You’re brought in to help because you know something that they don’t. You’ve got a world of experience and an old-school, belts-and-braces approach that makes it much less of a risk for a project if the company has you around. Now, the very fact that—to them—you’re an expert (don’t argue!), means that you can very […]
How LinkedIn helped me bypass the gatekeepers
Every couple of days, I’ll get a question like: “What’s the trick to getting noticed on LinkedIn?” Or else: “You seem to have cracked the code. What’s the hack?” Or this (my favourite): “Anthony, you’re everywhere!” No, I’m not everywhere, and there is no hack, really. In fact, building a network of lead generation on […]
Great Tech Events … but how do you convince the boss to send you?
There are many great technical events and conferences throughout the year. Now, maybe you’re sold on the idea of going to one of these conferences. But how do you get the boss to agree it would be a good idea for you to attend? After all, there’s the cost of attendance, possibly travel and accommodation […]
Corporate Inertia
Resistance. Inertia. It’s hard to understand why people don’t do what they know they should be doing. This inertia isn’t just for people who really need to go to the gym or stop losing hours on Facebook. There’s also such a thing as Corporate Inertia. When you’re introducing some IT solution which will address a […]
Running an Old AIX Version?
At an IBM event recently, the presenter asked for a show of hands of companies that are still running AIX 6.1. Quite a few, even though the last service pack for AIX 6.1 is scheduled for April 2017 … not too far off. Then the presenter asked about AIX 5.3. It was a shock […]
The Business Impact of Losing Your Critical System
The more critical a project is to a business, the greater attention it deserves. Which is why it puzzles me that many companies have little or no appetite for discussing the most important IT project of them all: disaster recovery. DR is the set of policies and procedures that will allow vital technology and infrastructure […]
Test your mksysb backup without NIM or a tape drive
There’s a really handy way of cloning an AIX operating system straight from a mksysb backup. Even if you don’t need to clone an OS, it’s a pretty handy way of testing that your mksysb backup will actually be suitable for rebuilding your AIX root volume group. As you know, the mksysb command creates a […]
Tech tip: finding AIX’s save buttons
If there’s one thing that I will never get used to about Google Docs, it is that it doesn’t save your changes. Or rather, it does it for you. Well, Mr Google, I want the “save” button back. Even if it doesn’t do anything. There is something very consoling about a save button. It’s closure. […]
Opinion: An AIX guy finds his inner i
In my experience, most IBM Power shops are either AIX or IBM i, but rarely both. As a predominantly AIX type, I have admired the enthusiasm of the IBM i people I’ve run across, but I’ve really had very little crossover in terms of common projects. Until pretty recently, that is. What brought this hardened […]
AIX tech tip: Bye-bye loops – use the ‘apply’ command instead
One of the best kept secrets of the AIX command line is the “apply” command. Never heard of it? Well, welcome to the club. Two colleagues and I had over 60 years’ combined experience on AIX and, between us, we had never once come across “apply”. So, what does it do and why should you […]