SPARTA News October 2004

October 2004

SPARTA Chapter President’s Corner

- by Brad Carson

October and the leaves are changing colors and the cool weather is upon us. It has been an interesting summer this year. Changing jobs (what, again?), and helping out friends has kept me busy at times and I am enjoying the work. With the market still depressed around here I'm very glad to have full-time work.

At DHTS we've just completed a move of all our offices from 3 different buildings into a single building next to the VA hospital in Durham. It's been a bit of a bumpy transition to the Hock building. It was decided that everyone needed to new phone number to help the transition to IP based phones. Hmm, a phone with a MAC and IP address, this ought to be fun when the network is down; I guess we'll have to send a telegram to the helpdesk (or maybe Pony Express!). Besides all this activity, we are getting ready for a 48 hour DR test that will start on October 26th at 2:00 PM. This time we will be using 3590 J carts for the restore instead of 3490E's, this should change some of the timing of our restores. We are planning on using DFDSS full volume restores for the core system volumes and letting the DBA's handle the database restores. I'll have a follow up on our test in next month's newsletter.

Over at DDA things are going a little slower. Right now I'm waiting for the them to get the latest copy of the "Application Developer's Collection Distribution" (ADCD). Once these are here I'll be upgrading z/OS to V1.6, z/VM to V5.1, and VSE to z/VSE. This looks like it could keep me a little busy on the weekends.

This month our speaker will be from Cornerstone Systems to discuss their server based systems and what they can do. Unfortunately I will be unable to attend this meeting because of our scheduled DR test and DHTS. Hope you all have a good meeting on the 26th at LabCorp and I'll see you in November.

P.S. Be sure to ask for Tommy Thomas. BarBQ, drinks, and dessert will be provided.

2004-2005 SPARTA
Board of Directors

Brad Carson - President
Duke Health Technology Solutions 919-668-0545
2424 Ervin Road, Suite 9000
Durham, NC 27710

Duane Reaugh - Vice President
DTS Software 919-833-8426
2913 Wake Forest Road
Raleigh, NC 27609-7841

Mike Lockey - Secretary
Guilford Co. Information Services 336-641-6235
201 N. Eugene St. 336-227-2021 (Home)
Greensboro, NC 27401

Tommy Thomas - Treasurer
LabCorp 336-436-4178
231 Maple Ave, Koury Ctr 3rd Fl. 919-361-7267
Burlington, NC 27215

Ed Webb - Communications Director
SAS Institute 919-531-4162
SAS Campus Drive 919-362-0232 (Home)
Cary, NC 27513

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 usually 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 Tommy Thomas. Tommy 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.

July 2004 CBT Tape Online

The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V466 (dated July 25, 2004) are available from www.cbttape.org.

If you need help obtaining one or more files, contact Brad Carson at Duke Health or Ed Webb at SAS (see Board of Director’s list for contact info).

Minutes of the September 28th, 2004 Meeting

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

•Eleven (11) people were present; all eleven (11) were members.

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

•The minutes of August 2004 meeting were accepted as published in the September 2004 newsletter.

•Tommy Thomas, the Chapter Treasurer, gave the Treasurer's report. As of September 30, 2004, the balance is $1465.81. Motion was made and approved to accept the 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 available. To access the SPARTA Web page, point your Web browser to this site: http://www.spartanc.org. Please send any comments or suggestions about the Web page to Mike Lockey. Be sure to check the Web page every once in a while to see any new or changed information.

•Brad reminded everyone to leave the SAS conference room as clean as we usually leave the LabCorp room.


NEW BUSINESS

•Future Speakers and Topics:
(subject to change)

Oct. . 2004: Cornerstone - Mike Hammond
Nov. 2004: z/OS 1.6 installation - Ed Webb

If you have suggestions about speakers and topics, contact Duane Reaugh.

•Thanks to Ed Webb of SAS for hosting the September meeting.

