-
i Is For Investment
April 22, 2013 Dan Burger
Just like any other company, IBM has to make decisions on which technologies to invest in. Of course IBM is in the business of selling technology, although it prefers to be known for selling solutions. As an IBM customer, you buy technology, or you can buy solutions if you prefer. In our IBM i community, where most everything is business oriented, the technology must prove to be useful. It must make business sense, so it’s interesting to take note of what technologies are most worthy of investment.
Dave Nelson, director of IBM i development, and Alison Butterill, IBM i product
-
Education the First Step in TEMBO’s Quest for Database Modernization
April 9, 2013 Alex Woodie
It’s been nearly a year since TEMBO Technology Lab launched its flagship database modernization tool, called Adsero Optima Foundation, in the US market. Since then, the product has garnered interest from dozens of American IBM i shops, who are intrigued with the prospect of migrating from old DDS to the SQL engine. While the folks at TEMBO would have preferred a warmer reception–and a quicker sales ramp-up–they understand that there’s a need for greater education on the topic of database modernization.
Make no mistake about it: TEMBO is in the database modernization business to make money. It is true that
-
Updating Through A Join With SQL, Take Three
April 3, 2013 Ted Holt
As I was looking for something in the DB2 for i SQL reference, my eyes happened to see MERGE in the list of statements, and I realized that I had been doing something the hard way. I realized that I was about to abandon the method I had been using to update values in one database table (physical file) from data in another one.
Once in a while, someone requests that I use a list of values, which are usually stored in a spreadsheet, to mass update the database on the big computer. Fortunately, several years ago I learned how
-
ABL Takes a Fresh Approach to Modernization with RolePlay
March 12, 2013 Alex Woodie
ADVANCED BusinessLink (ABL) is close to shipping a potentially disruptive new modernization tool called RolePlay. The new software, which is in restricted availability, helps eliminate the menu-based system common to IBM i-based ERP systems, and present information to users according to the role they play within the organization. It’s a novel approach to the modernization dilemma, and it could help IBM i ISVs compete more effectively with the role-based ERP systems from SAP and Oracle, and Microsoft.
There are many aspects of an IBM i business system that set it apart from the so-called “mainstream” X86 systems that
-
Mrc Gives i Web Dev Tool More Smarts
March 12, 2013 Alex Woodie
Last month mrc added several new features to its flagship Web application development tool, m-Power, that should help customers in several ways, including easier updating of CSS themes, the capability to generate event-triggered messages from m-Power apps, and improvements to how customers document and promote changes to their applications.
The new message triggering functionality in m-Power has several uses. For starters, it could be used to automatically send an email or a SMS message when a certain event occurs on the system, such as completion of a form on a customer website, or the cancellation of a customer account.
Message
-
Sony Ditches Power For PlayStation 4, And This Matters To IBM i
February 25, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
Consumer electronics maker Sony gave a sneak peek at its forthcoming PlayStation 4 game console, expected in time for Christmas shopping seven years after the release of the Power-based PlayStation 3. The company did not say much about the technology inside of the new game console, but one thing we know for sure: Power is out, and X86 processing and GPU graphics from Advanced Micro Devices is in.
The feeds and speeds of the new PlayStation 4 are not all that impressive: an eight-core “Jaguar” processor with an integrated Radeon graphics chip from AMD, the kind of thing you might
-
Pondering Possibilities With More Power7+ Machines Impending
February 4, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
With new Power Systems and PureSystems machinery in the works and hopefully set to shake up the market and chase some of those server dollars that Intel is already counting on, now is a good time to stop and have a good THINK. Just like Tom Watson admonished us all to do soon after taking over what became International Business Machines nearly a century ago. If we were sitting in a bar together, we might even think and drink at the same time, as Watson himself did as a young man before he became a teetotaler.
Here’s a funny story,
-
Jitterbit Unveils New Version of Integration Tool
January 15, 2013 Alex Woodie
Today marks the general availability of Jitterbit 5, a new version of the data and application integration toolset from commercial open source software vendor Jitterbit. The company says Version 5 will make it easier for customers to build, test, and deploy integration processes that connect front- and back-office applications, including popular ERP systems and cloud services.
Jitterbit is a data and application integration tool that’s been used by more than 20,000 customers, according to the company. The product started out as an open source product in 2005, but in 2011 the Oakland, California, company moved away from its open
-
What’s Happening In IBM i App Dev?
January 14, 2013 Dan Burger
Green screens scare the daylights (actually not my first choice of words) out of me. Like great white sharks and vampire bats, they have their place in the world. But I don’t want to go to that place. Most people would probably agree with me about the sharks and the bats. There are many RPG and COBOL programmers, however, who are perfectly comfortable in a green-screen world. What in the name of modern application development are they thinking?
There is a reason people use the term computer science rather than computer history. IT is an ongoing endeavor. You have probably
-
BASS: Build A Spreadsheet
December 12, 2012 Ted Holt
Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here. This code was updated on 12/22/14.
Everybody needs a project–something to putter with in order to relieve stress and deal with the vicissitudes of life. I would like to tell you about a project that I’ve been working on for the past few months. I only wrote it for the fun of it, but it has already come in handy.
It seems that not a week goes by without someone asking me to stop providing them a report as a PDF and give it to them in Excel