Real Time View

  Sydney Harbor in leadup to Sydney to Hobart race of 2018 This time last year I wrote of how it will not be smooth sailing for all of us in IT. More specifically, for the Nonstop community, I ended that post by asking how you will respond to one more question; will you be setting a course that is true and away from treacherous currents that can be avoided? What I did reference though was how, for the coming year 2025, leverage the strength of the wind which, in the case of Nonstop, simply means leveraging the latest Nonstop systems. Recognizing, too, the strength of the partner ecosystem just as we have seen Nonstop executives begin to do this year. Sailing always comes to mind at this time of year as being a Sydney lad at heart, there was always an air of excitement on Sydney Harbor as the big, maxi sailing yachts gathered for a series of contests that ended on Boxing Day with the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. Many years ago, back in 1998, Oracle’s Larry Ellis...

It’s time for your weekend read. And so much is happening for the Nonstop community that it’s worth considering how well Nonstop Compute offerings remain active participants in a technology world that is adapting to dramatic changes happening all around it – change never lets up but this year, we bear witness to much more than we have seen previously. Last year, Margo and I moved home. Not once but twice. A quick sale of our home in Windsor, Colorado, a small satellite suburb just outside of Ft Collins, Colorado. Fort Collins being a place where HP once dominated the local employment scene. We moved our goods and yes, cars into storage. We then acquired a condo down in Longmont from a member of our daughter’s family. Longmont is another small satellite suburb bordering Boulder, Colorado, a place where Insession gained its foothold in the US. We moved some items out of storage into the condo even as we provided items for our daughters newly renovated basement. Addressing family needs, w...

It may surprise many to read that as a teenager growing up on Sydney’s North Shore, I was already into cars. I made models of Formula One cars – back then it was a Ferrari “sharknose” and a Porsche (yes, Porsche were an F1 constructor for a number of years) – and I built slot-car circuits. My favorite configuration was the Warwick Farm race track; a circuit in Sydney’s western suburbs that, today, no longer exists. My mate Graham Long and I snuck out to the circuit one Saturday afternoon to see a club racing event and, from that time on, I must admit, I was hooked. This was the 1960s and it wasn’t long before I became a regular at a slot-car establishment in the Sydney suburb of Hornsby; nearby to my High School, Normanhurst Boys High School. I built a model of the Pontiac Tempest – a later model of which carried the badge, GTO, and it was a wild, overly large car for a slot car and my crashes were legendary, as an off-track excursion would take out several other cars. As I prepared ...

Children play in the puddles at Bradfield Park in 1958.  Credit: Bruce Adams Attending the HPE Nonstop Technology & Business Conference 2025 (Nonstop TBC25) had me doing a deep look back into the history of Connect and before then, to ITUG. This took me back so many years to Nice, France, in 1992 and to Orlando, Florida in 1993. My entire life within the Nonstop Community seems to have played out, bounded by Nonstop nee Tandem Computers’ events. But the time spent walking the exhibition pavilion (a less than stellar reminder of past exhibition floors spanning acres), led me to think back to my childhood, growing up in Lindfield, NSW Australia. Of course, to those that know me well, I use the phrase growing up quite loosely, as it continues to be a work in progress. Not sure what triggered the association but all the same, the fondness I have for Nonstop events is very similar to the fondness I now have today of my childhood home. What may have triggered these memories has ...

Having served seafood from this house since 1889,  Old Key Lime House; considered the oldest waterfront restaurant in Florida. Our travels in and around Florida continue. This week, our travels took us to Boca Raton via Tampa and for many in the Nonstop community, familiar sites came into view. Who can forget how many times SunTUG held events in the Marriott Tampa Westshore, near to some pretty fancy restaurants. I seem to recall this became the place to go once winter was in the process of releasing its grip on all of us in the Midwest. When it comes to events, there have been many through the years that always seem to have pulled a crowd. SunTUG (Tampa), N2TUG (Dallas), DUST (Phoenix) and more with a number of international outliers that I can recall being enthusiastic recipients of all things Nonstop – SATUG (still have the mug), OzTUG, and of course GTUG and BITUG with these last two hardly being among the outlies. As I write this post, I am fully aware of the upcoming No...

One of my most treasured photos – Jimmy and me, at a not that long ago N2TUG gathering. Following my first attempts at blogging, back in August of 2007 – yes, some 18 years ago – around the time of the European ITUG Summit in Brighton, UK, it was a good friend of mine and former ITUG board member, Sam, who came up to me and said, “Slow down with the posts; you write faster than I can read!” Not a put-down or in any way condemnation of those early posts but rather, a recognition that time is important for all my readers and dropping a post on a daily basis, albeit a lot shorter than what I post today, was perhaps not an ideal way in interacting with the Nonstop community. Give them time to read, think and perhaps comment otherwise readership will dwindle. How right he was, it turns out. Today, with post number 651, readership is as strong as it ever was and for that, I have to thank Sam. What started in 2008 with the first “Three Wishes for NonStop” can be viewed by scanning the Labels ...