Alex Woodie
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Help/Systems Reduces Annoyances of Multi-OS Job Scheduling
February 4, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreHelp/Systems has been in the multi-platform job scheduling business since the launch of Robot/SCHEDULE Enterprise in 2009. With the January launch of version 1.27 of that product, the Robot is delivering more centralized and IBM i-based control over the user profiles that Linux, Unix, and Windows jobs run under. This will simplify life for administrators and reduce the annoyance of repeatedly entering security codes, the company says.
The new feature in Robot/SCHEDULE Enterprise version 1.27 will allow administrators to define authorized users on a per-agent basis. That means jobs that are designed in the Robot/SCHEDULE Enterprise environment can now run
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Insurer Enjoys ‘Profound’ Transition of 5250 App
February 4, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreIn the 1990s, the large Caribbean insurance company Guardian General Insurance Limited started running an insurance administration application on its AS/400. Since then, the application has run admirably, and the company grew. However, in recent years, the system’s 5250 green-screen interface had become a major obstacle to productivity. Thanks to a pair of modernization solutions from Profound Logic, employees now access the system from a Web-based interface.
Profound recently posted a case study on the success that Guardian General had with its Genie and Profound UI products. But success was not a guaranteed outcome. Not only was it hard
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Gumbo Spices Up IBM i Spool Tools
February 4, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreWhen it comes to manipulating the spooled file output of IBM i applications, few ISVs have the breadth of coverage of Gumbo Software. Over the past year, the Seattle, Washington, company has bolstered several of its products, including Dicer, SpoolMail, Spool-a-Matic, Excel-erator, and Report Manager.
In January, Gumbo unveiled the V1R9 release of Dicer, a utility for merging, sorting, dicing, and duplicating the content of IBM i spooled files. The main new feature in this release is the addition of three new parameters to the Merge Spool File (MRGSPLF) command that enable the IBM i user to specify the
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CNX Begins Beta for Valence 4.0
February 4, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreCNX is beginning beta tests for the next major release of Valence, its suite of products for building compelling new Web and mobile applications that run natively on the IBM i server. The company is eyeing mid-March for a GA launch of the new product.
Valence is a collection of software for developing modern Web 2.0 and mobile applications that run on the IBM i platform and its Apache-powered Web server. The product includes a version of the Ext JS JavaScript library from Sencha, a set of RPG procedures for accessing existing IBM i business logic, and a Web
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IBM Adds Latest Sametime Chat Feature to Notes and Domino
February 4, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreOrganizations that use the latest release of Notes and Domino can now get a complimentary copy of the Sametime instant messaging software, IBM announced last week.
As part of the IBM Sametime Limited Use Entitlement for Notes and Domino version 9.0.1, Notes and Domino users can get access to the chat and presence awareness capabilities delivered with the full copy of Sametime. Customers don’t get access to all of Sametime’s capabilities, which also include voice over IP (VoIP) telephony and audio and video conferencing software.
The complimentary copy of Sametime announced last week works across Notes clients, including the full
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SaaS: Come For The Savings, Stay For The Competitive Advantage
February 3, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreOrganizations that initially move strongly toward adopting software as a service (SaaS) offerings to save money often find that it also leads to competitive advantage in the areas of collaboration and data analytics, according to a new IBM study on SaaS usage trends.
Through its Center of Applied Insights, IBM studied the SaaS usage trends of 800 organizations around the world to see how the use of SaaS was affecting their business performance. IBM says it found a correlation between companies that have the most widespread use of SaaS applications and the ability of an organization to use SaaS for
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Got IBM i Innovation? Get Your Award Application In
February 3, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreWhat great feats of IBM i innovation have you been party to lately? If you have a story worth sharing with the rest of the IBM i universe, you have a few days left to submit it for your chance at glory and a COMMON/IBM Power Systems Innovation Award. The deadline is February 10.
Every spring, an Innovation Award is bestowed upon one worthy IBM i shop at the COMMON Annual Meeting and Exposition event. This year, February 10 is the deadline for submitting your application for the 2014 COMMON conference, which is taking place the first week in
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Ricoh Gets Into MSP Business With mindSHIFT Buy
January 27, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreIf you thought that all Ricoh did was make copiers, printers, and cameras, think again. Last week, the Japanese company announced an agreement to buy mindSHIFT Technologies, an American managed service provider (MSP) with a considerable IBM i hosting business.
Ricoh is well-known for its line of multi-function printers and–since its $725 million acquisition of IBM‘s InfoPrint division-product–production printers, too. But in addition to manufacturing things that print and scan, the $20-billion company also develops document management software and offers a range of IT services. And in Japan, it is an IBM server reseller that hawks Power Systems
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Profound UI Handles Long-Name Aliases for RPG Coders
January 21, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreThere are several reasons why RPG is viewed as a washed-up old legacy language to most of the non-IBM i world. IBM got rid of one of them when it widened its use of free format specs with IBM i 7.1 TR7. And Profound Logic is helping to dispel another with the latest release of its Web app development tool, Profound UI, which will help wean RPG coders away from cryptic, 10-character field names and toward descriptive aliases.
To an outsider, trying to decipher the 10-character field names used in RPG can be exercise in futility. Without some kind of
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LaserVault Debuts New Backup Option for IBM i
January 21, 2014 Alex Woodie
… Read moreIf you’re in the market for a backup and recovery solution for IBM i, you might want to keep Electronic Storage Corp. and its LaserVault line of solutions on your list. The Oklahoma company already offered several backup solutions through its Universal Backup Device (UBD) appliance and its LaserVault Backup software offering. This month the company fleshed out its UBD lineup with UBD Synch.
The new UBD Synch offering is an optional feature for the UBD appliance that provides replication of compressed and encrypted backup data from a primary UBD appliance to a secondary UBD appliance, or to a separate