July 2008

• Quantum i - IBM's new i and the Power boxes that go with it remind Bob Tipton of the quantum world of the very small, where something can exist in wave and particle form, or neither, at the same time, and is constantly shifting.
• Selling the New i on Power Systems - IBM has created a new line of hardware that already clings to the identity of having top-notch technology — and that will mean something when an IBM Business Partner tries to sell an i-based solution.
• Anti-Patterns: Avoid the Programming Dark Side - Programming has a dark side: techniques that seem good at first but ultimately eat up your time and harm your business. Learn about some of these bad techniques so you can be sure to avoid them.
• IT Job Flexibility: Deal? - IT pros often work round the clock. A 40-hour workweek can easily explode to 55 hours or more. Job flexibility, though, can help techies rein in the overtime while still meeting company demands.
• Chaining Software Changes - Discover a new way to handle changes companywide from your System i environment and let your developers get away with fewer headaches.
• WebFacing Application Bridge in V7.1 - The WebFacing Application Bridge in HATS V7.1 enhances WebFaced applications by letting you connect to and exchange data with other web applications.
• Invoking Web Services - Writing code to invoke a web service is usually straightforward, but before you begin, you need to answer several important questions about the particular web service you want to invoke. These guidelines will help you get started.
• V6R1 Journal Recovery Enhancements, Part 2 - Better journal-cache control, simplified and refined journal-apply actions, better control of automatic journaling, easier and tidier management of journal receivers, and improved SMAPP screens — in part 2, we continue our look at V6R1's plethora of journal recovery improvements.
• Talkin' About the Weather in RPG - Calling a web service with RPG requires interpreting the XML documents and communicating over the web with the HTTP protocol. The example presented here shows you how.
• Invoking Web Services in PHP - Invoking SOAP-based web services from PHP is a snap using PHP’s comprehensive PEAR::SOAP, which provides both web serviceDL and XML parsing, as well as an efficient SOAP proxy function.
• Consume a Web Service Client with Java - In three easy steps you can consume a web service with Java. Add a touch of wizardry, and you’ll be amazed at how simple it really is.
• Groovier Web Services - Whether you are hosting or consuming a web service, Groovy makes it easy. Go ahead. Get in the groove.
• Perl Use Cases for the System i - Perl is associated with Linux/Unix or Windows, but it has a useful System i role. Explore four typical administration and development use cases: parsing a text file, writing data to a DB2 file, generating RPG code, and creating a green-screen prototype.
• The Quest for Application Flexibility - In an endeavor to make applications more flexible, you might create parameter files to drive programs. But doing so can be a challenge. Enter the handy DspPrompt procedure, which lets you display a dynamic list of values driven by an SQL statement.
• IBM Systems Director Navigator for i5/OS: Inside Time Management - See how the Time Zones and Time Adjustment utilities in IBM Systems Director Navigator for i5/OS can help you manage time on your System i.
• MIMIX Helps Tony’s Avoid Disaster Meltdown - As Tony’s Fine Foods grew, the IT team looked closely at the ability to recover from a critical failure. This is the tale of Tony’s Fine Foods and their quest to eliminate downtime in order to get gourmet food to your table.
• The Big "E" - Ethernet has beat out other networking technologies over the years and remains popular despite not always being the technically superior solution. Now Ethernet is poised to become the hottest thing in the data center.
• f.y.iSystem - Zeitler Leaves IBM • IBM Gets Nimble with New Tape Drive • PC Piracy and a Little License Manipulation
• Hot New Products -
• IBM Announcements -
• Dr. I Doctor (August 2008) - Dr. I Doctor explains the latest spam plagues and compares Fibre Channel and iSCSI for storage virtualization.
• Industry Observer (July 2008) - Exploring Encryption * Not Your Father’s Website * Optimizing Ajax * The Battle over Sales Tax Continues
• Tech Corner (July 2008) - Execute an SQL Statement from a CL Program