotel and airfare costs, depending upon participation.  This unique barter system was brilliant and was, in my opinion, a reason for the success of the conferences.  People traded their expertise in one area for learning in another.  And, the shared effort across all strata of expertise actually built up the community.  Everyone had a stake.  Everyone gained a benefit.

I believe that the cut back of this benefit by the Common board was a strategic error, perhaps a fatal error, to the Common that is.  And, it would be a deadly error to transition the organization  to one whose sole purpose is to deliver education content electronically.  It is the relationships built at the conference that was the key to the success of past conferences.  Quickly returning to those “human” roots may rescue Common before it is too late.  But it needs to be soon before more folks like Jon and Susan vote with their feet.

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