SPARTA News September 2000 Page #

September 2000

SPARTA Chapter President’s Corner

- by Chris Blackshire

Since last month, I have survived Survivor, Big Brother, Tropical Storm Gordon, and now the Olympics. Sometimes when I see an athlete, who is in their fourth Olympics, I feel like them in that this is my fifth year writing this president’s corner and new topics are becoming hard.

Thanks to Ed Webb for the SHARE conference review last month. Having members who are speakers/presenters really makes John’s job easier. Member presented topics are without any hidden sales agenda or vendor specific items and are keeping us current with what is happening on large system enterprise servers. Since it is now mid September, I want to see if I can get on the SHARE web page and look at the handouts (http://www.share.org).

Nortel is looking at upgrading its Amdahl 5995 to a CMOS processor. Mostly, floor space is needed to bring in more UNIX servers. Does anybody know if there is a web site that will configure an IBM or Amdahl CMOS processor and give you approximate costs for that configuration without going to a salesman to get these costs? Let me know at the meeting or via email.

Next month’s meeting is on Halloween night and I think we should discuss having the meeting one week early. I will put an item on the agenda to discuss moving the meeting. Think about it before the meeting.

Next meeting is on Tuesday, September 26, at LabCorp – Barbecue, drinks, and dessert will be provided.


Future Speakers
(subject to change)

Sept. 26 Linux On S/390 by Tom Rydzewski of IBM
Oct. 24 or 31 TBA
Nov. 28 TBA
Dec. 26 No meeting. Merry Christmas!


We need ideas and volunteers for future speakers. Please consider giving a presentation at a future meeting. Presentations don’t have to be fancy, just informative and interesting. Even a 5 or 10 minute talk can start an interesting interaction. Contact John Bryant at the phone number or e-mail address below.

2000-2001 SPARTA
Board of Directors

Chris Blackshire - President
Perot Systems 919-992-4602
P.O. Box 13010
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 Chris.Blackshire@nortelnetworks.com

John Bryant - Vice President
Glaxo Wellcome Inc. 919-483-9548
M/S D111; 5 Moore Drive
RTP, NC 27709 JEB33378@GLAXOWELLCOME.COM

Mike Lockey - Secretary
Guilford Co. Information Services 336-412-6235
201 N. Eugene St. 336-227-2021 (Home)
Greensboro, NC 27401 MLOCKEY@netpath.net

Duane Reaugh - Treasurer
DTS Software 919-833-8426
2913 Wake Forest Road
Raleigh, NC 27609-7841 Duane@DTSsoftware.com

Ed Webb - Communications Director
SAS Institute 919-677-8000 x4162
SAS Campus Drive 919-362-0232 (Home)
Cary, NC 27513 EDWISTUO@aol.com

Meetings

Meetings are scheduled for the last Tuesday evening of each month (except no meeting in December), with optional dinner at 6:15 p.m. and the meeting beginning at 7:00 p.m.

These monthly meetings are held at LabCorp’s Center for Molecular Biology and Pathology (CMBP) near the Research Triangle Park (see last page). Take I-40 to Miami Boulevard and go north. Turn right onto Alexander Drive. Go about a mile or so. Then turn right into LabCorp complex and turn Left to the CMBP Building. In the lobby, sign in as a visitor to see Brad Carson. Brad will escort you to the conference room.

Call for Articles

If you have any ideas for speakers, presentations, newsletter articles, or are interested in taking part in a presentation, PLEASE contact one of the Board of Directors with your suggestions.

Newsletter Mailings

The SPARTA chapter policy is to mail a copy of the monthly chapter newsletter to each SPARTA member, NaSPA national, each advertiser, persons who have requested a copy, and to other chapters who send us a copy of their newsletter. The newsletter is mailed about the 20th of each month so you can prepare for the meeting. The mailing list is maintained by Mike Lockey at (336) 412-6235; if you have corrections or problems receiving your newsletter, call Mike.

Latest CBT Tape Online

The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V429 (dated Sept. 1, 2000) are available from www.cbttape.org.

If you need a complete tape, contact Brad at LabCorp (Brad_Carson@labcorp.com or 336-436-4065) or Ed Webb (see Director’s list for contact info).

Minutes of the August 29, 2000 Meeting

•Meeting was called to order at 7:10 PM by Chris Blackshire, the Chapter President.

•Nine (9) people were present; all were members.

•Everyone in the room introduced themselves, told where they worked, and briefly described their job functions.

•The minutes of July 2000 meeting were accepted as published in the August 2000 newsletter.

•Duane Reaugh, the SPARTA treasurer, was not able to attend the meeting; there was no Treasurer’s Report.

