Ibmquicklinks | History

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Ibmquicklinks v3 history - Project portability and simplification
2007-11-26	Reorginized a few things to consolidate the number of link groups. Added VMware subgroup. Modified the formatting for a better experience with very small screens like mobile phones. Added mobile edition. Removed Archived links section. Updated WC3 compliance. Updated fastpaths. Still cleaning up style sheets and looking for broken links.
2007-10-10	Added IP network based USB solution (link 7.22)
2007-09-25	Updated links 1.22, 6.06, and 6.08 thanks to a submission by Mark Davies. Added link 2.53. Retired link 2.18. Minor stylesheet changes to improve appearance. Fixed a couple of minor html validation problems. Cleaned up Archived links and History sections.
2007-08-10	Updated links 1.07, 2.18 and 3.04 and added links 3.10 and 3.11 thanks to a submission by David Mitchell from IBM.
2007-07-10	Added link 2.21 received via submit form below. SPAMMERS please go away. I'm not going to post (or use) links for shoes (yes shoes), drugs, or other inappropriate stuff. Only links associated with the purpose for this site will be posted. If you have suggestions on how I can take submissions but eliminiate the spam, I'm interested in knowing.
2007-06-13	I'm looking for several volunteers to look over proposed changes to the format and layout to the site before they are posted. Please submit your contact information including email address below and let me know you'd like to be a reviewer. My plan is to have one or more regular users look at a test page before I implement to the main site. I was planning on doing it with this update, but I made a big mistake. While I was testing the idea of the updates you see here, I inadvertently overwrote my master source spreadsheet. I would have had to re-do a bunch of work so I decided to move forward and hopw everyone likes the changes. Improved announcement section. Improved the section descriptions. Organized links into subsections. Removed a couple of outdated links. Added some new links that I found useful and that were submitted.
2007-05-23	Updated links 1.16 and link 4.16 per submission from Mark Davies. Other mintor changes to the tooltips for some of the links.
2007-05-21	Added link 2.29 via submission from Ro Mason. Also added drop down for the name of the page to better idenfity where a submitted or updated link belongs.
2007-05-21	Added link 2.29 via submission from Ro Mason. Added link 7.21 thanks to a link sent by Craig Blackstone. Also added drop down for the name of the page to better idenfity where a submitted or updated link belongs.
2007-05-11	Added announcements section to the page. This is where news information that will stick around for a while will be posted. The information in the latest changes section will be archived at the next update to this page after 1 week passes. I'm thinking for creating sub-categories for the links. This way all links of a particular type will be bundled together. Let me know what you think using the submission section below.
2007-05-08	Added tooltips to the section jump links in all sections. Cleaned up and validated all html code. Working on a "superlink" table. Other minor changes and adjustments. Several fastpath updates. Added link 7.20 VMware forums link listing.
2007-05-05	Happy Cinco de Mayo. Updated links 1.10 and 3.11 to point to the ServerGuide download matrix instead of a single version. Thanks Mark Davies for your many useful submissions. Keep 'em coming. Retired xSCA tool which was sunset recently by IBM.
2007-05-04	Removed broken OS installation links. Improved link descriptions on a couple of items. Cleaned up and fixed a few items in new System p, System I, System z, and Storage sections. Working to improve section links via css updates.
2007-05-03	Enabled System p, System i, System z, and Storage sections. I don't regularly work with these platforms so I don't know what links would be important or valuable. If you are interested in help me build and maintain this section, please send me a submission below. Added link 3.34 for a plugin that helps integrate the BladeCenter Advanced Management module to Active directory. Added link 4.14 for the IBM Director Best Practices Wiki. Recategorized a storage link (now 2.29) found in with the software section.
2007-05-01	Done with my traveling. So glad. Link 3.33 was added from an anonymous submission. The page allows partners to build, update, and modify CSP's for IBM customers. When I rebuilt the site I built-in sections for Total Storage, System p, System i, and System z (look in the html). I will enable these sections if there are people interested in building and maintaining these sections. Send me a submission if you are interested in working with these sections of the site. Fixed and removed some dead links. Validated html and fixed any problems that were found. Spammers, don't bother submitting. I'm never going to post anything you submit. I'm currently getting at least 5 submissions each day. I will be adding some data quality checks to the submission section to hopefully minimize these submissions.
2007-04-14	I'm doing a lot of traveling mid-March through the end of April running a series of Systems Management Workshop sessions so I'm a little behind with the updates. Changes: 1)Added tooltip capability to links. I plan on using it for listing date added, who added, and update information. 2)Masthead now uses ssi. 3)Removed item number for history entries on main page. 4)Added links 2.28 and 3.32 from submissions recieved. 5)Updated links 3.22, 1.03, and 2.14. 5)Fixed the section jump links under Firefox by adding id's in addition to named anchors for each section.
2007-03-31	Welcome Ibmbladecenter.com users to ibmquicklinks.com v3 1. Setup ibmbladecenter.com to use this site. 2. Cleaned up the style sheet to improve readability and function. 3. Added and updated several links.
2007-03-14	The 2007 System x and BladeCenter Technical Conference site is live! This year it will be held in fabulous Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay resort 16-20 Jul 2007. This is the customer technical event of the year. Don't miss it, I never do. See you there. As always, let your FTSS know if you are enrolling. If you don't know who your FTSS is, let me know by using the feedback option below. Conference site links: Conference overview information Travel and hotel information
2007-03-13	Most of the kinks on the new site are worked out. Please use the submit section to let me know what you think of if you find any problems. Most of the code should now be W3C compliant. I'm still tweaking the layout usage of CSS but the content should remain more or less constant from now on. I've reclassified some of the frequently used links and moved a dead link to the archive.
2007-03-11	Welcome to ibmquicklinks.com v3 The site has been completely rebuilt. There are a number of reasons for this change. I had a lot of good intentions when I moved to the E107 CMS/PHP version of the site. Unfortunately I never found the time to implement the new features and functions as well as to constantly monitor it. Over the time the previous site was up I had to disable all commenting functions since 499 out of 500 posts was for discount drugs. So the v2 site had a lot of flexibility that created complexity. The v3 site is again static content, however this time all the html code is generated by a spreadsheet. All I have to do to add a link is create a new row, populate some key fields, then paste the updated html code into an html frame document. So I think it continues to meet the site's stated objectives while making it easy to update. I will be adding some code later that can be used to send me an email to let me know when a link is broken and/or so you can submit new links to me. Let me know what you think. I can be reached at ddebuss at yahoo.com. Dan

