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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Eradani Drives Simplification with API Tool Update
September 15, 2021 Alex Woodie
Eradani has always sought to simplify the application programming interface (API) enablement process as much as possible for its IBM i customers. And with the launch of Eradani Connect version 4.1, which features a new GUI, pre-built templates of APIs, and a catalog for the REST-style Web services created with the tool, the Northern California company is taking the simplification mantra to new levels.
The world is chock full of Web services. Whether it’s real-time weather data, a shipping services, an ecommerce application, or a tax calculator, somebody somewhere is providing information over the Internet. These external APIs generally are …
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Surprise! It’s IBM i Technology Refresh Time
September 13, 2021 Alex Woodie
IBM surprised the midrange world last week by announcing Technology Refreshes (TRs) for IBM i 7.3 and 7.4, which became generally available on Friday. The fall TRs, which typically are announced in October, brought support for the new Power10-based Power E1080 server in addition to a slew of enhancements to the operating system and surrounding IBM i products.
The big piece of news with the new TRs – IBM i TR 7.3 TR11 and 7.4 TR5 – is support for servers based on IBM’s speedy new Power10 processor, which is the first Power chip based on its 7 nanometer …
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LTO-9 Drives and Cartridges Finally Get Out the Door
September 8, 2021 Alex Woodie
It’s been almost a year since the principals that make up the Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Program — IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Quantum — announced the specifications for LTO Ultrium 9 (LTO-9) tape cartridge and drive. This week, the companies involved in the LTO Program finally announced that they’re getting LTO-9 gear out the door.
With 18TB native capacity and data transfer rates of 400 MB per second — both of which go higher with 2.5-to-one compression turned on — the ninth generation of the LTO format is expected to be adopted by organizations that need to store …
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Profound Logic Speeds Up Mobile Client
September 1, 2021 Alex Woodie
Organizations that adopt the latest release of Profound Logic’s mobile client for iOS will find it runs significantly faster than older versions — up to 300 percent, the company says. An update to Apple’s newest Web browser rendering engine is the key behind the speedup in Profound UI Mobile Client version 2.8, the company says.
Profound UI Mobile Client is a development tool and client runtime that enables organizations to create native iOS applications. It works with both Profound UI as a front-end for RPG applications (with integration handled via IBM’s RPG Open Access) as well as Profound.js, the …
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Zebra Pivots Into AI, Robotics with Acquisitions
September 1, 2021 Alex Woodie
Zebra Technologies is a well-known provider of barcode printers, RFID scanners, and mobile computers, which puts it squarely in the data path for manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. With Monday’s announced acquisition of artificial intelligence (AI) software provider Antuit.ai, Zebra is positioning itself for the emerging age of intelligent automation solutions.
Antuit.ai is a Dallas, Texas-based provider of an AI-powered demand forecasting solution that’s designed to ensure that companies have the right product in the right place at the right time and at the right price. The company’s software as a service (SaaS) offering is used by consumer processed goods (CPG) …
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Want to Talk IBM i OSS? Head Up the Ryver
September 1, 2021 Alex Woodie
The world of open source moves quickly, and it’s no different on the IBM i platform, where open source is being rapidly adopted by companies large and small. IBM i professionals who want to keep up to speed with the latest may want to check out a community of IBM i open source enthusiasts that was created on Ryver.
Ryver (pronounced “river”) is a next-gen communications portal that’s taking on Slack, Microsoft Teams, and others. Like chatrooms and mailing lists, Ryver allows people to have open discussions, as well as private chats and focused conversations. There is also the …
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GraphQL’s Emerging Role in Modernization of Monolithic Applications
August 30, 2021 Alex Woodie
Every now and then, a technology emerges that lifts up everything around it. GraphQL has the potential to be a technology like that, and that’s good news for customers running older, established applications, such as those that run on IBM iron.
IBM’s mainframe and its midrange IBM i server often are maligned as old, washed-up, legacy platforms, but people who say that are missing a key distinction: it’s usually not the server that’s old. In most cases, it’s the application that was first deployed in the Clinton Administration (or earlier) that is the problem.
Companies typically have many reasons for …
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Public Cloud Dreams Becoming A Reality for IBM i Users
August 23, 2021 Alex Woodie
For years, IBM i professionals have looked on as their X86 colleagues moved data and applications to the cloud, where they take advantage of sophisticated analytics and AI offerings, while they dutifully tend to their Power Systems boxes, as they have for years. But with IBM i runtimes in at least two public clouds (and possibly more in the works), IBM i shops are finally starting to realize their public cloud dreams.
The nature of the IBM i cloud solution that Meridian Group International is offering has changed over the years. Like many other IBM business partners, the Deerfield, Illinois, …
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Domino 12 Comes To IBM i
August 16, 2021 Alex Woodie
HCL Technologies, which now owns the Lotus Notes and Domino family, started shipping Domino 12 two months ago. Surprisingly, the new version is now available on the IBM i platform, where a substantial number of companies still run Notes and Domino applications.
Back in late 2017, you will remember, an agreement was struck between IBM and HCL Technologies regarding Notes and Domino, the groupware software that had languished on the Big Blue vine for years. HCL made development of Domino 10 a priority, and finally shipped the 10th edition of the product on IBM i in early 2019. …
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New Extension Brings IBM i Closer to VS Code
August 11, 2021 Alex Woodie
When it comes to integrated development environments (IDEs), Microsoft is best known for its full-featured Visual Studio offering. But many developers have grown attached to its younger, free-er, and lighter weight cousin, Visual Studio Code (VS Code). And with the new VS Code for IBM i extension recently unveiled by Liam Allan, the skinny IDE’s integration with the midrange server is getting better.
VS Code for IBM i is an open source extension that allows developers to work with IBM i languages like RPG, COBOL, and CL within VS Code. Allan first released the product in February, but largely kept …
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