Four Hundred Monitor, September 15

September 15, 2021 Jenny Thomas

Does any conversation happen anymore without some reflection on life before the pandemic and how the world has changed since? Not to belabor the point, but it is hard to get around the fact that our workplaces have drastically changed. Zoom quickly became everyone’s go-to for business, and just to get to see the faces of family and friends. Even now, many companies prefer to continue remote work and we are all rapidly adapting to the idea that travel is as necessary as we once thought to exchange ideas (although it is certainly less fun). Our Top Story this week looks at some of the new ideas coming from Zoom, which is relevant to all of us these days, regardless of industry. Be sure to also check the Calendar below for some newly added events.

Top Stories From Outside The Jungle

(ComputerWorld) Zoom is rolling out new products to bring more options to companies and workers.

(Pitchbook) Quantum computing continues to attract the eye (and wallet) if investors.

(IEEE Spectrum) Watson developer predicts that it won’t be long before IBM’s most famous supercomputer can intuitively understand humans.

(The Motley Fool) The case for – and against – investing in IBM.

(CIO) For the curious, here’s an overview of IBM’s Kyndryl.

Redbooks, White Papers, Blogs, and Other Resources

(Profound Logic) This blog reveals a secret to business success in 2021.

(Illumio) If you are a visual person, you will want to download this infographic that explains zero trust security.

(Micro Focus) Help determine how much COBOL is used today by weighing on this survey.

(Incredible i Show) This podcast from COMMON features Peg Tuttle and Tony Turetsky. Tune in to catch up with their recent conversations with IBM i leaders including founder of imPower Technology Jim Buck, author of the RPGPGM.com blog Simon Hutchinson, and many others.

(LANSA) A new blog post speculating on the future of web apps on the IBM i.

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

September 15 – Webinar – This presentation from Illumio help you see your security risks and show some simple steps you can take to stop ransomware.

September 21 – Webinar – NGS Software invites you and your IBM i team to a free refresher course on the built-in job scheduling features of IBM i and the IBM Advanced Job Scheduler.

September 22 – Mississauga, Ontario, Canada & Online – This meeting of the month for the Toronto Users Group (TUG) will be in-person and also available online. Featured speakers are Susan Gantner and John Paris.

September 28 – Webinar – Mobile security threats can affect both Android and iOS devices. In this webinar, (ISC)2 and Comarch will explore the most dangerous security vulnerabilities on these platforms.

September 29 – Webinar – Paul Tuohy, Susan Gantner, and Jon Paris present Top 10 Skills for Today’s RPGers, freely open to the IBM i community. Join them as they take IBM i developers and management through their list of top 10 skill sets practiced by most successful modern RPGers, explaining the importance of each, and providing resources to brush up on each topic.

September 30 – Webinar – PHP 7.3 enters end-of-life this year. In this free online briefing, IBM’s open-source guru Jesse Gorzinski and Alan Seiden discuss why the new PHP RPMs make the migration to 7.4 easier and more rewarding, technical tips from several recent client migrations, and best practices for open source maintenance. Barry Brown, CTO at JDS Industries, will describe how PHP 7.4 improved stability and speed for their busy ecommerce site.

October 4-6 – Virginia Beach, Virginia – The 2021 IT Executive Conference was created with the needs of IT managers and decision makers in mind to provide content and insight on leading topics that impact business. With a focus on strategic issues, ITEC attendees will hear from, and network with, IBM executives, industry recognized experts and peers on how to maximize IT investments.

October 4-7 – Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Virtual – POWERUp 2021 will be COMMON’s first Hybrid conference and will offer an in-person experience and virtual access to our remote attendees. Join friends and colleagues in the COMMON community and enjoy the best in Power Systems and IBM i education over the course of four days. Choose from nearly 300 sessions, which cover a broad range of IT topic areas that will be delivered live in-person and virtually. POWERUp will also boasts the largest Expo of its kind so that all attendees can learn about all the great products and solutions available to this community from our vendor partners. This conference is structured to give you the pure education and professional connections needed to best enhance your career.

October 5 – Webinar – Register for PTC’s live webcast to learn more about the new Implementer v12.5 release and how this premier software configuration management and deployment solution for IBM i offers a variety of improvements to ease the stress of critical change management and development processes. Topics include: security and cyber attacks; open source and closed source; third-party Java libraries; Tomcat server; RDi plugin open-source jar files

October 12 – Online event – Join the Central Texas IBM i User Group for a free online presentation by Andy Youens. Andy will show how easy it is to get into Open Source on the IBM i, from getting packages installed and using them. We will also look at some to the tools we need to make our open-source journey more enjoyable. The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. CT.

October 13 – Webinar –  Steve Will’s Keynote address for the RPG & DB2 Summit, Next Gen IBM i Apps, will be freely open to the IBM i community. The Chief Architect for IBM i will use this platform to detail what “IBM i Next Gen Applications” look like, shining headlights on the road ahead for software development. His briefing will help IBM i teams envision future business needs so they can identify key skills they will need to implement those initiatives.

October 20-26 – LIVE Online Training – At the RPG & DB2 Virtual Summit, hosts Paul Tuohy, Susan Gantner, Jon Paris and other top IBM i Champions share their best tips and techniques for building modern IBM i applications. SQL, RPG, Db2, open source, web services, ACS, RDi, web and mobile apps – it’s all packed into a fun, interactive, and very productive five-day learning experience.