Lead researcher Lucy Elkin said that while tobacco companies denied advertising on the internet, the significant brand presence on YouTube was consistent with indirect marketing activity by tobacco companies or their proxies.
"The internet is ideal for tobacco marketing, being largely unregulated and viewed by millions of people world-wide every day," she said.
The study also found that while YouTube provides for the removal of material it defines as offensive, it does not currently consider pro-tobacco content as grounds for removal of specific video clips.
However, public and health organisations could request that YouTube removes pro-tobacco videos containing material considered offensive under present rules, Elkin said.
Governments could also implement the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control requirements on controlling tobacco marketing on the internet.
But Thomson said in New Zealand, the government had shown it was not willing to put the legal resources to deal with examples of indirect tobacco marketing.
It goes on and on, probably 10:1 anti versus pro smoking. Clearly YouTube is a propagandist for Big Tobacco and is in desperate need of censorship.
Who is funding Otago to do this stuff? Ah. The Health Research Council of New Zealand. Nice. I'll have to remember to try paying somebody cash under the table to take back the part I paid for that study.
Item the second: a Belgian paying about $NZ 110/month for the third fastest broadband package, capped at a maximum of 30 MBps, downloaded 2.6 TB of data over a month and his ISP is cool with that. I'm paying $110 NZ per month for broadband plus phone for their fastest package, currently delivering 7 MBps to the exchange but less than 2MBps for overseas connections, that caps out at 20 GB/month of traffic. Nothing to be done about it, and no particular policy moves can fix it. It's a small remote market problem. But I still weep.
One night I was fiddling with my Treo 650 and out of the blue I suddenly recalled one after the other all the phones I've ever used. Technology has come a long way in the past 10 years. I thought I'd share my personal mobile phone history with you all.
Motorola CD930- my first phone. Bought 2nd hand in 2000 from a friend who swore it came from Europe. I had no reason not to believe him. At the time, close to 99% of phones sold in the Philippines were Nokia. The display had a very luminescent green backlight and finer dots compared to the blocky text on yellowish-green backlights the Nokias screens had. I had to buy a new phone when the battery decided to call it quits and I couldn't find a replacement anywhere.
Nokia 3310 - bought a few months after getting a steady job. It was a practical choice. Accessories for Nokias had started to flood the market making it cheaper to maintain. This was my 'ligaw' phone. It spanned 3 relationships, the last one heralding a new chapter in my life. I spent a small fortune in 300-peso call cards on this thing calling my wife-to-be. It paid off as you can tell. I got married to her ;-) Incidentally, I bought my first ever ringtone for this phone. Hazard a guess? It was Shaggy's It Wasn't Me.
Nokia 7110 - the Matrix phone, as I called it. This phone lured me into subscribing to a postpaid plan. I just had to have it. It was so cool releasing the keypad cover on that phone to take a call, Neo style!
Nokia 3210 - downgraded to this hand-me-down when I needed cash and sold both the 3310 and the 7210. Darn, now that I think about it all the Nokias back then always ended in '10'. Like it was a last name or sumthin'.
Nokia 3100- got this brand-spanking-new after I renewed my contract. This thing lasted a really long time. After I stopped using it, I gave it to my mom. It died last year after 2 power buttons, 3 batteries and at least 10 face plate changes. I don't even remember how old it was!
Motorola E398 - the version of the Moto ROKR that wasn't tainted by the curse that was iTunes 4. It was the 1st phone to support TransFlash (eventually renamed MicroSD). I had to ask a friend in the US to send me one because the MicroSD cards sold locally cost twice as much. The music I loaded on the thing kept me happy despite the absence of an iPod in my life.
Palm Treo650 - this was sent as a gift by an Aunt of ours. 4 years old and still going strong. It's got dents, peeled paint and occasional button lag but it's still my fave. It introduced me to threaded SMS and apps on a phone. The apps meant I could read ebooks, edit spreadsheets, look up a word in a dictionary or cover MPG to KM/L. That got me hooked into Smartphones. Thing is once you get hooked there is no turning back. Stuck with it and just recently bought an HTC to replace it. After a few days I missed it, so I bought a prepaid SIM just go on using it. Now I have 2 phones I love.
Sony-Ericsson K530i - it was my 1st 3G phone. It had a great cam for it size. Browser was great, Opera Mini was even better despite the smallish screen. Also had a good MP3 player, but I hated that it took only MS-Micro cards. Those cards are expensive. I had to relinquish it to my wife as she had lost her phone at the time. It lived a short life. It died a few months out of the box when it was dropped into a bucket of water. Don't ask me, it wasn't me. I was using the Treo650 when it kicked the bucket. :-p
Samsung SGH-E590 - originally bought this for my mom to replace the Nokia 3100. It had a great camera for the price. The screen was great too. I ended up using it for a while. But my joy was cut short when it died 3 days after I got it. The battery would heat up and it couldn't get a signal whatever I did. I was able to return it to Smart, but the replacement took close to a month. It was working for another 3 months then had the same battery and signal problem. I had it fixed under warranty and it's been fine since then. My wife uses it now, because while waiting for a replacement unit I bought a Nokia 1208 for mom. And because of the bad experience and anecdotal info that Samsungs were known to have battery problems, I've swore never to buy another Samsung again.
