Paglo today started the public beta of its new hosted IT management offering that’s designed to help IT professionals do their jobs more efficiently by employing the Web’s original breakthrough technology–search–to cross organizational boundaries to solve common IT problems. With a simple Web-based GUI, a blend of commercial open source and SaaS business models, and a successful private beta, Paglo just might live up to its billing as the Google of IT management.

The premise of Paglo is quiet simple, according to Brian de Haaff, chief executive officer of the company, which is based in Palo Alto, California. Namely, it

Brad Bauer remembers the “Learn Java or Flip Burgers” warning that IBM gave to RPG programmers years ago. It’s funny to him. He took several Java classes and created some rudimentary applications, he never became a Java advocate and he didn’t abandon his IT career for a job at McDonald’s. Instead, he looked for a Java alternative–one that seemed intuitive to him as an RPG programmer. His search eventually led him to ASNA‘s Visual RPG (AVR) for Microsoft Visual Studio.

What prompted Bauer’s dangerous liaison with Java and subsequent search for a less painful programming experience is a familiar

Organizations struggling to keep their users from forgetting their passwords while maintaining an acceptable level of authentication may want to check out the latest release of Lieberman Software‘s Random Password Manager. The software automatically generates random passwords for users, while providing them a way to recover their passwords from a hardware-encrypted location when passwords are forgotten. With the introduction of support for i (formerly i5/OS) and z/OS with version 4, the product can now be used in enterprise IBM shops.

Random Password Manager is designed to protect organizations from a catastrophic compromise of their IT infrastructure’s security. Lieberman says

There are many different ways to secure data residing on an i OS-based server. From exit point programs and field-level encryption to firewalls and limiting powerful user profiles, there are as many protection techniques as there are ways to access the server. KST Software, an Israeli developer of i OS utilities, recently launched a new i OS security tool called DataTrigger that offers another approach: using DB2/400’s trigger technology to detect attempts to access specified files.

Two of the most powerful data protection techniques available to i OS-based Power Systems users are triggers and journaling, according to KST Software

Interested in restricting which objects users can and cannot access via FTP, and which IP addresses they can FTP files to? If so, then you might be interested in the latest release of SafeNet/400 from Kisco Information Systems, which has implemented object-level security controls with version 8.5.

Since Kisco broke ground more than 12 years ago with the launch of the AS/400 industry’s first exit point monitoring program with SafeNet/400, the Internet has grown exponentially more dangerous. Kisco has also gained a lot of competitors in what has become a crowded market. But with the latest release of SafeNet/400,

Love’s Travel Stops and Country Stores has selected CCSS‘ system management tools for i (formerly i5/OS) to help it comply with a regulatory mandate. With QMessage Monitor keeping track of events occurring in the company’s audit journal, IT professionals feel confident that they have their bases covered when it comes to PCI compliance.

Since it was founded in 1964, Love’s has been making a name for itself with its chain of locations across the country, which now number 210 in 33 states. At each Love’s location, travelers have access to a gas station, a convenience store, a gift shop,

A survey commissioned by Symark International found a disturbing level of management ignorance concerning orphaned accounts, or user accounts that remain active after an employee has left a company. The survey suggest that one in three organizations has little knowledge or control over orphaned accounts, which increases the risk of a disgruntled former user compromising an organization’s security.

Symark’s survey of 850 IT, C-level and HR executives, which was conducted earlier this year by eMediaUSA, examined the prevalence of orphaned accounts in the enterprises, and the processes the enterprises have in place to locate and terminate them.

Here are some

Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company of Northeast Wisconsin (Pepsi NEW) has selected looksoftware‘s application modernization solutions to update the interfaces of legacy OS/400 applications and provide integration with Microsoft Outlook, the software company announced last week.

For the last 25 years, Pepsi NEW has been serving more than 300 products to 2,500 customers in the greater northeast Wisconsin region. In support of this operation, the independent franchise, which is based in Green Bay, Wisconsin, has relied on some pretty old RPG II code to power its OS/400-based applications. However, those applications were beginning to show their age, which precipitated a search

Oracle‘s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne has been certified to run on the latest release of IBM i5/OS operating system, i 6.1, the software giant announced last week.

According to an Oracle spokesperson, EnterpriseOne Tools 8.97 update 1 (8.97.1.0) has been validated to run on IBM i 6.1. That release of the tools is used with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne application releases 8.9, 8.10, 8.11, 8.11 SP1, and 8.12.

(Like other ERP vendors, Oracle separates its software into tools releases and application releases, in hopes of insulating the applications from changing operating system releases and updates to other ancillary products.)

With the

Terumo Cardiovascular Systems (CVS), a manufacturer of products used during heart surgery, has adopted Single Source Systems‘ Service Management-Plus (SM-Plus) asset management system to replace an obsolete AS/400-based service management system, the vendor announced recently.

Terumo CVS develops and manufactures medical devices for the global cardiac surgery market, including Vascutek vascular grafts, monitoring devices, heart-lung machines, and other precision tools. The company, which is a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Terumo, has locations in Michigan, Maryland, and California, and utilizes Oracle‘s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne ERP system to manage various aspects of its business.

Up until recently, Terumo CVS