I’m going to be upfront – I’m about to do some gross back-dating of posts. This post is actually being written in January 2012 as I’ve been hopeless at blogging in the last couple of months of 2011 – not helped by having to re-instate a months worth of posts from Google’s cache when an enforced AWS reboot seemed to send my image back in time. Don’t expect volumes of text though: just a few words and an excuse to link to some photos. The one’s about the running race that I organised at work as part of the inter-departmental games. It was three laps adding up to (approximately) 5km. There was a good turnout, helped by the . I got a bit of stick for being too far out in front although still took 19:15 (the course did have a few hills). It actually transpired that I wasn’t far enough ahead as, having applied the World Masters 5k grading (my rules), I actually ended up back in 4th place. One way to look at it is that I don’t need to get faster – I just need to get older and not get slower! Andy Piper did a nice write-up on eightbar.
Archive for the ‘Work’ Category
Racing at work
Monday, November 21st, 2011WebSphere ESB 7.5 available
Friday, June 3rd, 2011WebSphere ESB 7.5 is generally available from Passport Advantage as of today (as are WSRR 7.5, WebSphere ESB Registry Edition 7.5 and the 7.5 BPM stack) and the InfoCenter is also live. Having been the Development Lead and then Release Architect, I feel a certain sense of parental pride in this delivery but, as always, the credit goes to the wider team. It shall also be my last as I am parting company with the WebSphere ESB development team and moving on to pastures new. I can’t say more at the moment but all will be revealed sometime this month.
WebSphere Technical Conference
Sunday, October 10th, 2010A quick post to highlight that I’m in Düsseldorf this week as a last minute stand-in for my colleague Simon Holdsworth at the WebSphere Technical Conference. I’ll be giving his Introduction to WebSphere ESB and WebSphere ESB Best Practices and Performance Recommendations on Tuesday afternoon, What’s New in WebSphere ESB V7.0 on Wednesday and then running the WebSphere ESB Birds of a Feather session that follows. I’ll also be at the Connectivity Panel Q&A on Monday afternoon which is probably the best place to catch me if you’d like to meet up at some point for a chat about the product or just to say Hi!
Scared of Santa
Sunday, December 13th, 2009On Saturday we took Emma to see Santa in the clubhouse at work (obviously where he hangs out at weekends). There was a bit of a queue but the guys had done a good job of providing entertainment once you made it in to Santa’s grotto: snowing Christmas trees, dancing Santas – that sort of thing. Emma’s favourites were the toy trains. Unfortunately, when the moment came to meet the big man Emma’s nerves kicked in and she just cowered behind me.
I was suitably impressed by the monetary value of the presents that Santa was doling out although, given Emma’s present was aimed at 12 months – 3 years, you can imagine that it might not keep the attention of a bright 2.5 year old for a long time. Emma also wasn’t too impressed by the magician whose voice was blaring out of the speakers in the sports hall. They were also out of mince pies so we just retreated to the playground outside. Once we were safely at home Emma declared that she wouldn’t be so scared of Santa next time. We’ll find out on Wednesday as I believe he’s due to be visiting nursery then…
Tri-Department Games Running
Thursday, October 1st, 2009Tuesday was the Tri-Department (MQ vs Transaction Processing vs the Rest) Games Running Race at work. Last year Sam Massey sprinted past me on the run-in and I was determined to get my revenge (although we’re actually on the same team!). The plan was to go out fast and put plenty of space behind me. I did start to stuggle on the inclines during the second lap of the site but had enough of a lead to keep Sam at bay, finishing the 2.7 mile course in 15:57. I’m glad to say that the MQ Mavericks also recorded a team victory for the event.
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Windows disk confusion
Friday, July 3rd, 2009I wasn’t best pleased this morning to find that I couldn’t log on to my laptop. I’d get as far as the logon prompt at which point any key press would cause everything to freeze. The only other noticeable effect was that the backdrop was missing. Safe mode made no difference but I could boot happily off a Linux Live CD. Needless to say a call to IBM’s European Service Center (which most certainly isn’t in Europe) was suitably frustrating. Why, given my serial number, they can’t work out where I am and what my machine, is I’ll never know. I guess I should just be grateful that at least there was an option not to have any music whilst on hold!
User Group Presentation
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009Yesterday I headed down to Bedfont with a car load of IBMers to present at the WebSphere User Group meeting. I was presenting an update covering new function in WebSphere ESB and Process Server 6.2. After days of pulling together slides from all the various product architects I ditched my pitch in favour of a few minor modifications to an excellent presentation from one of the worldwide tech sales team. Obviously I know the WebSphere ESB material well enough but this was a good opportunity to brush up my knowledge of the new function in Process Server. I also went to a couple of interesting presentations on OSGI, JAX-RS and JPA as well as my colleague Brian Hulse’s detailed presentation on the Service Gateway and Policy support in 6.2. With attendance down on usual, I felt the large number of parallel tracks led to smaller than desirable audiences for many of the presentations. It was also a horrendous drive back home along the M3 through torrential rain.
10 years on
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008Being presented with my “10 year pen” at a departmental meeting on Monday seems like a good excuse for a bit of a retrospective on my career with IBM…