Nokia 1208 - the cheapest phone I have ever laid my eyes on. I got it for Php 1,400. Fearing another lemon like the Samsung because it cost half as much, I used it for a few days before turning it over to my mom. It's about as basic as you can get. The color screen only supported 3 lines of text. Both text and graphics appeared big and blocky. It's keypad was rubbery and the numbers felt like they'd fade in a matter of months. I used it mostly for calls and it was great. Texting was another matter though, because of the rubbery keypad. Battery life was outstanding. It could last close to five days if all you did was send text messages and an occasional 2-minute call. It's most important feature was up on top -- it had a flashlight!
HTC Tattoo - after waiting around for prices to come down, I found the Smartphone I couldn't pass up on. It's got all the things I wanted -- a large screen for reading ebooks, mail + calendar sync, 3G, WiFi, GPS, a Linux OS and tons of free apps! Android is tha Bomb!
So, what about you? What phones were you using 10, 5 and 2 years ago? Leave a comment. Let's reminisce about old kit.
Technology has played an important role in our life; especially now that we are mobile and without a home base to rely upon. The items included below have contributed to a stress-free life and provided more enjoyment to our already enjoyable lifestyle. (This list does not include technology directly associated with our RV. That is another discussion.) Here are our top ten picks (in priority order):
1. Cell phones. Important for emergencies and an immediate link to family, friends and services.
2. Laptop Computer. Laptops today do everything (except vacuum)—surfing the net, composing e-mail and the blog, Facebook, storing/organizing photographs, recipes, researching products and the list goes on and on.
3. Internet Satellite Dish. Internet access is a must for researching places to stay, places to see, stores, and services. Many full-time RV’ers use the RV park internet connection, but we prefer the security and reliable connection of our own dish. http://www.motosat.com/
4. Television via Satellite Dish. We still like a little passive entertainment. After all, we are not on vacation; full-timing is a lifestyle. The ability to record television shows on a DVR is also a must for us. Not only can you watch a television episode on your schedule, but fast-forwarding through commercials is a sanity saver. http://www.directv.com/
5. GPS (road). We do well navigating with maps, but GPS makes travel (and life) so much easier. Making a wrong turn with a large RV in tow can be…a bitch challenging. http://www.garmin.com/
6. Digital Cameras. The small “no bigger than my hand” digital camera to the more sophisticated SLR camera make it easy to take multitudes of photographs and allows picture-taking to become a daily habit. We love re-living our travels through pictures. http://www.usa.canon.com/
7. Digital Clock/Temperature Gauge Combo. We have two; one for the outside temperature, and another located in our 5th wheel “basement” When we are camped at a high elevation or during the winter, it is important to know if our pipes are still above freezing. The receivers/clocks are located indoors next to the bed and the reading projects to the ceiling. A quick look above keeps us informed. www.lacrossetechnology.com/
8. Kindle (eBook). Clutter is your enemy in a 300 square foot living space. The Kindle helps you avoid maintaining an inventory of space-hogging paperbacks. Plus, you can avoid a trip to the store—the Kindle downloads a bestseller in 30 seconds. http://www.amazon.com/
9. Printer/Copier/Scanner (Wireless). Wires are irritating and why put up with them with the invention of wireless capability? Printing out the next RV Park confirmation, copying a receipt for a mail-in rebate, or scanning in a document for an e-mail attachment are functions we have used. http://www.hp.com/
10. GPS (trail). Hiking and walking have become a daily event—anywhere from 30 minutes to 4 hours. A trail GPS keeps us on track and tells us how far we have traveled. And the geocaching capability makes our hike that much more exciting. http://www.garmin.com/
Bonus Item #1: MP3 Player. Our iPod stores thousands and thousands of songs on a tiny device (another huge space-saver). And you can put together a playlist to suit your mood—a little piano jazz for an intimate dinner, blues with our BBQ and brews and new RV Park friends, yoga-themed tunes for morning stretches—you pick the songs and the length. http://www.apple.com/
Bonus Item #2: XBox. When you absolutely cannot get a satellite signal for television or internet, the XBox has been our salvation. Plus, it is tons of fun. The Lego game series (Batman, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Harry Potter) are a kick in the pants. http://www.xbox.com/
Well, there you have it. Our top ten (and a couple more). Just ten years ago, half of this list would not be available—just a twinkle in a geek’s eye. We will always be on the look-out for new or improved technology, but what we have is much appreciated.
