Profound Logic last week announced from COMMON the general availability of iData, its new Web-based database editor for DB2/400 that it first unveiled late last year. The company will sell three versions of the tool, including one version that’s free and other versions that allow users to accomplish more advanced tasks, including performing file joins–all from the comfort of Firefox or Internet Explorer.

It took a little longer than Profound originally expected to get the software out to market after it first unveiled iData back in late November 2007. At that time, the company was expecting to deliver the software

Coglin Mill last week unveiled several special versions of RODIN, its extract, transform, and load (ETL) tool for creating DB2/400 data warehouses, at the COMMON conference in Nashville, Tennessee. The first new version is targeted at DB2 Web Query, the new business intelligence (BI) software from IBM. Other new versions of Coglin Mill are designed for small and mid size businesses, and start as low as $5,400 per year.

Talk to 10 people about DB2 Web Query, and you’re likely to get 10 different responses. Some people love it, while others hate it. Although the tool has definitely caused

Linoma Software recently launched a new data transfer tool called GoAnywhere that allows users to move data among all major server platforms, including i (formerly i5/OS and OS/400), Windows, Linux, and Unix, from the comfort of a Web browser. The new product replaces Linoma’s Transfer Anywhere tool, and supports the transformation, translation, distribution, synchronization, encryption, and compression of data, among other features.

GoAnywhere offers an impressive roster of data movement and manipulation capabilities. These include support for multiple data transfer mechanisms (FTP, FTPS, SFTP, HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP, POP3, IMAP, and JDBC), support for multiple encryption methods (Open PGP, SSL, AES),

While the world might be moving in the direction of paperless-ness, the reality remains that paper-based documents still play a big part in business. RJS Software Systems, a Minnesota company that helps AS/400, iSeries, i5, System i, and i-based Power Systems server users move toward electronic documents, unveiled two new products at the COMMON conference last week, including document scanning and packet printing offerings, that will help companies integrate paper-based documents into their increasingly electronic-based document processes.

The two new paper-oriented offerings RJS Software unveiled last week work with WebDocs, its flagship electronic document management and workflow processing solution

Last week’s spoof story, IBM Changes Name Back to AS/400, Promises Return to Glory, TV Ads, generated lots of reader feedback. Some readers realized that the story was an April Fool’s joke and appreciated the humor. Others, however, believed that it was a real news story. Alas, the IT Jungle extends an apology to any readers who feel they were suckered into believing this story was true.

— Alex Woodie

I only wish the story were true!

–S.O.

I really think you should grow up and print actual articles, not make things up. You had my IT director in

PowerTech‘s line of security tools fully supports i 6.1, the latest release of the operating system formerly known as i5/OS and OS/400, the Washington company announced last week. PowerTech found that half of its products were compliant with version 6.1 out of the box, while the other half required changes to work with the new operating system.

Software companies are finding it more difficult to support i 6.1 (known as i5/OS V6R1 before Wednesday) with their utilities and applications than previous releases of the operating system. This is due to IBM‘s requirement for developers to go through a

Banking software provider Jack Henry & Associates recently launched a new hosted disaster recovery (DR) solution that enables i (formerly i5/OS and OS/400) server users to back up and recover their data remotely over the Internet. The offering is called Centuriun jVault, and it’s based on the MIMIX high availability software now sold by Vision Solutions.

Missouri-based Jack Henry sells several i-based software packages, including Silverlake and CIF 20/20, that hundreds of small and mid size banks and credit unions across the country use to manage their assets and provide customers with access to their money. While a good

Last week at the COMMON conference in Nashville, Tennessee, looksoftware gave a formal name, SNAP, to its solution that allows users to access ERP applications running on i (formerly i5/OS and OS/400) servers from the comfort of their favorite graphical productivity tools, such as Office or Google. The first SNAP solution will soon be available for Microsoft Office and SharePoint Server, with support for Lotus Notes and WebSphere Portal expected in the future.

For years, Australia-based looksoftware has been chasing the application modernization business on the popular 64-bit server known before Wednesday as the System i. The company’s

IBM‘s Lotus Domino is a popular choice for many System i users for intranet or Internet Web sites. Naturally, there are security issues regarding the Domino server (as there would be for any server) in either of these environments. Although Lotus Notes and Domino have a fairly solid reputation for security and the System i has near vault-like lock-down capabilities, there are holes that can be penetrated. Last week, Bytware, announced a module for scanning Lotus Domino mail and databases residing on the System i.

Bytware is a long-time provider of System i monitoring and security solutions. Its

Intent on bridging the divide separating automated and manual testing processes, test automation specialists Original Software last week launched a new Web site, www.manualtesting.com, that contains resources geared toward helping IT managers reconcile their testing dilemma.

For years, Original Software pushed its suite of automated testing tools, which allow users of the System i platform, among others, to thoroughly check their modified applications for bugs, errors, and other problems before putting them into production.

Then, just over a year ago, Original changed course and started incorporating more manual testing processes into its suite. By cohabitating with customers’ pre-existing