English is not my mother tongue language so I tried to learn it, possibly having fun in the process. At the beginning there was no fun, I studied it in high school but I didn’t have occasions to practice it, so it was quite boring. Later, when I moved to the University of Ancona to study Electronic Engineering, I found that computer/software related documentation and some textbooks were available only in English. Later, when I starded working in a big corporation, I was forced to use english to communicate with non Italian speaking collegues, customers and suppliers.… Read the rest
Valerio Di Giampietro
Personal Web Site
Linux/AS400: download and convert database files from ebcdic to ascii and excel
I was involved in trasferring data from an AS/400 and to do a minimal datawarehouse, loading that data on an Oracle database. The datawarehouse system was my responsability, the AS/400 was managed by another group located in another city. The AS400 database had packed and zoned fields.
At that time I had been involved in Unix and TC/IP administration and configuration since 1992. However I never worked in an AS/400 or IBM Host environment, this means that I knew something about Network and Unix, but I knew almost nothing about the AS/400.… Read the rest
Welcome to Valerio Di Giampietro’s personal web site and blog
I’m an Electronic Engineer with almost 20 years of experience in the field of IT management, Network and Unix System Administration, Telecommunications and Digital Electronics.
In this modest web site you will find:
- In the Linux & AS/400 page you will find articles and scripts that I wrote and used to download and convert AS/400 database files and other related informations.
- In the I and Linux page you will find information on my early involvement with Linux (since 1993).
- Essential and suggested Freeware Unix Programs on my toolbox.
Tools for Unix System Administrators
This is an uncomplete list of freeware Unix programs I have used for about ten years and that I continue to recommend with the same entusiasm I had when I installed them for the first time on Sun Solaris and SunOs machines.
Perl my preferred programming and scripting language
Perl is designed to make the easy jobs easy, without making the hard jobs impossible. Perl is a language for powerful text processing, filesystem manipulation, process management, database administration, client-server programming, secure programming, web-based information management and even for object-oriented programming; it was designed to be a glue language from the start.… Read the rest
Freeware Unix Programs I can’t live without
I can’t feel at home without some good free Unix software. All the software listed here is used by myself and is an integral part of my Unix workplace. (This never finished list was compiled about 10 years ago when Linux workstations and servers were not so common and I worked mainly on Sun/Solaris and IBM/Aix workstations and servers).
Emacs the best Text Editor
It has everything: from language specific modes (for C, C++, Perl, Sgml etc.) to complete programmability. Without it I feel like a stranger, so, usually it is the second software I install on a new workstation (if automounting /usr/local is not an option).… Read the rest
My first Netscape
At the time it wasn’t possible (at least in Italy) to legitimely have an internet connection from home. At the end of 1993 i signed my first subscription to Galactica, it was a BBS with telnet, ftp access and usenet newsgroups imported as Fidonet Areas. It was funny to have internet access from home, but wasn’t possible to use Mosaic.
To navigate on the web i waited until the first months of 1994 when a provider with full SLIP internet access was born here in Italy; it was Inrete in Turin.… Read the rest
My first linux CD-ROM
This was my first Linux CD-ROM. At the time, it was May, 1993, I had a partial and slow access to the Internet at work (only e-mail, telnet and ftp, but no newsgroups); at home i was an active member of the bbs fidonet network community. A day, in the Fidonet UNIX.ITA area (a fidonet area is like an internet newsgroup) i read a posting about the aviability of Linux on CD-ROM from a company, based in Canada, and called SLS (Softlanding Linux System).… Read the rest
My technical bookshelf
I think good books are the most important thing to put in your own professional toolbox.
All the books listed here are my own books, often buyed after suggestions by someone in the online community. Unfortunately part of the books listed here are a bit outdated.
Unix books for power users
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Unix Power Tools by Jerry Peek, Tim O’Reilly and Mike Loukides – O’Reilly and Associates 1993 A very good book where a user can learn how to become a truly power user; you can find here anything from organizing your directory, to using shell scripts, find, awk and tons of others interesting things. |
A Short Introduction of myself
I am an IT Infrastructure Manager in a big automotive manufacturing company.
I have a very strong technical background in Unix Administration (mainly Solaris), Linux, Oracle, LAN, WAN and Internet/Intranet technology including Cisco routers, Apache web server, CGI scripting with Perl, MySQL, PHP etc.
I was involved in Unix Administration since 1989 and in Internet technology since 1992. I installed Linux on my home PC in 1993, ran a Linux Based BBS in 1994, introduced the first Linux server in my Company in 1999.… Read the rest
Web site history: my second personal web site (1999-2005)
In 1999 I registered the domain digiampietro.com, switched my hosting company to WestHost.com and revamped my website. At the time dynamic content was not so popular and very few hosting companies supported dynamic content in their cheapest hosting offerings; Microsoft FrontPage was popular but I disliked it. After a bit of research I found a good solution in WML (Website Meta Language) an html scripting language that easily allowed the generation of a static web site with a consistent look & feel and navigation bar.… Read the rest