•The October 26th SPARTA meeting will be held at LabCorp in the RTP.

•Food for the October meeting will be BarBQ, drinks and dessert.

•The business portion of the meeting ended at 7:44PM.

•Three speakers then provided their SHARE presentations as follows:

Tom Schwartz: STK Information presented at SHARE

Duane Reaugh: Storage Enhancements presented at SHARE

Ed Webb: z/OS Tools and z/OS delivery.

Some of the topics that Tom Schwartz discussed were:
1) STK Software, Services, Storage, SVE, Servers, SAN Components
2) Life Cycle of Data
3) SAN Virtualization
4) SAN Volume Controller

Some of the topics that Duane Reaugh discussed were:
1) 65,000 files on 1 tape (was 9,999 max)
2) Tape types
3) MYSQL - open source is being released
4) IBM Allocation Optimizer (like STOP37X)

Some of the topics that Ed Webb discussed were:
1) UNIX Tools and Toys page - some tools are now supported by IBM as Ported Tools for z/OS
2) Perl may be added to Ported Tools and supported by IBM
3) PSP Tool - PTF selection
4) VSAM - IMBED and REPLICATE are going away
5) Internet Delivery for ServerPac z/OS and subsystems - coming in Jan. 2005
6) z/OS 1.6 takes 10GB for internet transmission plus space for expanding compressed files.
7) JES2 R7 Preview - exits are changing
8) From the Bit Bucket session:
AIM = Application Identity Mapping for Unix System Services performance
DIAG Traps - how to use

FYI: There will be no 64 bit COBOL (from IBM).

Tom, Duane, and Ed passed out handouts of their presentations if you would like more information and details.

The meeting ended at 9:30 p.m.

Treasurer’s Report for October 2004

contributed by Tommy Thomas

The balance in the account is $ 1465.81 as of October 17, 2004.

Financial Report
2/01/2004 through 10/17/2004

Items of Interest

SPARTA Food Menu for 2004

contributed by Chris Blackshire

Oct. - BarBQ
Nov. - Pizza


IBM z/OS 1.6 Customized Migration Books

contributed by Ed Webb

As noted in my SHARE report at the September meeting, IBM has a series of customized books for migrating from supported releases to z/OS 1.6. For example, one is devoted to moving from z/ OS 1.4 to 16. These customized versions are available online at http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/zos/bkserv/zos_migration_manuals.html.

Humor

Life in the 1500’s

Contributed by Chris Blackshire

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be.

Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

Houses had thatched roofs - thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying a "thresh hold."

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or "upper crust."

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a "wake."

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer."

And that's the truth... Now, whoever said that History was boring ! ! !


Out of the Office Auto Replies...

Contributed by Chris Blackshire

Suggestions for next time you're out of the office and need to set up an Auto-Reply e-mail:

I am currently out at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position. Be prepared for my mood.

I'm not really out of the office. I'm just ignoring you

You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the office. If I was in, chances are you wouldn't have received anything at all.

Sorry to have missed you but I am at the doctors having my brain removed so that I may be promoted to management

I will be unable to delete all the unread, worthless emails you send me until I return from vacation on 4/18. Please be patient and your mail will be deleted in the order it was received.

Thank you for your email. - Your credit card has been charged $5.99 for the first ten words and $1.99 for each additional word in your message.

The e-mail server is unable to verify your connection and is unable to deliver this message. Please restart your computer and try sending again. (The beauty of this one is that when you return, you can see how many in-duh-viduals did this over and over).

Thank you for your message, which has been added to an email queuing system. You are currently in 352nd place, and can expect to receive a reply in approximately 19 weeks and 3 days.

Please reply to this e-mail so I will know that you got this message.

I am on holiday. - Your e-mail has been deleted.

Hi. I'm thinking about what you've just sent me. Please wait by your PC for my response.

Hi! I'm busy negotiating the salary for my new job. Please don't bother to leave me any messages.