Ibmquicklinks v2 history - Expanded features and functionality
2007-01-01	Happy New Year! Thanks again to Designdfw.com for continuing to support of this site! They've been ultra-reliable. Flawless service from the ibmquicklinks perspective. If you are looking for hosting give them a good look.
2006-12-15	Fixed Broken Links / Admin / Cleanup. I can't believe the site has hit over 200,000 recorded hits! I spent a lot of the last two days doing maintenance to the site. I fixed the Admin section of the site by changing some DNS settings. Please note I highly recommend that all users of this site access the site through http://ibmquicklinks.com. IBM recently implemented some site changes that broke the majority of the links. I've updated these entries with the new links or removed them if a replacement link could not be located. As a result of the removal of the repair of the broken links I had to reorder quite a few entries so they would show properly. I'm still way overdue in implementing my redundany and disaster plan. Maybe I'll get to it during the holidays. I hope everyone has a safe and fun holiday season no matter where you are and what and how you celebrate.
2006-09-01	Commenting Turned Off. Sorry everyone. Every comment that was getting posted included links to unrelated sites. Since the general population wasn't posting items I've disabled comments for now since nobody was using them. If you need to get me a message register and send me a pm.
2006-04-27	Recent outage for ibmdirector.com. ibmdirector.com - It appears that ibmdirector.com was not properly forwarding to the main site. The domain was recently renewed and somehow the URL forwarding for the domain got messed up. I don't know how long it's been down but it's fixed now.
2006-04-19	Added link category number and other news items also Link Category Numbers - During a recent discussion with a teammate it occurred to me how I could put a category number next to each link (like the old site). It turned out to be pretty simple since I had already figured out how to hack it to put the link number in it. The formatting is different from the old site, but I think it does the job well. Link Order Cleanup - Some links were out of order so I fixed them. The CMS sometimes gets them out of order. Broken Links - If you find a broken link, use the submit links tool to let me know about it. You don't necessarily have to know the fixed link since I can usually figure it out. Pending Maintenance - Still no time to do the maintenence discussed in an earlier post. I'll get to it eventually.
2006-03-22	Pending maintenance. Well it's about that time that I do an upgrade to the CMS (E107) that this site is built on. Since I've got no experience doing this I'm going to be particularly careful since I don't want to loose what's already been created. Over the next month or so I will perform the following tasks. 1. Do a complete backup of the test site (not this one). 2. Upgrade my test site (not this one) and see if everything survives. If not, figure out carefully what I did wrong and attempt to restore the backup. 3. Trash the test site and attempt to do a restore to insure that it works. 4. Do a complete backup of this site in it's current form at that time. 5. Create a mirror of this site using the backup (as is) and insure proper function. 6. Upgrade the newly created mirror site to the current CMS release. 7. Check the newly upgraded mirror site to insure everything is still working proplery. 8. Move one of the subdomains (probably ibmdirector.com or some other domain name I have laying around) to this mirror site via a DNS change. 9. If everything appears to be good I will then move the remaining domains to this new mirror of the site. The un-upgraded site will remain as-is. I wanted everyone to be aware because depending on how this goes, the site may be down for an extended period of time (worst case). The best case is that you won't notice that anything was done. That's my goal. Also, I will not be making any other changes to the site during the period to insure changes aren't lost or orphaned.
2006-03-06	xSeries Technical Conference. The conference will be from July 31, 2006 to Aug 04, 2006 in Chicago, IL. Conference sessions will be held at the Hilton Chicago, 720 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60605. If you work with an IBM FTSS, let them know you are enrolling. They will appreciate it. Due to the number of inappropriate submissions I've turned submissions off on all modules for non-members. I've added some excellent new links. The newest links are generally found as the last item(s) in each section.
2006-02-17	Line Numbers Return! To unwind from a long, difficult, and busy week, I decided to see if I could figure out how do add the line numbers that a lot of people liked (including myself) from the old site format. After a couple of hours of stumbling around the php code that the links page is built on I figured it out. There was a non-displayable order number assigned to each link. After a couple dozen unsuccessful attempts I was able to get it to display that number at the beginning of the row. To simplify the initial and future maintence of these links numbers I split the technical links section into two separate sections. I'd been meaning to do that for a while anyway since there were too many links in a single section and it seemed it was too broadly focused. In some cases I had to modify the time and date stamp directly in the link database to get everything to display in an optimal order. That order number didn't correspond to the order in which the links were displayed as a default so the numbers looked rather random. I then went through each link and made it's order number correspond to it's default display number.
