• Printing Multiple PC5250 Screens at the Same Time

  October 27, 2010 Hey, Joe

  I print a lot of PC5250 screens but since they only print one page at a time, I have a problem tracking the printouts. The screens are sent to a copier 50 feet away, and they sometimes get collected with other people’s output. How can I print and retrieve all my print screens at the same time? –Bill Check out a cool little PC5250 feature called Print Screen Collection, which should do most of what you’re looking for. Print Screen Collection allows you to capture a number of screens to memory and then print them out as a stack of

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• Rowing with Your OAR

  October 20, 2010 Jon Paris

  Note: The code referenced in this article is available for download here. In my first Open Access for RPG (OAR) tip, I discussed the basic mechanics of an OAR handler from a conceptual perspective. In this tip, I am going to walk you through the implementation of a simple handler that generates XML files derived from the definition of the file specifying the handler. As you will see, its capabilities are very limited but it will introduce the basic coding principals. You’ll need to understand some of the details from my first OAR tip to follow this one.

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• Leave My Stream Files Alone, Please

  October 20, 2010 Hey, Competent IBM i Professional

  Recently one of your fellow readers told me that her shop’s nightly job halted because one of the users had inadvertently dragged something from one network folder and dropped it into another one. Don’t you just hate it when little mistakes cause big problems? Here’s an easy way to help reduce the likelihood of such errors in the Integrated File System. The Integrated File System (IFS) is the umbrella file system that allows IBM i to store many types of data. It is a directory-based system. To create a directory, use any of three versions of the Create Directory command:

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• How Do I Record a PC5250 Macro?

  October 20, 2010 Hey, Joe

  I have some PC5250 users who every month need to execute the same commands from their green screen sessions to launch queries, set configuration values, etc. How do I teach them to create macros so they can spend more time analyzing data and less time creating it? –Bob Macros are extremely easy to create on a PC5250 screen. Here’s how to do it using the Personal Communications program (PC5250) that comes with iSeries Access for Windows V5R4Mx. PC5250 macro generation is controlled through four buttons on the PC5250 toolbar: Record, Stop, Play, and Quit. Here’s what these buttons

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• Don’t Let Your RPG Just Drift, Grab an OAR!

  October 13, 2010 Jon Paris

  When IBM Rational Open Access (OAR): RPG Edition was announced, all the buzz was about how it would (or would not) impact the green-screen world. But the possibilities for OAR go far beyond workstations. Perhaps more to the point, while few people have the skills to write their own 5250 handlers, writing handlers for other purposes is well within the grasp of the average RPG programmer. In this tip I am going to introduce you to the basic mechanics of how an OAR handler works. In a sub-sequent tip, I will put that theory into practice by describing the workings

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• Counterintuitive Table Creation

  October 13, 2010 Ted Holt

  To be able to create one table that is described exactly like an existing table or view is good. But how you create that table determines whether the new table is exactly like the old one or not. Believe it or not, something as trifling as a pair of parentheses can make a difference. Small Things Matter The CREATE TABLE statement has several forms. Here are the two I want to talk about today. CREATE TABLE xxx LIKE zzz CREATE TABLE xxx (LIKE zzz) There’s not much difference–one pair of parentheses. But as amazing as it sounds, the inclusion or

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• Admin Alert: Will i5/OS V5R4M

  October 13, 2010 Joe Hertvik

  x Support Run Out on April 7, 2015? I recently performed a best guess analysis on when IBM i5/OS V5R4Mx support will actually run out. My client wanted to estimate how long they could theoretically get IBM support for running on V5R4Mx without having to upgrade. I came up with a possible final end of software support date for i5/OS V5R4Mx of April 7, 2015. Sound crazy? Check my logic and tell me where I’m wrong. The Challenge Sadly, this client was considering phasing out their i5/OS ERP environment in favor of an Intel-based platform. However foolish

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• Automate E-Mail Operations with Outlook and VBA

  October 6, 2010 Michael Sansoterra

  Note: The code referenced in this article is available for download here. Microsoft Office is a wonderful productivity suite. Besides being packed with features, its claim to fame for me (and the major reason I haven’t switched to other competing Office suites) is that it allows a developer to customize and enhance the product’s functionality using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) or .NET code. For businesses, this means that Office applications (Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Outlook, and others) can be used in the software development process to solve certain problems that would otherwise be difficult to write from scratch,

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• USA Time Format in Query for i, Redux

  October 6, 2010 Hey, Ted

  I am having trouble converting my time format from military time. That is, the time fields in my system are six-digit numeric fields. I want to print them in the common AM-PM format we use in the United States. –Ronnie I’ve covered this topic twice that I know of. Both tips ran in 2003. (See Date and Time Formats and Query/400 and Miscellaneous Query Tips. I’ll cover it again today, because some readers who might like to know about this technique didn’t see it then and don’t know it’s out there, and because I have a slight improvement on

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• Admin Alert: Getting Started with i/OS Security Auditing, Part 2

  October 6, 2010 Joe Hertvik

  Last month, I discussed how to configure security auditing in an i/OS V5R4Mx environment. This issue, I’ll look at the other side of the equation and discuss what you can do with your security auditing data once you have it. I’ll look at some of the reporting facilities available on the system and how to take advantage of them. Before Getting Started If you’re just getting started, you may want to review part 1 of this series to make sure your iSeries, System i, or Power i box is configured correctly for security auditing. The techniques I’m presenting here

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