IBM i in the Cloud?

Aaron Bartell posted an interesting link to a new Frankeni Technology pursuit: IBM i Personal Development in the cloud (leaked by iGor, aka Jim Oberholtzer, on the WEB400 list). This should be VERY interesting … watch that space.

COMMON 2010

Well, another COMMON Conference & Annual Meeting is in the bag. I’m currently at my departure gate in Orlando Airport and I figured this is a great time to make a post (especially since they have free wifi). My current, totally unscientific, impression is that attendance was up. I’ve heard other people, including COMMON officers,…

Kevin Mort – COMMON BoD Candidate 2010

First, I’d like to say “Thank you” to David Gibbs, who kindly offered this opportunity to this year’s Board of Directors candidates. Having an open platform for all of us to share our views on COMMON can only be a benefit to the electoral process. Here we are, getting ready to celebrate COMMON’s 50th Anniversary,…

Jeff Carey – COMMON BoD Candidate 2010

Is COMMON relevant? COMMON today isn’t what it was a few years ago. And it certainly isn’t what it was when it started. And that’s a good thing. From a kitchen meeting in 1960, to two yearly meetings of thousands at our peak, to the current offerings of COMMON, COMMON has the one characteristic of…

RPG Open Access

Aaron Bartell wrote about the new RPG Open Access (RPGOA) feature available for IBM i. The biggest problem with RPGOA is the cost … it’s not included in the base OS or RPG compiler. The cost is $500 – $5000, based on your system tier. As the IBM i community has demonstrated repeatedly … charging extra…

Business Problems Will Solve the i Crisis

Everyone keeps harping on how our beloved AS/400s, iSeries and IBM i systems are going the way of the dinosaur but nobody seems to offer a way to remedy the situation. Many folks keep criticizing IBM for not running more space ads in industry publications or on television but I think they are missing the…

Richardson: The Amazing Resilience of the AS/400

I ran across an interesting post by Bruce Richardson of Infor: When I joined Infor a few months ago, I was surprised to learn that so many companies continue to run our software on the IBM System i platform. This was a product line that many analysts, myself included, had started to write off 15…

COMMON 2010

It’s time for the COMMON Conference once again … this time in Orlando Florida. This conference will be especially auspicious because it’s the 50th anniversary of the COMMON organization. If you would like to say Hi, stop by the MKS booth on the expo floor. You can also pick up an official midrange.com button. I…

Pete Helgren – COMMON BoD Candidate 2010

Editors note: This is the (hopefully) first in a series of posts by guest authors … all of whom are candidates for the COMMON Board of Directors. These articles will be posted in the order they are received, with no preference being given to anyone. I love the i and the Power platform and I…

Quick Tip: API data lengths

Here’s a quick tip for troubleshooting API calls: If you are calling an API and notice that data you are expecting isn’t being provided, verify that you are allocating enough space for the return values and telling it how much space you’ve allocated. Many APIs require you to allocate space to hold the returned info…