The IT Jungle

As I See It: In Search of the Technology-Free Vacation

September 23, 2013 Victor Rozek

Just before we headed off on vacation, my wife, who never strays far from computerized devices, made a bold, unprecedented suggestion. “Let’s also have a vacation from technology.” I was pleased but dubious. Like Charlton Heston, who planned to have his gun pried from his cold, dead hands, I sort of figured the wife would leave this world clutching her smartphone. But her reasoning, she explained, was economic, not an unexpected lack of interest in all things with screens.

We planned to go to Washington (the state) to visit the in-laws, and then on to Canada to visit the Rockies.

IBM i Jobs: Having What It Takes To Get Hired

September 23, 2013 Dan Burger

The job market for IBM midrange professionals fluctuates somewhere between contrary and crotchety. The same could be said about many of the pros who are inside and outside the workforce. One thing for certain is that this job market is changing and the people who want to get jobs or keep jobs have to change with it. Resistance, as we all know from watching Star Trek, is futile.

A friend of mine, Bob Langieri, is dialed into the IBM i job market in the greater Los Angeles area. He’s been a one-man employment service specializing in career placement for

PureSystems Anyone?

September 23, 2013 Dan Burger

IBM introduced the PureSystems in April 2012. It was a big deal and it still is. IBM is certain this is the system to converge all systems, with infrastructure in a box–PureFlex–as the solution to the huge business knot caused by IT redundancies. Instead of each platform requiring its own infrastructure, this is one infrastructure for all and all for one. In the past year and a half, the successes have mostly piled up on the X86 side as a server consolidation play, but IBM i shops are in this game, too.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say

The Possibilities With IBM i Entry Systems Sporting Power8

September 23, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

At the end of August, IBM‘s top techies from the Austin Power processor development labs showed off the features and functions of the forthcoming 12-core Power8 chip at the Hot Chips conference at Stanford University. As The Four Hundred pointed out in its coverage of the divulged specifications at the time, this processor will pack a serious punch. Perhaps way too much for most entry IBM i shops, in fact.

Or, perhaps not. Depending on how you want to make use of the substantial performance that Big Blue intends to cram into the Power8 chip, which is up and

Kwik Trip Stops at RJS for Doc Management

September 19, 2013 Alex Woodie

Kwik Trip, a chain of 350 convenience stores in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, replaced a Windows-based document management system with an IBM i-based system from RJS Software Systems, the software company recently announced.

Kwik Trip operates a string of convenience stores across the Upper Midwest under the names Kwik Trip, Kwik Star, Hearty Platter, and Tobacco Outlet Plus. If you’ve ever traveled through this part of the country, you’ve probably run into one of Kwik Trip’s stores.

Like many mid-size companies, Kwik Trip relied on a diverse range of systems in its IT department, according to a 2008 case study