I just completed a 3-day TI-Nspire training that my school contracted TI to come in and do. I haven't tried to teach with it yet, but of course, I have opinions. Let me say right off I don't necessarily think this technology is the right solution for every school, and I'm not trying to sell it to you. I'm just going to talk about what I like and don't like about it, because I know some people are curious, because they've been asking me - hopefully this will be a useful source for people making their own decisions.
Implementation: My school started phasing in the TI-Nspire with last year's freshman class. New students will now be expected to purchase a TI-Nspire handheld ($150 retail) as opposed to a TI-84 ($139 retail). For families who aren't able to purchase their own, we check them out a calculator for the year like a textbook. There are two versions of Nspire: a CAS and a numerical. The students get the numerical. We have a few classroom sets of CAS to share, too. It has a non-qwerty keypad - the keys are in alpha order - this is annoying but makes it more standardized test-compliant.
The Enthusing
Functionally/mathematically, as far as I can tell, the technology doesn't do any more for you than say Wolfram Alpha plus Geogebra. It is however very sleek and every bit as good.
It has a learning curve, but no worse than Geogebra or Sketchpad. If you already know either of those applications, you can pretty much hit the ground running.
If you go to one of these trainings (also may require a good relationship with your regional trainer-rep-salesman guy), they bring you lots of swag.
As part of the workshop fee my school paid, I received: a TI-Nspire CAS handheld, a canvas case with extra pockets (for cables, I guess? or maybe candy), a copy of the teacher edition software (emulator and connecting to your class functions), a Belkin hub and four cables for linking up and sending documents out to student handhelds, and a sweet t-shirt.
This is what I see as the big trade-off: Because of the proprietary nature of the software, we're not going to experience the wide-open, awesome universal sharing and embedding we get with Geogebra. This is crappy. However, the trade-off is access - every student should have their own handheld - in their hands in class every day, in their backpack, at home with them at night. I can't say the same for Geogebra. We're not a 1:1 school and won't be any time soon (for many reasons, and cost is only one of them). Getting computers into kids' hands in class every day is rather a hassle at my school. And not every kid has a computer at home (despite my history of getting snippy about it).
The Complaining
TI releases new software versions and hardware updates at a pace that makes Apple look downright sensitive to early adopters. This coming year in Geometry I am going to have kids with both generations of keypads, and it's going to be a nightmare.
The trainers will use TI-Navigator, which is a wireless document transfer/communication between your computer and all the student handhelds. It's seriously impressive. You feel like you're on Star Wars. Or Star Trek. Or some other show with "star" in the title. You probably don't have Navigator. It's $2500.
The instructional materials they make available, while plentiful, well-organized, and technically very nicely designed, are a pedagogical train wreck. Several times during the training, I heard about how a particular investigation + pre-made file required very little thought or work on the part of the teacher or student! As if this were desirable. Mostly, they have the student opening a pre-made file and dragging a point or slider around and looking for what changes or stays the same, which: 1. yawn, and 2. how is that supposed to stick in a brain?
Which begs the question of how to best exploit its capabilities for learning some math better than you can without it. Which I feel is an open question wrt classroom tech in general.
Off the bat I see three really nice uses.
1. Getting a handle on a problem and its constraints. Here is a sweet little problem I just swiped from What's Math Got to Do with It?, because it happened to be laying around.
If this were not just a screenshot, you could drag the skateboarder, represented by the red point, around the merry-go-round and get a good feel for what the problem is stating and asking.
2. Checking a solution by measuring. Ideally I know we love to pose problems where we can see how close we got by, like, playing the end of the video. But until that library reaches critical mass, we have:
3. Dynamic Notes : A document with a page for each key concept in an instructional unit, grabbable and playwithable.
No doubt people have questions... see you in the comments.
Dentists across the country are excited about the fairly new technology available through a company called Cerec (Chairside Economical Restoration of Esthetic Ceramics). Cerec has made one of the biggest breakthroughs for dental professionals in a long time. Their technology is giving dentists the ability to complete the work of placing a crown in a patent's mouth in only one visit to their office. For patients, this option is definitely reason to smile!
This is done with a special system called CAD-CAM, "Computer-assisted-design-Computer-assisted-manufactured," which takes digital measurements of the tooth and then manufactures the crown for the patient while they wait. The whole process takes a relatively short period of time, only about 20 minutes. Gone is the waiting time of up to two to three weeks while an outside lab manufactures the crown. This same system can also be used for other types of tooth restoration and is big in the cosmetic dentistry field.
So how long does a Cerec crown last and how much does it cost? Experts say that the durability of a Cerec crown is very high, but the technology is still considered very new (the first one was made in 1983), so the exact length is unknown. However, all the indications are that a Cerec crown will last a very long time, at least as long as the traditional crowns made in an outside lab. As far as cost, there really is not much difference for the patient. However, because it is so new, many insurance companies still do not offer coverage for it, so it would be worth checking with them before having it done. The cost for the dentist on the other hand to be able to offer this service is initially quite high. But, as they eliminate outside lab fees associated with crown manufacturing, over time it can be a big financial benefit to the dentist. Dentists are also required to undergo specialized training, which is another investment for them in both time and money. However, many a skilled Cerec dentist will tell you the benefits far outweigh the initial costs.
