Ashton Singers Autumn Concert in Winchester College Chapel, Saturday 20 November

Saturday 20th November 2010 at 7.30pm
Winchester College Chapel

Ashton Singers
Paul Wright organ
Julian Macey conductor

Concert in the beautiful late 14th century setting of Winchester College Chapel.

Britten Festival Te Deum
Brahms Drei Motetten op.110
Whitacre Lux Aurumque
Pärt Which was the son of ...
Parry Songs of Farewell

In aid of Winchester Churches Nightshelter.

More information at http://www.ashtonsingers.hampshire.org.uk/.

Chandos Singers, Saturday 27 November, Magdalen Chapel, Holloway, Bath: Beatus Vir

Beatus Vir

The Chandos Singers
Conductor: Malcolm Hill

Monteverdi Beatus Vir
Adam Michna Wenceslas Mass and Beatus Vir
Other works by Hassler, Sheppard, Pekiel, Howells
and Leighton

Saturday 27th November 2010, 7.30pm
Magdalen Chapel, Holloway, Bath (directions: http://www.magdalenchapelbath.co.uk/find_us.html)
Tickets £10 (students £5) from Bath Festivals Box Office 01225 463362
Full details from www.chandos-singers.co.uk

Still a couple of places available on the Logicalis annual Study Tour to Rochester, Minnesota

Logicalis' annual Study Tour gives delegates the chance to learn about IBM's strategy for Power Systems and IBM i from the most senior and knowledgeable speakers at the Rochester, Minnesota Laboratories. Sessions are very interactive and are covered by the Forum Confidential Disclosure Agreement, allowing speakers to share futures information with attendees. As always the event also provides an opportunity to discuss issues with your peers, in this case including representatives of Logicalis US customers.

Dates: 14-19 September.

For details see my previous post on this subject.

Logicalis IT Forum : 2010 Study Tour to Rochester, Minnesota : 14-19 September

We have a very exciting provisional agenda for this year's IT Forum study tour to the IBM Laboratories in Rochester, Minnesota.

Current agenda (unconfirmed)

Zumbro Room, Executive Briefing Center, IBM Rochester, MN

Wednesday 15 September

09:00 : Welcome : John Rathke, Briefing Project Manager for Europe and Latin America

09:10 : Power7 Update and Directions

10:20 : Break

10:30 : IBM i 6.1, and 7.1 Update and Directions: What benefits are gained by moving to 6.1 and/or 7.1? : Steve Will, Chief Architect, IBM i Operating System

12:00 : Luncheon

13:20 : PowerVM: IBM i, AIX, Linux, VIOS, Blades : Naresh Nayar, IBM Distinguished Engineer, Architect –  PowerVM

14:05 : Break

14:15 : PowerHA : Steven Finnes, Power Systems HA Product Offering Manager

15:15 : Backup/Recovery Update : Deb Saugen, IBM Rochester

Thursday 16 September

09:00 : IBM Systems Director – Bringing together IBM Platforms: to include i Navigator coming under Director banner : Rob Bestgen, Business Architect, IBM Systems Director

10:00 : Break

10:10 : Application Development Directions: Rational Development Tools : Tim Rowe, Business Architect. Application Development for IBM i

11:10 : Break

11:20 : Application Development Directions – continued: General Update – Open Access for RPG, etc. : Tim  Rowe

12:20 : Luncheon

13:20 : Green Initiatives : Brad Brech, IBM Distinguished Engineer, STG Software Strategy and Architecture

14:20 : Break

14:30 : Security Update from a compliance perspective : Terry Ford, Project Manager, Security Services Delivery

15:30 : Break

15:40 : DB2 for IBM i: Data Warehousing

Friday 17 September

09:00 : Cloud Computing : Amit Dave, IBM Distinguished Engineer, STG Software Portfolio Management

10:00 : Break

10:10 : IBM i Marketing Update : Ian Jarman, Manager, Power Systems Software

11:25 : Web Support Update : Paula Fulton, Executive IT Specialist - Senior Certified IBM Support Portal Strategy and Design

12:25 : Luncheon

13:25 : WebSphere on IBM i - Update 

Logistics Overview

We will leave Heathrow at lunchtime on Tuesday 14 September, getting back late morning on Sunday 19 September.

The Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights will be spent at the Marriott TownePlace Suites in Rochester, and the Friday night at the Minneapolis Airport Marriott.

If you are interested in attending, or for any further information, please get in touch with me at mandy.shaw@iperimeter.co.uk or on 01225 436302.

Excellent description of a great manager

Great article by David Hopps in yesterday's Guardian at http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/aug/02/andy-flower-england-pakistan, including the following, which seems to me to encapsulate most things great managers do:

'One of Andy Flower's great achievements as England's coach ... is to oversee an atmosphere of professionalism, ambition and mutual dependency ... He is shrewd, in charge of his brief and, what's more, he is in charge of his team. He talks honestly but not carelessly. He is measured, not glib, or evasive, or a sucker for meaningless phrases. He analyses but does not inhibit. He is tough but in no stretch of the imagination is he a bully. His fairness demands respect because not to respect him is to be foolish.'

Logicalis IT Forum : Wroxall Abbey : Tues 6/Wed 7 July : Update on HA strategies for IBM i and Power Systems / Solid State Drives

The next IT Forum meeting will be on Wednesday 7 July at Wroxall Abbey, West Midlands, with dinner/overnight stay on the Tuesday night 6 July.

The topic will be 'Update on HA strategies for IBM i and Power Systems'. We are aiming to cover the full range of remote journalling and internal/external storage options. their dependencies, practical implications, and operational complexities. We will also, following our brief discussion of Solid State Drives at the meeting in March, look in more detail at the advantages of using SSDs with IBM i, including a discussion of analysis techniques.

I am delighted to announce that our speaker will be David Tulloch, a senior Power Systems/IBM i Specialist from IBM UK with many years' experience of high availability deployments. David has spoken at the Forum in the past and has worked directly with many Forum members. I look forward to an insightful and very valuable session.

If you are interested in attending, please contact me on 01225 436302 or at mandy.shaw@iperimeter.co.uk.

Chandos Singers : Renaissance Masters : Holy Trinity Church, Bath, Saturday 3 July, 7.30pm

Renaissance Masters

Chandos Singers
Malcolm Hill conductor

John Sheppard Christ rising from the dead
Adam Michna Summertime Mass (c.1650) and De Profundis
Motets by Zielenski (1610), Pierre de la Rue, and Eustache du Caurroy (1605)

Holy Trinity Church, Queen Square, Bath
Saturday 3 July 2010, 7.30pm

Tickets from:
Bath Festivals Box Office
2 Church Street
Abbey Green
Bath  BA1 1NL
Tel: 01225 463362
Fax: 01225 310377
Email: boxoffice@bathfestivals.org.uk

Moderation of blog comments

I must apologise for turning this on, but the latest spam comment on this blog seems to have been added in a way that makes it impossible to delete.

Various points of view on IBM i 7.1, including mine

See http://systeminetwork.com/article/new-os-gets-thumbs-power-i-community

Summer concert of Baroque Choral Music : Winchester Festival, 10 July : Ashton Singers at St Cross

Summer concert of Baroque Choral Music

(part of the Winchester Festival)

Nigel Gardner chamber organ
Hilary Brooks 'cello
Pat Glynn chitarrone
Sackbuts, cornetts and other period instruments directed by Theresa Caudle

Ashton Singers
Julian Macey conductor

A varied programme of choral and instrumental music including works by Gabrieli, Schutz, Schein and Telemann. Complimentary interval drinks in the Master's Garden, weather permitting.

See the Ashton Singers website for more details.

Better use of Tagul

More experiments.

I've used the API this time, and that allows me to map each tag to exactly the right target URL without upsetting the appearance of the tag cloud - I was also able to edit the list so that one composer (James Oswald) did not overpower all the others.

The XML is really simple - I generated it from a single SQL statement.

When I have time I will improve it so that composers I want to highlight (e.g. this year's anniversaries) come out in a different colour.

Then it will be time to decide whether this is actually any use to potential website customers or not! But I do really like this technology, it's so simple to use.

What Smartphone?

As mentioned at boring length on this blog in the past, I currently have a Samsung Omnia, running Windows Mobile, with which I am pretty comfortable, especially since Windows Mobile was upgraded on it a few months ago.

However my contract runs out at the end of May & I need to decide what to do next.

I do understand that Windows Mobile is the 2010 equivalent of token ring or OS/2 ...

