I recently installed Ubuntu 64bit (amd64) on my Lenovo Thinkpad T61. Unfortunately, the Network Client is not available in a 32bit edition. So I had to perform a few tweaks to get it to work. Here’s the steps I took:

• Install the ia32-libs package and all it’s dependencies:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

• Install the AT&T client itself (IBM colleagues can obtain this from the OCDC website):

sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture agnclient_1.0~2.0.1.3000-3_i386.deb

• Add some symlinks:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib32/libssl.so.0.9.8 /usr/lib32/libssl.so.4
sudo ln -s /usr/lib32/libcrypto.so.0.9.8 /usr/lib32/libcrypto.so.4

• You should now be able to start the Network Client from the Internet section of the Gnome menu, or from /opt/agns/bin/agnclient. Click Connect and enter your details as normal.

Some observations on the trip so far:

• If travelling via the US, JFK is preferable as an interchange to O’Hare – the terminal is modern and pleasant, and changing is easier. But:
• Go direct to Canada if you can – you cut down on immigration paperwork.
• My car (a Pontiac G6) is pretty cool, and like all North American cars I’ve driven, very usable and drivable. Driving here in Canada doesn’t seem to be much different from the US.

wpa_passphrase YOURSSID YourWPAPassPhrase > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
wpa_supplicant -ieth1 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf &
ifup eth1
pump -i eth1

Replace eth1 in the list above with whatever network interface name Knoppix has assigned to your wireless card (reading through the output of dmesg should help you with this). Don’t forget to double-check that your router has the MAC address of the card (use ifconfig to find this) if you’re using MAC address filtering.

I would buy one myself.

Due to a mix-up with dates, my flight doesn’t leave until Saturday evening, so I’ve got Friday and Saturday in Oslo to find out a bit more about the city, have a good time and take some pictures. I’ve just checked into the third hotel so far this week, so time to relax for a bit before heading out to find food!

Update: If a taxi driver says he doesn’t know the way to a major hotel, but he ‘can stop at a gas station and ask’, should you worry? In this case, it worked out fine, but I was nervous…

All this is an unusual combination, to say the least. I’m checking into the Radisson SAS Plaza downtown later tonight, which Chris assures me (from a trip to Oslo earlier this year) is pretty decent, although sadly the team has to move after tonight as it seems that the whole world has checked into Oslo for this week and all the hotels are full. We have to move 50km away, so maybe I’ll be brave and hire a left-hand-drive MANUAL car. God help me.

Now all I have to do is make the week worth it by helping to impress the IBM customer I’ve come to see with our products. I’m nervous, but excited.

Later update: Hotel is OK, team is very friendly and seems very capable. I’m feeling quite positive about this week. I have discovered that we’re only at the customer till Thursday (rather than the Friday I thought), so I’ll have to find something to do on Friday. Maybe locate the local IBM office, or maybe take the day off. We’ll see.

Oh, and it’s 11:30pm and it’s still almost light outside.

But in the chart position / size stakes, Nathan Mhyrvold‘s company, Intellectual Ventures, is impressive. Their only products are patents – in much the same way, says Mhyrvold, as Coke‘s product is a brand (trademark), and Microsoft‘s is software (copyright). In other words, they are just focusing on another aspect of IP. A recent In Business episode looked at Intellectual Ventures, and they hold the record at 25th place for most U.S. patents granted in a year, despite being a minnow in a world of IBM and Canon. It’s an unfair comparision with IBM really, as IBM produces much more than just copyrighted product (a substantial portion of IBM’s business is services, not software), but IV has a fascinating business model, and one that’s still comparatively rare.

Update 2006-10-23: It’s unlikely to calm the debate I’ve been seeing on this topic any, but as Richard points out, IBM has just filed suit against Amazon for patent violation.

Update 2006-10-25: Greg at IBM Eye has more details on the suit.

Update 2006-10-29: John Simonds from IBM Analyst Relations (We allow these guys to blog? Wow!) has a personal perspective on the IBM-vs-Amazon case.

Update 2006-10-30: For some comment in defence of Amazon, see this article from PC Magazine.

I work on one of the test teams for WebSphere ESB, and we’re currently working hard on the recently announced 6.0.2 version, so I haven’t been posting quite as much on work topics recently as I normally aim to do. But if you’d like to take a look at my past postings on SOA and ESB or WebSphere, or indeed anything else on my blog, please do, and please feel to leave a comment, ask a question, or get in touch.

Thanks.

One of the reasons I like working for IBM is that it’s happy to allow me and my IBM colleagues to blog externally. Of course there are guidelines – obviously I can’t give away confidential information. It’s still a brave act for a company like IBM, however, and many others of equivalent size are rightly nervous about allowing the same – what happens if the PR and marketing folks lose control over companies’ images? This may or may not be a good thing, depending on your opinion of PR and marketing as disciplines, but it’s clear that there’s a risk of exposing non-alignment – people have different opinions, after all, right? Sure, yes, there’s that risk. However, although I hope our customers can see that IBMers are working together to produce good quality products and services for them, at least we have the reassurance that we’re being judged on our merits.

I’d encourage any other IBMers who aren’t already doing so to blog externally. You can find more information internally in the usual place (how’s that for keeping a secret, huh?).

This is significant as IBM gets ready for our big SOA announcement on 3rd October. Whether you believe the hype or are cynical about SOA being the next big thing, you can find out more details on the IBM website here and register for the webcast.

Greg at IBM Eye has provided a brief recap of the many software domains in which IBM supports open-source. I think Greg’s analysis is too narrow – there are other benefits to open-source software apart from savings on purchase cost – some of them bogus and some not – but quality and maintainability are certainly side-effects of open-source software, and are worth having even if they’re hard to quantify.

This isn’t really a dig at IBM – it’s far from the only guilty party – in fact, at least today, these types of presentation are pretty much standard, with varying levels of quality from organisation to organisation, and also presenter to presenter. But is this an indication of how ingrained certain techniques and practices can be? Many people (including myself) realise the value of what Tufte says (and on the odd occasion I get, I try to practice it). But suggesting change is hard – people always have something else more urgent to be worrying about. This just doesn’t seem important to many – although in the long-term I feel it’s a key part of an organisation’s level of success.

It’s times like this I realise just how hard it must be being CEO – persuasion is so tough.