Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with ibm

JRE Switcher?

devnull — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 02:28:09 -0800

What's the easiest way to switch between different JVMs? I have some applications which unfortunately require specific versions of Java from different vendors - specifically IBM Java. I also need to use Sun Java.

Is there a way to define which version of Java an applet started from the browser calls? I looked for a Firefox extension but could find none.

Just to clarify: I'm not looking to switch between different versions of Sun Java, but between the Sun JRE, IBM JRE, etc.

Anything that makes the same easy for non-applets would also be useful (i.e. without creating custom .bat files)

Find IBM Ad

canoehead — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 08:34:01 -0800

Hey does anyone remember this IBM commercial from the late 90's or so? There were executives conducting a meeting on the beach in surfer gear & talking in surfer talk, I thought it was quite smart & funny. Would really like a link to a video of this.

slow PC complaint from IBM users

rxbert — Tue, 26 May 2009 12:40:15 -0800

Hi fellow MeFites! You are all Great! Today, I am posing a question that has hounded me for a year or so... at work, we have an IBM workstation environment, with some M50's, M52's, S51's, etc. in the line-up. the issue that I am having is with our/my S51's. no matter what I do, up to and including re-imaging; the user's are always complaining that they are too slow. usually, I remove previous user's profiles, temp files; and after that I will typically upgrade the memory to 1GB. all without any discernable improvement. we, of course cannot dispose of the machines themselves, as they are capital assets, so does someone have some insight into the problem, perhaps some experience of their own to share... thanks in advance for your kind assistance!

IBM Websphere Portal vs Microsoft SharePoint?

Anonymous — Wed, 20 May 2009 10:31:36 -0800

IBM Websphere Portal vs Microsoft SharePoint: which is less loathsome? The organization for which I work (think: mid-size governmental agency, several thousand employees) got hoodwinked into buying IBM Websphere Portal, just before I started working for them. I say 'hoodwinked' because, whatever strengths or shortcomings Portal might have in general, it is a terrible fit for our needs. We use portal as our intranet platform, users log in and have personalized access on to a couple of applications, and maybe news or other stuff related to their department. I am one of three developer/producers for our intranet and internet sites. We paid consultants a zillion dollars to install Portal, and another zillion form time to time when it breaks.

Ok, fine, I'll admit it. I hate Websphere Portal. It can do powerful things but it is the most obfuscated, complicated, expensive, counter-intuitive, unpredictable, instable, inflexible, bloated, ugly, PIG of an application I have ever had the displeasure of crossing paths with. Its very existence offends me as an employee and as a taxpayer - it's that bad.

Anyway, now somebody somewhere well above me is in the process of being hoodwinked into buying SharePoint, a product I don't know much about. But, since I have a fair amount of experience coding VB, and administering IIS, and it seems like you can actually write asp/html type code and have it work without TOOOOOO much juryrigging, SharePoint sounds like a magical land of unicorns and rainbows compared to Websphere Portal.

Surprisingly, we have been asked whether we think SharePoint is a good idea.

So, at long last, the question: am I going to hate SharePoint as much as I hate WebSphere Portal? More? Should I take my retirement 20 years early and become a painter of houses?

Any GPFS gurus out there?

larsks — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 10:08:57 -0800

Grasping at straws here: have you successfully configured GPFS to operate in a multicluster environment? We're running GPFS and are running into some issues trying to get it to operate in multicluster mode, in which one GPFS cluster mounts filesystems from an unrelated GPFS cluster. We're following IBM's documentation (e.g., this) and everything looks great except we're unable to complete the mount operation. The log messages haven't been terribly helpful. This is on the "client" (the system initiating the mount request):

server refused connection because it is not configured to accept connections from the IP address ....  Ensure the local nodes name services is returning the same IP address which the host os configued to use for GPFS communication.

The client is contacting the server over a shared private network (e.g., 10.x.x.x address space). Both systems also have public (routeable) addresses. We've tried all sorts of permutations of the subnets setting.

