SPARTA News May 2001

May 2001

SPARTA Chapter President’s Corner

- by Brad Carson

Our next meeting is on Tuesday May 22nd at LabCorp. Pizza, drinks, and dessert will be provided.


May Meeting Date Changed to May 22, 2001. Be sure to update your calendar.


Future Speakers
(subject to change)

May 22 IBM eSeries z900 by Jim Horne of Lowes
June 26 TBA

We need ideas and volunteers for future speakers. 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 by phone or e-mail as noted below.

Brad Carson - President
LabCorp 919-572-7504
1912 Alexander Drive
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 Brad_Carson@labcorp.com

John Bryant - Vice President
GlaxoSK 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 919-531-4162
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 V434 (dated May 1, 2001) are available from www.cbttape.org.

If you need a complete tape, contact Brad Carson at LabCorp or Ed Webb at SAS (see Board of Director’s list for contact info).

Minutes of the April 24, 2001 Meeting

•Meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM by Chris Blackshire, the Chapter President.

•Eighteen (18) people were present; ten (10) were members.

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

•The minutes of March 2001 meeting were accepted as published in the April 2001 newsletter.

•Duane Reaugh, the SPARTA treasurer, reported the balance was $571.79.

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:

May 2001 - IBM eSeries z900 by Jim Horne of Lowes
June 2001 - TBA
Other ideas:
- TDMF - Ken Frump
- WLM Goal Mode - Jim Horne
- UNIX Services for OS/390
- IBM New Announcements
- CICS Web Bridge

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

•Motion was made, seconded and approved to change the May meeting from May 29 to May 22.

•The May 24th meeting will be at LabCorp in the RTP.

•Food for the May 2001 meeting will be pizza and sodas.

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

•Tommy Thomas of the nominating committee presented the list of nominees for the 2001-2002 SPARTA Board of Directors. The nominees are:

President Brad Carson
Vice President John Bryant
Treasurer Duane Reaugh
Secretary Mike Lockey
Communications Ed Webb

•The floor was open for additional nominations; there were none. Motion was made to accept the current nominations; motion was seconded and approved.

•Motion was made to elect the nominees as the 2001-2002 SPARTA Board of Directors. Motion was seconded and approved by acclamation.

•The business portion of the meeting ended at 7:20 PM.

•Sally Adams of IBM talked about the IBM InfoPrint Server for OS/390. Topics Sally discussed were:
InfoPrint Server for OS/390
Feature of OS/390 V2R8+
History of S/390 Printing
Batch printing
Online Transaction Processing printing
AFP - Advanced Function Printing
OS/390 Print Server
Components
Windows 95/NT Client
AFPDS Datastream Driver
AFP Viewer Plug-in
Print Port Monitor
Print Commands for UNIX System Services
Print Interface
IP PrintWay
NetSpool
With the InfoPrint Server for OS/390 and OS/390 R8 we have a real
e-business server
Replaces OS/390 Print Server Feature of OS/390 (V2R5 through V2R7)
Feature of OS/390 V2R8+
Companion Program Infoprint Server Transforms 5697-F51
Initial feature no-charge PCL, PS, PDF, SAP to AFP
Other transforms are priced feature
Infoprint Server New Functions
Infoprint Server Datastream Transforms
Infoprint Server Transforms
Internet Printing Protocol (IPP)
Printing from Windows Applications
Consolidated Printer Inventory
Network Printer Manager
The Enterprise Print Server of Choice
Publications Reference
www.ibm.com/printers

•The meeting was adjourned at 8:30 PM.

Treasurer’s Report for April 2001

contributed by Duane Reaugh

The treasurer’s report shows our balance as of the end of April 2001 is $ 543.90.

Items of Interest

PDSE Redbook

contributed by Ed Webb

(Ed. note: Here’s an excerpt from CBT Tape News Issue No. 11):

A useful tome from IBM finally pulls almost everything you ever wanted to know about PDSE(s) together in one place.

Form Number: SG24-6106-00

Title: Partitioned Data Set Extended (PDSE) Usage Guide

Can now be downloaded as a PDF file and ordered in hardcopy just two weeks following the Publish Date! (see http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg246106.html for online access).

This IBM Redbook introduces the Partitioned Data Set Extended (PDSE), a data set organization storing many different but related members, that is provided for users of OS/390.

The book describes how to define and use PDSEs, and shows how PDSEs offer improvements over ordinary partitioned data sets, such as sharing between users and systems with integrity, an automatically-extending directory, and reuse of space.

Information for storage administrators and systems programmers includes system-level information on sharing in a sysplex, the use and definition of non-SMS PDSEs, and how to diagnose problems with PDSEs. The advantages of using PDSEs for storing executable code are explained.

And the Number Is?

contributed by Ed Webb

(Ed. note: Here’s an excerpt from a recent article at Broadcasting and Cable website):

And the number is? Nielsen’s data gets botched, networks left with false ratings
By Joe Schlosser
Broadcasting & Cable
4/16/01

Nielsen Media Research executives apologized to their network and cable customers last week after suffering through what amounts to a ratings power outage.

