• Four Hundred Monitor, August 9

  August 9, 2023 Jenny Thomas

  As Editor Alex Woodie reports in another story in this issue, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Alex is reporting on data breaches when he points out that, despite changing technology, many aspects of data theft have remained unchanged. We also see that pattern in our Top Stories this week, where once again the hot talk around the industry is about AI, protecting data, and ChatGPT. We might tire of these topics, but there is no hiding from them. Maybe, by staying aware, you will be the one to save your company from a devastating data …

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• Google Introduces VS Code-Based IDE, Project IDX

  August 9, 2023 Alex Woodie

  Google this week took the covers off Project IDX, a new integrated development environment (IDE) based on Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code that’s designed to assist developers in creating full-stack, multiplatform applications with pre-built integrations to AI models.

  Google’s new Project IDX, which is based on VS Code (via Code OSS), is a browser-based IDE that allows developers to create Web and mobile applications. Currently in preview, it’s designed to work with languages like JavaScript and Dart via Web application frameworks, such as Angular, Flutter, React, and Vue.js. Support for Python and Go languages is in the works, the company …

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• Sticking To The Backroads On This Journey

  August 7, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Things are getting progressively weird in the computer business, and with lots of travel over the past two weeks up and down the East coast for vacation and for visiting family, I have had a lot of time to think about things. It’s so weird that I really don’t want to play the radio. I just want to keep us safe on the highways and have my thoughts. Parse a few things, suss them out, see how they might fit together and in what particular configuration.

  Because time is of the essence, I have been largely on the interstates, but …

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• Thoroughly Modern: The Mid-Year Check – Accelerating IT Projects and Modernization for the Second Half of the Year

  August 7, 2023 Christine McDowell

  Summer is the ideal time to reflect on your IT and technology goals for the remainder of 2023 and look ahead to 2024, envisioning the possibilities in front of you.

  A mid-year reset can be a game-changer for effective time management and goal achievement. By reflecting on your accomplishments, revisiting your objectives and taking action, you can set yourself up for success in the coming months.

  Sharing some resources and updates that can help you get a jump on projects before business ramps up in September.

  IT Leadership Educational Series

  Earlier this year Fresche hosted an IT Executive Series providing …

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• CNX Turns The Crank On Valence

  August 7, 2023 Alex Woodie

  CNX recently launched a major new release of Valence, its development framework for creating Web-based applications for IBM i. With version 6.2, CNX has added a number of new features that assist with improving the appearance and functionality of screens, new RPG toolkit procedures, and better SQL parsing for database interactions.

  CNX’s Valence story stretches all the way back to 2001, when the Chicago, Illinois-based development and consulting shop started developing a third-party planning system that SSA (now Infor) BPCS customers could plug into their ERP systems. That early work on ATOMIC, as it was called, eventually turned …

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• As I See It: Focus

  August 7, 2023 Victor Rozek

  I heard a startling statistic the other day: The average American worker is only able to concentrate for three minutes at a stretch without interruptions – most of them self-inflicted. That seemed hyperbolic at first, and equally exaggerated when the stat floated through my brain later that same evening. Surely, that can’t be true; and it certainly didn’t apply to me.

  At least that’s what I thought until I realized while I was pondering the demise of the American attention span, I was also watching a Netflix series on TV while simultaneously gorging on YouTube news clips playing on my …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 25, Number 32

  August 7, 2023 Doug Bidwell

  Here is what is new: A new “version” of Access Client Solutions (ACS) is available for download, catch the link in the Guide. (Your “Check for Update” won’t catch it, and you won’t see the version until you get all the way into the ACS Main window, and do the Help/About.) This is an updated version, no change to the ODBC driver. This version of ACS uses the IBM GSKit version 8.0.55.31 with the latest security updates.

  This is important: Prior versions of ACS have security defects. Specifically, Security Bulletin: IBM i Access Client Solutions – Windows Application Package is …

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• ASNA Generates First-Class C# from RPG with Encore

  August 2, 2023 Alex Woodie

  ASNA this summer unveiled a new version of Monarch, its flagship offering for migrating RPG applications to .NET Core. The big new deliverable with Monarch 11 is the introduction of Encore RPG, which enables IBM i shops to convert their RPG directly into usable C# source code. The new product will help IBM i shops with aging RPG programmers make the gradual transition to C#, ASNA says.

  ASNA originally launched Monarch way back in 2004 as a mechanism for converting RPG code into a language supported in Microsoft’s .NET Framework (Microsoft replaced the .NET Framework with .NET Core back in …

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• New GUI, Native SMS Come to Kisco’s iEventMonitor

  August 2, 2023 Alex Woodie

  There’s a lot going on inside your IBM i server – too much for a single administrator to track it all, let alone do so in real-time. One product that helps automate IBM i monitoring is iEvent Monitor from Kisco Systems. With the recent release of version 7, the company has added a new GUI, support for native SMS messaging, and monitoring for SQL security certificate expirations and thread waits, among other new features.

  Kisco Systems rolled out iEventMonitor back in 2015 as a budget-minded system monitoring tool for IBM i shops. Starting at just $400 for a single LPAR, …

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• Midsummer Security Indicators: Hot and Gloomy

  August 2, 2023 Alex Woodie

  The hot summer heat is smothering Americans like a tight polyester jacket these days. Also having big impacts on Americans are hackers, security vulnerabilities, spam, and malicious emails, which seem to be peaking with the seasonal fry.

  Security software company Securin scanned 8 million addressable IPs among US state government systems, and discovered 119,000 instances of high-risk services that could be easily exploited, according to a report released yesterday, dubbed “The State of Cybersecurity in America.”

  All told, Securin found 3,700 exposed databases (Db2 among them), 3,400 exposed Secure Shell (SSH) endpoints, 2,780 exposed File Transfer Protocol (FTP) systems, and …

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