Name that tune!

downing street memo — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:58:21 -0800

Today during NFL games, there was an IBM ad that featured big hits, quarterbacks getting sacked, etc. In the background a delightful jazz tune was playing, kind of an antithesis to the action on screen. What was the song?

p vs. i - the heck?

niteHawk — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 08:27:06 -0800

IBM-Hardwre-FIlter - So it's a shot in the dark, but anyone in the know about IBM Power servers? Specifically differences between the P550 and i550 offerings? I've got a bit So I am not the hardware guy at all around here, and know next to nothing about IBM server offerings... We are on aging P550 hardware that is EOL. My boss has asked me to figure out why we are looking at $120k+ servers instead of replacing them with the i-series which seem to baseline at $30k.
I've looked at IBM's site, but can't seem to determine, if it's just a software stack, or if it's something specifically hardware. I've got a call into sales, but I'd prefer to get a slightly less-IBM centric view on the major differences prior to talking to them...
For the record, we are an AIX/PowerPC shop, and we cannot change that

Help me break into my own computer's BIOS

flabdablet — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:47:43 -0800

How do I reset the BIOS administrator password on an ex-IBM NetVista motherboard? My toy server, a Linux box whose only bought-new parts are the hard disk drives, died from motherboard capacitor plague. I've been given a used IBM 06p2525 mobo that seems to be in good nick, and I'd like to make it work.

I've found the reference manual and a BIOS update. When I start the Flash/BIOS recovery procedure described on page 50, I'm being blocked by this:

 177 System Security - Asset control has been violated
 163 Date and Time Incorrect
System-security - Administrator password required.
Type your password, then press Enter.

Page 47 says that if Enhanced Security is on (which I'm guessing it is, because resetting the BIOS apparently hasn't removed the admin password) and the administrator password is lost, the system board has to be replaced. I obviously don't want to do that.

It's common wisdom that physical access grants full control. I have physical access and soldering-fu but no EPROM burner/reader. Can anybody help me get around this thing? Email is in profile if non-disclosure agreements are involved.

How can I get data off a bad hard drive?

deafmute — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:28:11 -0800

I am having a very unusual problem with my hard drive and CANNOT recover any data from it after trying numerous methods. Please help me with your technical expertise. A few weeks ago the hard drive for my Dell Inspiron 1520 became unable to boot into Vista after freezing suddenly. When trying to boot, I get a BSOD with the error message "Stop: c000142{DLL Initialization Failed} Initialization of the dynamic link library winsrv failed. The process is terminating abnormally." When attempting to launch startup repair, boot into safe mode, or boot off of several different Vista DVDs I am greeted with a cursor (that I can control) on a black screen that never goes anywhere.

I ran Dell's built-in diagnostic program, and after being given several hard drive related errors, Dell (very quickly) sent me a new hard drive. Now I need to send them the old one, and I would like to recover my data from it before wiping it and sending it back.

I first put it in an enclosure and connected it to Vista, but Vista does nothing more than prompt me to format the drive.

I then ran Spinrite, which, after 27 hours(!) of operation returned no bad sectors or errors of any kind. What's unusual, however, is that my old drive does not exactly match my new drive in terms of partitions. The data partition is flagged as being too large for the size of the drive, and I am advised to change my BIOS's "understanding" of the drive (which I can't do). It is also missing a partition labeled as "hidden CTOS memory dump". I have no idea what this means.

I then booted off of a Knoppix cd and attempted to mount the drive there. I was able to mount the two partitions containing Dell's hidden diagnostic and recovery data, but Knoppix was unable to recognize the existence of a third partition containing my data.

Google searches have proved inconclusive (particularly in the case of my BSOD error message). Please help me get my data!

Lenovo T61p alternative?

Popcorn — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 17:42:28 -0800

Alternative to T61p? I'm looking for a laptop that is highly reliable, has a good graphics card and lots of storage. I will use this system for 3d cad, gaming, and basic office tasks. I will be traveling with it extensively and it needs to be able to take a beating. I need good battery life and small size. I'd also like to run XP pro as I've finally made peace with XP and I don't want to start all over with Vista. I'd also like bluetooth support.

