Planet i

You and i: The Life of an i Architect – 1Q10 Edition

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:43:18 +0000

“How was your day,” my wife asks when I get home. I respond in the range of “Fantastic” to something less than that. And then...

Simply 'i': Remote Journalling and TCP/IP

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:48:10 +0000

I had always believed the TCP stack is pretty fault tolerant which would ensure data sent from one system would always arrive at the target intact. I appears that is a myth in certain circumstances? I recently had a note from Larry Yougren (Journal Guru) asking me to take a look at a journal IQ More >

midrange.com imho: Why Ad Blocking Is Harmful

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:00:17 +0000

Ars Technica has an interesting article on why banner ad blocking is harmful. They raise a very good point … There is an oft-stated misconception that if a user never clicks on ads, then blocking them won’t hurt a site financially. This is wrong. Most sites, at least sites the size of ours, are paid on a [...]

Simply 'i': Test Your journal knowledge

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:00:11 +0000

I was asked to take a look at the following link http://systeminetwork.com/article/test-your-journal-iq and thought I would share it! Some interesting points which I didn’t even know! Take the quiz and post your results as a comment.. Chris…

iDevelop: Ahhh - The Relaxing Business Travel Experience

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:36:16 +0000

Nothing technical or i-related here today. Perhaps many of you travel for business as we do. We thought we'd fill you in on our latest...

iSeries Redbooks: IBM Power 750 and 755 Technical Overview and Introduction

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:30:00 +0000

Redpaper, published: Tue, 9 Mar 2010

- Features the POWER7 processor providing advanced multi-core technology
- Discusses Power 755 model for high performance computing
- Describes leading midrange performance

This IBM® Redpaper™ publication is a comprehensive guide covering the IBM Power 750 and Power 755 server supporting AIX®, IBM i, and Linux® operating systems.

ILE RPG programming tips and techniques: How to half-adjust in free format RPG

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:34:13 +0000

Two common methods for Half-Adjust in RPG free format: 1.) Half-adjust using Eval. This example converts US pounds to kilos: /free kilos=0; if pounds > 0; eval(h) kilos =...

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i Can: i Can … Manage i with IBM Systems Director

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:00:00 +0000

IBM Systems Director is a multi-platform management solution that provides a consolidated view of your physical and virtual resources from a consistent Web-based user interface....

iSeries Redbooks: IBM Power 770 and 780 Technical Overview and Introduction

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:30:00 +0000

Draft Redpaper, last updated: Fri, 5 Mar 2010

- Featuring the POWER7 processor providing advanced multi-core technology
- Available Power 780 MaxCore and TurboCore modes redefining performance
- Designed to provide Enterprise-level RAS in a midrange footprint

his IBM® Redpaper is a comprehensive guide covering the IBM Power™ 770 and Power 780 servers supporting AIX, IBM i, and Linux operating systems.

ILE RPG programming tips and techniques: Free Format SQLRPGLE Shell Program: part 3

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:01:06 +0000

Author: Lionel Halvorsen Mar 1, 2010 To carry the shell example a little further, one could use the DSPOBJD command to create an outfile for the entire library and then run this program. The...

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iDevelop: Updates and News Tidbits

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:25:43 +0000

A few "bits and pieces" this week. First a follow up to last week's blog. In that post we said IBM's Hayden Lindsay stated that...

i Can: i Can … Reclaim Spooled Files

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:00:00 +0000

Have you ever worked with spooled files, whether using WRKSPLF or WRKOUTQ, and noticed the output queue or spooled files listed have a status that...

Confessions of an iSeries Priest: Yahoo Mail Spam Filters Block Efforts to Help Fight Spam

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 22:03:11 +0000

I was wondering if any one else has had this problem. Over the past couple of weeks I've had issues with Yahoo mail blocking my admittedly small efforts to fight spam. Every day I'd forward the messages in my spam folder to organizations like SpamCop.net, spam@uce.gov, and coldrain.net. However this past week or two I'm only able to forward maybe one or two messages a day before it started to block me from doing so with the following message:

Your message was not sent

Your account has been temporarily blocked from sending messages. This block can be caused by sending messages that trigger our spam filters, or by having too many recipients in one email. We encourage you to review the contents and recipient list of your message, and try sending it at after an hour or two. Doing so will usually resolve the matter.
If you are still unable to send messages after a 24-hour period, please read our FAQ for more information and to request Customer Care assistance.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Thanks,

The Yahoo! Mail Team

Of course I've contacted "The Yahoo! Mail Team" multiple times and I've changed my password. So far nada and now the problem is starting up on another Yahoo mail account that I forward spam messages from.

