Happy Birthday IBM i

Happy Birthday IBM i! This video was taken during the 2013 COMMON Annual Meeting & Conference in Austin. Unfortunately they didn’t include my wishing IBM i a Happy Birthday (where I promised not to sing). I have to say, IBM i (formerly System i, iSeries, & AS/400) has been extraordinarily good to me and my…

Blogs for LUG’s

I’m pleased to announce a new free service for IBM i Local User Groups: Blog hosting. Oh yeah, you say, big deal … there are lots of free blog hosting services. What makes your so special? Well, how many IBM i oriented LUGs hosted in the ‘ibm-i.org’ domain? The blogs will be hosted in a…

Maxava’s iFoundation: Helping the “i” Win

I appreciate David inviting me to discuss Maxava’s launch of iFoundation. As David mentioned in his blog post, there is certainly a component of “enlightened self-interest.”  We hope however that it is enlightened self-interest for all of us that make our livings in the IBM i community. As you may know, Maxava is exclusively focused on the…

Maxava iFoundation

Something interesting crossed my inbox recently … turns out the Maxava company (makers of the Maxava High Availability Suite) has created a foundation to provide grants to IBM i community oriented organizations. From the website … The Maxava iFoundation has been established to provide assistance to not-for-profit organizations working to grow and strengthen the IBM…

Al Barsa Scholarship Nominations

I‘m posting this on behalf of the COMMON Education Foundation board (of which I am a member). In 2008, after the untimely passing of Al Barsa, The COMMON Education Foundation established The Al Barsa Memorial Scholarship in honor and remembrance of Al. This allows the many people affected by Al’s life to honor him and…

Opensource RPG shipped with IBM i – now’s our chance!

There are a good handful of IBM’ers that take the time to be friends with me despite my sometimes harsh criticisms of their products 🙂 Such is the case as of late while I was attending an IBM ISV Advisory Council meeting and got flustered over a modified feature being implemented in Java when it…

Downtime

Trevor has an interesting post on his i4everyone site titled “What Downtime?” I suggest that “Downtime” is important … it’s crucial in fact. All systems need downtime … a chance to relax, stretch the legs, have a siesta, etc. The important question with downtime is: Who decides when it happens? The system or the users?…

IBM i Marketing

Trevor Perry has been creating, and collecting, a number of marketing ideas for IBM i. Check out his IBM i for Everyone site.

Linux Desktop for IBM i Users

Aaron Bartell, and a few others, came up with a pretty neat idea: A Linux desktop for IBM i developers (and/or users). Based on Ubuntu, the desktop environment would provide tools that an IBM i developer needs. 5250 Emulator IDE Mail Web Etc… A list has been created to coordinate the project … LinuxDesktop4i. Check…

Promoting the i

Trevor Perry’s recent blog post Asleep at the wheel asks “How many of you have told someone outside this community about this amazing platform?” Well, I for one, can say that I did just that … and continue to do so as often as I can.