Out goes Google docs and in comes Microsoft...

I had converted myself from a M$ proponent to a droid foot soldier in hopes that Google would get a toe hold in business but with my current employment and now find myself pulled back into MS.

As a recent co-worker mentioned many times to me, (reminds me of the insurance commercial with the guy on motorcycle with dollar bills flying off except he has MS certifications flying off, not mentioning any names Ned), MS is deep in business and will be for many years to come. There is no hiding and I really cannot fight it.

I have been provided Office 2010 Pro and the company foundation is based on MS. I must stand behind MS and provide support and future integration to back end systems. Not really a bad thing but a 180^ turn from my focus over the last 14 months. I have spent a lot of effort over the years integrating MS with iSeries and it will now come in handy.

So out the window (no pun intended) goes Google Docs, Drive and Evernote. While I believe they are great products I must stand behind my current employers choice to be based on MS.

If this were any other job I would stick with Google but I realy like this company and people and plan to be here for many years to come.

In is MS Office, Skydrive and MS Onenote.

My Office download is finishing and I'm off to configure connectivity and switch from Google. Good thing I grabbed richard.bryant@outlook.com when it became available months ago.  

~Richard

Multi-tasking challenges....

The days are moving way too fast and it’s a huge challenge just to keep up.

All the parts for my new PC arrived Monday afternoon. While applying the finishing touches my old PC hard drive crashed and I cannot repair with Windows tools. After several hours attempting to resolve the matter I decided to put the repair on the back burner and focus on bringing the new PC online.

While I am working on the PC I am supporting and following up on my day job task of supporting VAI software questions, IBM hardware repair and finding the correct VPN solution to connect to all the stores I am trying to support.

I managed to get the new PC online and all programs needed to work installed which included IBM iSeries Access, WDSC 7.0, VAI GUI, SonicWall NetExtender and Quicken 2012. I was extremely fortunate that I had WDSC, Iseries Access and Quicken backed up on a USB key.

I cannot say enough about Google Mail and Google Drive. I had Email and all my documents available within the first hour of working on the new PC. The last time I lost a drive it took me a day to get Microsoft Office back to where I needed it to be.

Just as I am catching up to my help desk calls and deciding my direction I get a call about EDI 850 PO failing at the vendor. The vendor item number is missing from the EDI document. Without getting into the detail of the issue I had to identify why, which was the easy part, provide a quick data fix so PO could be sent to the vendor, not so easy.

Once order processed and vendor can accept the PO to ship product to a waiting customer I had to find modified program for a custom process not familiar with, find where in the code a possible fix could be made and write up the issue and proposed fix. Finished and off to the boss by 6pm.

Whew! Thank goodness today is Thursday, and tomorrow is Tequila Friday!

I have never been happier. I am back in an environment I thrive in. It’s just like my first two years at Pilot Pen without the fear that everyday is my last. The people I work for now are extremely business orientated and ego is not the focus.

Have your best day!

~Richard

Try to discover
The road to success
And you'll seek but never find,
But blaze your own path
And the road to success
Will trail right behind.
~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

I feel the need for speed...

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/04/23/intel-core-i7-3770k-review/1

~Richard

Excess on occasion is exhilirating.  It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.  ~W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up, 1938

Building my new PC....

It’s been 13 years since I bought a new PC. That PC was a Micron and lasted many years past it’s expected lifespan. Upgraded memory, video card, hard drive and CD burner at one point or another. I believe I got about five or six years out of it.

Around 2005 I acquired a HP AMD machine from a company where I was working as IT manager. I was never really happy with it, equipped with a lower end AMD chip it could barely keep up with Windows XP and all the software I threw at it. It was free, so beggars can’t be choosy. Basically I will never buy an AMD machine.

My current PC I acquired from a good friend who acquired it new from one of the branch offices. He would not put it on his network since it is a clone and does not meet his network topology standards. The clone is a Intel Core Duo E6550 2.33GHz with a 500GB hard drive, 1GB of ram and DVD-R RW drive. For $200.00 bucks it is an ok deal.

I had to replace the power supply after two weeks since the PC would reboot periodically on it’s own. I added an additional GB of RAM, max is 2GB, and a ATI Radeon™ HD 5450 graphics card which gives me the capability of having three displays, two Samsung SyncMaster 940n I acquired from my time at Pilot Pen and a Dell 15” LCD that I traded a mini monitor for.

The machine came preloaded with Windows XP, I purchased and installed Windows 7 Home Upgrade. Overall the PC has served me well over the last year.

When land a new job I always treat myself to as new electronic gadget of one sort or another. I have finally landed another good full time job after a year of searching and I have decided to upgrade my System.

The new job is full time work from home providing programming and IT support to a lighting retailer. I don’t want to be waiting on my PC. I need to be able to run a lot of different software at the same time allowing me to multitask and efficiently provide services as needed. I hate waiting!