OLD BUSINESS

•Articles are needed for this newsletter. If you would like to write an article for this newsletter, please contact Ed Webb. Keep in mind that you don’t really need to write the article, it can be an article that you read that you would like to share with the membership.

•The SPARTA Web page is now available. To access the SPARTA Web page, point your Web browser to this site: www.netpath.net/~mlockey/sparta.html. Please send any comments or suggestions about the Web page to Mike Lockey (mlockey@netpath.net). Be sure to check the Web page every once in a while to see any new or changed information.

NEW BUSINESS

•Future Speakers and Topics:

September 2000 - Tom Rydzewski of IBM
October 2000 - TBA
November 2000 - TBA
Other ideas:
- UNIX Services for OS/390
- IBM New Announcements
- Workload Manager
- CICS Web Bridge

If you have suggestions about speakers and topics, contact John Bryant.

•The September meeting will be at LabCorp in the RTP.

•Food for the September 2000 meeting will be barbecue and sodas.

•Thanks to Brad Carson of LabCorp for hosting the August meeting.

•The business portion of the meeting ended at 7:35 PM.

•Ed Webb of SAS talked about the recent SHARE conference that he attended. Ed discussed the highlights of some the sessions that he attended. Ed gave out a few selected handouts; most of the handouts from SHARE will be available at the SHARE web site in a few weeks (http://www.share.org).

•The meeting was adjourned at 9:00 PM.

Treasurer’s Report for August 2000

contributed by Duane Reaugh

The balance in the account is $329.08 but since I have not been there since June, ... there are two food bills pending.


Items of Interest


CBT V428 has Freeware of Interest

contributed by Ed Webb

There’s an updated DAF (Dataset Audit Facility) on CBT V428 files 035 and 094.

Get File 297 from V428 for ISPF interface to GRS (Global Resource Sharing).

See file 475 from V428 for Large Block Interface documentation for tape access.

Get files 135 and 183 for updated SHOWMVS (as of CBT V427).

Get File 171 from V427 for updated TAPEMAP.

Get files 135 and 182 from V426 for updated PDS 8.5 to Level 15.

See file 312 from V426 for XMITIP.

See these files and others at www.cbttape.org.


RACF Audit and Report Tool

contributed by Ed Webb

I ran across this redbook about a RACF Audit and Report tool that uses ISPF panels to present QMF data from a DB2 version of the RACF database. I haven’t look at it much but it might prove helpful. http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/pubs/pdfs/redbooks/sg244820.pdf


SCMG in RTP in September

contributed by Duane Reaugh

The Southern Computer Measurement Group holds its Fall 2000 Conference at the Holiday Inn in Research Triangle Park, NC on September 28 and 29, 2000. This is the same hotel that has been used for the last several SCMG fall conferences.

There are dual tracks at the conference, one for mainframe topics and one for other topics such as distributed systems and networking. See Conference Agenda at http://www.cmg.org/regions/scmg/index.html


CMG in Orlando in December

contributed by Ed Webb

Have you made plans to attend CMG 2000? The Computer Measurement Group conference is being held in Orlando, Florida, December 10-15, 2000. Cheryl Watson will be giving a session on “Interpreting RMF Reports.” For more information on the conference, please check out http://www.cmg.org.


Interesting Thoughts

How to Please Your I.T. Department

contributed by Duane Reaugh

1. When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, bowling trophies and children’s art.

2. We don’t have a life, and we find it deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.

3. Don’t write anything down. Ever. We can play back the error messages from here.

4. When an I.T. person says he’s coming right over, go for coffee. That way you won’t be there when we need your password. It’s nothing for us to remember 700 screen saver passwords.

5. When you call the help desk, state what you want, not what’s keeping you from getting it. We don’t need to know that you can’t get into your mail because your computer won’t power on at all.

6. When I.T. support sends you an E-Mail with high importance, delete it at once. We’re just testing.

7. When an I.T. person is eating lunch at his desk, walk right in and spill your guts right out. We exist only to serve.

8. Send urgent email all in uppercase. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.

9. When the photocopier doesn’t work, call computer support. There’s electronics in it.

10. When you’re getting a NO DIAL TONE message at home, call computer support. We can fix your telephone line from here.

11. When you have a dozen old computer screens to get rid of, call computer support. We’re collectors.

12. When something’s wrong with your home PC, dump it on an I.T. person’s chair with no name, no phone number and no description of the problem. We love a puzzle.

13. When an I.T. person tells you that computer screens don’t have cartridges in them, argue. We love a good argument.

14. When an I.T. person tells you that he’ll be there shortly, reply in a scathing tone of voice: “And just how many weeks do you mean by shortly?” That motivates us.