2006-02-18	Welcome to IBM Quicklinks Quick site overview: Sections - Notice the menu at the top of the page. Access to some of the content and sections on the site requires site registration. This is why some sections will appear to be empty to unregistered users when they truly aren't. Polls - To help guide me to making this site as useful as possible, please participate in the polls. Please leave comments on each of the polls to help guide me through improving this site. Submit Links - The new site format allows links to be submitted. There are a number of places on the site where links can be submitted. Just look for Submit a Link. Submitted links will appear after I approve them. Only links appropriate to the theme and purpose of the site will actually show up on the site. Comments - There are several places in which comments can be added. Please let me know what you think. CMS and/or Portal suggestion request - I'm looking for suggestions for further mprovement. I'm hoping to find a CMS that has a links module that can support subcategories with a single column format. Please use the comments to this posting to suggest a portal or CMS that you think might work well for this site. HTML editor suggestion request - If you have a suggestion for a free html editor that works well for tables please provide suggestions and a download link.
2006-01-09	Site Information: Hopefully everyone finds this website useful. It's intent is to make things easier for everyone using IBM BladeCenter, xSeries, and Intellistation products. It all started because I found it hard to find all the things on the IBM site that I thought were useful. I would find great sites, then loose track of where they were. So I then created a personal html document with links on it that I used as my local homepage on my browsers. I would simply open the browser and my links were immediately available. At the same time I was getting a lot of requests for the same type of information and it was costing me a lot of time so I started emailing my homepage to people looking for quick ways to access IBM information. Due to the number of requests for the email and where they were coming from, I decided to put it on the web so everyone had quick access to the latest version of the document. I already owned the domains (www.ibmbladecenter.com and www.ibmdirector.com) so I just put it there. This is a personal project that I create and maintain with my own time and money and I will continue to do so the for foreseeable future. Fortunately the site is now on a real hosted server. Thank you to Scott from www.designdfw.com for hosting www.ibmbladecenter.com and www.ibmdirector.com. Thanks to Gregg from www.eserverforum.com for hosting www.ibmquicklinks.com. Both of these guys have done a great deal to keep this site going by providing fast and reliable servers! Many continued thanks guys!
2006-01-01	Welcome to IBM Quicklinks! IBM Quicklinks has been completely rebuilt! There are several main reasons for the change in the look and function of this site. 1) To make it much easier to update. 2) To allow better link submission. 3) To allow me to create other Administrators (any volunteers?) 3. To allow for future expanded content (documentation, downloads, better news, etc.) I previously used Frontpage but I'm only licensed to use it on a system I don't always have access to. I needed either another license or another alternative. Sections - Notice the menu at the top of the page. Access to some of the content on the site requires site registration. This is why for unregistered users some sections will appear to be empty when they truly aren't. Frequently Used Links - This section is now gone. With the new site format it didn't make sense to have the links listed separates. The links with descriptions in bold represent the links that would have fallen into this category. Also you can sort by link popularity using the dropdown sort items on the page. Previous Site Format - See www.ibmbladecenter.com/index_old.html for the older version of this site. I'm not planning on updating this page anymore in the future. All updates will be made dynamically to the new site. Let me know if you would like me to consider doing periodic updates to this older format page. Polls - To help guide me to making this site as useful as possible, please participate in the polls. Please leave comments on each of the polls to help guide me through improving this site. Submit Links - The new site format allows links to be submitted. To submit a link go to the links page and select Submit a Link from the link navigator drop down list. The link will appear after I approve them. Only links appropriate to the theme and purpose of the site will actually show up on the site. Comments - Please take a moment to use the Read/Post Comment link to let me know what you think about the new site format. CMS and/or Portal suggestion request - I'm looking for suggestions for further mprovement. I'm hoping to find a CMS that has a links module that can support subcategories with a single column format. Please use the comments to this posting to suggest a portal or CMS that you think might work well for this site. HTML editor suggestion request - It's possible that I may decide to go back to the "old way" depending on feedback and other factors. If you have a suggestion for a free html editor that works well for tables please provide suggestions and a download link.