An additional benefit is that the material that is used to create a Cerec crown is claimed to be the closest thing to natural tooth enamel there is right now as it expands and contracts with heat and cold just the the natural tooth does. This is said to also add to the life of the crown.
The recent announcement from Google and Verizon has brought Net Neutrality back into the public spotlight. From a branding and marketing perspective, it's probably worth a look at the broad negative reaction to Google and why there isn't the same sense of outrage about Verizon. However, rather than exploring that topic, I want to dive deeper look into the technology and point out some deeper areas that this issue touches.
NPR did a quick clip on Net Neutrality the other morning. One thing that always drives me crazy is when reporters characterize the regulation as something that network providers "might do". They like to characterize the whole thing as, "sometime in the future, network providers may use traffic management techniques to provide you with a paid version of the HOV lane so that you can watch Hulu without packet loss." Or they characterize it as, "those kids downloading files on Bit Torrent are crowding your Internet tubes and slowing you down -- we're gonna make'em pay extra for using up your tubes!" What they never mention is that providers use traffic management and manipulation now -- and there are no laws that prevent them from doing that.
The real impact of this manipulation is much broader than simply lag time when accessing high-bandwidth services. The easiest example might be with a service like Skype. Imagine a world where your carrier decide that Skype is a threat to a key profit center -- like long distance. Why not block the service (as AT&T initially did with the iPhone app on their 3G networks)? But perhaps complete blocking would be too obvious and gather to much public outrage. Suppose that they simply selectively degrade the service, making it appear to perform poorly or interrupt calls so that you're experience using the product makes you think that it sucks?
How To Personalize a Bad Experience Several month back, I published links to a Techcrunch series that they called "Scamville". One aspect of that series that might be overlooked is a technique used by "Scammy" advertisers to avoid getting their ads shut down. What they did was look at the location that the IP address and then filter to block scammy ads from appearing to users from areas where the ad auditors might be.
People often underestimate how much the software that's running the device shapes their perception of the device. In our simple approach to understanding complex technology, we often look at sophisticated devices like our cable TV receiver or our broadband modem and imagine it working like a toaster -- you turn it on, it starts working. In reality, modern electronic devices conduct sophisticated communications back and forth between the unit and it's home base.
Take DSL signaling as an example. Back in the days when I worked in the DSL industry, there was one company that made a chipset that was widely adopted as the industry standard. DSL signaling requires that the chips in the phone company equipment speak the same language as the chips in the modem. When some other companies tried to make interoperable equipment, they often found that, while it was possible to mimic the market-leading chipset for a short period of time, the market-leader's chipsets could 'figure out' that there wasn't a matched chipset on the other side and would then reduce the performance of the connection. This is part of the reason why you can't just use 'any old modem' on your broadband connection and your network provider gets to decide what hardware will work.
Increasing Revenue by Getting Your Existing Customer to Buy More What happens if your network provider decides that they want to farm a little bit more revenue from you? Consider this example: back when I had DSL, one day the DSL modem just stopped connecting. Lights came on, unplug, replug, all of the usual fixes -- but no connection. Eventually, the service tech came out, said that the modem was dead and that we needed a new one -- our cost, only $200. What I realized at the time was, how do you know what caused the modem to die? It could easily be affected by software on the network provider's side.
But imagine this same strategy using the added information provided by today's increasingly intelligent devices. With today's smart phones, network providers have the increased access to location data. What happens if AT&T, in an attempt to sell it's Micro-cell signal booster device, tweaks their network performance to drop your calls more frequently when your location is "home"?
Next Generation Product Life-cycle Management Today's smart devices offer manufacturers increased potential to manage user experience and product lifecycle through ongoing communications with the product in the field. And while many people have read about jailbreaking their iPhone (and Apple's efforts to update their software to block jailbreaking), what happens when your blue-ray player manufacturer decides that you need to upgrade? Or maybe they want to coordinate 'device failures' with a next generation product launch? But it might be even more subtle than that. What if, in an effort to get existing customers to purchase more blue-ray discs, the manufacturer subtly changes the DVD decoding algorithm so that it seems like your DVDs are 'wearing out'?
Does it all seem too far out, too far fetched? If you can't see the connection between manufacturer and media, keep in mind that this is the area where corporate alliances are driven. And going back to my DSL modem, consider this scenario: the decision to use software to force a hardware change could be made at a high level -- the customer-facing tech may never know -- in that way, he becomes a believable, honest word-of-mouth product specialist stating, "these things just die."
