• The Latest i5/OS V5R4 PTFs: What Is Going On?

  November 5, 2007 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Our faithful i5/OS and OS/400 PTF guru, Doug Bidwell of DLB Associates, has been putting together his PTF Guide for a decade now. (Hard to believe, isn’t it Doug?) His PTF Guide has been associated with my AS/400-based newsletters across many different companies through all that time, and I would like to thank him for the service that he performs each week to consolidate the information concerning the PTFs down into something that can help a system administrator figure out what to do. Two weekends ago, as Bidwell was putting together the System i PTF Guide Volume 9 Number

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• Use PHP to Bring i5/OS Resources to the Web

  October 31, 2007 Erwin Earley

  This is our third article in the PHP in i5/OS series. In previous articles we have provided an overview of PHP on System i as well as the basic syntax of the language. This article provides an overview of the API toolkit, and a collection of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that facilitate PHP programs accessing and working with i5/OS objects. Web Development and Deployment Stacks–LAMP To begin our discussion let’s first look at the Web development and deployment stack that incorporation of PHP provides to i5/OS. In the past you have probably encountered the LAMP stack – a Web development/deployment

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• Wrapping Free Form Text

  October 31, 2007 Michael Sansoterra

  Note: The code accompanying this article is available for download here. One common integration problem encountered by those building client/server or Web-based interfaces to a legacy green-screen application is mapping a free form text field into a fixed width field. This tip presents a code segment I wrote to solve this problem. For example, say you have the following DDS defined legacy table called ORDCOMT that is designed to store the comments for a customer order: Column Data Type Description ORDID 7P,0 Order Id CMTSEQ 3P,0 Comment Sequence CMTTXT 25A Comment Text In the legacy application, a customer service

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• Admin Alert: Limiting System i User Sign-ons the Smart Way

  October 31, 2007 Joe Hertvik

  In certain scenarios, you may want to limit certain users from starting more than one i5/OS session at a time. While the System i provides a method for limiting all users from starting multiple sessions, it’s not widely understood how to limit individual users from starting multiple sessions. This week, I’ll examine how to limit individual i5/OS user sign-ons and I’ll show you how to use it to your advantage. The Art of Limiting Multiple Sign-ons The Limit device sessions system value (QLMTDEVSSN) will generally control whether your users can start more than one user session at a

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• Zend Plans Treats, Tricks for System i Programmers

  October 30, 2007 Alex Woodie

  Halloween is tomorrow night, and for all you System i types planning on dressing up as something really frightening this year–such as a ghost, a goblin, or a PHP programmer–Zend Technologies has a few tricks and treats in store for you. For starters, you’ll get new features around the MySQL and SQL Server databases, and WYSIWYG functionality. You also gain the capability to install Zend Core for i5/OS directly from Windows. Now if that doesn’t scare you, nothing will. For some time now, Zend has been working on the upcoming version 2.5 release of Zend Core, as well as

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• Mantis Bug Tracker Ported to i5/OS

  October 30, 2007 Alex Woodie

  Interested in catching some bugs? Then you might want to check out Mantis/400, a new bug tracking and help desk application for the System i. Originally developed in PHP for the MySQL database, Mantis was recently ported to run under i5/OS and DB2/400 by a group of individuals from the System i community, the open source community, and IBM and Zend Technologies. Mantis is a free Web-based bug tracking system and help desk application that was created in 2000 by a group of PHP developers for an internal project. The group sought to create a bug tracking application

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• mrc Goes Web 2.0 with m-Power

  October 30, 2007 Alex Woodie

  mrc software last week announced the launch of m-Power 2.0, a new release of its Java-based development tool often used for writing Web and BI applications for the System i. With the new version, mrc is letting developers add Web 2.0-style functionality to their application, such as the capability to pop open a small, temporary window that displays pertinent information when a user places her cursor over a link on a Web page. There are many reasons to modernize older applications. Let’s start with the biggest reason: the 5250 interface. Let’s face it–they’re not pretty. And while green screens are

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• IBM Updates Disk and Tape, Buys Storage Software Developer

  October 30, 2007 Alex Woodie

  IBM unveiled updates to its line of disk and tape products last week, including the roll-out of a new LTO 4 drive, the addition of bigger 15,000 RPM drives to its enterprise-class DS6000 disk arrays, and new data management features in its flagship DS8000 arrays. The IT giant also announced the acquisition of NovusCG, a Virginia company that develops software that allows organizations to more effectively manage the growth of their data and their storage resources. The most compelling new storage features unveiled were added to the DS8000 Turbo product line, IBM’s top-of-the-line disk arrays for enterprise-class customers. IBM

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• Stations Casinos Taps Original for Data Obfuscation and Testing

  October 30, 2007 Alex Woodie

  Stations Casino, a $1 billion casino franchise based in Las Vegas, has picked Original Software to provide testing and security capabilities for its large collection of i5/OS applications, Original announced last month. Stations Casino operates more than a dozen casinos used primarily by Las Vegas residents, including Palace Station Hotel & Casino, Boulder Station Hotel & Casino, Texas Station Gambling Hall & Hotel. The company, which employs more than 14,000 people, has a partial ownership in several casinos in Henderson, Nevada, and runs an Indian casino near Sacramento, California. Like many casino and resort operators, Stations has trusted the IBM

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• PowerTech Looks at PCI and System i

  October 30, 2007 Alex Woodie

  With another Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) deadline looming just weeks away, it’s critical that you get your System i compliance plans on track. To that end, the System i security experts at PowerTech Group published a new white paper last week that analyzes the requirements and impacts PCI is having on the System i server. PowerTech’s new white paper, titled “PCI Compliance for IBM System i (AS/400),” takes a look at each of the 12 main requirements of PCI, and maps those requirements into i5/OS terminology. This is quite useful, as the System i is a

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