• Keeping Ransomware Out of the VAULT

  October 7, 2015 Alex Woodie

  Cyber-criminals are increasingly targeting small and midsize American businesses with ransomware that encrypts the contents of a PC or a server until the victim pays $500, $1,000, or more in untraceable Bitcoin. After several of United Computer Group‘s VAULT400 customers were hit with ransomware scams, the company decided to team up with the security training company KnowBe4 to teach VAULT400 customers how to avoid falling victim to a ransomware scam. A ransomware epidemic is spreading across the country, impacting organizations of all shapes and sizes. “Never before in the history of human kind have people across the world been

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• IBM i Tech Refreshes Bring New Features to Explore

  October 7, 2015 Dan Burger

  The IBM software engineers have prepared another batch of IBM i-centric accomplishments that will be rolled out next month as IBM i 7.1 Technology Refresh (TR) 11 and IBM i 7.2 TR 3. Application development, systems management, and database upgrades are all lined up at the innovation dispenser and this is what is being dished out. Companies with the mind to modernize their RPG development, incorporate some open source languages, and do more with the Apache Web server should pay attention. Although it’s not part of the Technology Refresh, there are also upgrades to the IBM i Access Client Solutions

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• DB2 for i 7.1 TR10 and i 7.2 TR2 Features, Part 1

  October 6, 2015 Michael Sansoterra

  This is just another great DB2 feature tip, calling attention to some useful features available in the recent releases of DB2 for i. To determine whether you can use these recent features, check with your IBM i administrator to make sure your database group PTF levels are up to date. For IBM i 7.1 the database group PTF level should be at least 34, and for 7.2 the database group PTF level should be at least 5. VARCHAR_FORMAT_BINARY and VARBINARY_FORMAT Two new functions were added to the DB2 for i built-in function arsenal that will assist developers with the annoying

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• Scratch Message Files? Why Not?!

  October 6, 2015 Ted Holt

  If you read this august publication, you probably know what a scratch file is. (For those of you who know nothing about computers and read this publication solely for its sterling literary merit, a scratch file is a database table or stream file that is used temporarily within a job.) Today I invite you to consider that the advantages of scratch files also extend to scratch message files. Consider superb RPG program SUPERBPGM2: ctl-opt dftactgrp(*no); dcl-pr SuperbPgm2 extpgm('SUPERBPGM2'); ouStatus likeds(Status_t); inPlant char(12); end-pr; dcl-pi SuperbPgm2; ouStatus likeds(Status_t); inPlant char(12); end-pi; dcl-ds Status_t qualified template; MsgID char( 7); ProgramName char(10); Plant

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• Keeping Firmware Up To Date

  October 6, 2015 Pete Massiello

  Last month, Larry Bolhuis discussed PTFs and keeping them current. This is extremely important, and I want to continue along on that theme of staying current. So, this month we will discuss determining the level of firmware of your Flexible Service Processor (FSP). If you don’t know what level it is currently running, you won’t know if it is up to date or not. It’s just as important to keep this up to date as your PTFs, your release of IBM i, or your Hardware Management Console (HMC) firmware. In all my travels, it seems people aren’t keeping their

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• More iSphere Goodies

  September 29, 2015 Susan Gantner

  Before I proceed with this latest installment on the features of the iSphere toolset that plugs into RDi, I want to first update a few items I’ve covered in earlier tips in this series. First of all, in my first iSphere tip, I neglected to give credit to one of the primary contributors to the iSphere toolset. I had mentioned the team at TaskForce IT, but failed to acknowledge the significant work done by Thomas Raddatz of Tools400. My apologies to Thomas for that omission. Second, thanks to continued development efforts, a new version of the iSphere plug-in is

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• Easy Conversion To ASCII

  September 29, 2015 Ted Holt

  The system we love so well has a long love affair with the EBCDIC collating sequence, but most of the world runs on ASCII and Unicode. Dealing with ASCII data has not been a trivial experience for RPG programmers, but IBM i 7.2 adds a feature that helps immensely. In ancient days, RPG programmers would call the QDCXLATE API, which uses a translation table, to convert EBCDIC to ASCII. This is probably not a good solution. IBM’s translation tables were good for their time, but times have changed. A modern solution is the iconv family of code conversion APIs, which

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• Auditing Object Changes In A Production Environment

  September 29, 2015 Ron Adams

  Like many business environments today, my shop consists of just one person wearing many hats to support the IBM i system. This makes for a tight, controlled environment with that one person managing the system very efficiently. However, most auditors aren’t too pleased with this setup as it opens the door for potential violations with established compliance guidelines. Even though we are a small shop with minimal budget, we were able to easily develop a solution to satisfy the auditors. Here’s what we did. Most environments like ours are run by individuals with high integrity and dedication to their jobs

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• IBM i, RPG, And Inaccurate Assumptions

  September 28, 2015 Dan Burger

  Anyone who says RPG is a dead-end career is dead wrong. It’s the door to opportunity. People are walking through that door with an education that costs less than $1,000 and a time investment of about six months. They have a certificate in hand and more than half of them have an entry-level RPG programmer job at an IBM midrange shop. Some would say this is the beginning of the end, but is an old-fashioned Midwestern success story. “Most of the students are hard-working adults who are feeding a family and have committed to making a career change,” says Gregory

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• As I See It: America Needs A Vacation

  September 28, 2015 Victor Rozek

  Entrepreneurs are typically blessed with some combination of courage, imagination, and somebody else’s cash. But while these advantages occasionally translate to wild success in the marketplace, that success comes at a price. As reported by Business Insider, Dr. Michael Freeman, a clinical professor at UCSF, surveyed entrepreneurs and found that just under half admitted dealing with mental health issues, and 30 percent report suffering from depression (over four times the national norm), 29 percent struggle with ADHD, and 27 percent live with anxiety. Changing the world is stressful work. Sounds like they need a vacation. They’re not the only

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