The easy option is obviously an iPhone.

I think I need the following functionality:

Essential:
a) Battery lasting at least 24 hours, and easy availability of spare batteries and battery (as opposed to phone) charger
b) Solid build quality (the Omnia is good re this, except for the ridiculous power/headset socket)
c) Ability to sync calendar and contacts with Outlook 2003
d) POP3 or IMAP email, ideally with ability to move emails between accounts, and without Windows Mobile's ability to corrupt account details at awkward moments
e) Good texting capabilities (this is not a strength of Windows Mobile)
f) Easy synchronisation of audio files with Windows XP, plenty of storage, and decent playback quality
g) Good wireless support that does not drain the battery
h) Ability to stream BBC radio (thinking especially of the Ashes this winter)
i) Bluetooth, including support of Motorola Sound Pilot headset
j) Browser with scroll bars (I know Opera Mobile is award-winning and I am a Luddite, but I do like IE on the Omnia, even though I never use it on my PC)
l) Easily managed connections - the Omnia does this really well, never leaving you needing a power off/on to reset a 3G or wireless connection

Less essential:
m) Access to my Hotmail account (the Windows Mobile support is excellent)
n) Access to iPlayer
o) Access to Skype IM and/or MSN Messenger

Realistically I will be using a PC running Windows XP, not Linux or a Mac, for the foreseeable future.

I'll post the results of my researches here, and meanwhile any input would be very welcome!

'Practical Implications of POWER7 and i/OS 7.1': Logicalis IT Forum, Bath Spa Hotel, Wednesday 24 March

The next Logicalis IT Forum meeting will be on Wednesday 24 March at the Bath Spa Hotel, Bath, with dinner and overnight stay on Tuesday 23 March.

The topic will be 'Practical Implications of POWER7 and i/OS 7.1'.

I am delighted to announce that our speaker will be Gottfried Schimunek from IBM Rochester. Gottfried is a Senior IT Architect and has been taking a lead role in application and product development projects for over 25 years. Currently he is the Program Manager and Technical Consultant for IBM i on IBM Power Systems in the ISV Enablement team. His primary interests are performance measurement analysis and capacity planning of applications. Gottfried is a frequent presenter at customer, user group, and technical conferences around the world.

The draft agenda is:
9.30am Introductions and POWER7 Overview
11am Break
11.15am IBM i 7.1 and beyond
12.45pm Lunch
1.30pm Power System Blade Integration
2.30pm Performance Capacity Planning and Energy Estimation (with short break)
3.30pm POWER7 Performance considerations and optimization
4.30pm Close

We know that many potential delegates will be attending the POWER7 overview in February given by Rod Adkins and Ross Maury of IBM; while there will obviously be some overlap, our focus is on the implications of the new hardware and operating system from an applications perspective (ISV and bespoke).

If you would like to discuss any additional related topic, please let me know.

Please get in touch with me if you are interested in attending, or if you have any queries.
Email mandy.shaw@iperimeter.co.uk
'Phone +44 1225 436302
Skype shawmandy

An example of good online service

I've just upgraded the tracker on www.iperimeter.co.uk to the chargeable version (so that I don't have to show the tracker icon on my pages, and also so that I can get more easily interpreted statistics and exclude my home IP address from them; it also means that casual browsers no longer have theoretical access to the IP address information of other visitors, which I think is a little iffy from a Data Protection perspective).

This is the third Extreme Tracking tracker I have bought (following my husband's website and the Ashton Singers one).

The extremetracking.com website is very quick, simple and clear to use, and I can even easily find and print off a VAT invoice. I have never needed to request technical support from them, and the only time I contacted customer services I received a speedy and effective response that did not appear to have been cut and pasted from a set of standard paragraphs.

After all my moans on this blog about certain other software and service providers, it's nice to be able to praise something unreservedly.

iPerimeter website updated

www.iperimeter.co.uk had remained untouched for over a year ... not good. Anyway I have added some recent experience and some older stuff that may be of interest to some people (there wasn't anything about Domino on iSeries on there, for example). I've also incorporated a couple of links to customer references on the Logicalis UK website.

It's difficult to know what potential customers are looking for - it'll probably need a few more iterations.

The look and feel and navigation need serious work, but that'll have to wait until another time.

