Rochester MN – With the recent announcement of the new IBM Power Systems which will replace the System i hardware, the i5/OS will also be replaced and renamed. Because of the much greater capabilities of the new operating system, IBM has named it the Virtual Universe Operating System – VU/OS.

Running under VU/OS, the individual user appears to have not merely a machine of their own, but an entire universe of their own, in which they can create or remove their own programs, databases, libraries, users, networks, and planetary systems. They need only specify the universe they desire, and the VU/OS system generation program (QGOD) does the rest. This program will reside in the QSYS library. The minimum time for this function is 6 days of activity and 1 day of review. In conjunction with VU/OS, all system programs have been replaced by one program (QPROPHET) which will also reside in the QSYS library. This program has no parameters as it knows what you want to do when it is executed.

Naturally, the user must have attained a certain degree of sophistication in the IT field if an efficient utilization of VU/OS is to be achieved. Frequent calls to non-resident galaxies, for instance, can lead to unexpected delays in the execution of a job. Although IBM, through its wholly owned subsidiary, The United States, is working on a program to upgrade the speed of light and thus reduce the overhead of extraterrestrial and metadimensional paging, users must be careful for the present to stay within the laws of physics. IBM must charge an additional fee for violations above the *NOMAX limit.

VU/OS will run on any IBM Power System equipped with the Extended WARP Feature which is a single-board nuclear reactor that supplies the needed 20 KW of three-phased power for up to 12 years.

Users should be aware that IBM plans to migrate all existing systems and hardware to VU/OS as soon as their engineers effect one output that is (conceptually) error-free. This will give them a base to develop an even more powerful operating system, target date 2010, designated “Virtual Reality”. VR/OS is planned to enable the user to migrate to a Totally Unreal Universe. Although Apple Computer claims its users have existed in a Totally Unreal Universe for years, IBM refutes those claims.

The IBM Virtual Universe Operating System, coupled with the new Power Systems hardware, is designed to help you consolidate and simplify your IT environment and your universe at the same time.

For more information, contact your IBM Virtual Representative.

Dear AS/400 Geek,

I am a System i programmer with 1 year experience and I work for a large company with over 30 programmers.  I don’t seem to be taken seriously by my peers or my boss.  What can I do to enhance my career advancement opportunities within my company and to achieve credibility with the other programmers?

Answer: If you want others to feel that you are a “real” programmer and know what you are doing then you must look and act like a real programmer looks and acts.  Did you see the movie Jurassic Park?  The rogue programmer who caused all the trouble – now there is a real programmer.  First of all you need to make your programmer station look like his did.  Empty cans of Jolt Cola, old dinners, candy bars, Dorito bags and empty pizza cartons are a good start.  You want your boss to think you live at work and have no other social life.  You should also have clothes that are  wrinkled and ill-fitting, large eyeglasses, and messed up hair.  (See Bill Gates)  Having program listings and open manuals all over your desk helps and whatever you do, don’t document your software – very unprofessional.  When you speak to users use only computer terms they don’t know.  There are many other tips I could give but these should get you started on the road to success.  Good luck!

In an announcement that stunned the computer industry, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan admitted the Unix operating system and C programming language created by them is an elaborate prank, kept alive over 20 years. Speaking at the recent UnixWorld Software Development Forum, Thompson revealed the following:

“In 1969, AT&T had just terminated their work with the GE/Honeywell/AT&T Multics project. Brian and I had started work with an early release of Pascal from Professor Niklaus Wirth’s ETH labs in Switzerland and we were impressed with its elegant simplicity and power. Dennis had just finished reading ‘Bored of the Rings’, a National Lampoon parody of the Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy. Read the rest of this entry »

Believe it or not, we have discovered an amazing and easy technique that will convert your ordinary PC laptop to an Apple MacBook. After much research and trial and error, we have perfected and simplified the technique so that anyone can make the conversion. We actually have one running in the lab at this moment. See the following photo as proof!

There was a doctor, a civil engineer, and an RPG programmer sitting around late one evening, and they got to discussing which was the oldest profession.

The doctor pointed out that according to Biblical tradition, God created Eve from Adam’s rib. This obviously required surgery, so therefore that was the oldest profession in the world.