Ibmquicklinks v1 history - The original
2005-10-27	Added links for IBM Director thanks to Jason Brunson. Reclassified some Director links and cleaned up a number of other things. For now the Visio downloads will only come from www.ibmquicklinks.com. Angelo's new server is coming soon.
2005-10-24	I've been in from Disney World for the last 8 days to do my part to help Mickey Mouse and Company have a good quarter. It was an outstanding time. A couple of things that came up that I wasn't able to resolve while on my vacation since I only had a slow connection. 1. I didn't get a good upload of of the Visio 2003 file to www.ibmbladecenter.com. The file was corrupted on the site. 2. I did get a good upload of the Visio 2002 file to www.ibmbladecenter.com and the downloads put us over the daily bandwidth limit for the site. 3. I did get good uploads of both files to www.ibmquicklinks.com so users of that site haven't had a problem. Note: http://www.ibmbladecenter.com and http://www.ibmquicklinks.com are the same site. Each is hosted separately. If you have a problem accessing one of them or their content, try the other.
2005-10-14	I now have the Visio stencils on this site for download. Thank you to Larry Halbrook for sending them to me. This is temporary only since I won't burden my hosting partners with the bandwidth requirements for these for the long term.
2005-10-10	Angelo's server where the Visio files are located are still down. If you have a copy of the Visio files in the Visio section send them to me and I will temporarily post them directly on the site. Until I get them or the server is back up these links won't work. Due to a server error, the visitors to www.ibmbladecenter.com and www.ibmdirector.com were receiving an outdated version of this page. This has been corrected. Added several other links and cleaned up things a bit. If you ever have problems with a link send me a quick note so I can get it fixed. There are too many links to regularly check each of them so I rely on people to tell me there's a problem.
2005-09-29	Added link for Electronic Service Agent 4.0 thanks to Robert Ray and Adam Jackson. Updated broken link #630 thanks to Roy at http://www.seventwentyfour.com. I believe a bot found the error and reported it to me via email. Note that the server that Angelo's Visio stencils are posted on is being moved so I may temporarily post them here. I add the files after I receive them from Angelo.
2005-09-21	Updated links #128 and #502 thanks to a update submission by Dean Hall from Oregon.
2005-09-16	www.eserverforum.com is back online! Visitors to www.ibmquicklinks.com are now directed back to their server. Thanks Gregg!
2005-09-16	Added link www.ucertify.com on a trial basis. The link was submitted but I haven't decided if it belongs since it is a bit outside the intended purpose of the site. For now I will leave it. What do you all think? Should I leave the link as is? Should I remove it? Should I include it if there is an affiliate program that will help reimburse for bandwidth? I'd like to start paying my hosting partners, especially if the site traffic continues to grow as it has. If you have an opinion please shoot me a quick email..
2005-08-30	Added a www.ibmdirector.net thanks to Kristjan Eldjarn. It's under IBM partner and complimentary product sites. I may add it in the education section later.
2005-08-30	Added a www.ibmdirector.net thanks to submission by Kristjan Eldjarn. I've added it under IBM partner and complimentary product sites and I may add it in the education section.
2005-08-23	Added several links from Steve Brogan that I missed with the 08/19/05 update. Thanks Steve.
2005-08-23	Looks like there's a hosting problem at www.eserverforum.com. Until it's fixed www.ibmquicklinks.com visitors will automatically be redirected to www.ibmbladecenter.com.
2005-08-19	I can't believe it but it looks like the "counted hits" hit over 70,000! I never thought this project would ever get this far.
2005-08-18	Added links from Thomas O Olesen, Harry Werkman, and Bob White. Keep the great links coming. Help in submitting links will assist me in keeping this web site as useful as possible. Sorry about the infrequent updates. I've been remodeling my kitchen, had some vacation and was very busy at work. In addition some Windows and and Frontpage problems. Fortunately everything has slowed down quite a bit in the last few weeks and I hope it stays that way.
2005-06-14	Added a couple of great links submitted to me by Steve Brogan and Bob White. Thanks for the links!
2005-06-03	Added new IBM Director link, new IBM CSP download link
2005-04-08	Added the new Visio Stencil links thanks to Angelo's (continued) hard work. Several other minor changes. Added link: xSeries Tools and Utilities discovered yesterday.
2005-03-27	Moved the older news and site change history to a separate page to shrink the size of the main page a bit. That page can be accessed by the link in the "Latest News" titlebar. Added categories to the Frequently Used Links section so you can quickly jump to that section if the link you want is not present. Added a BUNCH of links.
2005-03-26	Still overwhelmed at work but decided that I couldn't handle working another full weekend so I worked on this site even though I should be doing other things. Oh well. Anyway, I changed the site to use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) instead of static html for formatting. The page continues to grow and it's getting harder to keep everything looking good so the style sheet should help dramatically. I've figured out how I would implement country or region links on the page. If you would like to assist by providing non-us links, contact me. I know I'll never have the language skills required to find the links myself. Changed the page to use style sheets, changed formatting a bit, and added a number of links
2005-02-10	My job has me extremely busy so I'm a bit behind. I still have a number of other updates to make but I'm out of time today. Hopefully I'll get caught up soon. I'm considering making "country" or "region" specific versions of this main page. If want to assist in maintaining a non-US page email me. Make sure you include details on which country or region you would like to work with. I'm still working on the details on how I would implement it.
2004-12-30	Minor changes and cleanup. Changed submit links until I get a feedback working. Site statistics can be viewed by clicking the "Established:" text in header above.
2004-12-29	I'm now reworking the site to not use FrontPage extensions. The counter is now hosted. Registered ibmquicklinks.com so this page will appear there soon too.
2004-12-20	Sorry about the downtime (1.5 days). The site is online on a true hosted server so it should be much more reliable and faster. Thank You to Scott Irwin for his help.
2004-12-20	Sorry about the downtime (1.5 days). The site is back online on a true hosted server so it should be much more reliable and faster. Thank You to Scott Irwin for his help. I've still got a bit of work to do mainly involving the FrontPage extensions. Until this is done the submit link and counter will not work.
2004-12-19	Added Independent Links section. Changed some link categories. Changed the formatting a bit. Added link numbers for easier reference. Links now open in same window.
2004-12-14	My job is keeping me busy so updates are infrequent. Added Director patch links, bladeswitching.org link, new visio site link, lab services, and updated xRef link. Thank you to those that have indicated willingness to host the site. I haven't had time to do anything about your offers yet but I will be in contact with you shortly. I've got some vacation time coming so I will probably do most of the updates then. The updates I'm considering are listed below. 1. I'm going to remove several links currently listed under Frequently Used Links under the other categories. I'm getting too many links in this category. 2. I'm going to create a separate category for non-IBM links and grassroots sites. 3. I'm debating about shrinking the fonts to 8 point to give more room on the page. I like www.bladeserverswitching.org so I may incorporate some of those ideas.
2004-11-03	Added www.xseries.org and www.ibmdirector.net provided via submit link below. Added CSP document. Short outage due to cablemodem problems.
2004-11-02	Added links to UpdateXpress automation and updating device driver whitepapers in the Technical Links section. Added BladeCenter support document.
2004-10-28	Short outage due to IP address change. To help eliminate these outages, please read Site Hosting. Added links to new UpdateXpress stuff and Director 4.20.02 UIMs
2004-10-19	Removed Archived stencils 2.5.exe from the Visio Stencil section since they are not relevant (ie. all items ever created are included in the other current downloads.)
2004-10-17	Additional minor cosmetic and content changes. Added Submit Link and some other sections. Removed Visio Stencil 3.0 links that were replaced by Visio Stencil 3.1 Links.
2004-10-14	Sorry about the outage. The WinXP box hosting the web server VM installed an update and rebooted and the VM didn't restart. Added Director 4.20.02 and Visio links.
2004-10-07	The newest Visio Stencils are now available. Thanks to Angelo for creating and hosting. Also cleaned up some things with the wording, layout and link categories.
2004-10-01	Added a request under Site Information section below for volunteers to host this web site. If you are willing, please drop me a message. Also started tracking site news and chage history.
2004-09-23	First added statcounter to the page
2004-03-01	First added Visio stencils to the page.
2004-02-14	Site first published to the web.
2003-10-31	First sent the document out for people to use.
2003-09-22	First concieved the contept in note to myself 'Create an HTML email with the important links that customers can go to to find the stuff they need for everyday xSeries questions and related stuff'

