• Why Are Systems Programmers Always To Blame?

  June 1, 2009 Doug Mewmaw

  We’ve all been there. It’s first thing Monday morning and the phone is ringing off the hook. The CIO is calling, and everyone is freaking. Even though your system’s team didn’t submit one single change over the weekend, there’s a problem and you, the systems administrator, are being blamed. You know it’s not your fault, and wish you had a way to prove what the heck is going on. Sound familiar? Before I continue, I must share a funny story about my son. Let me preface the story by saying that my wife is a gifted teacher and educator. Our

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• OCEAN Conference Emphasizes Higher Education, Lower Fees

  June 1, 2009 Dan Burger

  Let’s begin by saying IT training and education programs increase production. Measuring increases isn’t as easy as measuring widgets produced in a factory each year, but employee production is quantifiable. Those who believe training doesn’t have a strong return on investment can’t be looking at their ROI on employees without training. The frequent excuse that training is expensive is why the OCEAN User Group of Southern California has slashed the registration fee for its annual technical conference to $120 for members and $220 for non-members. The conference is a one-day event with a schedule that allows attendees to take up

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• Clarification on IBM’s Power Systems Withdrawals

  June 1, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  A few weeks ago, I did a short story on some processor cards, processor activations, disk drives, and other features that IBM has withdrawn from its product catalog as part of the April 28 announcements. That withdrawal announcement–which you can read all the details about here and which I analyzed in Older Power Iron Starts Heading for the Dustbin–has caused some confusion. Jim Herring, the director of high-end Power Systems at IBM’s Systems and Technology Group, who you will remember as managing several generations of iSeries and System i product launches before the convergence of the i and p

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• Obama Administration Creates Cyber Czar to Secure IT Infrastructure

  June 1, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It looks like the politicians have finally figured out how important–and how vulnerable–America’s digital infrastructure is. Last Friday, the Obama Administration said that it would be creating a “cyber czar” Cabinet-level position to help better secure government and private IT infrastructure. The edges between these, as you all know, has been blurred by the Big Gray Cloud, or the InterTubes, or whatever you want to call it. (OK, the Internet.) In his remarks to the press, President Obama made his concern over security IT assets clear by coming clean on the fact that his presidential campaign had been hacked. “It’s

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• IBM Sues to Stop Exec from Getting a Dell (Paycheck)

  June 1, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  You can’t really blame David Johnson, the senior IBM executive in charge of Big Blue’s merger, acquisition, and divestiture strategy, from wanting to take a job at rival Dell. But last week, IBM sued Johnson to prevent him from jumping to Dell, the second time this year when IBM has had to sue to stop a high-level employee from going over to a competitor. The complaint against Johnson, which was filed by Cravath, Swaine & Moore’s managing partner and long-time IBM hired gun, Evan Chelser, on May 21 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of

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• Looks Like It Will be i 7 for that Future Release

  June 1, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If the search engine behind IBM‘s iSource announcement and product catalog is any guide, then it looks like Big Blue is going to call the next release of the OS/400 operating system i 7. Check it out: The iSource search engine at IBM has the right idea As you can surmise from this drill down in its iSource menu system, OS/400 V5R1, V5R2, and V5R3 as well as i5/OS V5R4 are all being lumped into something IBM is calling i 5 (formerly known as i5/OS V5, somewhat inaccurately), and it even says that i 6 was formerly known

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• IBM Kicks in $5 Billion in Financing to Chase Stimulus Projects

  June 1, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  There’s an old saying in business that you have to spend money to make money. But in an economic downturn, like we are experiencing now, sometimes you have to lend money to get business. And IBM, which is very keen on tapping into the $5 trillion in stimulus funds that the various governments of the world are kicking into their economies, knows that if it wants governments and companies to get going on IT infrastructure projects, it is going to have to bridge the gap between shovel ready (or screwdriver ready) projects and when the government funds are available

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• Halcyon Revs Up U.S. Channel Effort

  May 26, 2009 Alex Woodie

  U.K.-based Halcyon Software, a developer of systems management software for i OS and other platforms, is growing its presence in the U.S. with the goal of attracting new customers. But instead of concentrating on individual AS/400 shops, Halcyon will primarily target outsourcing firms that run large data centers, which in turn will use Halcyon’s software to manage the individual clients’ systems. It’s a practice that has already provided successful for the software company in the U.S. Halcyon Software was at the recent COMMON conference in Reno, Nevada, to announce the expansion of its office in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the

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• Coglin Mill Keeps Pace With BI, Data Warehousing Demands

  May 26, 2009 Dan Burger

  When IBM introduced the AS/400 in 1988, it was clearly ahead of its time with regard to its report and query capabilities. But business intelligence has advanced while IBM depended on Query/400 for too long. IBM stepped forward with DB2 Web Query, the replacement for Query/400, and ISVs such as Coglin Mill–with RODIN, its ETL software–have also stepped up to advance database technology. The major enhancement in Release 6 of RODIN is the capability to capture data in real time. In the previous releases, the change capture functionality was limited to running in batch mode and most users scheduled

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• CNX Updates EXTJS-Based System i Modernization Framework

  May 26, 2009 Alex Woodie

  AS/400 shops that are looking to modernize their core applications may want to check out the latest release of the Valence Web Application Framework from CNX. Last week, the Chicago, Illinois, software developer officially unveiled Valence version 1.2, which brings several new features aimed at easing the creation of AJAX-style interfaces from i OS apps, without branching much beyond the core RPG skill-sets already in place at most AS/400 shops. Valence is an i OS implementation of Ext Js, which is a collection of open- and closed-source JavaScript classes for building rich AJAX-style Web applications. The developers at CNX

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