I would also like it to have 2 hard drives so that I can back stuff up and easily reformat and reload the C drive from an image without needing an external drive. I like to have my computer configured a certain way and when the gremlins start showing up, I like to just nuke them from orbit and start over from an Acronis image

I saw this thread, which made me want a thinkpad, and I was looking at the T-61p 15". This system seems pretty ideal for my purposes, but what turned me off is the poor battery life and the lack of a second drive. Is there somthing else out there that is comperable but with a second drive and longer battery life?

I'm toying with the idea of not having an optical drive, as it seems like I'm asking for too much in such a small package. I figure without an optical drive, I could get more battery or hard drive in a small package. Is this crazy? I don't buy much software and I rarely burn disks. I'd rather rely on flash memory and network for my data transfer needs

Also, is there a website that is like dpreview.com but for laptops? I like the feature search function that they have.
where I can dial in all my wants and search across all brands and models. I'm finding it a real pain in the ass to go to each manufacturer's website and having to first cut through their marketing-speak to figure out which line is the one I'm looking for and then dealing with their customization process. I've got a good 25 firefox tabs open and it's driving me crazy.

Thanks in advance!

Guide to Tivoli backup in O'Reilly cookbook style?

krisjohn — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:01:31 -0800

Does anyone have a practical guide for IBM's Tivoli Storage Manager (Express)? Specifically restoring. I'm particularly after a step by step guide to restoring an entire server after a major hardware failure or disaster.

Old mainframe computer market?

zorro astor — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:04:16 -0800

How would one go about pricing and buying an old mainframe computer, an IBM 360/30 to be specific?

What is the name of the song playing in the IDM "Ideating" tv commercial?

Apo11o — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 21:44:26 -0800

The new IBM "Ideating" commercial...What is the music in the background? Recently a I've seen a few clever IBM commercials for innovation. The music in the background hooked me the second it hit my ears. For 3 days I've diligently searched and have come up with nothing but a few youtube clips. So, what is the name of the song in the background, what is its genre and where can i find more just like it.

Technical help with an IBM Model M

danb — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 08:29:21 -0800

Can you help me repair my IBM Model M keyboard? I've got an IBM-manufactured Model M, Part Number 51G8572 (the kind with the speaker in place, shipped with the RS/6000) from 1992 which I took apart to clean thoroughly. There was water involved, but it was used only to rinse off the black plastic plate on which the keys are mounted. Upon reassembly, certain keys behaved strangely, or not at all: the shift keys, the space bar, the enter key, backspace, and backslash. I allowed the keyboard to dry for a couple days, and everything worked perfectly again, with the exception of the shift keys. They produce uppercase letters and alternate characters as intended, but not before producing a backspace and carriage return for the left and right shift keys, respectively. In addition, the | ("pipe") character can't be produced. I was lucky enough to do some diagnostic testing with another 51G8572, and by the scientific method have narrowed down the problem to be in the steel/plastic key matrix assembly or in its flat flexible cable connection to the printed circuit board. The PCB is fine. As you might imagine after all this writing, I'd like to continue using this keyboard and would rather not buy another one. And sending it to Unicomp for repair would end up costing more than a new keyboard.

Does anybody have a diagram of the key matrix or circuitry involved to help identify how the shift keys are related to backspace and enter? Could the problem lie in the physical contact between the flat flexible cable and the PCB? Perhaps it's been unplugged and plugged in too many times? Would it be a good idea to trim off a little bit of the cable? Any other help would be much appreciated.

Should I fix my thinkpad?

sully75 — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 08:33:14 -0800

Should I/Can I get my Thinkpad repaired Hi there,

I have a Thinkpad T41 that I bought new about 4 years ago. It's had a somewhat rough life. It's been in my backpack for most of those 4 years. I fell on it once and the camera (metal body) in my backpack destroyed the LCD. I got the part and replaced it myself. Not fun but it worked.

I've had to send it back to IBM repeatedly for the same problem. It will just die, suddenly, no warning. Won't start up, totally dead. That's happened probably 3 times under warranty. The last time they ended up having it for about a week. I think they said something about a "powering harness" or something like that. Which sounds like it makes sense.

The warranty expired and then a month later (of course) the same thing happened. I had a 3 year warranty. I decided it was better off dead. I pulled the hard drive out of it and built another computer (desktop) and got all my files off it. I still have the hard drive in a little USB case.