I spent the last few days researching components and systems and decided that if I want my dream machine I would have to build it myself. Below is what I finally ordered today.

I started with the CPU - Intel® Core™ i7-3770K Processor

I balanced need, want, speed and price. 3rd Gen I7 processor with some oomph!

Next the Mother Board - Intel® Desktop Board DZ77GA-70K

Mother board made with the K series chips in mind. SATA ports at 6Gb/s will come in handy as you will soon see. Wi-Fi / Bluetooth and support for 32Gb  DDR3 1600+ RAM.

Now for a little RAM -  Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1600 SDRAM      Desktop Memory
This I purchased from J&R for $99.88. Maybe later I’ll add another 16gb. ;)
The hardest part was picking the video card. My future expansion includes 2 additional 23” Samsung HD monitors, this will give me a total of four monitors.

Video Graphics card - EVGA - GeForce GTX 670 FTW 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 Graphics Card

The next card up is over $500.00, I had to be real. I am already overkill and just could not get the want to override the price. Bottom line I don’t have much time for gaming, but if I ever do I can with the best of them. :P

Anyway you look at, it’s a badass card!

 
Let’s see what should I acquire next. How about a some Hard Drive? I want to be able to store pictures and video safely and programs to run at light speed.

SSD drive for programs -  Intel 330 Series Solid-State Drive 180 GB SATA 6 Gb/s 2.5-Inch

This is what I had in mind looking at the 6Gb/s on the motherboard. Not the best but damn close. My programs will launch at light speed just thinking of clicking the mouse!

HDD for storage -  Seagate - Barracuda 2TB Internal Serial ATA Hard Drive for Desktops
7200 rpm, 64Mb Cache and 6Gb/s SATA what's not to like?

If you're following this you have to be asking yourself what's it going to take to power all these beastly components? Well I’ll tell ya!

Power Supply - Thermaltake - SMART Series 850-Watt ATX Power Supply - Black  

NEED MORE POWER! Don’t think so. Don’t panic I did not pay $999.00, Best Buy $119.99.

Now all I need is a mid-tower case. After much research I descided on a Cooler Master.

Case -  Cooler Master - Elite 430 Mid-Tower Chassis

Dust filtered, support for five fans, water cooler connection if overclocking silliness overcomes me and support for beastly graphics cards like the GTX 670. I think my wife would divorce me if I went with the GTX 690!

Additional fan -  Corsair - Air Series AF120 Performance Edition 120mm Airflow Fan

I wanted at least one additional fan to start with and had a hard time deciding on one so I threw a dart at the board and this what I came up with.

I ordered all the parts today and hopefully have everything by next weekend. most of the items I purchased from Best Buy, 18 month 0%, the SSD from Amazon and Ram from J&R. Total cost $1692.57.

My current side work open receivables will cover most of the cost but liked the idea of 18 month 0% and most of the items are within $20.00 +/- when sourced outside of Best Buy. Either way it’s a business expense.

I am planning on adding a CPU heatsink but want to get everything put together first.

I hope to take the time to provide Youtube unboxing and installation, so stay tuned!

~Richard

Computers are like air conditioners.  They work fine until you start opening windows.  ~Author Unknown

EDI done wrong...

The last few months have been interesting to say the least. I have been in discovery mode for a medium size Jacksonville based retailer evaluating their EDI processes. The contract called for extracting and supplying EDI statistics to EDI providers and learning how the business does EDI.

This was my second contract in the retail industry and the experience is extremely beneficial. Most of my experience comes from manufacturing/distribution operations where I was either hired to implement, fix or re-implement ERP software solutions and provide IT management based on the IBM midrange systems.

What I discovered are EDI processes set up by RPG programmers who did not fully understand EDI. Instead of using Inovis TrustedLink translator on the iSeries to provide validation of the EDI documents, based on the published guidelines, RPG programming was created.

At very basic level this setup allows invalid data to populate into user files and then program failure farther down the line when code is not created for every variation of potential data error. I actually saw this happen during an invoicing run where missing data was allowed through the translator and validation programs. This required programming effort to back out data that had partially processed through the back end systems and delayed payments to suppliers.

I have seen this scenario several times before and successfully changed EDI operations to run with minimal intervention and staff. In my humble opinion if an EDI operation requires anything more than a EDI coordinator to maintain processing it is not implemented correctly.

Another interesting find is all element qualifiers are translated into the user files. Not that it’s wrong, just useless. Unless, the user file fields are so generic that the previous field denotes what the current field represents. Oh wait but how are you going to have to create programming to validate field contents? :) NOT!

If the wheel exists why reinvent, EDI software is a tool already written why not use of it?

I wish the company would have hired me as a permanent employee. I would have enjoyed re-implementing EDI and being more involved in the business side of IT.

I feel bad that I did not give any notice but felt that I had not integrated into the daily activities so I would not be missed. I needed health insurance and security of a full time position without the fear of working my way out of job.

~Richard

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.  ~Henry Ford