This kind of manipulation is a subtext of Net Neutrality. While this level of product manipulation may carry a host of moral and ethical questions for you, as more devices add intelligence and sophistication, more and more platforms will be available for this kind of manipulation. However, as someone in marketing, you need to realize that this also offers the potential for new ecosystems and new revenue streams. But before any of that can happen, you need a product that has intelligence and can communicate. So before you find yourself in your own Net Neutrality debate, the real question is: do you have intelligence, communication and end-user awareness in your product roadmap
In a cruel twist of irony, it seems the Speed of Retrieval that Google brought (this search took 0.00246 seconds) and the Abundance of Information (showing 20 of 546,567,234 results) may be leading to the actual demise of Google.
The saying “God & Google Know”, may soon be a thing of the past, if Google is not able to master the new wave of networks that are taking hold of the Internet
The Net is evolving from a complex repository of information stored on a huge network of computers (for which Google was the All Knowing All Seeing God) to a network of immensely greater complexity of this repository of information being layered by a multitude of facets, feelings, opinions and connections.
Google is now grappling with an internet where the black & white of facts and information are being blurred into an infinite number of grays - of multi-layered opinions, feelings & emotions - continuously changing both with context & in time.
There is a new paradigm appearing, where… the basic premises of privacy and individuality are being questioned and HOTLY debated… The Net User is splitting into groups…. The Exhibitionists, The Individualists and the TOTALLY CONFUSED.
While most of us would fall into the last category all of us a slowly beginning to file into one of the first two categories, which of these two will be in majority will define the stability of the flux that the Internet is currently witnessing.
Simply put –
Is The Default Question
> Make this Public?
or
> Keep this Private?
Is Cloud Computing
> a personal & private experience to keep personal records, gain factual information & personal entertainment?
or
> a medium of growing communities, strengthening connections, public displays of affection & other emotions /talents/skills and OPINIONS?
Currently the trend appears to be that most of us stand firmly in the TOTALLY CONFUSED CATEGORY… making Issues of what isPublic & Private, Neutrality & Privacy, Free Speech seem FANTASTICALLY complex
…
the Default setting of Make this public (Yes/No) is now in contention..
Which set will be The New Age user gravitate towards… their own personal privacy or a more comprehensive and holistic view of the “Internet of Things”
An Individualist Perspective
Dear friends,
The Internet has made amazing things possible, like freeing the Jena 6 and electing President Obama. None of it could have happened without an "open" Internet: one where Internet service providers are not allowed to interfere with what is seen and by whom.
Now, Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon -- the most powerful broadband providers -- are trying to fundamentally change the way the Internet works. They're seeking to make even bigger profits by acting as gatekeepers over what we see and do online. If they succeed, the Internet would be more like radio and television: a few major corporations would control which voices are heard most easily, and it would be much harder for grassroots groups, individuals, and small businesses to compete with large corporations and well-funded special interests.
The FCC wants to do the right thing and keep the Internet open, but the big providers have been attacking their efforts, with help from Black leaders who have financial ties to the industry. And a recent court ruling just made the FCC's job even tougher.[1]If the FCC is to preserve an open Internet, they will have to boldly assert their authority and press even harder. It's why they need to hear directly from everyday people about the importance of an open Internet, now.
Will you join me in sending a message to the Federal Communications Commission supporting their effort to preserve an open Internet? It takes only a moment:
Today, the net is turning into Widgets, Feeds, & Real-time Status Updates, netizens have started “expecting” the Net to simply provide them with answers, stories to read, bargains to buy-and where the need to do a search is viewed as a bug … something to be avoided.
At Google, where every problem is waiting to be solved by some form of search query, this is tantamount to blasphemy.
Some Signposts of the New Internet-
§Distributed co-creation moves into the mainstream
§Making the network the organization
§Collaboration at scale
§The growing ‘Internet of Things’
§Experimentation and big data
§Wiring for a sustainable world
§Imagining anything as a service
§The age of the multisided business model
§Innovating from the bottom of the pyramid
§Producing public good on the grid
Analysts estimate that 91% of Google's revenue still comes from the AdWords and AdSense business model that Google built around Page and Brin's breakthrough PageRank algorithm. Even more telling, an estimated 99% of its profit does too.
But if Google can change its utilitarian ways, the company stands a real chance of tapping into that next growth engine. If it added that social layer to its core search business and to Android, and blew it out on YouTube, giving people a reason to hang out on Google sites for long periods. Advertisers would come flocking. If it can get that right, Google would be unstoppable… Just like it used to be.
CICS (Customer Information Control System) is a transaction server that runs primarily on IBM mainframe systems under z/OS and z/VSE.
CICS is a transaction manager designed for rapid, high-volume online processing. This processing is mostly interactive (screen-oriented), but background transactions are possible.
While CICS has its highest profile among financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies, over 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies are reported to rely on CICS (running on z/OS) for their core business functions[citation needed], along with many government entities. CICS is used in bank-teller applications, ATM systems, industrial production control systems, insurance applications, and many other types of interactive applications.
