Planet i

Concept for the Day: Process Acceptance Certificate:

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:00:32 +0000

A certificate or other document that is completed immediately prior to a new or modified process being accepted into the live environment for business use. It provides a degree of confidence that all required activities have been undertaken to ensure that the service is capable of being delivered to the process owner's satisfaction.

Incomplete tasks should be recorded here as should the degree of risk to which these shortcomings are now exposing the business. Based upon that information, the decision can be taken as to whether the new or changed process should be released into the live environment.

Concept for the Day: Automated Clearing House:

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:22:00 +0000

Automated Clearing House (ACH) is the name of an electronic network for financial transactions in the United States. ACH processes large volumes of both credit and debit transactions which are originated in batches.

ACH credit transfers include direct deposit payroll and vendor payments. ACH direct debit transfers include consumer payments on insurance premiums, mortgage loans, and other kinds of bills. Businesses are also increasingly using ACH to collect from customers online, rather than accepting credit or debit cards.
Uses of the ACH payment system
• Debit card transactions
• Direct deposit of payroll, Social Security and other government benefits, and tax refunds
• Direct debit payment of consumer bills such as mortgages, loans, utility bills, and insurance premiums, rents, and any other regular payment.
• Business-to-business (B2B) payments
• E-commerce payments
• Federal, state, and local tax payments
• Bank Treasury management departments sell this service to business and government customers

System i5 New Generation Computing: Using API’s to gather Information QUSRJOBI

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 01:16:02 +0000

We have been usin API’s to gather information for sometime in our products so we have had to work out how to use quite a number with some interesting results! To say the manuals are hard to understand is only part of the problem, even reading through the header files trying to determin exactly [...]

iSeries Redbooks: DB2 9 for z/OS: Deploying SOA Solutions

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Draft Redbook, last updated: Sat, 15 Nov 2008

- Understand the role of DB2 for z/OS in SOA
- Develop and test Web services with Data Studio
- Utilize WebSphere DataPower Appliance

Flexibility in business has become equal in importance with operational efficiency.

System i Blogger: This can’t be good - SUN to lay off 6000 employees

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 04:54:19 +0000

It’s not going to be easy to get throught this hard economic time. Sadly SUN was not in a position I think to survive it anyway. They have been on the bubble for years. I wish all the empoyees who got thier walking papers good luck, there are jobs out there you just have to be creative.

LINK :: Sun to lay off 6000 Workers

System i Management Tip: 11/12/08 WRKACTJOB - the F21 key

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:03:00 +0000

By default, the WRKACTJOB screen shows commands at the top of the screen, but when you press F21, these commands are hidden and you will see six additional jobs on the screen. Disclaimer: Vision Solutions makes every effort to provide accurate system management information and programming code; however the company cannot be held liable for the accuracy of information nor its compatibility in

Search400: Users dish on System i compliance

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:00:06 +0000

SkyView Partners has announced a new release of its Policy Minder software for IBM i and i5/OS. It includes a new graphical user interface (GUI) to help users in doing security policy compliance. "The power of Policy Minder has really been harnessed by the enhanced interface as it provides a new ...

Search400: Report: Frank Soltis leaving IBM?

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:00:06 +0000

Frank Soltis, who is considered the father of the AS/400 and its various sequels, will reportedly be leaving IBM at the end of this year. He has been with IBM for about 40 years and has penned two books on the platform: Inside the AS/400 back in 1997, and Fortress Rochester: ...

Search400: Ross Mauri tackles System i questions in chat

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:00:07 +0000

Ross Mauri, the general manager of IBM Power Systems, held forth at a fireside chat at iSociety earlier this week. The full transcript of the chat is worth reading. Hat tip to David Vasta for the heads-up. Here are a few excerpts of the transcript. On early feedback of System i ...

Concept for the Day: DB2 – Buffer Pool:

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 07:22:00 +0000

A buffer pool is an area of storage in memory into which database pages (containing table rows or index entries) are temporarily read and changed. The purpose of the buffer pool is to improve database system performance. Data can be accessed much faster from memory than from a disk. Therefore, the fewer times the database manager needs to read from or write to a disk, the better the performance. The configuration of one or more buffer pools is the single most important tuning area, since it is here that most of the data manipulation takes place for applications connected to the database (excluding large objects and long field data).

By default, applications use the buffer pool called IBMDEFAULTBP, which is created when the database is created. The DB2 database configuration parameter BUFFPAGE controls the size of a buffer pool when the value of NPAGES is -1 for that buffer pool in the SYSCAT.BUFFERPOOLS catalog table. Otherwise the BUFFPAGE parameter is ignored, and the buffer pool is created with the number of pages specified by the NPAGES parameter.

Young i Professionals: Nov 13th Conference Call Scheduled

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:00:04 +0000

There is a YiPs Conference Call scheduled tomorrow (Thurs. Nov. 13th) @ noon CST.

