All kidding aside, I find things like the ISource and Redbooks lists and services like Shopseries to be extremely useful "extras" that make life better than it used to be, and you certainly can't beat the price.
I install and maintain db2 and 18 or so support products for it, a lot of them from IBM. In the bad old days, even without so many products, it wasn't that easy to simply find and keep up with all of the new upgrades or withdrawals for just my own stuff, much less other things that weren't directly related but might be of interest, like maybe new hardware announcements such as the Z9 one this week. Now, I can look at my handy dandy isource mail and see what's cooking as soon as it comes out, and I'm not caught unawares when some user or manager comes out of the blue with a question about version XX of product YY on machine ZZ they heard about in a sales presentation or class somewhere. Same w/Redbooks. Long ago it was very difficult for most of us to find out when new ones were published and to keep track of which ones were of interest. Heck, if I remember correctly, they used to be $50 a pop and therefore basically unobtainable, at least here. So, it was almost like Xmas morning or an extra birthday when you went to an IBM class and a redbook was in the box. Eventually, they started coming out quarterly on CD, which you could get for a price or free if you were lucky enough to go to a conference, but which most of us still didn't see that often. Now, not only can I just go download them for free, but I get a handy weekly email that lists them out so I don't miss ones that interest me. There are too many areas and changes on the platform for me to ever hope to keep up on my own, especially with annual releases of OS, and I applaud their efforts to try to keep me as informed as possible with things like ISource. It's all gravy. -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ted MacNEIL Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 8:00 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: What happened to iSource? ... To ensure delivery and proper display of your IBM Announcement . . . ... It is to laugh! How the H-E double toothpicks do I follow instructions if I never receive them? Fortunately, I can define what is/is not SPAM. And, I can see the stuff that was deemed to be SPAM. <SNIP> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