Recent CICS Transaction Server enhancements include support for Web services and Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs). IBM began shipping the latest release, CICS Transaction Server Version 4.1, which contains support for Event processing, Atom feeds, and RESTful interfaces, in June 2009.
Transactions: =============
A CICS transaction is a set of operations which together perform a task. Usually, the majority of transactions are relatively simple tasks such as requesting an inventory list or entering a debit or credit to an account. A primary characteristic of a transaction is that it should be atomic. On IBM System z servers, CICS easily supports thousands of transactions per second, making it a mainstay of enterprise computing.
CICS applications comprise transactions which can be written in numerous programming languages, including COBOL, PL/I, C, C++, IBM Basic Assembly Language, REXX, and Java.
Each CICS program is initiated using a transaction identifier. CICS screens are sent as a construct called a map, a little program created with BMS (Basic Mapping Support) assembler macros. The end user inputs data, which is made accessible to the program by receiving a map from CICS. CICS screens may contain text that is highlighted, has different colors, and/or blinks. An example of how a map can be sent through COBOL is given below.
EXEC CICS SEND MAPSET(MPS1) MAP(MP1) END-EXEC.
CICS Family: =============
Although when CICS is mentioned, people usually mean CICS Transaction Server, the "CICS Family" refers to a portfolio of transaction servers, connectors (called CICS Transaction Gateway) and CICS Tools.
CICS on distributed platforms (i.e. not z/OS) is called TXSeries and it is available on AIX, Windows, Solaris and HP-UX. CICS is also available on other operating systems, notably i5/OS, OS/2. The z/OS implementation (i.e., CICS Transaction Server for z/OS) is by far the most popular and significant.
Structure: ==========
In the z/OS environment, a CICS installation comprises one or more regions, spread across one or more z/OS system images. Although it processes interactive transactions, each CICS region may be started as a batch address space with standard JCL statements: it's a job that runs indefinitely. Alternatively, each CICS region may be started as a started task. Whether a batch job or a started task, CICS regions may run for days, weeks, or even months before shutting down for maintenance (MVS or CICS).
Each region comprises one major task — the "Quasi-Reentrant Task Control Block" (or QR TCB for short), on which every transaction runs. When certain services are required (such as access to DB2 data), other tasks (or TCBs) are used. Transactions marked Threadsafe don't return to the QR TCB when their use of a service is complete.
Installations are divided into multiple address spaces for a wide variety of reasons, such as:
* application separation, * function separation, * avoiding the workload capacity limitations of a single region, or address space.
A typical installation consists of a number of distinct applications. Each application usually has its own "Terminal-Owning Region" (TOR) and one or more "Application-Owning Regions" (AORs), though other topologies are possible. For example, the AORs might not perform File I/O. Instead there would be "File-Owning Regions" (FORs) that performed the File I/O on behalf of transactions in the AOR.
History: ========
The first release of the CICS Program Product developed by IBM became available on July 8, 1969, not long after IMS. CICS was originally developed in the United States at an IBM Development Center in Des Plaines, Illinois, beginning in 1966. The first CICS product was released in 1968, named Public Utility Customer Information Control System, or PU-CICS. CICS was originally developed to address requirements from the public utility industry, but it became clear immediately that it had applicability to many other industries, so the Public Utility prefix was dropped with the introduction of the first release of the CICS Program Product. In early 1970 a number of the original developers, including Ben Riggins, the principal architect of the early releases, relocated to California and continued CICS development at IBM's Palo Alto Development Center. In 1974, CICS development responsibility was shifted to IBM's Hursley, United Kingdom Laboratory, where development work continues today.
When CICS was first released, it supported programs written in IBM Assembler, PL/I and COBOL. Programs needed to be quasi-reentrant in order to support multiple concurrent transaction threads. Its modular design meant that, with judicious "pruning", theoretically it could be executed on a computer with just 32K of physical memory (including the operating system). Because of the limited capacity of even large processors of that era every CICS installation was required to assemble the source code for all of the CICS system modules after completing a system generation process to establish values for conditional assembly statements. This process allowed each customer to exclude support from CICS itself for any feature they did not intend to use, such as device support for terminal types not in use. CICS services emulated the functions of the operating system, but provided services tailored to support only transaction processing that were more efficient than the generalized services in the operating system and much simpler for programmers to use, particularly with respect to communication with terminal devices. Considerable effort was still required from CICS application programmers to make their programs as efficient as possible. A common technique was to limit the size of individual programs to no more than 4,096 bytes, or 4K, so that CICS could easily use the memory occupied by any program not currently in use for another program or other application storage needs. As the efficiency of compiled high level language programs left much to be desired, many early CICS application programs were written in assembler language. CICS owes its early popularity to its relatively efficient implementation, its multi-threaded processing architecture, and its relative simplicity for developing terminal based applications.