Ibmquicklinks v3 history - Project portability and simplification

2007-11-26

Reorginized a few things to consolidate the number of link groups. Added VMware subgroup. Modified the formatting for a better experience with very small screens like mobile phones. Added mobile edition. Removed Archived links section. Updated WC3 compliance. Updated fastpaths. Still cleaning up style sheets and looking for broken links.

2007-10-10

Added IP network based USB solution (link 7.22)

2007-09-25

Updated links 1.22, 6.06, and 6.08 thanks to a submission by Mark Davies. Added link 2.53. Retired link 2.18. Minor stylesheet changes to improve appearance. Fixed a couple of minor html validation problems. Cleaned up Archived links and History sections.

2007-08-10

Updated links 1.07, 2.18 and 3.04 and added links 3.10 and 3.11 thanks to a submission by David Mitchell from IBM.

2007-07-10

Added link 2.21 received via submit form below. SPAMMERS please go away. I'm not going to post (or use) links for shoes (yes shoes), drugs, or other inappropriate stuff. Only links associated with the purpose for this site will be posted. If you have suggestions on how I can take submissions but eliminiate the spam, I'm interested in knowing.

2007-06-13

I'm looking for several volunteers to look over proposed changes to the format and layout to the site before they are posted.
Please submit your contact information including email address below and let me know you'd like to be a reviewer. My plan is to have one or more regular users look at a test page before I implement to the main site. I was planning on doing it with this update, but I made a big mistake. While I was testing the idea of the updates you see here, I inadvertently overwrote my master source spreadsheet. I would have had to re-do a bunch of work so I decided to move forward and hopw everyone likes the changes. Improved announcement section. Improved the section descriptions. Organized links into subsections. Removed a couple of outdated links. Added some new links that I found useful and that were submitted.

2007-05-23

Updated links 1.16 and link 4.16 per submission from Mark Davies. Other mintor changes to the tooltips for some of the links.

2007-05-21

Added link 2.29 via submission from Ro Mason. Also added drop down for the name of the page to better idenfity where a submitted or updated link belongs.

2007-05-21

Added link 2.29 via submission from Ro Mason. Added link 7.21 thanks to a link sent by Craig Blackstone. Also added drop down for the name of the page to better idenfity where a submitted or updated link belongs.

2007-05-11

Added announcements section to the page. This is where news information that will stick around for a while will be posted. The information in the latest changes section will be archived at the next update to this page after 1 week passes. I'm thinking for creating sub-categories for the links. This way all links of a particular type will be bundled together. Let me know what you think using the submission section below.

2007-05-08

Added tooltips to the section jump links in all sections. Cleaned up and validated all html code. Working on a "superlink" table. Other minor changes and adjustments. Several fastpath updates. Added link 7.20 VMware forums link listing.

2007-05-05

Happy Cinco de Mayo. Updated links 1.10 and 3.11 to point to the ServerGuide download matrix instead of a single version. Thanks Mark Davies for your many useful submissions. Keep 'em coming. Retired xSCA tool which was sunset recently by IBM.

2007-05-04

Removed broken OS installation links. Improved link descriptions on a couple of items. Cleaned up and fixed a few items in new System p, System I, System z, and Storage sections. Working to improve section links via css updates.

2007-05-03

Enabled System p, System i, System z, and Storage sections. I don't regularly work with these platforms so I don't know what links would be important or valuable. If you are interested in help me build and maintain this section, please send me a submission below. Added link 3.34 for a plugin that helps integrate the BladeCenter Advanced Management module to Active directory. Added link 4.14 for the IBM Director Best Practices Wiki. Recategorized a storage link (now 2.29) found in with the software section.

2007-05-01

Done with my traveling. So glad. Link 3.33 was added from an anonymous submission. The page allows partners to build, update, and modify CSP's for IBM customers. When I rebuilt the site I built-in sections for Total Storage, System p, System i, and System z (look in the html). I will enable these sections if there are people interested in building and maintaining these sections. Send me a submission if you are interested in working with these sections of the site. Fixed and removed some dead links. Validated html and fixed any problems that were found. Spammers, don't bother submitting. I'm never going to post anything you submit. I'm currently getting at least 5 submissions each day. I will be adding some data quality checks to the submission section to hopefully minimize these submissions.

2007-04-14

I'm doing a lot of traveling mid-March through the end of April running a series of Systems Management Workshop sessions so I'm a little behind with the updates. Changes: 1)Added tooltip capability to links. I plan on using it for listing date added, who added, and update information. 2)Masthead now uses ssi. 3)Removed item number for history entries on main page. 4)Added links 2.28 and 3.32 from submissions recieved. 5)Updated links 3.22, 1.03, and 2.14. 5)Fixed the section jump links under Firefox by adding id's in addition to named anchors for each section.

2007-03-31

Welcome Ibmbladecenter.com users to ibmquicklinks.com v3
1. Setup ibmbladecenter.com to use this site. 2. Cleaned up the style sheet to improve readability and function. 3. Added and updated several links.

2007-03-14

The 2007 System x and BladeCenter Technical Conference site is live!
This year it will be held in fabulous Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay resort 16-20 Jul 2007. This is the customer technical event of the year. Don't miss it, I never do. See you there. As always, let your FTSS know if you are enrolling. If you don't know who your FTSS is, let me know by using the feedback option below. Conference site links: Conference overview information Travel and hotel information

2007-03-13

Most of the kinks on the new site are worked out. Please use the submit section to let me know what you think of if you find any problems. Most of the code should now be W3C compliant. I'm still tweaking the layout usage of CSS but the content should remain more or less constant from now on. I've reclassified some of the frequently used links and moved a dead link to the archive.

