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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 Banking on Merlin 2.0 to Goose Modern Development on IBM i

    June 19, 2024 Alex Woodie

    IBM last week shipped most of the new stuff unveiled in the Spring Technology Refreshes, which includes Merlin 2.0, the Web-based application development and modernization environment for IBM i. Big Blue is betting that the new and improved offering will encourage IBM i shops to (finally) begin their journey toward truly modern coding techniques.

    Friday, June 14 marked the start of general availability for the majority of the features IBM is including in IBM i 7.5 TR4 and IBM i 7.4 TR10, which it announced on May 8. The version 2.0 release of Merlin – whose official IBM name …

    Read more
  • MDNA Launches Unit Testing Tool for IBM i

    June 19, 2024 Alex Woodie

    Midrange Dynamics North America (MDNA) recently launched a new unit testing tool that’s designed to make it easier for IBM i developers to test their code. The software, called MDTest, is works with RDi and VS Code and integrates with MDNA’s change management software for IBM i.

    MDNA created MDTest to provide for a simple way for developers to unit test their ILE code. The software automates the process of executing test scripts, recording results, and determining whether the software can be pushed into the next stage of the DevOps processes.

    The product includes about 30 pre-built software quality tests …

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  • Shield Delivers Monitoring Solution for FTP on IBM i

    June 19, 2024 Alex Woodie

    Shield Advanced Solutions last month delivered FT4i, a new utility that helps to secure File Transfer Protocol (FTP) activity on IBM i. The new tool not only controls who is allowed to use FTP, but also logs all FTP activity to uncover possibly criminal activity after the fact.

    FTP is one of the most heavily used Internet protocols in the world. Across every industry, organizations use FTP to send and receive what is likely petabytes worth of data every single day. If the Internet is a “super highway,” then FTP is the 20-lane workhorse of an Interstate freeway, facilitating information …

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  • Rocket Finally Gets Its RUMBA, And A Whole Lot More

    June 10, 2024 Alex Woodie

    Sixteen years is a long time to wait, but that’s how long it took Rocket Software to acquire the assets of what used to be NetManage, which includes the popular 5250 emulator RUMBA. Rocket failed to buy NetManage back in February 2008, but it finally completed the deal for the NetManage assets in May 2024. And it got a whole lot more in a $2.275 billion deal that netted it about half of OpenText’s Micro Focus assets and puts its revenue over the mark of $1 billion per year.

    Micro Focus, you will recall, was the company that swooped in …

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  • Youthful IBM i Optimism In Fort Worth

    June 3, 2024 Alex Woodie

    The IBM i community showed up in force last month for COMMON’s annual conference. And they sure didn’t drive or fly to Fort Worth for the weather, which was hot and muggy. The POWERUp 2024 attendees – all 1,100 of them – came to the show to learn about the platform, which may be in the early stages of – dare we say it? – a youth moment.

    First things first: the attendance number. COMMON was shooting for about 1,000, which is about where its annual spring conference has been for the better part of a decade (the fall conferences …

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  • ARCAD Breaks Up Monolithic Code With New Transformer Tool

    June 3, 2024 Alex Woodie

    There are many different aspects to application modernization: moving from 5250 greenscreens to Web interfaces, adopting the SQL database engine, and using DevOps techniques. Another part of modernization is breaking up monolithic codebases into smaller, more manageable chunks that can be more readily integrated using APIs and Web services, and that’s the goal of a new version of its Transformer product line launched recently by ARCAD Software.

    ARCAD Software already offers several capabilities under its Transformer brand, including Transformer RPG for converting fixed-format RPG to free-format RPG; Transformer DB for converting DDS files to modern DDL tables; Transformer Field for …

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  • IBM Developing AI Coding Assistant for IBM i

    May 22, 2024 Alex Woodie

    During his keynote presentation at the POWERUp 2024 conference Monday, IBM i CTO Steve Will announced that IBM is actively exploring ways to incorporate generative AI into the IBM i platform. The most promising of three individual but related projects is a plan to build a large language model (LLM)-powered coding assistant for IBM i that will initially provide three functions to support RPG development, with more expected in the future.

    The genesis of the coding assisting project for RPG, which doesn’t have a name yet, can be traced to last year’s launch of watsonx Code Assistant for Z, which …

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  • Finding Replacements for EOL’d Ecommerce App for JD Edwards

    May 22, 2024 Alex Woodie

    Fiserv is no longer selling or supporting ERP2Web, an ecommerce product used in JD Edwards environments. Companies have several options for replacements, including open source ecommerce applications like Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento) running in the cloud, which is the path recommended by Briteskies.

    ERP2Web is an ecommerce product from Fiserv designed to extend JD Edwards ERP systems with B2B capabilities around order entry, order management, product catalog, item availability, pricing, tax information, shipping, and sales order inquiries, among other capabilities.

    Earlier this year, Fiserv announced that it was ending support for ERP2Web, it obtained with its $22 billion acquisition of …

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  • COMMON Hosts Its Annual Conference, Welcomes New Board This Week

    May 20, 2024 Alex Woodie

    COMMON today kicks off its annual POWERUp conference, bringing the global IBM i community together in beautiful downtown Fort Worth, Texas. The world’s largest IBM i user group is also wrapping up an election for its board of directors, which features three candidates for three spots.

    For many decades, COMMON has hosted the single largest annual gathering of IBM i professionals, and that run of success will not be broken this week, with expectations of about 1,000 attendees at the show. This year’s annual COMMON conference, dubbed POWERUp 2024, features four days of education, networking opportunities, and other events in …

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  • Database Enhancements Galore In Spring 2024 IBM i TRs

    May 13, 2024 Alex Woodie

    The IBM i server is a database machine at the end of the day, so it’s not surprising that the latest technology refreshes (TRs) focus heavily on enhancements to Db2 for i. From new aggregate functions for the query optimizer to new and improved SQL-based IBM i services, there’s plenty of database goodness to go around in these releases.

    On May 7, IBM announced IBM i 7.5 TR4 and 7.4 TR10. You can read the announcement letters for the two releases here and here. The functionality for the two releases, which will become generally available on June 14, is …

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