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For those who have hit the high seas with the intension of sailing to a faraway land, there are many elements that can contribute to missing arriving at your harbor. Sail one degree off course then for every 60 miles you sail you will miss your target by one mile. Not much, or so it seems and yet, sail around the world following the equator and you will be off course by 500 miles. While flying between Sydney and San Francisco during the year I commuted between the Tandem office in North Sydney and the Cupertino campus, there was a time when I received an invite to enter the flight deck. Those were different times when security wasn’t an issue and on the Queen of the Sky, that venerable Boeing 747. Imagine my surprise to see the first officer pulling out his sextant, sighting a planet as it rose from the horizon and then checking with the aircraft’s inertial navigation system remarking as he did so that he was right on course. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then to know that the NonSto...

  NonStop Technical Boot Camp (TBC) 2020 is ending with NonStop future looking bright. But is it time to take another look at our usage and branding with the NonStop label? It was during the latest NonStop Technical Boot Camp that wrapped up a short time ago that someone posted to the community page. While I am not a big fan of virtual events and even as this wasn’t my first rodeo, so as to speak, nevertheless I am still not into this style of community gathering. Call me a tad old-fashioned if you like but then again, what is a virtual beer bust? I have been attending events since the mid-1970s – I gave my first user presentation at a database conference in Dallas in March 1977 – so I will make the claim that, for me, there is still no substitute for the real deal. Put it down to a couple of threads that were kicked-off early in the week. “Do you find NonStop platform is ignored by management?” And then there was “What is the future of HPE NonStop Tandem?” There was even the que...

Three years have come around rather quickly this time but it’s still worth thinking further ahead when it comes to our wishes for NonStop in 2023! Celebrating each New Year comes with a lot of obligations. It’s not just a case of staying up late to enjoy the fireworks, although, I have to say, I haven’t managed to do that very often – my trip to Sydney to see its firework display being the most memorable exception. Then there is the mandatory popping of champagne corks and celebratory hugs, and more, and it was only a few years ago when Margo and I took to the streets of Key West to witness its approach to welcoming the New Year, where we were quickly educated about crowd control. However, perhaps entering each New Year is even more memorable because of the tradition of making a wish. Whether it’s embracing a new diet, spending more time at the gym or simply deciding to spend more time outdoors, each of us makes a wish / resolution of one kind or another. Having written thi...

Yet one more trip to San Francisco and this time, it was all about taking in the history of the place even as we came to better appreciate  the contribution NonStop still makes to Silicon Valley! These past few weeks have seen Margo and me back on the road again. If you read the last post to this blog, you will have read about our most recent trip to the west coast that gave us an opportunity to view the history of Silicon Valley. From the original garage where Hewlett and Packard began HP to where the Google lads rented a garage to plot their entry into the search business to the Facebook, Google and Apple campuses and not forgetting breakfast at Buck’s Restaurant at Woodside or a drive around the parking lot of Kleiner Perkins we managed to absorb a lot of what it takes to keep Silicon Valley as prosperous as it is today. Other locations attempt to compete telling investors that they are the next up-and-coming Silicon Valley, but none have succeeded to date. However, t...

You can tell a lot about an organization from their body language and when it comes to the NonStop team, they have to be pleased by all that transpired this week … Perhaps the best album that Bob Dylan ever created was Highway 61 Revisited. Many years ago Margo and I attended an event in New Orleans, the ATMIA annual conference for the financial community. As you can imagine it was focused on ATMs and it was the subject of the post, Covering all points on the compass, NonStop is hard to miss! ,but it had been our plan to drive up to Memphis via Highway 61 and that didn’t happen as the weather wasn’t the best and we were running up against the clock. The highway, or as it may be better known as route, 61 follows the Mississippi River north out of New Orleans and is often referred to as the Blues Highway and had been on my bucket list for decades. What made Bob Dylan’s album so memorable were tracks that included Like a Rolling Stone, Ballad of a Thin Man, Desolation Row and y...

Sailing a modern racing yacht can be complicated and yet, for many years this too it’s been the same for IT. However, CIOs all want to see IT simplified and HPE has now stepped up to address this … When I first started sailing I had to learn the ropes. Actually, and figuratively! In terms of actually I had to be able to translate what I had to do into tying an appropriate knot and as for figuratively, just a few outings before I really did have to know how to tie a bowline knot. No excuses! Yes, and pretty much blindfolded. So much for learning, “the rabbit comes out of the hole” and yes, “around the tree and back down the hole!” Never did visualize that but one seasoned sailor taught me a short-hand way of achieving exactly the same goal. Simple, right? Well not exactly; seems like everyone with whom I sailed had a different way of tying a bowline knot. No matter; the ends justify the means, right? On the other hand a yacht is a vessel where everything can go horribly wrong ...