midrange.com – In My Humble Opinion

Words of wisdom and insight from the IBM i (System i / iSeries / AS400) community

Power Systems Job Board

April 16, 2013 No comments

Recently the Power Systems Academic Initiative launched a Power Systems Job Board featuring entry level and internship positions:  powersystemsjobs.com.

If you are a Job Seeker you will find a list of computer-related technology jobs available today in business, health care, government, and other organizations that are looking for skills to satisfy their Information Technology needs. Each posting clearly defines the opportunity, requirements and preferred contact information. Our IBM Power Systems Academic Initiative staff updates the page daily.

If you are an employer we encourage you to list your IBM Power Systems/IT-related job opportunities with us.  The IBM Power System Academic Initiative membership in North America includes over 50 colleges and universities teaching IBM i, AIX and Linux skills. Students learning these skills are eager to reach out to you and become part of your business team. Job posting is very simple – no registration, no membership, no password, and no fees. Simply contact our IBM Power Systems Academic Initiative staff and we’ll do all the work involved.

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19 Years

October 27, 2012 1 comment

Today is midrange.com’s 19th birthday (using the domain registration date).

Next year will (obviously) be 20 years that midrange.com will have been providing free resources to the IBM i (System i, iSeries, & AS/400) community.

We need something to mark the event.

I’ve got some ideas … but would be interested in hearing what the community thinks.

Post your ideas in the comments section.

 

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Command Defaults

October 26, 2012 4 comments

This may seem to be a no-brainer … but it’s very important to NOT change command parameter defaults on commands in the QSYS library.

This is especially true if you use 3rd party software that may not expect your commands to have different defaults.

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Have DDS Files Finally Gone Way Of The Dinosaur

September 26, 2012 1 comment

If you are still cranking out the traditional physical and logical file with DDS I think it’s time to get up to speed with SQL for both creating and querying files. For a long time I held onto using DDS, but with the capabilities in SQL if you are still clinging to DDS I think you are blowing it big time like I was. Let me explain.

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Justin Porter — COMMON BoD Candidate 2012

April 15, 2012 No comments

Editors note: The following is a post by guest author Justin Porter who is a candidate for the COMMON Board of Directors.

COMMON has survived quite well through the financial crisis—in no small part due to the dedication of its members, volunteers and staff who wish to see COMMON continue providing top quality education into the future.  Now past its fiftieth birthday, COMMON’s future looks as bright as that of the platform we represent.  Looking to the future, we must begin to answer the question of “where is our next generation of members?”  This very question is the reason I have become involved with COMMON as a volunteer over the last several years—I want very much to be a part of the answer to that question. continue reading…

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Why I Dislike Code Generators

March 1, 2012 6 comments

NOTE: The following is an OPINION and does not have any bearing on how easy or hard a particular language / application is to use.

Those of you who follow the midrange.com lists probably are aware that I’m not a big fan of application code generators.

This includes (but is not limited to) …

  • Case Tools (AS/SET, Synon, etc)
  • EGL
  • SQL Pre-processors (RPG SQL, COBOL SQL, etc)
  • JSP (to a limited extent)
  • Various 3rd party application generators

The reason is simple … the code you write is not the code that executes.

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CAAC Bends IBM’s Ear

January 30, 2012 1 comment

This post is written by guest blogger Michelle August

The CAAC (COMMON Americas Advisory Council) called snowy, icy Rochester home for three days in early December. They started off the meeting with a warm welcome from Dave Nelson and a Power Systems Update from Ian Jarman. This great start to the meeting set the tone for the remaining days as the CAAC heard from the Power Systems Application Development team, the Systems and Technology group, and the Marketing group, as well as participated in a tour of some of IBM’s environmental test labs.

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SOPA / PIPA Blackout

January 15, 2012 No comments

Update 16-Jan-2012: Looks like the SOPA bill has been killed in the house, although the senate version is still alive.  We will still be observing the blackout on the 18th.

Just a word of warning … on January 18th, between the hours of 8am and 8pm, the midrange.com mailing list archives will be observing a temporary blackout.

Don’t worry, the archives won’t be totally unavailable … but the first time you visit the archives that day you will be presented with a screen demonstrating what could happen to midrange.com if SOPA is passed.

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Perhaps I spoke too soon?

January 12, 2012 1 comment

At work I’ve been splitting my time between two projects … one project is IBM i based using RPG … the other is Windows/*nix based using Java.

One of my gripes about the other project is that that some of the error messages we get are difficult to figure out because we don’t get enough information.  The errors tend to be quite general without any specifics as to what caused it.

Errors on IBM i are never like that … there’s tons of details as to what caused the error, including what program … details as to the cause, reason codes, etc.

So today I’m looking at a joblog, related to a customers problem, and see the cause of the issue … a CPFA0A2 error.

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Al Barsa Challenge 2011 – Follow up

December 16, 2011 No comments

I’m pleased to announce that we met all the goals set for the 2011 Al Barsa Challenge!

We received $2330 in contributions and had $4050 in matching donations for a total of $6380.

Thanks to …

Amanda Shaw, Leo Whitakar, Laura Ubelhor, Jon Anglis, David Willenborg, John Voris, Sharon Bodine, Guy Vig, Jenniefer Halverson, Marty Acks, Ilena Ayala, Michael Ryan, Carl Novit, Kirk Goins, Bryce Martin, Michael  Smith, Henrik Rutzou, Mike Naughton, Glenn Erickson, Diane Saunders, Rory Hewitt, Ronald Sposito, Paul Rogers / New Hampshire Midrange Users Group, Sharon Bodine, Philip Seay, and two anonymous donors (and apologies to anyone I might have missed, please email me if you would like to be mentioned).

And special thanks to my matching donors …

Pete Helgren – Value Added Software
Jerry Adams
Larry Bolhuis – Franken i
Jim Obherholtzer – Agile Technology Architects
Pete Massiello – iTech Solutions
John Earl – Townsend Security
Kevin Mort – Flagship Solutions Group

I’m confident that Al would be proud of our community.

Now that we’ve raised funds for the Al Barsa Memorial Scholarship … we need people to actually RECEIVE the scholarship.

If you know someone who exemplifies the commitment and passion to IBM i and it’s community that Al had, please consider nominating them for the scholarship.

You can download the nomination form from the COMMON Education Foundation section of the COMMON web site.

Please note: While the Al Barsa Challenge is over for this year … contributions can still be made via the COMMON Education Foundation page and, to the extent allowed by law, are tax deductible in the year that they are made.

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