Today we headed over to Redshoot for the SOC District Event and our first orienteering since returning to the UK. There wouldn’t be time for me to do the Long-O (26km) and for Christine still to get a run in so I settled for the Black course (15km). The navigation wasn’t particularly taxing with the control sites being sufficiently obvious that one could afford to be a bit wayward on compass bearings. The terrain was hard going though, particularly after all the recent rain. After 95 minutes I was therefore perfectly happy not to have to go on to do another 10km.
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Return to New Forest O
September 7th, 2008Changing jobs
September 6th, 2008No – I’m not about to leave IBM but, after nearly four years in IBM Software Services for WebSphere it’s time to hang up my travelling bag and, as in all good resignation speeches, spend some more time with my family. I’ve really enjoyed the chance to work closely with customers on some very interesting projects during that time and in many different countries (let’s see, from the top: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, UK, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and the US). I have also had the opportunity to work with some very talented and knowledgeable IBMers. I can’t really claim to have enjoyed the travelling – one business hotel looks much like another after a while – but for some reason customers insist of the consultant coming to them rather than vice-versa! The real killer though is not knowing where you’re going to be next week or perhaps even tomorrow.
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Graceful shutdown
September 5th, 2008Having done a little research on application server shutdown in order to answer a customer query I thought I would post my findings. WebSphere Application Server supports three shutdown modes: stop, stop immediate and terminate (in order of immediacy).
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My first US patent
September 4th, 2008Last week I had my first US patent issued: #7218708. The patent describes the use of the J2EE Connector Architecture to integrate a Java Message Service provider with an application server. This is something that is actually very easy to do with JCA 1.5 given the restriction of one JMS session per connection introduced by J2EE 1.4. However this patent describes a mechanism to use JCA twice (once at the connection level and once at the session level) that doesn’t require this restriction. This was first used in WebSphere Application Server V5 and continues to be used for the WebSphere MQ and generic JMS provider support today.
Connectivity restored
August 31st, 2008Hurrah – our internet connectivity at home as finally been restored! Matters were complicated by PlusNet failing to mark the fact that we had a copper overlay when we took broadband from them so the line was still showing up as optical fibre. In the end I plumped for Zen Internet who, although far from the cheapest (we had to pay a £50 connection fee for example), have a reputation for good customer service and a one month minimum contract. Hopefully this should mark the return of normal service to this blog.
Embarrassing breakdown
August 28th, 2008Sadly it turned out that the quick charge that I gave the car battery following our return from Monmouth wasn’t going to be sufficient to get me in to work on Wednesday. Going via the sorting office to pick up a package the warning lights started popping up as I passed under the M3 on Leigh Road. I pulled in to the right hand lane to turn back for home at which point the engine cut out. Just where you want to be – in the middle of the road during rush hour.
Unscheduled overnight stop
August 23rd, 2008As previously mentioned, our car battery was dead on our return to the UK. After an initial jump start and subsequent charge from the mains everything seemed back to normal. On Friday we decided to try taking Emma over to her Grandparents’ in Monmouth after dinner. Unfortunately as we turned on to the M4, the battery light came on and was subsequently joined by ABS and airbag warning lights.
First and last RR10
August 20th, 2008Fortunately my current desk location in Hursley is away from the windows otherwise the sight of the rain hammering down might have deterred me from turning out for tonight’s RR10 – my first for the year and also the last of the season. The race was, however, actually at Hursley and, with the disbanding of IBM Hursley Runners earlier this year, it was my first chance to actually compete in this race.
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