MIT and Harvard announce edX

May 2, 2012 Roger Lacroix

Harvard and MIT announced a partnership to offer FREE online courses to students around the world. The initiative, known as edX, will be run by a non-profit organization controlled by the two schools.
http://web.mit.edu/press/2012/mit-harvard-edx-announcement.html

Also, Princeton, Stanford, Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania announced that they would offer free Web-based courses through a for-profit company called Coursera.
http://www.coursera.org/

There’s also Udacity, formed by a Stanford professor and Khan Academy, which boasts 3,100 free educational videos across a variety of subjects.
http://www.udacity.com/us

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Education, Open Source Comments Off on MIT and Harvard announce edX

Ubuntu 12.04 Released

April 27, 2012 Roger Lacroix

Ubuntu has just released Ubuntu v12.04.
http://www.ubuntu.com/

Super-fast, easy to use and free, the Ubuntu operating system powers millions of desktops, netbooks and servers around the world. Ubuntu does everything you need it to. It’ll work with your existing PC files, printers, cameras and MP3 players. And it comes with thousands of free apps.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Linux, Open Source, Operating Systems Comments Off on Ubuntu 12.04 Released

Mozilla Firefox 12.0 Released

April 24, 2012 Roger Lacroix

Mozilla Firefox has just released Mozilla Firefox v12.0.
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. To display web pages, Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine, which implements most current web standards in addition to several features that are intended to anticipate likely additions to the standards

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Linux, macOS (Mac OS X), Open Source, Windows Comments Off on Mozilla Firefox 12.0 Released

WebSphere MQ version 7.5 Released

April 24, 2012 Roger Lacroix

IBM has released WebSphere MQ versoin 7.5:
http://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?infotype=AN&subtype=CA&htmlfid=897/ENUS212-091

    Highlights

  • Tight integration of managed file transfer and advanced message security capabilities with the WebSphere MQ Queue Manager
  • Common installation experience based on the MQ Installer
  • Common tooling interface via the MQ Explorer
  • Managed File Transfer-specific functional enhancements
  • Security enhancements including the integration of the WebSphere MQ Advanced Message Security function into the MQ Server
  • Licensing changes for the Extended Transactional Client
  • Licensing changes for WebSphere MQ Telemetry Client
  • Multiple transmission queues defined for use in a clustered queue manager

WebSphere MQ homepage
http://www.ibm.com/software/integration/wmq/

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

IBM MQ, Linux, Unix, Windows 1 Comment

University of Florida Eliminates Computer Science Department

April 23, 2012 Roger Lacroix

A truly sad day for computer professionals and future computer professionals. The University of Florida eliminates Computer Science department and increases athletic budgets:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2012/04/22/university-of-florida-eliminates-computer-science-department-increases-athletic-budgets-hmm/

Are you kidding me!?! They are eliminating the entire Computer Science department and will be using the money for athletic departments.

Well, I guess the University of Florida FULLY supports off-shore computer companies. Maybe they received some donations for Indian, Chinese, Russian, etc… off-shore computer companies. Or maybe, they just feel that high-tech education is really not important. A sad, sad, sad day.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Education 1 Comment

Issue with MQ on Windows 2008 after applying fixes?

April 23, 2012 Roger Lacroix

If you recently applied Windows 2008 fixes KB667402 and KB2621440 and now your IBM MQSeries service will not start then read the following from IBM to fix your issue:
http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21591014

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

IBM MQ, Windows Comments Off on Issue with MQ on Windows 2008 after applying fixes?

New: MQ Visual Edit v1.6.0

April 17, 2012 Roger Lacroix

Capitalware Inc. would like to announce the official release of MQ Visual Edit v1.6.0. This is a FREE upgrade for ALL licensed users of MQ Visual Edit. MQ Visual Edit allows users to view, manipulate and manage messages in a queue of a WebSphere MQ (formally MQSeries) queue manager and presents the data in a simplified format similar to a database utility or spreadsheet program.

For more information about MQ Visual Edit go to:
https://www.capitalware.com/mqve_overview.html

    Changes for MQ Visual Edit v1.6.0:

  • Added 3 new columns to the main windows when displaying MQMD: MsgIdInHex, CorreldInHex and GroupIdInHex
  • Added a new feature called “Search MQMD”, it is under MQMD menu item. The Search MQMD feature supports searching on the following MQMD fields: MsgID, CorrelID, GroupID, UserID, Appl Id Data, Appl Origin Data and Format.
  • Added a gutter/line number column and a status line to the Raw Data tabs of the Message Edit window
  • Added a copy and find commands for the Hex Data and EBCDIC Data tabs of the Message Edit window
  • Added 3 new stand-alone Tools: Hex Converter, Hex Editor and XML Editor
    • Hex Converter can convert a hexadecimal number to its corresponding string representation and vice versa. i.e. 0x’3132333041424344′ to ‘1230ABCD’.
    • Hex Editor allows the user to edit a file in a HEX display.
    • XML Editor allows the user to edit an XML file in a tree display.
  • Added a gutter/line number column and a status line to the Text Editor and Tail File Tools
  • Added the ability to launch the tools in a separate JVM
  • Fixed a bug when SIMClient connects to the queue manager
  • Fixed a bug in the XML Message Editor that was not properly saving the message back to the queue
  • Fixed a bug with DOCTYPE handling in the XML Message Editor
  • Updated docs (English only)

