strelitzia – the way I see IT

Charging the future

The brilliant Douglas Adams (R.I.P) wrote (if I am right in 1998) a funny, true story about ‘dongly things‘.

I have always wondered why 90% of all equipment, with or without batteries, don’t work  on 240v as it comes to my home. I have so many adapters in my home, that going on holiday almost forces me to carry another case.

But when I travel by car, all items can work easily from the cigarette lighter. My current car has three of those and doesn’t have an ash-tray… I always charge my phone by a cigarette-to-USB converter in my car.

When I am on the move with my laptop, it gets even better. I can use my USB slots to charge everything. I still have a few special cables (iPod), but it is much lighter than any power-adaptor. I have bought a small USB-powered switch, my phone, Bluetooth headset and my USB-hub to power them all. I only need one power adapter to charge my laptop.

So there is a solution. We need USB outlets and it seems cheap and easy to build them yourself.

We probably just need to start building USB 3 outlets and have one, efficient electric transformer to power them all…

A secure blanket

You shouldn’t trust the Internet. It is dangerous and because most people do not fully comprehend the technology and inner workings, it is hard to understand how and when you are in danger. And yet, as we become more and more reliant on Internet, we clearly need to use it. The Internet was invented by people with large ideological ideas which completely trusted each other. Yet it was conceived to withstand a nuclear bomb and keep on functioning. It appears that the threats we encounter are quite different though. As you are using Internet banking and started to buy stuff on-line, it seems ‘they’ are out there to steal your money or, worse, your identity.
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What works for me

I was recently asked to give a training to a technical staff to help them improve their skills. Their manager asked me if I could help them improve on troubleshooting skills and problem management. I thought about it for a long time, but it seems very hard to teach a group to ‘troubleshoot’. So I moved this to one-on-one training sessions and decided to change the training to soft skills with the motto: “What works for me”. I like to share some of these with you.

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unstash in Java

It has been ten years ago – 1999 – since the (in)famous unstash-script came out. It was a cryptic PERL script, which could read IBM’s stash files and deliver you the ‘encrypted’ password.

I was in need of the script, as I lost a password from a cryptocraphic key database and got stuck as I had no PERL installed. So I decided to create a Java-version of this script, because Java is always available when you are installing most IBM products. You may use it to your liking.

For an explanation how it works and a link to download the jar-file, please read on!

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smart lazyness

I am lazy. I admit it. I wouldn’t know how to cope with the information overload otherwise. You know what: Actually being lazy keeps me quite busy.  You need to be lazy and apply it in a smart way. 

Being lazy is not about doing nothing. It is about not remembering, because things are obvious. It tries to work on the “don’t make me think” paradigm. Whenever you have a choice, you stop and have to make a decision. This takes time and effort. We need to  remove the little, interfering choices.

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IBM Cognos, a prediction

IBM acquired Cognos, a major buy and a great improvement to the IBM portfolio. They seem to be buying a lot lately.

Sometimes such an event requires a prediction. My prediction is that Cognos will become the ‘green’ brand of IBM. They have done so with Tivoli (the ‘red’ brand), Rational (‘light blue’) and Lotus (‘yellow’). WebSphere seems to be the only IBM native brand (‘purple’). Frankly everybody had problems with the data-brand. It was DB2 at first, then become ‘information managament’ which makes little sense and is way too long, marketing wise and visually in IBMs outings. Cognos seems to fit just fine. And it is a strong name.

Hence my prediction that the data brand of IBM will become IBM Cognos. Let’s wait and see…

Vista DHCP problem solved…

Ok, normally I do not blog about these things anymore, but this has caused a real headache for a long time. I was forced to use static IP addresses. Nothing worked with Vista.

Simply typing this command in an elevated (administrator mode) command window did the trick:

netsh winsock reset catalog

forget about KB928233 (or try it too)

Dear Project Leader

an open letter to all (IT) project leaders

Doing a project is a multidisciplinary job. It is a serious game with a lot of stakeholders and due to the fact that both you an I are quite expensive, let alone all the facilities we are using, a lot is at stake. It is our job to make it worthwhile.

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Beautiful Ireland

This year I spend my holiday in Ireland by motorbike. We didn’t have a lot of rain and the scenery is just great! There is a lot of wind, especially when driving near the Atlantic coast. The people are friendly, helpful. There are not many bikers, but you should try it.
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driving an F800ST

I drove a BMW F800ST and it was a lot of fun. The machine is fast, small, easy to handle and remains very trustworthy. Even accelerating full speed never gave the hint of a wheelie. It handles beautiful through long corners, keeping it nice on the line with just the throttle. I also went through a traffic jam like never before, because it is so narrow and good at short sprints.

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