The call in information can be found in the Conference Calls section of the Forums.

On the agenda for the call:

Website Updates and New Content
Plans for upcoming COMMON Conference in Reno, NV

Please join us to discuss the direction of the group.

System i Blogger: Ross Mauri - Chat Transcript from iSociety

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 01:20:23 +0000

Ross Mauri is the new POWER SYSTEM Exec at IBM over all the POWER SYSTEMS. iSociety held a fireside chat with him to find out how things are going at IBM with the new single hardware platform, POWER!

Here is the Transcript @ iSociety

System i Blogger: The Father of the now IBM i, Frank Soltis, is not working at IBM anymore

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:42:38 +0000

Frank Soltis, the father of the IBM AS/400 in 1988, is rumored to not be working at IBM anymore. Let go or whatever, it’s hard news for a person like me to stomach. It’s pretty sad really. Frank has always been that rock star engineer who quantified the IBM i. He was the corner stone and in person a super nice guy.

There is think Thread in the Midrange.com Site and it’s an opinion, one which I agree with parts of but is not my writting.

While I don’t have anymore details than that I can’t seem to find anything further. Seems I am kind of breaking news here. So if anyone has any details and would like to share them I am going to be putting out feelers for what has happened to Frank. He’s not going to be at IBM anymore which scares me as an IBM i person, but maybe IBM is going to fix the problems with marketing now that he is gone….probabaly not.

More to come….

Concept for the Day: Add Recipients to Group in Address Book:

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:26:00 +0000

Either while reading an email message, or when it is selected in a folder/view, choose "Actions - Add Recipients - to new Group in Address Book".

You will be presented with the following dialog box where you enter the group's name, type (normally you just leave this as Mail only), description, and select/de-select with members you want the group to contain.

When you press OK, Lotus Notes will automatically create a new mailing group (some people call them distribution lists) in your Personal Address Book, which you can access from the "Groups" view.

Now when creating an email or calendar entry, you can simply enter the group name instead of typing in all the names individually. For example, if I named the group above "IBM Executive Team", then I could enter than in the To field...

and when I press F9 to refresh the document, the group name will be replaced with the names of the members.

IT Jungle -- Four Hundred Guru: Four Hundred Guru--What Is AJAX?

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:00:14 +0000

If you happen to dabble with any sort of Web development (or even if you don't), you have probably heard of Asynchronous JavaScript and Extensible Mark-up Language (XML)--better known as AJAX.

IT Jungle -- Four Hundred Guru: Four Hundred Guru--Retrieve the User ID at Run Time In a .NET Environment

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:00:14 +0000

I am coding a .NET reporting application. The new .NET reports need to look like the old iSeries reports with the user name at the top. I am using the DB2 managed provider to connect to the data files.

IT Jungle -- Four Hundred Guru: Four Hundred Guru--Admin Alert: Readers Pimp Joe's Font, Win No-Prize

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:00:14 +0000

On behalf of Admin Alert reader Jean-Pierre, I recently challenged my readers to a contest to pimp my PC5250 font size in a consistent and validly cool manner. A number of readers responded and they solved Jean-Pierre's problem, winning themselves no-prizes in the bargain. Here's how our most recent challenge came about and how it was solved.

iDevelop: Why Wait? Start Using Modern Development Tools Now

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:19:00 +0000

Last week, we had the pleasure of inducting some new members into the RSE fan club. We taught RSE (the Remote System Explorer in WDSC...

iSeries Redbooks: IBM System Blue Gene Solution: Performance Analysis Tools

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:00:00 +0000

Draft Redpaper, last updated: Tue, 11 Nov 2008

- PAPI installation and usage
- Tools to visualize and analyze your performance data
- I/O node and GPFS performance tuning

This IBM® Redpaper publication is one in a series of IBM documents written specifically for the IBM System Blue Gene/P Solution.

WDSC Development Team: yantzi

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:44:15 +0000

I’m heading to Wisconsin to present at the Winsonsin Midrange Computer Professional Association (WMCPA)’s Fall Conference. I’ll be covering 3 presentations (Customizing the RSE, Debugging, and What’s New in RDi 7.1 and WDSC 7.0) and one open lab (Using RSE, Customizing RSE, and Working offline with projects). These are standard presentations I have given before, but [...]

Concept for the Day: Affiliated Retailer:

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 06:04:00 +0000

1. An independent retailer that purchases products and services from a cooperative wholesaler.

2. Independent retailer who affiliates with other independent retailers under a common trade name for merchandising purposes. A group of such independent retailers will advertise under this common trade name.

Well known examples of affiliated groups are SUPERVALU, Certified Grocers of California and Independent Grocers Association in the United States.

IT Jungle -- Four Hundred Stuff: Four Hundred Stuff--When the Taxman Cometh, Independent Systems Is There