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Capitalware, IBM MQ, Java, Linux, macOS (Mac OS X), MQ Visual Edit, Unix, Windows 2 Comments

New: MQ Visual Browse v1.6.0

April 17, 2012 Roger Lacroix

Capitalware Inc. would like to announce the official release of MQ Visual Browse v1.6.0. This is a FREE upgrade for ALL licensed users of MQ Visual Browse. MQ Visual Browse allows users to view messages in a queue of a WebSphere MQ (formally MQSeries) queue manager and presents the data in a simplified format similar to a database utility or spreadsheet program.

For more information about MQ Visual Browse go to:
https://www.capitalware.com/mqvb_overview.html

    Changes for MQ Visual Browse v1.6.0:

  • Added 3 new columns to the main windows when displaying MQMD: MsgIdInHex, CorreldInHex and GroupIdInHex
  • Added a new feature called “Search MQMD”, it is under MQMD menu item. The Search MQMD feature supports searching on the following MQMD fields: MsgID, CorrelID, GroupID, UserID, Appl Id Data, Appl Origin Data and Format.
  • Added a gutter/line number column and a status line to the Raw Data tabs of the Message Edit window
  • Added a copy and find commands for the Hex Data and EBCDIC Data tabs of the Message Edit window
  • Added 3 new stand-alone Tools: Hex Converter, Hex Editor and XML Editor
    • Hex Converter can convert a hexadecimal number to its corresponding string representation and vice versa. i.e. 0x’3132333041424344′ to ‘1230ABCD’.
    • Hex Editor allows the user to edit a file in a HEX display.
    • XML Editor allows the user to edit an XML file in a tree display.
  • Added a gutter/line number column and a status line to the Text Editor and Tail File Tools
  • Added the ability to launch the tools in a separate JVM
  • Fixed a bug in the XML Message Editor that was not properly saving the message back to the queue
  • Fixed a bug with DOCTYPE handling in the XML Message Editor
  • Updated docs (English only)

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Capitalware, IBM MQ, Java, Linux, macOS (Mac OS X), MQ Visual Browse, Unix, Windows Comments Off on New: MQ Visual Browse v1.6.0

LibreOffice 3.5.2 Released

April 12, 2012 Roger Lacroix

LibreOffice has just released LibreOffice v3.5.2.
http://www.libreoffice.org

LibreOffice is a comprehensive, professional-quality productivity suite that you can download and install for free. There is a large base of satisfied LibreOffice users worldwide, and it’s available in more than 30 languages and for all major operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Suse, …).

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Linux, macOS (Mac OS X), Open Source, Windows Comments Off on LibreOffice 3.5.2 Released

Here’s another idea for the world!

April 11, 2012 Roger Lacroix

For anyone who parks a car/truck/van on a city street or parking lot, at some point, you have had to put money or a credit card into a centralized parking payment machine and then place the issued parking receipt on your vehicle’s dash (face up of course). Pretty standard stuff if you live in a city and drive a vehicle. Usually, you pay for 1 or 2 hours of parking at a time. Then what happens? You have to run back and put more money into the centralized parking payment machine and again you need to put the new parking receipt on the dash of your vehicle. It is a real pain in the butt.

Here’s another idea that I will license under Apache License 2. 🙂

Lets combine the new technology in smartphones with the existing parking infrastructure.

  1. Add Near Field Communication (NFC) ability to those centralized parking payment machines.
  2. Update the centralized parking payment machines to printout 2 types of parking receipts
    • Regular parking receipts with the normal end time
    • New parking receipt with a bar code and ticket number
  3. For those with a smartphone with NFC, when you go to the centralized parking payment machines, you pay via NFC with your smartphone and the machine issues the new parking receipt with bar code and ticket number
  4. You place the parking receipt as usual on your vehicle’s dash
  5. When the meter-person inspects your parking receipt, they will need to scan the bar code or input the ticket number to see if the time has expired.
  6. Finally, the MOST critical part, the parking company must allow their customers to put more money towards the parking receipt (via an app or web page or whatever).

Now why go through all of this? Because now you will be able to “feed the meter” from anywhere, without having to run back to your vehicle.

Of course, features like having the app on your smartphone popup with an announcement that you only have 5 minutes left before the parking time expires would be excellent.

If parking lot companies make it very easy to pay for parking then more people will pay in a timely fashion, hence, in the end, it will mean MORE revenue for the parking companies.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

General, Open Source 1 Comment