Thursday, January 26, 2012

New Challenge...

Start new contract today and cannot wait to dive into the thick of things.

Have your best day!

~Richard

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Confidence....

A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her.  ~David Brinkley


Good Morning All, it's another beautiful day in paradise!

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Update & iSeries Tape Density Question - INZTAP


It’s been awhile since I have posted anything and I sure wish I would get in the habit of posting daily. I have been deeply involved in the Stanford CS106A course which has me intrigued. Also, the job market has been heating up and keeping me busy.

I hope to start a contract job tomorrow but have not heard back from the customer. The customer is waiting for a PC based distribution planning software to be installed by the vendor.

I also have a face to face interview scheduled next Wednesday for a full time EDI developer position with a big distribution company. The company has big challenges that promise to keep me busy for some time to come. I am really hopeful that I get the position and have the opportunity increase my EDI, customer relations and programming skills. Who knows, this may be the home I have been looking for.

So, moving on, Jason , the IT Manager at my previous position and good friend, called me on Google with some questions relating to a failing iSeries backup process. He tracked down an error specifying that the tape density is incorrect and the save is being skipped.

I had recently helped him upgrade the iSeries to a new E4B with a LTO-4 tape drive. In our conversations we had decided that he is going to use LTO-4 tapes, I never gave it a second thought. 

When Jason went to purchase tapes he realized that LTO-3 tapes are cheaper. He uses LTO-3 with his Microsoft servers which are connected to an external drive. So instead of LTO-4 tapes for the iSeries, he purchased LTO-3 so he could use them interchangeably. That makes perfect sense since the capacity for the LTO-3 exceeds the total disk on the iSeries.

I originally hired Jason as the Network Administrator at Pylon Manufacturing. Jason had never worked on an iSeries but he is a smart person and he picked up bits and pieces very quickly. When I moved on to NanjingUSA he assumed all my EDI responsibilities as well as some of the iSeries tasks. 

I left Pylon with a pretty much automated EDI system and the Iseries ran itself with minor administration. Jason's focus was new EDI, Network Administration and wiper blade database administration.

When I moved to Jacksonville I managed to get Jason to leave Pylon and take over my position at NanjingUSA. Pylon has since closed the Florida distribution and moved the operation to Indiana.   

Long story short, I showed him how to initialize tapes but never had to go into the details since the defaults were all that were ever needed. The backup processes were fully automated which included initialization so all he had to do was switch out tapes every morning.

His question is why can’t the iSeries use the LTO-3 tapes in the LTO-4 drive? He then stated Windows could use either tape so why can’t the Iseries.

After a brief second or two I told him if Windows can do it so can the iSeries and better!

I then had him open up the source code for the backup program and change the parameter for the INZTAP command Tape Density from *DEVTYPE to *CTGTYPE, problem solved. Now he can use either LTO-4 or LTO-3.



I should have done a better job and captured the exact message for the E-mail. Next time I will.

~Richard


Friday, January 13, 2012

Its a small world...

Had a great interview yesterday at an Apparel importer / distributor and I think I got the gig. Should only take a few weeks but hopefully there will be other projects. This will be my first Jacksonville based client and just 20 minutes from home.

Its a small world, Elwin Kunzler is working there as a programmer. I passed up Elwin for another candidate when I hired the team over at Pilot Pen. No hard feelings, the choice was between him and another and I chose the other.

The job seems simple enough, basically setting up file transfer between iSeries application and Windows based  planning application. One requirement is to use QNTC file system. The QNTC is what I tried to show Pilot Pen but the VP did not understand so he continued with copy file process and batch programs, ugh.

This will be a great opportunity to use QNTC in a production environment. 





Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Job market heating up....

After a really slow first week I am becoming optimistic on the prospects of finding a new job. I am currently partnered up with a services company for remote administration and chasing another one.  I have not seen any work yet buy I am hopeful. I have an interview for a two month developer contract position tomorrow, I hope it will go well. Several other possibilities are floating but all are contract or contract to hire.

A few days ago I noticed free online education from Stanford. The entire course; video taped lectures, exercises, assignments and handouts are available to the public. So I decided to go back to basics and see if what I learned in the school of hard knocks are comparable to what is being taught.

Integrating the course with Eclipse WDSC 6.0 was challenging and I hope to post how I got it working.

Just got a call from one of my clients for a quick programming job. Should not take me more than fours to code and test. The Pups need dog bones so I better get to work!

Have your best day!

~Richard

Thursday, January 5, 2012

IDS on the iSeries.....

Here is an interesting article @ SercureMyi about intrusion detection on the iSeries.


The IBM i Intrusion Detection System



Have your best day!

~Richard


Sunday, January 1, 2012

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone a Happy and Prosperous New Year!



I am hoping you'll share your prosperousness and consider hiring me as your IBM iSeries hardware and software "Information Technologies Specialist".

I am an Information Technologies Manager specializing in installation, maintenance and operational support for IBM iSeries Mid-range Systems hardware and software. I specialize in manufacturing and distribution environments.

I also have extensive EDI installation and maintenance experiences. I have successfully implemented and re-implemented several EDI installations.

I am a successful project manager who creates and delivers projects on time and under budget. I work well as team leader or independently.

I currently work remotely and some on-site, providing daily operational support and custom programming for several clients located in South Florida. My current programming skills include RPGLE, RPG Free and SQL.

I perform IBM iSeries upgrades and have completed many over the years. I have recently accomplished four upgrades from V5R4 to V6R1 successfully on time and under budget. One upgrade included upgrading a Power 5 to Power 7 iSeries machine.

I have a wide range of experiences with hardware and software from PC’s  to the iSeries with a trail of successes behind me.


I am 24 / 7 person who thrives on challenge and providing businesses savings by eliminating inefficiencies, increasing user productivity and utilizing technology to it's fullest.

~Richard