• Four Hundred Monitor, May 24

  May 24, 2017 Dan Burger

  What’s more popular than a barbeque on a summer weekend? That’s easy. Steve Will, IBM i chief architect at the COMMON Annual Meeting. In his “You and i” blog, the Chief writes about the fun and the fundamentals of an IBM i technical conference.

  Proof that what goes around comes around is the chatter these days about running IT as a business. That means IT needs to make money not spend it. And do you know the top reasons for employees leaving their jobs? Hint: It’s not the money. One more thing . . . IT service providers are coming …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, May 17

  May 17, 2017 Dan Burger

  For many IBM i local user groups, existence is hanging on by its fingertips. There are exceptions though and this week Monitor points you to an article highlighting a local user group success story. You’ve probably read the IT Jungle stories that have chronicled events surrounding the COMMON Annual Meeting and Exposition in Orlando, Florida, last week.

  And for those of you without a care in the world (We can pretend, can’t we?), we’ve included scary articles about bring your own device warnings and the loss of IT control nightmares.

  Top Stories From Outside The Jungle

  (IBM Systems Magazine) Most …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, May 10

  May 10, 2017 Dan Burger

  Why would anyone want to move on-premise IBM i infrastructure to the cloud? Utility pricing, moving a development environment off the production server, and establishing a disaster recovery plan are a few things that come to mind.

  This edition of Monitor also includes articles on the top CIO challenges (business and IT alignment is a big one) and the nightmares brought on by H1-B visa program. You’ll also find useful resources and a calendar of events that includes tech conferences and local user group meeting agendas. If you are not a member of a local user group, you’re missing out …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, May 3

  May 3, 2017 Dan Burger

  Watson is a hive of activity with a swarm of across-the-board capabilities released rapid fire. One of the latest examples, Cognitive Visual Inspection, is designed to help manufacturers streamline their assembly line inspection process by finding and classifying faults in the manufacturing process. We have that story inside this week’s Monitor along with a few others that should be on your radar.

  Did you know it’s been five years since IBM last recorded an increase in revenue on its quarterly financial reports? That’s one heck of a losing streak. How long can that continue? Plus stories on old programs, old …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, April 26

  April 26, 2017 Dan Burger

  All programming languages gain value from programmers exchanging information the tips and techniques and code samples that get passed around. Open source magnifies this information exchange. Contributing code to make sure that all IBM i languages can benefit is a worthy endeavor, says the business architect of IBM i open source Jesse Gorzinski.

  “RPG First” would make a good slogan for lapel pins and bumper stickers. Brian May, a solutions architect at Profound Logic Software, says it’s also good advice to update RPG skills and become a better programmer before taking on another programming language. Learning new languages will be …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, April 19

  April 19, 2017 Dan Burger

  As an IBM i programmer or manager of programmers, how do you instill the mindset of be better today than you were yesterday and be better tomorrow than you are today? It’s not rocket science or brainwashing. See today’s Monitor for how it’s done.

  Last week, IT Jungle published a story titled Blockchain: A Link in Your Long Term IBM i Plan. This week, it’s Technology Review writing about blockchain and a conference called the Business of Blockchain. Setting aside the over-inflated expectations and the white hot hype that we’ve come to expect with the next big thing, blockchain …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, April 5

  April 5, 2017 Dan Burger

  Technically, you don’t need SQL to survive. However, if you’re not using it, you should know what you are missing. Here’s a conversational introduction to SQL that can open the door to modern programming techniques that can modernize applications and databases by reducing the amount of coding and moving business logic to the database.

  This week’s Monitor also has articles about tech start-ups in unlikely places in the United States heartland, a new IBM Cloud and Red Hat Linux partnership built on OpenStack, IBM’s change of heart regarding work-at-home programs, and a piece on why people should and should not …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, March 29

  March 29, 2017 Dan Burger

  Technically, you don’t need SQL to survive. However, if you’re not using it, you should know what you are missing. Here’s a conversational introduction to SQL that can open the door to modern programming techniques that can modernize applications and databases by reducing the amount of coding and moving business logic to the database.

  This week’s Monitor also has articles about tech start-ups in unlikely places in the United States heartland, a new IBM Cloud and Red Hat Linux partnership built on OpenStack, IBM’s change of heart regarding work-at-home programs, and a piece on why people should and should not …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, March 22

  March 22, 2017 Dan Burger

  When properly implemented, single sign-on is a beautiful thing for i/OS shops. It allows users to log on to their desktops and access all their servers without entering multiple passwords. But enabling SSO isn’t a cakewalk. Find out what went wrong in this instance involving iPads talking to the Apache Web Server and learn a lesson.

  Also in this issue are articles on the aftermath of artificial intelligence workloads relieving workers from tedious tasks, IBM’s blockchain secure network investment, and an SAP implementation that has gone off the tracks resulting in a $100,000,000 lawsuit. Sounds like a fire that’s out …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, March 15

  March 15, 2017 Dan Burger

  What do you need from IBM i that you are not getting? If you have a thing or two in mind, IBM i Chief Architect Steve Will wants to hear from you. Here’s his phone number . . . Just kidding. The proper procedure is to use a request for enhancement. Learn more about that in today’s Monitor.

  Along with an article about making change happen are a couple of articles on dealing with changes as disruptive technology and managed services reshape organizations and workforces. And speaking of change, did you see IBM’s surprising makeover at SXSW a few …

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