An earlier, single thread, transaction processing system IBM MTCS existed prior to CICS and an 'MTCS-CICS bridge' , a type of middleware, was developed to allow these transactions to execute under CICS with no change to the original application programs.
Each unique CICS "Task" or transaction was allocated its own dynamic memory at start-up and subsequent requests for additional memory were handled by a call to the "Storage Control program" (part of the CICS nucleus - or "kernel"), which is analogous to an operating system.
Because application programs could be shared by many concurrent threads, the use of static variables embedded within a program (or use of operating system memory) was restricted (by convention only).
Unfortunately, many of the "rules" were frequently broken, especially by COBOL programmers who were frequently unaccustomed to the internals of their programs or else did not use the necessary restrictive compile time options. This resulted in "non-re-entrant" code that was often unreliable, leading to many spurious storage violations and entire CICS system crashes.
The entire partition, or region, operated with the same memory protection key including the CICS kernel code and so program corruption and CICS control block corruption was a frequent cause of system downtime.
These shortcomings nevertheless persisted for multiple new releases of CICS over a period of more than 20 years and, as stated above, were often critical applications used by large banks and other financial institutions.
It was possible to provide a good measure of advance protection by performing all testing under control of a monitoring program that also served to provide Test/Debug features. One such software offering was known as OLIVER, which prevented application programs corrupting memory by using instruction set simulation of the application code, providing partial virtualization.
System calls to CICS (for example to read a record from a file) were elicited by a macro call and this gave rise to the later terminology "Macro-level CICS". An example of a call to the "File Control Program" of CICS might look like this:-
This was converted by a pre-compile Assembly which expanded the conditional assembly language macros to their COBOL or PL/I CALL statement equivalents. Thus preparing a HLL application was effectively a "two-stage" compile; output from the Assembler fed straight into the HLL compiler as input.
Command-level CICS: ====================
During the 1980s, IBM at Hursley produced a "half-way house" version of CICS which supported what became known as "Command-level CICS". This release still supported the older programs but introduced a new layer of execution to the new Command level application programs.
A typical Command-level call was given in the first MAPSET example above. This was pre-processed by a pre-compile batch translation stage, which converted the embedded Command-level commands (EXECs) into Call statements to a stub subroutine. So, preparing application programs for later execution still required two stages. It was possible to write "Mixed mode" applications using both Macro-level and Command-level statements.
At execution time, the carefully built Command-level commands were converted back using a run-time translator ("The EXEC Interface Program"; part of the CICS-supplied nucleus) to the old Macro-level call, which was then executed by the mostly-unchanged CICS nucleus programs.
CEDF: This IBM-produced "Command Execution Diagnostic Facility" helped debug 'EXEC CICS' commands by showing before and after results. The "OLIVER" software predated this free add-on by more than 10 years, and yet CEDF came without any form of memory protection. It was, however, complementary to OLIVER, and both could be used simultaneously.
The Command-level-only CICS introduced in the early 1990s offered some advantages over earlier versions of CICS. However, IBM also dropped support for Macro-level application programs written for earlier versions. This meant that many application programs had to be converted or completely rewritten to use Command-level EXEC commands only, usually by programmers without exposure to earlier versions or to the original code.
By this time, there were perhaps millions of programs worldwide that had been executing fairly reliably; for decades in many cases. Rewriting them inevitably introduced new bugs without necessarily adding new features.
Run-time conversion: =====================
It was, however, possible to execute old Macro-level programs using conversion software such as "Command CICS" produced by APT International, a former CICS Software Specialist company which had earlier produced OLIVER, described above. It was possible to take advantage of the new features of later versions of CICS while, at the same time, retaining the original unaltered codebase. It is believed that there are still programs running today using this same technology. The overhead was minimal, since additional overhead was limited to the CICS calls only.
Z notation: ===========
Part of CICS was formalized using the Z notation in the 1980s and 1990s in collaboration with the Oxford University Computing Laboratory, under the leadership of Sir Tony Hoare. This work won a Queen's Award for Technological Achievement.
New programming styles: ======================
Recent CICS Transaction Server enhancements include support for a number of modern programming styles.
CICS Transaction Server Version 2.1 introduced support for Enterprise Java Beans (EJB). CICS Transaction Server Version 2.2 supported the Software Developers Toolkit. CICS provides the same runtime container as IBM's WebSphere product family so EJB applications are portable between CICS and Websphere and there is common tooling for the development and deployment of EJB applications.
Also introduced with CICS TS 2.1 was the capability for CICS transactions to be invoked via an HTTP request. This allowed CICS transactions to participate as servers in a POX or REST conversation.
CICS Transaction Server 2.3 added new EJB tracing capabilities, and new JCICS classes, allowing the invocation of CICS services using Java. End-to-end debugging was also introduced, making it easier to debug applications, from the Java client to the CICS application.
