Many companies still use the U.S. Postal Service to mail promotional and marketing materials to existing and potential customers. With rising printing expenses and postal rates, it’s important to minimize waste by identifying and eliminating duplicate rows in name and address tables. However, these tables can present some interesting challenges.

For instance, the following two addresses are duplicates, but how do you identify them as potential duplicate rows?

John Sampson
Dickerson Mutual Ins.
218 Bridge St., Suite 257
New York, NY 12345

John Samson
Dickerson Insurance
218 Bridge Street
NYC, NY 12345

Companies can write their own software, which has

Assertions are great for validating conditions that can be tested with IF, DOW, SELECT, etc., but what about other types of conditions? For instance, can I use an assertion to test that a variable contains valid decimal data?

–A Nice Lady

(I’m sorry. A nice lady asked me this question in person and I forgot her name.)

Yes, it is possible to check for conditions that one cannot test with conditional OPCODES such as IF, but you must use a different method.

When something goes amiss, the system loads a five-digit, zoned-decimal status code with a non-zero value. You can

In an earlier column, I wrote about how administrators can save time after an i operating system upgrade by performing a Save System (SAVSYS) backup instead of a full system save. Several readers wrote in with more information and system information backup tips. Let’s look at what they had to say about post-upgrade backups and what we can learn from them.

A Better Post-Upgrade Backup Strategy

Pete Massiello of iTech Solutions wrote in with the best suggestion for post-upgrade backups when he said:

I perform many upgrades, and I tell my customers that the best option, if time permits,