Alex Woodie
Alex Woodie is Senior Editor at IT Jungle. He was previously editor of two of IT Jungle's main newsletters, Four Hundred Stuff and The Windows Observer. Prior to joining Midrange Server (as Guild Companies was formerly called) in October 2001, Alex was a products editor at now defunct publisher Midrange Computing, where he was first introduced to the AS/400 and covered hardware, software, and services for Midrange Technology SHOWCASE magazine. Before joining Midrange Computing, Alex was a staff writer for The Insurance Journal and a reporter and columnist with The Paradise Post newspaper. Woodie obtained his Bachelors of Arts degree in journalism from Humboldt State University in 1997. Upon graduation, Alex intended to make his way onto a major daily newspaper, but in 1999 he found himself drawn to the high-technology industry, where his background in science and engineering has suited him well. He lives in Northern San Diego County. When he is not writing next week's newsletters, Alex can be found in his favorite chair reading the day's paper, in the kitchen, or at the beach.
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ASNA Unveils Mobile RPG Dev Tool
November 13, 2012 Alex Woodie
ASNA last week announced Mobile RPG, a new tool that will enable RPG programmers to develop new mobile applications in the language they know best: RPG. By combining traditional DDS display file technology with an Open Access handler, Mobile RPG lets programmers use traditional green screen development techniques to create new HTML mobile apps that run in the Web browsers of iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices. It’s slated to ship early next year.
Mobile RPG is designed to create small apps with basic user interfaces that are targeted at simple tasks, such as an employee clocking out or changing
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Big IBM i Data Pumped Into Vectorwise
November 13, 2012 Alex Woodie
HiT Software and Attunity, two vendors that compete in the market for database replication and change data capture (CDC) software, recently unveiled new connectors that feed data from IBM i servers and other sources into Vectorwise, the relational database from Actian (formerly Ingres) that is gaining traction in the market for “big data” analytical tools.
Vectorwise is a 64-bit relational database management system for Windows and Linux that was designed specifically to process analytical workloads. The product, which grew out of the MonetDB/X100 research project by the Dutch National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science, gains speed benefits
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File Integrity Monitoring Comes to IBM i
November 13, 2012 Alex Woodie
Keeping a close eye on your IBM i server, including its configuration files, database files, and user activities, isn’t just a good idea. In some cases, it may be the law. Depending on which industry you work in and whether you work for a public company, file integrity monitoring, or FIM, may be in your future. Here are two tools that may fit the bill for your newfound FIM needs.
Townsend Security unveiled FIM functionality earlier this year in Alliance LogAgent, an IBM i tool that monitors various journals and logs for evidence of unauthorized changes, and then translates those
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Surround Tech Throttles .NET Code Generator
November 13, 2012 Alex Woodie
Developers will be able to generate completed .NET, Web, and mobile interfaces to IBM i apps more quickly using the latest release of Surround Technologies‘ Accelerator for .NET solution. In addition to cutting down on the number of configuration steps in the product’s wizard, Surround Tech has revamped and streamlined the code generation component, leading to a two-pronged productivity boost in Accelerator for .NET version 3.7, which was unveiled last week.
Accelerator for .NET helps developers to create modern Windows, Web, and mobile interfaces for new or existing applications running on IBM i, Windows, or Microsoft‘s Azure cloud.
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Spinnaker Solves Payroll Tax Issue for JDE World Shops
November 13, 2012 Alex Woodie
The looming end-of-life for critical payroll tax functionality in older releases of JD Edwards World has been addressed with a new software product from Spinnaker Support.
Last week, the Denver, Colorado-based company officially launched Q Series Integrator, a piece of software that acts as a bridge between the Payroll module of JDE World version A7.3 through A9.2 and the Vertex, Payroll Tax Q Series (PTQ), a tax calculation and reporting solution. Vertex has an agreement with Oracle to provide tax functionality for several ERP systems, including JD Edwards World and EnterpriseOne and E-Business Suite.
The issue is that
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IBS to Sell Dynaman WMS Around the World
November 13, 2012 Alex Woodie
International Business Systems last week announced that it is taking its Dynaman warehouse management system (WMS) global. The Windows-based WMS has been in use in Northern Europe for the last 20 years, and now IBS is selling and supporting the software to wholesale distribution operations in other parts of the world, including its IBM i ERP customer base.
IBS Dynaman is a supply chain execution application designed to automate common distribution center (DC) and third party logistics (3PL) activities. The software supports functions like receiving and put-away; inventory management and replenishment; work order scheduling and light manufacturing; picking, packing, and
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Progress Unveils Cloud Data Connector
November 13, 2012 Alex Woodie
Progress Software last week unveiled DataDirect Cloud, a new data integration service designed to access cloud-based databases, such as those running on Salesforce.com, Amazon Relational Data Service, and Microsoft SQL Azure, from on-premise tools and business intelligence software. The software is entering beta tests and is expected to be available next year.
DataDirect Cloud uses standard ODBC and JDBC drivers to access cloud-based data sources, just as Progress subsidiary DataDirect‘s on-premise integration tools are used to access on-premise databases, such as Oracle 11g, SQL Server, DB2/400, and other data sources. The new offering eliminates the need to learn
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Constellation Buys Two More Software Firms, Releases 3Q Figures
November 13, 2012 Alex Woodie
We’re 13 days into November, and the hungry software conglomerate Constellation Software has already gobbled up two more software firms, including a German developer of Windows-based ERP systems for window companies, and a UK developer of payment collection software. The Canadian software company also announced financial results for its third quarter.
Constellation announced yesterday that it signed a definitive agreement to buy the Albat+Wirsam Software GmbH (A+W) business from Glaston, a global manufacturer of glass processing technology that’s based in Finland. The deal currently carries a price tag of €18 million (about $23 million), but the price is contingent.
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Infinite Claims No Rewriting Necessary in COBOL Migration
November 13, 2012 Alex Woodie
Infinite Corporation last week announced that it helped an unnamed financial services firm migrate a multi-million line COBOL application from IBM i to X86 Linux without a lick of rewriting.
“The Infinite Project Management team used Infinite’s Infinite i toolset to recompile and deploy the COBOL applications under Linux without having to rewrite a single line of code,” says Infinite’s Raquela Kaplan in a press release.
Instead of running under IBM i servers, the application is now running on X86-based Linux servers and the Oracle database. Kaplan says that the company is able to utilize data from the migrated COBOL
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IBM Unveils New LTO6 Gear And A Storwize SAN
November 12, 2012 Alex Woodie
IBM last week announced a variety of new LTO6 products, including a full-height SAS tape drive, a half-height SAS drive, a new LTO6 autoloader, and support for LTO6 drives in three tape libraries. The company also announced the versatile new Storwize V3700 storage array, which offers midrange shops various SAS drive and connectivity options.
The new TS2260 Tape Drive Model H6S is a half-height, SAS-connected LTO6 drive that can be installed in a rack or stand by itself. The TS2260 has a 512GB internal memory buffer, includes 16 KB cartridge memory, uses the Linear Tape File System (LTFS), and supports