After Fox and CBS executives noticed that daytime and prime time ratings on Sunday, April 8, seemed out of whack, Nielsen stopped releasing most cable and broadcast ratings until late into the week.

The culprit was Nielsen’s mainframe computer, which went through some routine maintenance work on the same day. When Nielsen technicians put the computer back online, they failed to factor in daylight-saving time and, thus, crossed up national and metered market data.

Some ratings appeared to be altered by an hour; some just appeared out of “right field,” network researchers said....

© 2001 Cahners Business Information


Humor

Clever Doggy

contributed by Chris Blackshire

A wealthy man decided to go on a safari in Africa. He took his faithful pet dog along for company. One day the dog starts chasing butterflies and before long he discovers that he is lost. So, wandering about he notices a leopard heading rapidly in his direction with the obvious intention of having lunch.

The dog thinks, “Boyo, I’m in deep doo doo now.” (He was an Irish setter).... Then he noticed some bones on the ground close by, and immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat.

Just as the leopard is about to leap, the dog exclaims loudly, “Man, that was one delicious leopard. I wonder if there are any more around here?” Hearing this the leopard halts his attack in mid stride, as a look of terror comes over him, and slinks away into the trees. “Whew”, says the leopard. “That was close. That dog nearly had me.”

Meanwhile, a monkey who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree, figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard. So, off he goes. But the dog saw him heading after the leopard with great speed, and figured that something must be up. The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard. The leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says, “Here monkey, hop on my back and see what’s going to happen to that conniving canine.”

Now the dog sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back, and thinks, ”What am I going to do now?” But instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers pretending he hasn’t seen them yet. And just when they get close enough to hear, the dog says, “Where’s that monkey? I just can never trust him. I sent him off half an hour ago to bring me another leopard, and he’s still not back!!”


A Tale of Tomatoes

contributed by Chris Blackshire

An unemployed man goes to try for a job with Microsoft as a cleaner. The manager there arranges for an aptitude test. After the test, the manager says: “You will be appointed on the scale of $30 per day. Let me have your e-mail address, so that I can send you a form to complete and advise you where to report for work on your first day.”

Taken aback, the unemployed man protests that he is neither in possession of a computer nor of an e-mail address. To this the MS manager replies: “Well, then, that really means that you virtually don’t exist and can therefore hardly expect to be employed.” Stunned, the man leaves.

Not knowing where to turn and only having about $10 left, he decides to buy a 10kg box of tomatoes at the supermarket. Within less than 2 hours, he sells the tomatoes singly at 100% profit. Repeating the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100 before going to sleep that night. And thus it dawns on the man that he could quite easily make a living selling tomatoes. Getting up early and earlier every day and going to bed late and later, he multiplies his hoard of profits in quite a short time.

Not too long thereafter, he acquires a cart to pick-up truck. By the end of the second year, he is the owner of a fleet of pick-up trucks and manages a staff of a hundred former unemployed people, all selling tomatoes.

Considering the future of his wife and children, he decides to buy some life assurance. Calling an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. At the end of the telephone conversation, the adviser asks him for his e-mail address in order that he might forward the documentation.

When the man replies that he has no e-mail, the adviser is stunned: “What, you don’t even have e-mail? How on earth have you managed to amass such wealth without the Internet, e-mail and e-commerce? Just imagine where you would have been by now, if you had been connected from the very start!”

After a moment’s silence, the tomato millionaire replied: “Sure! I would have been a cleaner at Microsoft!”

Morals of the story:

1: The Internet, e-mail and e-commerce do not need to rule your life.

2: If you don’t have e-mail, but work hard, you can still become a millionaire.

3: Seeing that you got this story via e-mail, you’re probably closer to becoming a cleaner than you are to becoming a millionaire.

4: If you do have a computer and e-mail, you’re already being taken to the cleaners by Microsoft.


No Kicking

contributed by John Bryant

A little boy comes down to breakfast. Since they live on a farm, his mother asks if he had done his chores. “Not yet,” said the little boy. His mother tells him no breakfast until he does his chores.

Well, he’s a little pissed, so he goes to feed the chickens, and he kicks a chicken. He goes to feed the cows, and he kicks a cow. He goes to feed the pigs, and he kicks a pig. He goes back in for breakfast and his mother gives him a bowl of dry cereal. “How come I don’t get any eggs and bacon? Why don’t I have any milk in my cereal?” he asks. “Well,” his mother says, “I saw you kick a chicken, so you don’t get any eggs for a week. I saw you kick the pig, so you don’t get any bacon for a week either. I also saw you kick the cow, so for a week you aren’t getting any milk.”

Just then, his father comes down for breakfast and kicks the cat half way across the kitchen. The little boy looks up at his mother with a smile, and says, “Are you going to tell him, or should I?”