• Four Hundred Monitor, April 18

  April 18, 2018 Dan Burger

  Who runs the world? This week in Monitor we see a trend in stories from the web featuring female leadership. IBM is no newb to promoting women to leadership positions (do we really need to make the Ginni Rometty reference here?), and this week CNBC takes a closer look at IBM’s female-helmed blockchain team, which is unusual in the male-dominated space.

  IBM’s first chief privacy officer also speaks with AdWeek this week about the changes in corporate privacy over the last 20 years.

  Top Stories From Outside The Jungle

  (CNBC) Blockchain is a hot trend in tech, and the fact …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, April 11

  April 11, 2018 Dan Burger

  “Hey, Pops! How many people died in the Digital Revolution?” This week in Monitor you’ll find a story that provides an aerial view where the path of disruptive technology is as easy to follow as a F5 tornado. The Rochester Post Bulletin describes what its town has seen. And what about the American Dream? The story from ProPublica records eyewitness sources from places where some of the heaviest casualties took place.

  Technology’s impacts on society should be recognized for what they are. So, don’t bypass the Forbes article with insights on how to lead a company and its inhabitants through …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, April 4

  April 4, 2018 Dan Burger

  It’s the 30^th anniversary of the IBM midrange platform and the celebration has begun. For now, the focus is on a new website and its growing repository of IBM i customer stories emphasizing innovative implementations from around the world. Monitor has found Steve Will’s blog on this topic and elsewhere in this issue of The Four Hundred, we have our own story about the 30 years of innovation.

  Also inside Monitor are links to articles pertaining to the ruinous effects of poor data quality on machine learning, why email is the best social media for business, and fixes …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, March 28

  March 28, 2018 Dan Burger

  The Monitor doesn’t often include videos in its “Top Stories From Outside The Jungle” section, but exceptions are made when videos are exceptional. This one, from the recent RPG & DB2 Summit, is in the category of balancing work and fun.

  Last week, IBM hosted a conference it called “Think.” As you might expect, Watson was in the spotlight during many of the keynote addresses and sessions. Some of the reporters liked what they saw, and some were less than impressed. Also in Monitor this week are articles touting the benefit of agile development and warning of …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, March 21

  March 21, 2018 Dan Burger

  RPG is in the palm of her hand. She’s Barbara Morris and she leads RPG development at IBM’s Toronto Labs. Her fingerprints are on all RPG enhancements, so if you are interested in the DATA-INTO feature that just became available, you can do no better than to hear about it from Barbara. Check inside Monitor for the link to her interview with Paul Tuohy.

  Also inside is a link to an IBM i security quiz. Find out quickly what you do and don’t know. Then check out the articles on IBM’s new microcomputer and the market pressure to make AI …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, March 14

  March 14, 2018 Dan Burger

  What does your IT budget say about your organization? Are you a comfortable fit in the status quo or are you budgeting for the future knowing that status quo and a one-dollar bill won’t even get you a cup of coffee?

  And if your vision of the IT future includes open source, start gathering information by reading articles linked to Monitor. This week we have advice on setting up an open source project office and a comparison of the top two containers for transporting applications between systems. IBM’s Watson CTO also talks about AI ethics and responsibility.

  Top Stories

  …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, March 7

  March 7, 2018 Dan Burger

  RPG ILE has been enhanced with the addition of DATA-INTO functionality, which will become available March 16. DATO-INTO supports the parsing of multiple states types — JSON being the most important. It imports data from a data document into a data structure. For those familiar with XML-INTO and RPG Open Access, DATA-INTO can be grasped quite easily. Those needing a little help can look inside Monitor.

  Also inside Monitor this week, you’ll discover why system admins should be watching the open source news for helpful features, and you’ll be scrutinizing what AI (hello Watson) has in store for developers …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, February 28

  February 28, 2018 Dan Burger

  Was that a deer in the headlights look you gave your boss after he asked if you could integrate Salesforce with the IBM i? If so, you might ask for a do-over after you read this article. This might be one of those times when you’ll be surprised what an i can do.

  How about a simple user interface that makes things easy for the end user? Do you have one of those in mind? Chances are good some of you have a cramp in your development productivity due to a maintenance burden. What can you do about it? Monitor …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, February 21

  February 21, 2018 Dan Burger

  Artificial intelligence (AI) may be the goose that laid the golden egg, with promises of systems endowed with the intellectual processes characteristic of humans, such as the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalize, or learn from past experience. But there are seldom talked about dangers that could cook your goose. Pay attention to regulatory compliance, law, privacy, and ethics as you integrate AI into your systems.

  Class action lawsuits are barking at the heels of Intel stemming from the handling of the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities. These stories, plus tips on communications skills that aid project planning, make it into …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, February 14

  February 14, 2018 Dan Burger

  Old code is today’s technical debt. New code is tomorrow’s technical debt. Maintaining code is the albatross around our necks. What can you do besides kick your tech debt down the road? Find some food for thought on that topic in Monitor this week.

  You’ll also learn a few things about where small to midsize businesses are spending the bulk of their IT budgets, which you can then compare to your own budget. And finally, an article that points out that CEOs are investing more in advanced technologies such as AI, but they aren’t planning to invest in retraining their …

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