I was intending to buy another laptop at some point, but I'm realizing right now I just don't have the money to blow. But I also realize I kinda need a laptop.

I'm a photographer and live in a rural area, so at minimum I need a laptop to download memory cards to and work with on location. The T41 was minimally adequate for that. Very slow to process images. But I would be delighted to have it back just for backing up my cards when away from home.

So I'm wondering, is there somewhere that would fix this computer, perhaps better than IBM fixed it? Everything else is good, the hard drive still works (I think I might have misplaced a few mounting screws however). It's not worth it to lay out a ton of money for me, but it is a pretty good computer. I just would hope to not have it break the same way again.

I'm not sure if there are reliable Laptop repair situations available online.

Thanks

How to get my Thinkpad into workable condition?

alona — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:36:54 -0800

I've got an old IBM Thinkpad G40 circa something like 1998 that runs Pentium II and I want to get it running as fast as possible while spending as little money as possible. I don't have much computer experience, although my knowledge is pretty fair, and I'd like to take it on as my personal project. I'm obviously going to format the hard-drive and I'm thinking of going with Xubuntu because I have Ubuntu experience. Any tips on what to do, as well as sites/resources that actually explain how to do it, are appreciated.

Oh, please help Me(fi)!

tmcw — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 11:57:00 -0800

So I thought I knew computers... but this network is killing me. I can connect, full strength, etc. But I can't actually connect to the internet. My IP is 192.168.10.32. Using an 850G (motorola) WAP, Cox SurfBoard modem. Other computers (this one, which is 192.168.10.28, connect fine, it seems. There's no encryption on the network right now. I'm connecting to the right one. One thing that's in the mix is that I'm using a Thinkpad that, since the last set of changes that I've done, uses Windows to manage wireless connections, not Access Connections. Access Connections seems to do some things though, but it can't detect networks at all. Ipconfig is intermittently giving me a device error.

My laptop connects, as I said before, but can't get out to the internet. I don't know what the f is wrong. Any clues as far as which device should be the DHCP server? Any settings that are default / recommended, standard?

Yes, I know it should have encryption. But I'm desperate, and I just want a connection any way that it can work.

And school starts in two days. I'm pretty pissed. Any help?

I need some help with Lotus Notes 6.5

Vindaloo — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:49:56 -0800

I just started a new job at a very large corporation and the office uses Lotus Notes 6.5 for e-mail and scheduling; while fooling around with it I decided to try the To-Do feature in Lotus Notes and quickly got confused. While creating a new To-Do item, the status is listed as "Not Started", but as soon as I click Save and Close, the status switches to "In Progress". Basically as far as I can see there are only two status modes a To-Do item can be "In Progress" or "Complete", which is extremely infuriating as I have a bunch of items that I would like to classify as "Not Started", and others to which I would like to add a %complete status. Is there any way to do this in this version of Lotus Notes?

What does a supercomputer do?

jonathanbell — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 02:21:32 -0800

What do supercomputers actually do? Specifically... In this BBC story about IBM's new Blue Gene/P supercomputer, it states that its predecessor, the Blue Gene/L, is housed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where it is 'used to ensure that the US nuclear weapons stockpile remains safe and reliable'. My question is, how?

Help me queue smarter... Where do I begin learning about Websphere MQ / MQSeries?

kaydo — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 04:42:22 -0800

Where do I begin learning about IBM Websphere MQ / MQSeries? [preferably online or in recommended books] I'm looking to make the rest of 2007 a time to learn. While I still have this noble aspiration, I'm looking for some help. I've been vaguely familiar with IBM Websphere MQ / MQSeries for a few years and I want to learn more. My role for the forseeable future has nothing to do with MQ, however I'd still like to skill up.

My little adventures into learning are entirely self funded, so I'm looking for suggestions/recommendations etc for online (CBTs, distance education) courses or books which would help.

I should note that I have searched and found GENERAL resources on messaging or my own weight in IBM redbooks, just wondering if anyone can point me to something they may have found particularly useful.

Thanks!