2007-03-11

Welcome to ibmquicklinks.com v3
The site has been completely rebuilt. There are a number of reasons for this change. I had a lot of good intentions when I moved to the E107 CMS/PHP version of the site. Unfortunately I never found the time to implement the new features and functions as well as to constantly monitor it. Over the time the previous site was up I had to disable all commenting functions since 499 out of 500 posts was for discount drugs. So the v2 site had a lot of flexibility that created complexity. The v3 site is again static content, however this time all the html code is generated by a spreadsheet. All I have to do to add a link is create a new row, populate some key fields, then paste the updated html code into an html frame document. So I think it continues to meet the site's stated objectives while making it easy to update. I will be adding some code later that can be used to send me an email to let me know when a link is broken and/or so you can submit new links to me. Let me know what you think. I can be reached at ddebuss at yahoo.com. Dan

Ibmquicklinks v2 history - Expanded features and functionality

2007-01-01

Happy New Year! Thanks again to Designdfw.com for continuing to support of this site! They've been ultra-reliable. Flawless service from the ibmquicklinks perspective. If you are looking for hosting give them a good look.

2006-12-15

Fixed Broken Links / Admin / Cleanup. I can't believe the site has hit over 200,000 recorded hits! I spent a lot of the last two days doing maintenance to the site. I fixed the Admin section of the site by changing some DNS settings. Please note I highly recommend that all users of this site access the site through http://ibmquicklinks.com. IBM recently implemented some site changes that broke the majority of the links. I've updated these entries with the new links or removed them if a replacement link could not be located. As a result of the removal of the repair of the broken links I had to reorder quite a few entries so they would show properly. I'm still way overdue in implementing my redundany and disaster plan. Maybe I'll get to it during the holidays. I hope everyone has a safe and fun holiday season no matter where you are and what and how you celebrate.

2006-09-01

Commenting Turned Off. Sorry everyone. Every comment that was getting posted included links to unrelated sites. Since the general population wasn't posting items I've disabled comments for now since nobody was using them. If you need to get me a message register and send me a pm.

2006-04-27

Recent outage for ibmdirector.com. ibmdirector.com - It appears that ibmdirector.com was not properly forwarding to the main site. The domain was recently renewed and somehow the URL forwarding for the domain got messed up. I don't know how long it's been down but it's fixed now.

2006-04-19

Added link category number and other news items also Link Category Numbers - During a recent discussion with a teammate it occurred to me how I could put a category number next to each link (like the old site). It turned out to be pretty simple since I had already figured out how to hack it to put the link number in it. The formatting is different from the old site, but I think it does the job well. Link Order Cleanup - Some links were out of order so I fixed them. The CMS sometimes gets them out of order. Broken Links - If you find a broken link, use the submit links tool to let me know about it. You don't necessarily have to know the fixed link since I can usually figure it out. Pending Maintenance - Still no time to do the maintenence discussed in an earlier post. I'll get to it eventually.

2006-03-22

Pending maintenance. Well it's about that time that I do an upgrade to the CMS (E107) that this site is built on. Since I've got no experience doing this I'm going to be particularly careful since I don't want to loose what's already been created. Over the next month or so I will perform the following tasks. 1. Do a complete backup of the test site (not this one). 2. Upgrade my test site (not this one) and see if everything survives. If not, figure out carefully what I did wrong and attempt to restore the backup. 3. Trash the test site and attempt to do a restore to insure that it works. 4. Do a complete backup of this site in it's current form at that time. 5. Create a mirror of this site using the backup (as is) and insure proper function. 6. Upgrade the newly created mirror site to the current CMS release. 7. Check the newly upgraded mirror site to insure everything is still working proplery. 8. Move one of the subdomains (probably ibmdirector.com or some other domain name I have laying around) to this mirror site via a DNS change. 9. If everything appears to be good I will then move the remaining domains to this new mirror of the site. The un-upgraded site will remain as-is. I wanted everyone to be aware because depending on how this goes, the site may be down for an extended period of time (worst case). The best case is that you won't notice that anything was done. That's my goal. Also, I will not be making any other changes to the site during the period to insure changes aren't lost or orphaned.

2006-03-06

xSeries Technical Conference. The conference will be from July 31, 2006 to Aug 04, 2006 in Chicago, IL. Conference sessions will be held at the Hilton Chicago, 720 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60605. If you work with an IBM FTSS, let them know you are enrolling. They will appreciate it. Due to the number of inappropriate submissions I've turned submissions off on all modules for non-members. I've added some excellent new links. The newest links are generally found as the last item(s) in each section.

2006-02-17

Line Numbers Return! To unwind from a long, difficult, and busy week, I decided to see if I could figure out how do add the line numbers that a lot of people liked (including myself) from the old site format. After a couple of hours of stumbling around the php code that the links page is built on I figured it out. There was a non-displayable order number assigned to each link. After a couple dozen unsuccessful attempts I was able to get it to display that number at the beginning of the row. To simplify the initial and future maintence of these links numbers I split the technical links section into two separate sections. I'd been meaning to do that for a while anyway since there were too many links in a single section and it seemed it was too broadly focused. In some cases I had to modify the time and date stamp directly in the link database to get everything to display in an optimal order. That order number didn't correspond to the order in which the links were displayed as a default so the numbers looked rather random. I then went through each link and made it's order number correspond to it's default display number.

2006-02-18

Welcome to IBM Quicklinks Quick site overview: Sections - Notice the menu at the top of the page. Access to some of the content and sections on the site requires site registration. This is why some sections will appear to be empty to unregistered users when they truly aren't. Polls - To help guide me to making this site as useful as possible, please participate in the polls. Please leave comments on each of the polls to help guide me through improving this site. Submit Links - The new site format allows links to be submitted. There are a number of places on the site where links can be submitted. Just look for Submit a Link. Submitted links will appear after I approve them. Only links appropriate to the theme and purpose of the site will actually show up on the site. Comments - There are several places in which comments can be added. Please let me know what you think. CMS and/or Portal suggestion request - I'm looking for suggestions for further mprovement. I'm hoping to find a CMS that has a links module that can support subcategories with a single column format. Please use the comments to this posting to suggest a portal or CMS that you think might work well for this site. HTML editor suggestion request - If you have a suggestion for a free html editor that works well for tables please provide suggestions and a download link.

