With the array of development technologies and techniques, it can be difficult for OS/400 shops to get started developing a Web application. Is Java or .NET the better language choice? Should you write an application from scratch or attempt to put a Web face on old apps? PGM Systems is trying to simplify these tough decisions for iSeries developers and get them started in Java, SQL, and Struts programming with a new Web application code generator and framework called iStart.

Massachusetts-based PGM Systems first released its iStart Web Application Generator in March 2004. The product is the result of work

One of the challenges of running an OS/400 high availability environment is ensuring that data and objects are always in synch. If you let them get out of synch, it exposes your business to the possibility of downtime and can take hours to track down and fix. Two former employees of an HA software vendor recently founded Shane Software to provide graphical tools to help administrators ensure that their HA environment is in synch, and track down and fix the problem if it’s not.

Shane Software is an IBM business partner located near Irvine, California. The company was founded in

Researchers at Expand Networks have come up with a new WAN compression algorithm called Data Transfer Acceleration (DTA) that can achieve compression rates of up to 20-1. That figure is the result of a test that Expand commissioned Tolly Group to perform against the company’s two main competitors for WAN compression appliances, Packeteer and Peribit, the results of which were announced yesterday.

Expand paid Tolly, an independent organization that specializes in testing network equipment, to benchmark a pair of Expand Accelerator 4820 devices, running at Version 5.03, against two Packeteer PacketShaper 2500 Version 6.2.1 devices and two Perebit Sequence

Linoma Software is shipping a new release of its secure data transfer tool for OS/400 and Windows systems. With Transfer Anywhere Version 1.5, Linoma is now including a free copy of the Windows-based studio it built to maintain the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption keys (which would normally cost $495 per seat), among other new capabilities.

Transfer Anywhere is a versatile Java program that can do the job of several point products, including distributing, retrieving, converting, compressing, encrypting, and signing data and files. It lets users pull specific data sets out of their DB2/400, DB2, Oracle, SQL Server 2000,