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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.

  • IBM i Debugger Comes to VS Code

    February 15, 2023 Alex Woodie

    At long last, IBM i developers can now debug their code in a development environment other than Rational Developer for IBM i or Merlin. The news came last week, when Liam Allan announced that the ILE debugging feature is now available in Code for IBM i, his third-party, IBM i-centric plug-in for Visual Studio Code.

    “Debugging ILE COBOL and RPGLE inside @code like it’s any other day!” Allan tweeted from his @Notesofbarry Twitter account. “I’m pumped for this release #ibmi.”

    Indeed, this day has been a long time in coming. Allan, who has not been shy about sharing his dislike …

    Read more
  • Infoview Systems Launches Lightweight CDC for IBM i

    February 13, 2023 Alex Woodie

    IBM i shops that have a need to extract the latest transactions hitting their Db2 for i database for downstream CRM, analytics, or fraud detection use cases may want to check out the new change data capture (CDC) offering unveiled recently by Infoview Systems. When coupled with a streaming data platform like Apache Kafka, CDC opens up new possibilities.

    Infoview Systems is a longtime IBM i product and services firm based in Michigan with a global customer base. The company has been active in the data and application integration space for years, first with the sale and implementation of message …

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  • Fresche Nabs Silveredge for Application Services

    February 8, 2023 Alex Woodie

    Silveredge Consulting, the Chicago-based provider of application support services, has been acquired by Fresche Solutions, the Montreal-based IBM i software and services business. The deal nets Fresche a respected consulting shop with a long record of supporting IBM i-based ERP systems such as BPCS and PRMS and two-and-a-half dozen senior RPG programmers.

    Founded in 1987, Silveredge Consulting developed a solid reputation as a provider of application support services. The company started out supporting manufacturers in the Chicago region that ran on the BPCS and PRMS packages, which were also developed in the area. Over the ensuing 35 years, the company …

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  • Longtime Product Guy Sarrasin Switches to Services

    February 8, 2023 Alex Woodie

    For two decades, Marcel Sarrasin was a product guy. Starting in 2001, Sarrasin helped to develop, market, and sell IBM i software, first for BCD, then Quadrant, and finally Fresche. But last year, Sarrasin got a change of scenery when Fresche promoted him to head up its growing services unit, giving the young executive a significant boost in responsibility and the chance to positively impact an important business line for Fresche: digital transformation services.

    If you’ve ever been to a COMMON conference or attended a BCD, Quadrant, or Fresche Solutions webinar, there’s a good chance you’ve run into Sarrasin. For …

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  • White Hats Completely Dismantle Menu-Based Security

    February 6, 2023 Alex Woodie

    Think menu-based security can prevent cybercriminals from accessing the most important parts of your IBM i system? Think again, as the white hat hacking group Silent Signal recently demonstrated in a real-world penetration test of a bank’s IBM i system through a seemingly restricted green-screen interface.

    Life was demonstrably simpler for midrange administrators before the Internet took off. Before we had all these different protocols providing access to applications and data – ODBC, FTP, SQL, Remote Command, etc. – an administrator could feel somewhat confident that users weren’t accessing things they shouldn’t by simply configuring their menus in a restrictive …

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  • Security Still Top Concern, IBM i Marketplace Study Says

    February 1, 2023 Alex Woodie

    Security continues to be the number one concern of IBM i shops surveyed for the annual IBM i Marketplace Study conducted by Fortra. Application modernization surged ahead from last year’s finish to make the race for number one interesting, while HA/DR and IBM i skills rounded out the top four concerns.

    Fortra (formerly HelpSystems) formally released its 2023 IBM i Marketplace Study last week, making it the ninth straight year that the company has released the study. This year’s study, which you can access here, is based on surveys taken last year by about 300 individuals from the IBM …

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  • Bob Langieri Shares IBM i Career Trends Outlook for 2023

    February 1, 2023 Alex Woodie

    When it comes to career trends in the IBM i community, there are few who have a better sense of what’s going on than Bob Langieri. The longtime CEO of Excel Technical Services in Orange County, California, has his fingers on the pulse of the job situation, which is why we turn to him for an outlook on 2023 trends.

    The economy started out on a down note last year before picking up momentum towards the end of 2022, Langieri notes. Those forces are still with us today, the tea leaves are inconclusive.

    “A recession is defined as two consecutive …

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  • Kisco Brings Native SMS Messaging to IBM i

    February 1, 2023 Alex Woodie

    Kisco Information Systems recently launched a new IBM i product designed to facilitate native SMS messaging on IBM i. Pre-integrated with Twilio, kConnect will not only keep administrators aware of security and other events occurring on IBM i, but it will also help streamline the configuration of two-factor authentication (2FA) setups on the box.

    Kisco’s newest IBM i utility allows users to send SMS messages to recipients directly from an IBM i application, which can be useful for a variety of reasons. The product supports sending messages via a command line or directly from their custom IBM i applications, …

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  • Big Blue Decrees Its 2023 IBM Champions

    January 30, 2023 Alex Woodie

    IBM this year celebrates a bumper crop of IBM Champions, those technology experts who also display “extraordinary advocacy” for IBM products. In total, there are 839 IBM Champions hailing from 60 countries around the world, while in our little neck of the IT wood, there are about 90 members from the global IBM i community who gained the honor.

    IBM launched the IBM Champions program in 2008 as a way to honor IBM customers and business partners who not only are subject matter experts but who also are active in the community. Today, there are 11 categories for the IBM …

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  • N2i Gains Traction Among IBM i Newbies

    January 25, 2023 Alex Woodie

    The YiPS made a big push to inject youth into the IBM i community over a decade ago. But when the youthful vigor ran low, members of the community regrouped, re-energized, and rebranded into a new group called New to IBM i (N2i). And judging from N2i’s recent success, the group has hit on something.

    N2i has its roots in the YiPS, according to Marina Schwenk, who was a YiPS member back in the day and now is active in COMMON and the WMCPA. But there’s a crucial difference between N2i and YIPS, she says.

    “The group that we’re …

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