Where are the Thinkpad stores?

amtho — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 09:40:12 -0800

Is there anywhere in the Chapel Hill/Durham, NC, area where I can just show up and buy (or at least get a good look at) a Thinkpad X60 (or preferably, X40/X41)? I've called Staples and Office Depot, looked at their web sites plus the sites for Office Max and Best Buy, and called Lenovo (not helpful). I know that Intrex, a local computer retailer, only sells one model of Thinkpad - not one I want.

I tried the "find a reseller" interface of the Lenovo web site, but none of the twenty names it listed as being near my zip code (27517) were known retail stores; I suspect that they are all business consultants.

Through Craigslist, I found ONE X-series listing, and it's some kind of reseller in Raleigh selling X60s for $999 each -- sort of a good deal, but I think I'd prefer the X40/X41 and spending less money. And something closer, dependable, with a retail location.

I also looked at the classified ad web site through the local paper. I know I could try local University surplus, but I doubt they'd be selling something this new.

I know that I could order a new one directly from Lenovo, but they aren't even selling the X4* series anymore. I could probably find one on EBay, but I'd be much more comfortable buying one that I could *see* first. Used or new is fine, but I am trying to be frugal.

Am I just out of luck?

Looking for a good, used "travel" laptop

nitsuj — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 18:01:33 -0800

Help me select the best cheap, lightweight, "travel" laptop for my needs, please. I work from home, and will soon be doing a lot of traveling, so I need a laptop so I can continue my work while on the road.

I'd like to buy used, spending less than $500. Primary use: word processing and Internet browsing. Internal wireless is a must. I'd like something durable, small, and light. Screen size is not an issue.

I've heard good things about IBM/Lenovo's ThinkPad series, though I know nothing about their older models. If I were to buy new, I'd probably go with their X Series ThinkPad. Is there something comparable in their older family of notebooks?

However, I'm not stuck on any particular brand.

Suggestions?

Lenovo battery failure: a cruel April Fools joke?

fourstar — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 16:42:41 -0800

The battery in my IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad Z60t went out of warranty 4/29/07. When I woke up today, the machine says "Irreparable damage to the battery has been detected. Replace the battery with a new one." Is it really damaged? Could it be a broken sensor? Some kind of software glitch? Is this typical? Is there a better alternative to the $159 replacement?

PHP/MySQL to IBM WebSphere?

bofe — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 07:06:07 -0800

I'm a fairly recent college grad that never really worked with an IBM iSeries computer. Now I'm being asked to maintain an existing project at my job which resides on our iSeries machine. Where should I look for advice? I've scoured IBM's resources, and none of them make very much sense at all. I just want to get this project off of my plate. A little background... I've been doing web development for the past 5 years... but it's all been ColdFusion/XHTML/CSS/PHP/MySQL/SQL Server.

I went into the existing files (.jsp) and edited a lot of them and used some nominal JSP code (jsp:include, jsp:forward) --- but I have absolutely no idea how to test my changes. I've installed a ton of software from IBM (several gigs worth) and I still have no idea where/how to test this app.

All of the documentation I've read doesn't make any sense... or if it does make sense it is completely unrelated to testing this application.

Please help! Thanks!

Error Message 00192

alona — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 03:53:56 -0800

My IBM Thinkpad 600 (Pentium 2) has crashed. Whenever I start it up, I get error message 00192. I'd like to avoid going to a technician if possible. What do I do now? Obviously, I've already tried google-ing this, but the results I got were either inconsistent or too technical for me to understand.
This computer:
- runs Windows XP
- is around 8 years old (approximately)
- hard drive is brand-spanking-new
- runs pentium 2, 266 MHz

the different results i got were that it could be the fan, the battery, or another complicated one (see below). on a different site i checked, a user who had gotten the same error message mentioned that he took out his battery and the error message stayed, so the problem probably wasn't the battery.

the third option i got for what was wrong was as follows:

snacc 00192: ERROR (0xC0): ACC card id number is out of expected range. Minimum possible id number: < #>. Maximum possible id number: < #>.

Explanation:
The SNA/ACC is hard coded to expect the card number range to be between zero to 63, inclusively.

Action:
Execute the xsnapadmin utility to make sure the configured card number is not out of the required range. Fix the card id and restart the SNA/ACC link.

Help!