2006-01-09

Site Information: Hopefully everyone finds this website useful. It's intent is to make things easier for everyone using IBM BladeCenter, xSeries, and Intellistation products. It all started because I found it hard to find all the things on the IBM site that I thought were useful. I would find great sites, then loose track of where they were. So I then created a personal html document with links on it that I used as my local homepage on my browsers. I would simply open the browser and my links were immediately available. At the same time I was getting a lot of requests for the same type of information and it was costing me a lot of time so I started emailing my homepage to people looking for quick ways to access IBM information. Due to the number of requests for the email and where they were coming from, I decided to put it on the web so everyone had quick access to the latest version of the document. I already owned the domains (www.ibmbladecenter.com and www.ibmdirector.com) so I just put it there. This is a personal project that I create and maintain with my own time and money and I will continue to do so the for foreseeable future. Fortunately the site is now on a real hosted server. Thank you to Scott from www.designdfw.com for hosting www.ibmbladecenter.com and www.ibmdirector.com. Thanks to Gregg from www.eserverforum.com for hosting www.ibmquicklinks.com. Both of these guys have done a great deal to keep this site going by providing fast and reliable servers! Many continued thanks guys!

2006-01-01

Welcome to IBM Quicklinks! IBM Quicklinks has been completely rebuilt! There are several main reasons for the change in the look and function of this site. 1) To make it much easier to update. 2) To allow better link submission. 3) To allow me to create other Administrators (any volunteers?) 3. To allow for future expanded content (documentation, downloads, better news, etc.) I previously used Frontpage but I'm only licensed to use it on a system I don't always have access to. I needed either another license or another alternative. Sections - Notice the menu at the top of the page. Access to some of the content on the site requires site registration. This is why for unregistered users some sections will appear to be empty when they truly aren't. Frequently Used Links - This section is now gone. With the new site format it didn't make sense to have the links listed separates. The links with descriptions in bold represent the links that would have fallen into this category. Also you can sort by link popularity using the dropdown sort items on the page. Previous Site Format - See www.ibmbladecenter.com/index_old.html for the older version of this site. I'm not planning on updating this page anymore in the future. All updates will be made dynamically to the new site. Let me know if you would like me to consider doing periodic updates to this older format page. Polls - To help guide me to making this site as useful as possible, please participate in the polls. Please leave comments on each of the polls to help guide me through improving this site. Submit Links - The new site format allows links to be submitted. To submit a link go to the links page and select Submit a Link from the link navigator drop down list. The link will appear after I approve them. Only links appropriate to the theme and purpose of the site will actually show up on the site. Comments - Please take a moment to use the Read/Post Comment link to let me know what you think about the new site format. CMS and/or Portal suggestion request - I'm looking for suggestions for further mprovement. I'm hoping to find a CMS that has a links module that can support subcategories with a single column format. Please use the comments to this posting to suggest a portal or CMS that you think might work well for this site. HTML editor suggestion request - It's possible that I may decide to go back to the "old way" depending on feedback and other factors. If you have a suggestion for a free html editor that works well for tables please provide suggestions and a download link.

Ibmquicklinks v1 history - The original

2005-10-27

Added links for IBM Director thanks to Jason Brunson. Reclassified some Director links and cleaned up a number of other things. For now the Visio downloads will only come from www.ibmquicklinks.com. Angelo's new server is coming soon.

2005-10-24

I've been in from Disney World for the last 8 days to do my part to help Mickey Mouse and Company have a good quarter. It was an outstanding time. A couple of things that came up that I wasn't able to resolve while on my vacation since I only had a slow connection. 1. I didn't get a good upload of of the Visio 2003 file to www.ibmbladecenter.com. The file was corrupted on the site. 2. I did get a good upload of the Visio 2002 file to www.ibmbladecenter.com and the downloads put us over the daily bandwidth limit for the site. 3. I did get good uploads of both files to www.ibmquicklinks.com so users of that site haven't had a problem. Note: http://www.ibmbladecenter.com and http://www.ibmquicklinks.com are the same site. Each is hosted separately. If you have a problem accessing one of them or their content, try the other.

2005-10-14

I now have the Visio stencils on this site for download. Thank you to Larry Halbrook for sending them to me. This is temporary only since I won't burden my hosting partners with the bandwidth requirements for these for the long term.

2005-10-10

Angelo's server where the Visio files are located are still down. If you have a copy of the Visio files in the Visio section send them to me and I will temporarily post them directly on the site. Until I get them or the server is back up these links won't work. Due to a server error, the visitors to www.ibmbladecenter.com and www.ibmdirector.com were receiving an outdated version of this page. This has been corrected. Added several other links and cleaned up things a bit. If you ever have problems with a link send me a quick note so I can get it fixed. There are too many links to regularly check each of them so I rely on people to tell me there's a problem.

2005-09-29

Added link for Electronic Service Agent 4.0 thanks to Robert Ray and Adam Jackson. Updated broken link #630 thanks to Roy at http://www.seventwentyfour.com. I believe a bot found the error and reported it to me via email. Note that the server that Angelo's Visio stencils are posted on is being moved so I may temporarily post them here. I add the files after I receive them from Angelo.

2005-09-21

Updated links #128 and #502 thanks to a update submission by Dean Hall from Oregon.

2005-09-16

www.eserverforum.com is back online! Visitors to www.ibmquicklinks.com are now directed back to their server. Thanks Gregg!

2005-09-16

Added link www.ucertify.com on a trial basis. The link was submitted but I haven't decided if it belongs since it is a bit outside the intended purpose of the site. For now I will leave it. What do you all think? Should I leave the link as is? Should I remove it? Should I include it if there is an affiliate program that will help reimburse for bandwidth? I'd like to start paying my hosting partners, especially if the site traffic continues to grow as it has. If you have an opinion please shoot me a quick email..

2005-08-30

Added a www.ibmdirector.net thanks to Kristjan Eldjarn. It's under IBM partner and complimentary product sites. I may add it in the education section later.