Chandos Singers, Holy Trinity Church, Bath, Saturday 6 March

Music for a Time of Penitence

Adam Michna Mass for Lent (c.1650)
Michna Requiem
Victoria Salve Regina (double choir, c.1592)
Vaughan Williams O vos omnes (1922)
Poulenc Tenebrae factae sunt (1938)
Poulenc Tristis est anima mea (1938)
Bernhard Lewkovitch Exsultate Domino (1952)
Lewkovitch Laudate Dominum (1957)
Kenneth Leighton Quam dilecta (1966)

Debbie Warren Soprano and Recorder
Simon Caldwell Baritone and Violin
Chandos Singers
Malcolm Hill Conductor

Tickets £8.00 at the door (£5.00 for full-time students)

For more information, visit http://www.chandos-singers.co.uk

Ongoing problems with AVG Internet Security (paid version 8 on XP)

I can't find any sensible forum to post these issues on, so I have reported them to AVG using their diagnostics tool (which took half an hour to run each time, using at least 65% of my CPU throughout, and which, amusingly, wouldn't actually connect to AVG on the first two attempts because, or so I assume, their firewall (or right hand) doesn't know what their own software (or left hand) is doing).

Further entertainment is to be found in the fact that, once you've reported one problem, you can't change the subject of your report (e.g. from Firewall to Identity Protection).

In case any of this is of interest to anyone else, I will update the status of these reports via comments on this post. (I am prepared to bet a reasonable sum that this is the last I will hear of any of it, and that I will be using a different product as soon as this licence expires - sadly not until August 2011.)

******

Hi
I have a problem with my AVG firewall taking ages (often several minutes) to identify the adapter/profile.
This happens especially when connecting Cisco VPN client, but also when I first connect my wireless adapter after rebooting the PC.
This is seriously impacting my productivity, as I connect and disconnect my Cisco VPN client many times a day.
I can find no reference to this issue in any of the forums or FAQs.
Please advise how I may resolve it.
Many thanks
Mandy Shaw

******

PROBLEM WITH AVG IDENTITY PROTECTION
How do I switch off the automatic scan for a specific program? Microsoft ActiveSync (which surely does not need to be scanned at all, let alone every single time) nearly always starts up too slowly on my Windows XP PC, because of your Identity Protection scan, for my mobile 'phone Bluetooth sync to work without timing out on initial connection.
This is seriously affecting my productivity, please let me know how I may resolve it.
Thank you
Mandy Shaw

******

Review of 2009

When I set up the iPerimeter business, and started this blog, I made a list of projects for 2009. Let's see what happened ...

Specific IT related projects for 2009:

• Establish a successful, focused and well marketed iPerimeter business

So far so good, though the marketing bit is in the eye of the beholder ... The focus has been very much on strategic architecture and System i, with a few dabblings in Domino. Would like to do more information security stuff.

I'd like to work on a redbook in 2010 - I'm keeping an eye on the upcoming residency list on the IBM website.

I also need to take positive steps in 2010 to keep my IBM software knowledge up to date.

• Update my System i skills

Done - e.g. I went on Mike Cain's marvellous DB2 on i performance class at IBM Bedfont in June, and have used the results extensively. I have been much closer to the coalface than in recent years, and have benefited accordingly.

• Develop my skills and experience in the area of information security

Not done - one for 2010.

• Extend the reach of the Logicalis IT Forum, especially by recruiting new member organisations

The Forum has been very successful in 2009, despite the economic climate, and we have new member organisations. The improvement is largely down to Nigel Gillespie's excellent topic and speaker selection - thank you Nigel. Hoping to go from strength to strength in 2010.

Non IT related projects for 2009:

• Help set up a website for the Ashton Singers of Winchester

Done, ish, but the excellent design provided by one of my fellow singers is not yet implemented because I need to acquire some CSS and Javascript skills. One for early 2010.

Singing achievement of 2009 was singing Barak in Handel's Deborah - 4 arias + recits - the biggest solo I've ever done by a factor of at least 20 - I did manage to knock over a large candlestick.

• Finish renovating my new house, and move into it

Moved in, but still much work to do.

• Attend a Saints home match that results in at least one point

Not done - entirely my problem, not Saints' - life in League One does at least mean we are more likely than not to win in any given week (dangerous thing to say). Haven't been nearer the Northam End than the quick weekly look provided by the Football League Show.