Much Ado about Nothing: Interesting Facts about Null
by Ted Holt

In one of my son's favorite M*A*S*H episodes, a certain Captain Tuttle is given accolades for his bravery and humanitarianism. What gives the show its humor is that Captain Tuttle does not exist. I would like to share some interesting facts about the relational database's counterpart to Captain Tuttle--the null value. I have found, as did Hawkeye Pierce and the gang, that non-existent things can be useful. READ MORE >

Great Minds Agree: It's Good to Save Access Paths
Hey, Ted:

In your article entitled "Avoid Changed Default Values," I believe that you are providing a disservice to your readers with your answer. Your answer to the question centers around hard-coding a default IBM value in a CL command when it should have been to remind everyone to read the IBM Memo to Users before upgrading to a new release of the operating system. READ MORE >

   Admin Alert: A Checklist for Creating OS/400 User Profiles, Part I
   by Joe Hertvik

As an OS/400 administrator, you are already well familiar with creating user profiles. But while user profile creation may seem obvious, there are a few subtleties you need to be aware of to ensure that every profile you create is fit for the job at hand. To that end, let's review a checklist for gathering information when creating new user profiles on an OS/400-based machine. READ MORE >

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T.L. Ashford
iTera
Profound Logic Software