The Web services support in CICS Transaction Server Version 3.1 enables CICS programs to be Web service providers or requesters. CICS supports a number of specifications including SOAP Version 1.1 and Version 1.2, and Web services distributed transactions (WS-Atomic Transaction).
The CICS Web Services Assistant includes two batch processing utilities, DFHWS2LS and DFHLS2WS, which are used to map WSDL to programming language structures and vice versa, respectively.
The input to DFHWS2LS is a set of control statements governing its processing and file containing WSDL for a web service to be accessed. The output is a set of language structures, each corresponding to a method in the WSDL, and a WSBIND file. This utility is intended for use by an application developer who wishes to access a web service as a client and has been provided its WSDL.
In this case, the application developer populates the language structure corresponding to the method they wish to invoke, writes the structure to the DFHWS-BODY CICS container, and executes the INVOKE WEBSERVICE API. Execution of the API is synchronous, on return the DFHWS-BODY contains the response from the invoked web service mapped to a language structure.
The input to DFHLS2WS is a set of control statements governing its processing and file containing the language structure corresponding to the invocation parameters of a CICS application program. The output is the WSDL corresponding to the language structure, and a WSBIND file. This utility is intended for use by an application developer who wishes to expose a program's functionality as a web service.
In this case, the application program is invoked when an HTTP request for its services is received by the CICS region. The application program sees the request as language structure in either a CICS container or a commarea, which one is governed by the control statements fed into DFHLS2WS. The application program performs its processing and writes the response back to the language structure with which it was invoked.
In either case, whether the CICS application is acting as a web services client or server, the mapping of data to and from XML is governed by the generated WSBIND file. The message body is wrapped in, and unwrapped from, a SOAP envelope by CICS Web Services "plumbing" code external to the application program.
The connections between a web service, the WSBIND file, the WSDL, and the CICS transaction requesting or providing the service is done with CICS system level definitions and a configuration file.
Also introduced with CICS TS 3.1 was the capability for CICS applications to act as HTTP clients. This allowed CICS transactions to participate as clients in a POX or REST conversation.
CICS TS can be extended with additional programming features using SupportPacs. For example SupportPac CA8K introduces support for Atom feeds, and SupportPac CA1S adds support for the PHP scripting language, using the same Java-based PHP engine as Project Zero.
Lately there have been rumors of a PSP phone. So much so that there is a new advertisement from Sony that tries to diss the iPhone as old, and only for your Grandma.
As such the advertisement fails to achieve anything, except for raise eyebrows on Sony's failure of a marketing department.
I had some free time tonight, so I decided to go lurk in my favorite non-literary non-football-gambling-related message board, MTGSalvation.
Boy, am I glad I did!
You guys solved it!
You solved one of the M11 maps!
And what's funniest is that I'm pretty sure you guys don't know it!
The data is right there in the M11 box mapping thread, and some of you started getting on the right track, but it seems like your discussion of it kind of died out. This is hilarious, seriously. You guys solved a 1:1 M11 map and you don't even realize it.
Think about the information you have. Both in that thread and elsewhere.
Think about how you can verify your data.
The final correct answer will appear in The Card Wizard's Black Book: Second Edition, of course, but nothing is preventing you guys from using the information that's out there that you've already solved. Nothing's preventing you from opening great M11 cards now, if you see what you have in your hands.
I guess what's funnier isn't just that you guys solved it and don't know it, but that I didn't manage to solve this part even though I was actively trying. So that's egg on my face, I suppose. No worries! I am a man without ego. My purpose is only to spread knowledge and teach truth. If I sometimes have to step in the crud in the process of doing that, I don't mind. I consider it a "teachable moment."
In the meanwhile, the dirty map (linked at right) will help you with the Type A+ and Type B boxes. The map you guys have solved, 1:1, and don't realize it, will help you with boxes of the third type. And it's a type that already existed. Those of you who own the First Edition or Digital Core Edition know what I'm talkin' 'bout, Willis. Yeah, you do.
Do you see it now? I know, right! It's just amazing!
Thanks for reading, and for taking matters into your own hands, ya bunch a palookas, -RE
P.S. I am not especially concerned with the danger of people pirating my books. As I have stated before, I am opposed to DRM and I think people will basically be decent and play fair if you respect them and don't treat them like thieves. However, I must agree that it would be appropriate for people not to copy and paste my dirty maps or other products to message boards. Not only is it copyright infringement, which I don't like simply because you've taken something that's mine without my permission, but the dirty map is free! I mean, what the hell? Free isn't good enough for you? Are you so devoted to bootlegging any media you can get your cursor on that you would deny me the cup of coffee I was going to be able to buy with the pittance in Google AdSense revenue that I was likely to earn from hits on my blog to read the free dirty map? Where am I going to get six bucks now? All I want is an iced caramel macchiato, people. I don't think I'm asking too much. When you break international copyright law, Ross Edwards goes thirsty. And thirsty guys don't write goodly. Think about that
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, because it happened to be laying around.