This issue is especially problematic with SpamCop because after 24 hours the timestamps in the headers of the spam messages become stale and SpamCop won't process them, so I end up deleting most of them. It's a sad irony that my endeavors to help in this fight against spam are being thwarted by the very Yahoo feature that is itself trying to protect email users by identifying spam sources within Yahoo mail. While I totally understand the purpose of this effort and applaud the work being done; In my case it's overreaching and needs to be tweaked in some way. Possibly if the the application could look at the recipient email list to see if they're being sent to spam fighting organizations first before deciding whether or not to block the account.

ILE RPG programming tips and techniques: Free Format SQLRPGLE Shell Program: part 2

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:54:02 +0000

Author: Lionel Halvorsen Feb 26, 2010 Now to use the shell from part one, this program will create an objects report like this; Library Object Type Attribute Description QGPL ...

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ILE RPG programming tips and techniques: Free Format SQLRPGLE Shell Program 1

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 06:16:12 +0000

Author: Lionel Halvorsen This is a portion of a shell program that I use for writing simple reports. There is only one file here and I only use two fields. The basic idea of the program is to use...

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midrange.com imho: Pete Helgren – COMMON BoD Candidate 2010

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:00:09 +0000

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 have [...]

Midrange Jobs: Lead ERP (EOne) Systems Analyst at Interstate Batteries (Dallas, Texas)

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:38:31 +0000

Lead ERP Systems Analyst - Perm position • Analyzes user requests to determine best practice solutions utilizing existing ERP systems whenever possible • Works with Project Managers and end us...

Midrange Jobs: Truck Drivers (CDL A) at PBA Nationwide (Kansas City, Missouri)

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:20:31 +0000

Needed immediately. Hazmat, and doubles a plus. Currently needing drivers for local regional and OTR positions. Must have a good MVR, and good back ground check. Were hiring good qualified drivers for...

iDevelop: More (or less) Rational Announcement

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Last Wednesday, we attended a meeting hosted jointly by our local user group, TUG, and by IBM/Rational to review the latest announcements related to Power...

Simply 'i': Latest release of RAP is covered in IT Jungle

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:37:47 +0000

IT Jungle just posted the announcement of the latest release of RAP. This release brings RAP into the HA category in terms of functionality due to the addition of new replication features and tools. This is the content published by ITJ Shield Adds IFS Replication to HA Offering Published: February 23, 2010 by Alex Woodie i/OS shops using Shield Advanced More >

Confessions of an iSeries Priest: Enterprise Extender PTFs Again

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:10:20 +0000

Once again the list of v5.4 Enterprise Extender recommended PTFs has left off some important patches. MF47274 & MF47275 can cause HPR-IP controllers to remain in an unusable VARY ON PENDING state, and varying them off and on again doesn't fix it.

Our lord Ib'm should have added MF47838 & MF47839 to the list. (Note that MF47838 supersedes MF47275). However there is still a problem because sometimes IPLing or restarting the system from a restricted state causes the controllers to again remain in a VARY ON PENDING state. Fortunately, this time it can be fixed by varying them off and then on again. Not a show-stopper, just an annoyance.

Ib'm support tells me there are two test PTFs that will resolve that problem too and they're in the process of granting me access to them. My advice to the users of HPR-IP controllers is to ignore MF47274, MF47838, and MF47839 until these test PTFs become available.

(Please see the comments for updates.)

i Can: i Can … Excel at SAP Benchmarking With IBM i 6.1 and POWER7

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:23:00 +0000

Ron Schmerbauch wrote this week’s blog on SAP. Ron is a member of the IBM i SAP Development Support team in the Rochester (Minn.) development...

You and i: ASP, SaaS and i

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:20:00 +0000

You can count on two things in business. First, any given enterprise wants to spend its time on its business, not on running its business....

Simply 'i': Setting up SSHD for access IBM’i’ with Zend Studio

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 01:07:09 +0000

One of the problems with the Zend Studio is the problems encountered when accessing the IBM ‘i’ using the FTP or mapped drive methods. I had a lot of problems getting the FTP server to connect the even more problems keeping the connection established while developing the code. I decided to look at the SSH connectivity, More >

Simply 'i': 5733SC1 for V6R1

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:48:11 +0000

IBM has changed how they ship the 5733SC1 LPP, for V6R1 it is included on the B29xx_02 CD and not shipped as on a separate CD. Another problem is the installation Menu Option 11 does not provide you with the option to install the product even though it is now included in the standard CD More >

Confessions of an iSeries Priest: Why the iSeries is Awesome, part 1: Command Prompting

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:29:37 +0000

Command prompting blew my mind when I first encountered it. Up until that point one had to have the manual by one's side (or the MAN pages up on another session) looking up parameters and their allowable options. However on the iSeries you don't need any of that stuff (unless of course you intend to do something hairy) because command prompting puts it all on the screen for you. All you have to do is find a command line, type the command you want, press the prompt key (F4) and presto, a screen appears with the parameters the command accepts.

