Norwood (Ohio) Hometown Fireworks a success

The Norwood (Ohio) Hometown Fireworks was a success once again. Attendance was estimated at 2,500 to 3,000 people. I was delighted to see the large number of small children attending. Here is a picture of the Powerhouse Boogie Band with the sponsor banner. Netburg is proud to have been a Gold Sponsor this year.

Norwood (Ohio) Hometown Fireworks

You're invited to attend the Norwood (Ohio) Hometown Fireworks on Saturday, July 4. Admission is free. Activities begin at 6 p.m. EDT at Shea Stadium, 2605 Harris Ave., Norwood, OH 45212.

Parking at the stadium is limited but there will be extensive parking available nearby. If you have a handicapped placard for your vehicle, please go to the stadium for directions to handicapped parking.

Netburg is one of the Gold Sponsors of this event. We hope that everyone has a good time!

Click here for the full poster (12" x 18", 4 Mbytes, view only).

Updated July 10 with minor changes.

Updated LinkedIn summary

I updated my summary on LinkedIn tonight. Here's the updated version:

Specialization: IBM Power Systems (IBM i, iSeries®, System i®, AS/400®) servers.

I prefer working with real-time (batch is obsolete) systems designed to run continuously 24/7. I also specialize in integrating the IBM i to everything on the plant floor but I’m flexible enough for other tasks as well.

Currently, I’m looking for an opportunity involving an equity investment in a business, in contrast to being an employee or a consultant. Although my experience is in writing real-time programs, my forte is gathering complex information and determining the underlying principles and trends.

Please don’t send me unsolicited ideas as I already have a list of 50+ ideas and I wouldn’t want you to think I stole yours. But if you think I could help you with your business, contact me through LinkedIn, at bruce.hobbs@gmail.com or at bruce@netburg.com.

To be honest, I am growing disillusioned with the IBM Power Systems platform. It’s like a Swiss Army knife, which is both an asset and a liability. The one thing IBM needs to add is the ability to run Windows Server 2012 R2 either natively or through emulation in its own partition. IBM sold its x86 server line to Lenovo and now manufactures nothing that can run Windows Server.

IBM, Power Systems, iSeries, System i and AS/400 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Netburg is a service mark of Stevens Communications Inc. Netburg is not affiliated with IBM.

Previously, it read:

Specialization: IBM Power Systems (IBM i, iSeries®, System i®, AS/400®) servers.

I prefer working with real-time (batch is obsolete) systems designed to run continuously 24/7. I also specialize in integrating the IBM i to everything on the plant floor. But I do other tasks as needed; I work on everything from hardware to Java. I'm one of the few people who has repaired an IBM disk drive to avoid a full system restore.

If you're looking for someone to improve an accounts receivable report, I can do it but I won't get excited about it. But if you want to be the first plant engineer to install a new type of machine in a group of over 200 manufacturing plants and you need help getting the IBM i to dance, then I could be your person. I don't do 40 hours a week well, but I will be there when the job needs to get done.

Availability for new clients: April 2015.

I recently worked on interfacing the IBM i to two systems, one of which uses SQL Server for its database and one that has an OData connector (here's a shout out to Scott Klement whose information was helpful with both of these interfaces). Both interfaces are running smoothly.

Many years ago, I designed a system to interface an SAP ERP system to bar code readers and process control equipment. This system allows real-time updating of SAP data from these sources outside SAP so that the ERP view is always up to date with the actions on the plant floor. Soon, I will be adding caching so that this system can run independently of SAP for several days with full editing.

I have modified packaged software to allow commission statements to be e-mailed directly to sales agencies with a PDF check image attachment. The payment is made by an ACH transfer.

IBM, Power Systems, iSeries, System i and AS/400 are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Netburg is a service mark of Stevens Communications Inc. Netburg is not affiliated with IBM. zl43x3q

IBM i Technology Refreshes: How do you know which one you have?

Beginning with IBM i version 7.1, IBM has been issuing Technology Refreshes (for example, TR11 for the eleventh refresh). These are different from any other update method previously used by IBM for the i and its predecessors: the iSeries, System i or the AS/400. For some reason, they do not use the modification part of the version for this; all Technology Refresh levels remain at modification level zero (e.g. V7R1M0).

So if you have an IBM i running 7.1, how do you tell which is the latest TR that is installed on your system? Simply run the "Work with PTF Groups" command like this:

WRKPTFGRP PTFGRP(SF99707)

and look at the highest level installed. For 7.1, Level 11, released November 20, 2015, is the latest available with Level 12 coming soon. Here is a screen shot from an actual system showing Level 6 installed:

For a general introduction of Technology Refreshes for 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3, click here.