15. When the printer won’t print, resend the job at least 20 times. Print jobs frequently get sucked into black holes.

16. When the printer still won’t print after 20 tries, send the job to all 68 printers in the company. One of them is bound to work.

17. When an I.T. person is walking down the hall and you ask him to fix a “little problem” that just cropped up, go ahead and ask why all of your tasks in the Help Desk queue take so long to get completed.

18. When you spill orange juice on your keyboard - lie and say “it just stopped working”, we won’t notice the sticky mess when we take the keyboard apart.

19. If you are hiring 15 new people don’t notify us until the day before they start - we ALWAYS have PLENTY of PC’s on hand, configured and ready at a moments notice.

20. So the network is slow - mumble, grumble and moan about it to your co-workers - DON’T submit a Help Desk request, we’ll eventually hear about it “through the grapevine” and fix it then.

21. When your computer at home breaks, stop by and talk to us about it, we don’t get enough of fixing your problems here at work.

22. Don’t worry about following established policies on using IT equipment and services - we’re just control freaks and we don’t know what we’re talking about.

The “Simple” Dollar Bill

contributed by Chris Blackshire

Take out a one dollar bill and look at it. The one dollar bill you’re looking at first came off the presses in 1957 in its present design. This so-called paper money is in fact a cotton and linen blend, with red and blue minute silk fibers running through it. It is actually material. We’ve all washed it without it falling apart. A special blend of ink is used, the contents we will never know. It is overprinted with symbols and then it is starched to make it water resistant and pressed to give it that nice crisp look. If you look on the front of the bill, you will see the United States Treasury Seal. On the top you will see the scales for the balance--a balanced budget. In the center you have a carpenter’s T-square, a tool used for an even cut. Underneath is the Key to the United States Treasury. That’s all pretty easy to figure out, but what is on the back of that dollar bill is something we should all know.

If you turn the bill over, you will see two circles. Both circles, together, comprise the Great Seal of the United States. The First Continental Congress requested that Benjamin Franklin and a group of men come up with a Seal. It took them four years to accomplish this task and another two years to get it approved. If you look at the left hand circle, you will see a Pyramid. Notice the face is lighted and the western side is dark. This country was just beginning. We had not begun to explore the West or decided what we could do for Western Civilization. The Pyramid is uncapped, again signifying that we were not even close to being finished. Inside the capstone you have the all-seeing eye, and ancient symbol for divinity. It was Franklin’s belief that one man couldn’t do it alone, but a group of men, with the help of God, could do anything. “IN GOD WE TRUST” is on this currency. The Latin above the pyramid, ANNUIT COEPTIS, means “God has favored our undertaking.” The Latin below the pyramid, NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM, means “a new order has begun.” At the base of the pyramid is the Roman Numeral for 1776.

If you look at the right-hand circle, and check it carefully, you will learn that it is on every National Cemetery in the United States. It is also on the Parade of Flags Walkway at the Bushnell, Florida National Cemetery and is the centerpiece of most hero’s monuments. Slightly modified, it is the seal of the President of the United States and it is always visible whenever he speaks, yet no one knows what the symbols mean.

The Bald Eagle was selected as a symbol for victory for two reasons: first, he is not afraid of a storm; he is strong and he is smart enough to soar above it. Secondly, he wears no material crown. We had just broken from the King of England. Also, notice the shield is unsupported. This country can now stand on its own. At the top of that shield you have a white bar signifying congress, a unifying factor. We were coming together as one nation. In the Eagle’s beak you will read, “E PLURIBUS UNUM”, meaning “one nation from many people.” Above the Eagle you have thirteen stars representing the thirteen original colonies, and any clouds of misunderstanding rolling away. Again, we were coming together as one. Notice what the Eagle holds in his talons. He holds an olive branch and arrows. This country wants peace, but we will never be afraid to fight to preserve peace. The Eagle always wants to face the olive branch, but in time of war, his gaze turns toward the arrows.

They say that the number 13 is an unlucky number. This is almost a worldwide belief. You will usually never see a room numbered 13, or any hotels or motels with a 13th floor. But think about this: 13 original colonies, 13 signers of the Declaration of Independence, 13 stripes on our flag, 13 steps on the Pyramid, 13 letters in the Latin above, 13 letters in “E Pluribus Unum”, 13 stars above the Eagle, 13 plumes of feathers on each span of the Eagle’s wing, 13 bars on that shield, 13 leaves on the olive branch, 13 fruits, and if you look closely, 13 arrows. And for minorities: the 13th Amendment.

It would do us all good to ask “Why don’t you know this?” Your children probably don’t know this; it’s doubtful that even their history teachers know this.