It’s been a wonderful year, in spite of all the difficulties, problems, and vicissitudes of life that I would rather not have faced. I appreciate all the email that you’ve sent in response to the articles we published. To know that we’ve done something to make someone’s life easier and better gives me great satisfaction. I’d like to share some of your comments with your fellow Four Hundred Guru readers. May you enjoy the holidays, and may 2015 be your best year ever.

Hey, Ted:

I just read Use Wireshark To Diagnose IBM i Communications Problems. You can bypass

This is the last issue of Four Hundred Guru for 2014, and in the last issue of a year I try to write about something unusual, something different from the routine stuff we usually run in this august publication. I worked on several interesting projects in 2014, but the one I want to talk about today will seem really retrograde to you. I wrote a bunch of System/36 RPG II programs. How I wrote them is the real story.

In early 2014, a friend of mine emailed a request. A client of his, who still runs an S/36, was going

Last week, I discussed why shops still need IBM i administrators and started describing a checklist of tasks that are well-suited for less experienced administrators. My checklist showcased duties that can easily be turned over to lower level administrators, leaving more experienced people free to complete projects that benefit your organization. Today, I’ll complete describing the IBM i administrator checklist.

The Checklist Continued

As discussed last week, here’s a starter list of duties that can easily be turned over to an IBM i system administrator.

1. IBM i user provisioning
2. Auditing the system
3. Software setups and on-going software database maintenance
4. Backup