March 2010

• iCommunity (March 2010) -
• f.y.iSystem (March 2010) -
• IBM Announcements (March 2010) -
• IBM Goes Global with Smarter Planet - IBM is very obviously throwing a lot of research, marketing, and sales effort at its Smarter Planet initiative, all of which seems to put Smarter Planet in the category of IBM's older (and successful) e-business campaign. While e-business generally focused on commerce between and among enterprises and consumers, Smarter Planet seems to be inclusive of just about everything from sewer water to cloud computing. So what's with all this Smarter Planet hoopla, anyway? And what does it have to do with IBM i?
• Hot New Products (March 2010) -
• Designing a Mobile User Experience - To create a mobile application that thrills your users, start by making wise design decisions. Follow a few key principles, and you'll be on your way to developing apps that truly benefit your target users.
• Building Enterprise .NET IBM i Applications - Using client/server technologies such as .NET, Java, and PHP to develop applications lets you combine the i's secure and robust relational database with the graphical capabilities of the Windows client. The best practices in this article will help you step up to developing enterprise-level .NET applications.
• Application Mapping on IBM i: Modernizing Legacy Applications Using Design Recovery - One of the challenges in a modernization project, after you've extracted the essence or design from legacy applications, is using the recovered designs to create a modern application. In this final article in our application mapping series, learn what your options are and how you can accomplish this task.
• Enterprise Firewall Appliances Buyer's Guide - An integral part of any network security strategy is the firewall appliance, an infrastructure component that can limit external access to your corporate network to only trusted users and organizations. Firewalls are available in both hardware and software varieties; in this buyer's guide, we look at hardware firewall appliances priced at less than $15,000.
• Non-IT IT - High-tech capabilities are entrenched in all kinds of equipment across virtually all industries, and the line where conventional IT responsibility ends and someone else's responsibility begins is blurring.
• PHP from an RPG Perspective, Part 3: PHPunctions - In this third article of a series, you'll learn how to write PHP functions and how they compare to RPG subprocedures. The article examines parameter-passing methods, default values for parameters, and how local and global variables are used in PHP. By the end of the series you should feel comfortable tackling a PHP project head-on. Don't forget to check out the companion forum thread called "Homework: PHP from an RPG Perspective" in our e-Development forum at tinyurl.com/PHPHomework.
• Real-World App Dev with Grails on i - The third in a series, this article takes you from playing with Grails to real-world application development, teaching you how to develop web apps over legacy files and offering tips to avoid common challenges.
• The Way to Character to Number, Number to Character on IBM i is SQL - Gone are the days when you had to write a subroutine just to transform a character field into a number or number into a character. SQL's built-in functions offer many ways to make the transformation between data types. Check out the basics.
• Test Your Journal IQ - Assess your journal proficiency with these challenging questions—and improve your skills along the way so that you can make sure your organization is getting the most from its journaling.
• Forensic Analysis Using QAUDJRN, Part 2: User Activity - In this second article in a series about using QAUDJRN to provide forensic analysis, learn how to audit and report on activities and security-related events that users perform. You can refine your focus to a particular user or users, and you can choose which events you're interested in auditing and reporting on.
• IBM Systems Director: High-Value Scenarios - Stitch together various Systems Director capabilities to increase productivity and ease your systems management tasks. These sample end-to-end scenarios show you how!
• Hands-On IPv6 Lab Setup Guide - With less than two years of IPv4 IP addresses available, it's beyond time to begin preparing for your move to IPv6. The first step is to build an IPv6 lab, which isn't complicated and gets you connected to the IPv6 Internet at no charge. You can then gain the IPv6 skills you'll need to bring this next-generation Internet to your enterprise.
• Tech Corner (March 2010) -
• Dr. I Doctor (March 2010) - Dr. I Doctor explains the realities of Gigabit Ethernet cabling and troubleshoots a gnarly VPN problem.
• The Essential Guide to Document Management (March 2010) -