I've run away to join a different circus.


AND, FINALLY, ABSOLUTELY THE BEST....


I will be out of the office for the next 2 weeks for medical reasons. When I return, please refer to me as 'Barbarella' instead of 'Bob'.

Halloween Funnies

Contributed by Chris Blackshire

What do you get when you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter?
A: Pumpkin Pi.

Q: How do you make a witch stew?
A: Keep her waiting for hours.

Q: What do you call a person who puts rat poison in a person's Corn Flakes?
A: A cereal killer

Q: How do you mend a broken Jack-o-lantern?
A: With a pumpkin patch.

Q: What is a ghost's favorite ride?
A: A roller ghoster.

Q: Why are there fences around cemeteries?
A: Because people are dying to get in.

Q: What do you get when you cross Dracula with Sleeping Beauty?
A: Tired blood.

Q: Why was the mummy so tense?
A: He was all wound up.

Q: What kind of street does a ghost like best?
A: A dead end.

Q: How do you know if a ghost is lying?
A: You can see right through him.

Q: How is a werewolf like a computer?
A: They both have megabytes.

Q: Where do vampires live?
A: At the Vampire State Building.

Q: Why don't witches like to ride their brooms when they're angry?
A: They're afraid of flying off the handle.

Q: Where do ghosts go on vacation?
A: Lake Erie.

Q: How can you tell when a window is scared?
A: They get shudders.

Q: Why didn't the skeleton dance at the Halloween party?
A: It had no body to dance with.

Q: What do you say to a ghost with three heads?
A: Hello, hello, hello.

Q: What is a witch's favorite subject in school?
A: Spelling!

Q: When does a skeleton laugh?
A: When something tickles his funny bone.

Q: What tops off a ghost's sundae?
A: Whipped Scream

Q: What has a black hat, flies on a broomstick, and can't see anything?
A: A witch with her eyes closed.

Q: Why is a ghost such a messy eater?
A: Because he's always a goblin.

Q: What happens when a ghost gets lost in a fog?
A: He's mist.

Q: What sailor like to be chilled to the bone?
A: A skeleton crew.

Q: Where does Count Dracula usually eat his lunch?
A: In the casketeria.

Q: Where did the goblin throw the football?
A: Over the ghoul line.

Q: What do you call a goblin who gets too close to a bonfire?
A: Toasty ghosty.

Q: What do you call a ghost with a broken leg?
A: Hoblin Goblin.

Q: What do you call a wicked witch who lives by the sea?
A: A Sand-witch

Q: What did the baby ghost eat for dinner?
A: A boo-loney sandwich.

Q: What do you get when you cross a were-wolf with a drip-dry suit?
A: A wash-and-werewolf.

Q: What did the papa ghost say to the baby ghost?
A: Fasten your sheet belt.

Q: Who does a ghoul fall in love with?
A: His ghoul friend.
Q: What is a vampires favorite mode of transportation?
A: A blood vessel.

Q: What do you call a dog owned by Dracula?
A: A blood hound.

Q: What kind of hot dogs do werewolves like best?
A: Hallowieners.

Q: What do you call serious rocks?
A: Grave stones.

Q: How do you picture yourself flying on a broom?
A: By witchful thinking.

Q: Why did the witch's mail rattle?
A: It was a chain letter.

Q: Why did the vampire's lunch give her heartburn?
A: It was a stake sandwich.

Q: What do you call a skeleton who refuses to help around the house?
A: Lazybones

Q: Why did Dracula take cold medicine?
A: To stop his coffin

Membership Information

Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Location: LabCorp in the RTP

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 Tommy Thomas. Tommy will escort you to the conference room.

Free Food: BarBQ, Drinks, Dessert

Program:

Tech Overview of Flex-ES and zFrames

Speaker:

Mike Hammond of Cornerstone

SPARTA News
P.O. Box 13194
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-3194











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