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It’s been a little over a year since the NonStop community heard the news that HP was adding support for the Intel x86 architecture and now the day has come. It’s here with the first model, the HP NonStop X NS7 X1 just announced! What a whirlwind time these past fifteen months or so have been for the NonStop community. From the time the news broke at the 2013 NonStop Advanced Technical Boot Camp that there were firm plans for NonStop to support the Intel x86 architecture, the NonStop community has been abuzz with interest – first selected vendors were invited into HP’s Advanced Technical Center (ATC) to validate their middleware and solutions and then select customers were able to validate their own mix of solutions and middleware such that today, as of just a few hours ago, the veil was finally lifted. Yes, the first member of the NonStop X family – the NonStop X NS7 X1 – is now generally available. “It’s been a long journey to where we see NonStop running entirely on industr...

For the longest time I have not thought of Ikea – I hate furniture assembly, the tool I know how to use is my phone, so in the end it is not even worth it to buy “assembly required” stuff. Reminds me of the time at Tandem when a new printer arrived with the instructions composed somewhere outside of the English speaking zone and one step listed was to fringer the part in place. Ever since all of us involved in the exercise of assembling this printer say “go fringer!” whenever a situation calls for “go figure!” But I digressed. The thing is in the past few days I have been forced into thinking about Ikea. First, CNN Money reported how the new Ikea night tables will charge our phones wirelessly. See http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/02/technology/ikea-furniture-charge-phones/?iid=EL Getting rid of the wires has been my personal dream for the longest time,  for a very evident reason, too. Well, today I read an article in the Fortune magazine about Ikea growth and expansion to...

Influenced by the recent post of Margo Holen, the Internet of Things certainly is attracting more than its fair share of the media spotlight. However, it’s also fair to say that with more and more things communicating, your primary systems just can’t fail! For true car racing enthusiasts, including those who still harbor hopes of becoming a world champion, Racer is the must-read magazine each month. It provides not just in-depth analysis but pages of data about team and driver performances. And oh yes, the pictures look really cool, too. Margo and I are about to start our eighth year of High-Performance Driver Education (HPDE) track outings across the western states of America and, while using the word race remains taboo, we are on track at least four times a day for 20 – 25 minute “sessions”. Having said this, we are amateur enthusiasts at best and only on a good day. The picture above comes from the very first post of June 6, 2008, to our social blog, Buckle-Up-Travel, Off t...

It is not my thing, really, to join strangers for dinner – I tried a couple of times and did not want any part of it.   Yet, when my financial advisor sent me an invitation to the annual client conference to be held at Four Seasons Hotel in Denver, where the topic would be Rise of the Machines, after reading the description it was clear we should not miss it. “A new wave of disruptive innovation is upon us. Intelligent machines – from driverless cars and commercial drones to medical robots – have advanced enormously in sophistication, and falling prices make them increasingly accessible, the promotion said. “Join us to hear what we think they will mean for the markets, the economy, and your portfolio.” I sent a RSVP promptly to let them know Richard and I were in! The IoT buzz started some 18 – 24 months ago, riding on the cattails of the Big Data. Of course IoT in reality is way older, as we all became aware when the plane that wasn’t found yet was sending engine informatio...

Mobility is bringing with it advantages that benefit us all but in our quest to be constantly informed about what’s going on – in the business world at large, as well as  within our company – it’s mandating changes to how we deliver content. It seems more than sensible to spend time in America’s southwest at this time of year. Polar Vortexes, snow storms swinging down from the Pacific Northwest, and any number of frigid ice-bound days is enough to have any sane person pulling out roadmaps and checking upcoming conference schedules to see if any might be in a warmer location. Fortunately, I received press passes to two important industry events – one in Las Vegas, Nevada,  organized by ATMIA (the ATM Industry Association) with the other in Phoenix, Arizona, organized by BAI (which stands for Bank Administration Institute, but is better known as the organizers of the annual Retail Delivery show). No matter how you describe the benefits that come through participation the f...