The engineer countered with an earlier passage in the Bible that stated that God created order from the chaos, and that was most certainly the biggest and best civil engineering example ever, and also proved that his profession was the oldest profession.

The RPG programmer leaned back in his chair, and with a sly smile responded, “Yes, but who do you think created the chaos?”

Three Microsoft software engineers and three IBM software engineers are traveling by train to a conference. At the station, the three IBM software engineers each buy tickets and watch as the three Microsoft software engineers buy only a single ticket.

“How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?” asks one of the IBM programmers.

“Watch and you’ll see,” answers the Microsoft programmer.

They all board the train. The IBM software engineers take their respective seats but all three Microsoft software engineers cram into a restroom and close the door behind them.

Shortly after the train has departed, the conductor comes around collecting tickets. He knocks on the restroom door and says, “ticket, please.” The door opens just a crack and a single arm emerges with a ticket in hand. The conductor takes it and moves on.

The IBM software engineers witness all this and agreed it was quite a clever idea. So after the conference, the IBMers decide to copy the Microsofties on the return trip and save some money.

When they get to the station, they buy a single ticket for the return trip. To their astonishment, the Microsoft programmers don’t buy a ticket at all.
“How are you going to travel without a ticket?” asks one of the perplexed IBM employees.

“Watch and you’ll see,” answers one of the Microsoft programmers.
When they board the train the three IBM programmers cram into the first restroom they can. The three Microsoft programmers pile into another one nearby. Shortly thereafter, the train leaves the station.

After a brief interval, one of the Microsoft software engineers leaves his restroom and walks over to the restroom where the IBM programmers are hiding. He knocks on the door and says, “Ticket, please…”

Glendale, CA – Cocoa is a hot new programming language developed by Nestle Microsystems. The language was originally designed for programming hot chocolate machines but Nestle soon realized that the language had the potential to do much more. Because it is “architecture neutral” it can run on any device with a microchip including PCs, the System i, Cray computers, Coke machines, Timex watches, car stereos, TVs, DVD players, mobile phones and microwave ovens. You can literally surf the net and bake a potato at the same time! With the Cocoa Virtual Machine (CVM) on the System i it can run all Cocoa applets. Applets can be created using Visual Cocoa from Microsoft or VisualAge for Cocoa from IBM.

To compete in today’s competitive developer’s arena the modern System i developer needs to acquire the work habits of software developers from other platforms such as Linux, Unix and Windows. This training video will help you learn these subtle work habits:

Dear AS/400 Geek,

Several months ago I upgraded from GirlFriend 6.0 to Wife 1.0 and found that it’s a memory hog leaving very little system resources for other applications.  I also recently noticed that Wife 1.0 is also spawning Child-Processes which are further consuming valuable resources.  No mention of this particular phenomenon was included in the product brochure or the documentation, though other users have informed me that this is to be expected due to the nature of the application. Not only that, Wife 1.0 installs itself such that it is always launched at system initialization where it can monitor all other system activity. I’m finding that some applications such as PokerNight 1.3, BeerBash 2.5, and PubNight 7.0 are no longer able to run, crashing the system when selected (even though they always worked fine before). At installation, Wife 1.0 automatically installs undesired Plug-Ins such as MotherInLaw 5.8 and BrotherInLaw Beta release. As a consequence system performance seems to diminish with each passing day.  HELP! What do I need to do to straighten this mess out?
 
Answer: Just be patient.  Wife 2.0 is now in Beta and should be released soon.  Some features that will be included in the upcoming Wife 2.0:

- A “Don’t remind me again” button
- A Minimize button
- A clickable “no-sound” feature under Options
- An uninstall shield feature that allows Wife 2.0 to be installed with the option to uninstall at anytime without the loss of cache and other system resources.

I myself decided to avoid all of the headaches associated with Wife 1.0 by sticking with GirlFriend 2.0. Even here, however, I found many problems. Apparently you cannot install GirlFriend 2.0 on top of GirlFriend 1.0. You must uninstall GirlFriend 1.0 first.  Another annoying problem – all versions of GirlFriend continually pop up annoying messages about the advantages of upgrading to Wife 1.0.

***** BUG WARNING *****
Wife 1.0 has an undocumented bug. If you try to install Mistress 1.1 before uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before executing a self-uninstallation.