2005-08-30

Added a www.ibmdirector.net thanks to submission by Kristjan Eldjarn. I've added it under IBM partner and complimentary product sites and I may add it in the education section.

2005-08-23

Added several links from Steve Brogan that I missed with the 08/19/05 update. Thanks Steve.

2005-08-23

Looks like there's a hosting problem at www.eserverforum.com. Until it's fixed www.ibmquicklinks.com visitors will automatically be redirected to www.ibmbladecenter.com.

2005-08-19

I can't believe it but it looks like the "counted hits" hit over 70,000! I never thought this project would ever get this far.

2005-08-18

Added links from Thomas O Olesen, Harry Werkman, and Bob White. Keep the great links coming. Help in submitting links will assist me in keeping this web site as useful as possible. Sorry about the infrequent updates. I've been remodeling my kitchen, had some vacation and was very busy at work. In addition some Windows and and Frontpage problems. Fortunately everything has slowed down quite a bit in the last few weeks and I hope it stays that way.

2005-06-14

Added a couple of great links submitted to me by Steve Brogan and Bob White. Thanks for the links!

2005-06-03

Added new IBM Director link, new IBM CSP download link

2005-04-08

Added the new Visio Stencil links thanks to Angelo's (continued) hard work. Several other minor changes. Added link: xSeries Tools and Utilities discovered yesterday.

2005-03-27

Moved the older news and site change history to a separate page to shrink the size of the main page a bit. That page can be accessed by the link in the "Latest News" titlebar. Added categories to the Frequently Used Links section so you can quickly jump to that section if the link you want is not present. Added a BUNCH of links.

2005-03-26

Still overwhelmed at work but decided that I couldn't handle working another full weekend so I worked on this site even though I should be doing other things. Oh well. Anyway, I changed the site to use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) instead of static html for formatting. The page continues to grow and it's getting harder to keep everything looking good so the style sheet should help dramatically. I've figured out how I would implement country or region links on the page. If you would like to assist by providing non-us links, contact me. I know I'll never have the language skills required to find the links myself. Changed the page to use style sheets, changed formatting a bit, and added a number of links

2005-02-10

My job has me extremely busy so I'm a bit behind. I still have a number of other updates to make but I'm out of time today. Hopefully I'll get caught up soon. I'm considering making "country" or "region" specific versions of this main page. If want to assist in maintaining a non-US page email me. Make sure you include details on which country or region you would like to work with. I'm still working on the details on how I would implement it.

2004-12-30

Minor changes and cleanup. Changed submit links until I get a feedback working. Site statistics can be viewed by clicking the "Established:" text in header above.

2004-12-29

I'm now reworking the site to not use FrontPage extensions. The counter is now hosted. Registered ibmquicklinks.com so this page will appear there soon too.

2004-12-20

Sorry about the downtime (1.5 days). The site is online on a true hosted server so it should be much more reliable and faster. Thank You to Scott Irwin for his help.

2004-12-20

Sorry about the downtime (1.5 days). The site is back online on a true hosted server so it should be much more reliable and faster. Thank You to Scott Irwin for his help. I've still got a bit of work to do mainly involving the FrontPage extensions. Until this is done the submit link and counter will not work.

2004-12-19

Added Independent Links section. Changed some link categories. Changed the formatting a bit. Added link numbers for easier reference. Links now open in same window.

2004-12-14

My job is keeping me busy so updates are infrequent. Added Director patch links, bladeswitching.org link, new visio site link, lab services, and updated xRef link. Thank you to those that have indicated willingness to host the site. I haven't had time to do anything about your offers yet but I will be in contact with you shortly. I've got some vacation time coming so I will probably do most of the updates then. The updates I'm considering are listed below. 1. I'm going to remove several links currently listed under Frequently Used Links under the other categories. I'm getting too many links in this category. 2. I'm going to create a separate category for non-IBM links and grassroots sites. 3. I'm debating about shrinking the fonts to 8 point to give more room on the page. I like www.bladeserverswitching.org so I may incorporate some of those ideas.

2004-11-03

Added www.xseries.org and www.ibmdirector.net provided via submit link below. Added CSP document. Short outage due to cablemodem problems.

2004-11-02

Added links to UpdateXpress automation and updating device driver whitepapers in the Technical Links section. Added BladeCenter support document.

2004-10-28

Short outage due to IP address change. To help eliminate these outages, please read Site Hosting. Added links to new UpdateXpress stuff and Director 4.20.02 UIMs

2004-10-19

Removed Archived stencils 2.5.exe from the Visio Stencil section since they are not relevant (ie. all items ever created are included in the other current downloads.)

2004-10-17

Additional minor cosmetic and content changes. Added Submit Link and some other sections. Removed Visio Stencil 3.0 links that were replaced by Visio Stencil 3.1 Links.

2004-10-14

Sorry about the outage. The WinXP box hosting the web server VM installed an update and rebooted and the VM didn't restart. Added Director 4.20.02 and Visio links.

2004-10-07

The newest Visio Stencils are now available. Thanks to Angelo for creating and hosting. Also cleaned up some things with the wording, layout and link categories.

2004-10-01

Added a request under Site Information section below for volunteers to host this web site. If you are willing, please drop me a message. Also started tracking site news and chage history.

2004-09-23

First added statcounter to the page

2004-03-01

First added Visio stencils to the page.

2004-02-14

Site first published to the web.

2003-10-31

First sent the document out for people to use.

2003-09-22

First concieved the contept in note to myself 'Create an HTML email with the important links that customers can go to to find the stuff they need for everyday xSeries questions and related stuff'

About - (Legal disclaimer and other site information)
This site is not owned, sponsored, or supported by IBM in any way. It's simply a repository of links into the various IBM related web sites that have useful information (most of which are IBM's own sites). The content contained on this site should be used at your own risk. The content of the sites linked to and from this site are the responsibility of those site owners, I can accept no legal responsibility for the contents of this or any other linked sites.
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