For the latest installed IBM i 7.2 Technology Refresh, use PTF SF99717. Level 5 was released November 11, 2016.

For the latest installed IBM i 7.3 Technology Refresh, use PTF SF99727. Level 1 was released November 11, 2016.

To install the latest TR, do not use the PTFs above. Use the PTFs in the IBM document in the link above. This document also shows you the marker PTFs you can look for.

Let me know through comments if you have any questions about this.

Updated May 23, 2015 to add information about Level 10 for 7.1 and Level 2 for 7.2.

Updated December 2, 2016 with the latest information.

IBM i: Updating DNS without Operational Assistant

There are no native ("green screen") commands to update DNS entries on the IBM i; you must use Operational Assistant. But, for older servers, this can be a problem. For example, I could not get Operational Assistant for V5R4 to load onto Windows 7. And Operational Assistant for V5R4 will not update DNS entries for V4R5. This tip shows you where the DNS entries are stored on the IBM i server so that you can update them yourself.

I'm going to use example.com for my examples as it is a domain name reserved for examples!

For V4R5, the DNS entries for example.com are stored in this file:

/qibm/userdata/os400/dns/EXAMPLE.COM.DB

For V5R4, the DNS entries are stored here:

/qibm/userdata/os400/dns/ns/EXAMPLE.COM.DB

If you use the WRKLNK command, you can look at this file using option 5 or edit it with option 2. Here is an example from a server running V5R4:

 ************Beginning of data**************
;*************************** iSeries Navigator ****************************
;This file was written by iSeries Navigator on Jul 27, 2011
;*************************** iSeries Navigator ****************************
$ORIGIN example.com.
 
(The next two lines are actually one line in the file.)
example.com. IN SOA falcon.example.com.
postmaster.eagle.example.com. ( 1165351125 10800 3600 604800 86400 )
 
IN NS eagle.example.com.
IN NS falcon.example.com.
IN A 93.184.216.119
IN MX 10 example.example.com.imap IN A 192.168.23.10
pop IN A 192.168.23.10
smtp IN A 192.168.23.10
www IN A 93.184.216.119
falcon IN A 192.168.23.15
eagle IN A 192.168.23.10


;*************************** iSeries Navigator ****************************
;; Data from the "Other Records" page
;*************************** iSeries Navigator ****************************
 ************End of Data********************

This file is based on standard BIND format, although the spacing of the blanks is not the same. I'll explain what some of this data means but a full explanation is beyond the scope of this post.

Our example company has two IBM i servers, Eagle (at 192.168.23.10) and Falcon (at 192.169.23.15). Eagle is hosting the mail server, also referred to as imap.example.com, pop.example.com and smtp.example.com. The web site, which uses either a blank server name (i.e. example.com) or the regular name (www.example.com) are hosted outside the firewall at IP address 93.184.216.119. Keep in mind that you will need an entry for each possible system name as DNS will not look further if the name is not present in this table. The exception is the IBM i host table (CFGTCP option 10) which is either looked at first (*LOCAL) or second (*REMOTE), depending on the value in CFGTCP option 12.

This example company did not have a Windows server when this was set up. DNS was set up on both Eagle and Falcon for redundancy and their IP addresses loaded into the firewall as the name servers for DHCP connections. Of course, the reason for doing this is that the DNS entries for servers are different inside the firewall than they are outside. For example, Falcon's IP address outside the firewall might be 93.184.216.120 and Eagle's could be 93.184.216.121.

If you have not used Operational Assistant to set up DNS, I can't help you. This blog post is about changing entries, not setting up new entries. Let me know, through comments or email, if you have any questions.

New office at 3964 Montgomery Road, Norwood (Cincinnati), Ohio

After sign removal and painting. Taken Sept. 14, 2014.

Netburg Services has leased the office at 3964 Montgomery Road, Norwood, Ohio 45212-3720, beginning Sept. 1, 2014. This is located across the street from the United Dairy Farmers Corporate Headquarters and ice cream plant. As we are a small business, there won't be regular office hours so please call for an appointment (513-247-9701). Previous to leasing this office, we were a home-based business. Expect a new sign (instead of a lit blank sign to the left of the door) in November.

Before lease signed. Taken in Aug. 2014.

Courtesy of Google Street View. Taken Aug. 2012.

Updated to include additional pictures Sept. 15, 2014.

Introducing the new Netburg Services website

As of today, we are converting the Netburg Services website to a blog. This will allow some static content as well as dynamic content in the form of blog entries.