The Information Machine (1957)

Just found this movie on the IBM Centennial Icons of Progress as part of the Cultural Impact of Good Design.

Brussels 1958, quiet some time ago ….

Development Environment Definition

An interesting blog/website from Peter Eeles, http://www.architecting.co.uk/papers.php refers to an interesting (pending) paper: Development Environment Definition

Jeopardy! And IBM Announce Charities To Benefit From Watson Competition

Jeopardy! And IBM Announce Charities To Benefit From Watson Competition
The first-ever man vs. machine Jeopardy! competition will air on February 14, 15 and 16, 2011, with two matches being aired over three consecutive days. The grand prize for this competition will be $1 million, with second place earning $300,000, and third place earning $200,000. Rutter and Jennings will donate 50 percent of their winnings to charity, and IBM will donate 100 percent of its winnings to charity.

Smarter Planet Comes to You

Smarter Planet Comes to You is an initiative to bring the Skills Truck close to you, so you don’t miss the panel debates on the theme of ‘Skills for the 21st Century’.

The tour is coming to Belgium on

• Monday 7th March,  Université Libre de Bruxelles / Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels
• Tuesday 8th March,  Universiteit Antwerpen

Check the Schedule for detailed agenda info

System Description Standard – bridging infrastructure and application architects

The “System Description Standard: Semantic Specification” (SDS) is a solution to handle the challenge of bringing together two different communities of practitioners together.  Each of these communities, the application architects and the infrastructure architects, have established its own proven method for tackling their part of the architecture development challenge. However, the lack of  standard ‘integration rules’ between the respective communities’ methods turned every joint project into a challenge.
The primary purpose of the SDS is to create a joint-up language between different communities to facilitate the joint definition of (IT) system architectures.

SDS defines the (meta) concepts from which system descriptions (models) can be built. These models will support the description of the various basic viewpoints or aspects of a system.
For a discussion about the concepts ‘basic viewpoints’ and ‘aspects’ we refer to “An introduction to the IBM Views and Viewpoints Framework for IT systems” by Denise Cook, Peter Cripps, Philippe Spaas, January 8th
2008 (available from developerWorks)

Other related information is available on
IBM practices – an introduction is available from the IBM practices website
IBM practice contents can be obtained via the Rational Method Composer website

Developing mainframe applications on your laptop

We all know that mainframes run continuously and that it’s really rare when they need to be stopped and re-started. In contrast, it’s quite common for personal computers to be booted or re-booted (re-started) and it’s rather rare for them not to be stopped and re-started at least once a day.

Well, what would you think about a z/OS system that you could IPL (initial program load; equivalent to booting) at any time? And what about having z/OS running on your laptop?

The IBM Rational Developer for System z Unit Test feature creates a System z environment on a desktop machine, enabling you to execute typical z/OS middleware for development and testing. The Unit Test feature is based on the IBM System z Personal Development Tool (zPDT) and runs on a Linux system based on an Intel or Intel-compatible (x86) personal computer (PC) processor. It provides a System z environment on a PC capable of running current System z operating systems, including virtualization of selected System z I/O devices and control units. It is intended as a development, demonstration, and learning platform — it is not designed as a production system.

Download: IBM Rational Team Concert Express-C Edition

Download a no-charge version of IBM Rational Team Concert Express-C Edition V2, a member of the Rational Team Concert family of products built on the Jazz Technology Platform.

Rational Team Concert Express-C integrates source control, work item, and build capabilities. It provides a complete collaborative development environment for small teams just getting started. Rational Team Concert Express-C can be downloaded and is free to use for up to 10 developers.
Community based assistance is available on jazz.net.

webcast – Simplifying multi-architecture development with IBM Rational software for the zEnterprise System

Simplifying multi-architecture development with IBM Rational software for the zEnterprise System is a one hour webcast enabling you to learn how the new and enhanced development tools from IBM Rational can help simplify development and delivery of multiplatform applications that span across z/OS, Linux on System z, AIX on POWER, and Linux on System x under a single management domain. The Rational software development platform offers developers a integrated set of tools, best practices and workbenches to overcome cross-platform development challenges, including capabilities to revitalize applications, empower developers, unify teams and exploit new zEnterprise infrastructure. These elements all contribute to help simplify and accelerate creation, maintenance, and enhancement of enterprise applications for organizations.

08 Sep 2010 – 08 Sep 2010, 3:00 p.m. UTC, Online – Webcast
This webcast will also be available for replay after the event.
* Register now

Impact 2010 Goes Virtual

The way companies approach their work, respond to change, gather information and use technology separates the low performers from the high performers. At the Impact Virtual Event, find out how to position your organization for growth in a tough economy. IBM product experts and customers will show you how to attain business agility by working smarter.

Innov8: CityOne, A Smarter Planet game

Innov8 has a major extension:
CityOne: A Smarter Planet game
Think you know what it takes to make the energy systems that serve a city more efficient? Given the opportunity, could you make the city’s water cleaner and more plentiful, its banks more robust and customer-centric and its retail stores more innovative?
Your mission
Level-Up your skills and discover how to make our Planet smarter, revolutionize industries and solve real-world business, environmental and logistical problems using IBM solutions.

The CityOne New Game Demo featured in Agility @ Work Lounge at IMPACT 2010.

CityOne on Wikipedia, Facebook and YouTube.