Now this would be awesome enough, but our lord Ib'm didn't leave it at that. Down the middle of the screen are fields to enter the parameter values. On the left is a description and on the right is a list of the possible values that could be entered in each field. If you press function key 11 it will hide the allowable values and display the name for each parameter. Many of the fields will have default values already entered and the ones that are required will be highlighted. If any mistakes are made the command prompter will reverse image the field and display messages explaining the errors. (The messages have a feature that allows you to get help on what they mean and how to recover from them, but that's a subject for another posting.)

If the list of probable values doesn't fit and you want to know what else can be entered then move the cursor to that field, press the prompt key (F4) again, and a full list of allowable values for that parameter will appear. Don't know what the parameter does? Then instead press the help key (F1) and a detailed description of the parameter and all of its special values will appear. Need an explanation of what the command does? No sweat; from the first help screen press the extended help key (F2) and a full explanation of the command comes up.

You won't believe how incredibly easy it is to traverse the a command's help to find out what you need to enter where.

Finding Commands to Prompt

"But" I hear you saying, "how will I know what commands to enter", which is a valid concern, but our lord Ib'm has thought of that as well because they have provided the hapless user with many paths to the command you need. Standardized TLA's, command grouping menus, and generic command selection are just some of the ways in which you, the hapless user, can find your way to CL Command enlightenment.

Every command starts with a verb, like Change (CHG), or Delete (DLT), or Power-down (PWRDWN--and yes, "power-down" is a verb) and is followed by a subject (or noun), like program (PGM), module (MOD), device (DEV), job description (JOBD), etc. So the command to delete a program is "DLTPGM" or power-down the system is "PWRDWNSYS".

Another way to find a command is via the command grouping menus. To display a menu you execute the "GO" command with a menu name. To see a list of every verb and subject on the iSeries go to the VERB and SUBJECT menus. You can also go to individual command gouping menus by adding the prefix "CMD" to the TLA in question that you're curious about. (ie. GO CMDCHG, or GO CMDDLT, etc.)

Generic command selection is another good way to find commands. Say you want to compile a C++ program. To put it into iSeries lingo what you actually want to do is "create" a C++ program and on the iSeries the verb "create" is always spelled "CRT". So find a command line, type "CRT*", press enter, and you'll be presented with every command that starts with "CRT" (along with a one line description of what each one of them creates). There are of course way too many CRT commands to page through, so to make the list shorter we need to add letters between the "CRT" and the asterisk(*). Since it's a C++ program add a "C" (making it "CRTC*") and you'll find a much smaller and more manageable list to page through.

Confessions of an iSeries Priest: The Holy Day of Sunday.

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:52:27 +0000

Ah Sunday. A most holy day. Every week on this day, early in the morning, we save all of our parchment to tape and then apply PTFs (Parchment Temporary Fixes). Our lord Ib'm notifies us of scriptural re-interpretations during the week and we copy and set them to be applied on Sunday mornings.

I've always loved this process; making sure all references are up to date. Many churches I've been to never see the wisdom of keeping up with the changes. That is until they make a doctrinal decision that disagrees with our Lord and his wrath can be brutal. Then they see the light. Like a overweight person who has a heart attack and gets the "wake-up call" to start eating right and exercising.

If you spend your entire life eating the right foods, getting enough exercise, not smoking, etc. At the end of your life you will never really know if these behaviors made your elder days longer or more enjoyable, but somehow in your heart you will know you avoided bad things. Believe me, it's the right course. I've lived through enough tornados and meteors to know that keeping the PTFs up to date is worth it.

So if you're not paying attention to those High Impact Parchment Enhancements or Repairs (HIPER) , Parchment Errors (PE), or Cumulative PTF Packages (CumPacks) then you need to get on the job for as I've said, the wrath of Ib'm can be harsh. Our Lord Ib'm maintains a vast collection of information on this subject and you can start your education in PTFs here: Guide to Fixes.

Confessions of an iSeries Priest: Welcome

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:16:51 +0000

Greetings,

I am Father Joe, a high priest in the decidedly low-brow minority religion of iSeries worship. Ours was once the envy of all the other dogmas, but now we toil in semi-darkness hoping that our lord Ib'm will bestow upon us some badly needed grace. It's sad really. We have a beautiful and vibrant mythos which is being overshadowed by the bright lights of some very bizarre faiths, some of which are being promoted by our aforementioned lord.

In any case, I don't want to dwell too much on the mundane or depressing subjects. Future posts will no doubt be more interesting.

Confessions of an iSeries Priest: A small monestary needs my services.

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:16:04 +0000

I received word yesterday that a small monestary not far from me is in need of my services. I felt a warmth on the back of my neck when I read it, for the position is one that I was trained for as a youth but never practiced as an adult: writing prayer books and illustrating scripture.

Since graduating all those years ago I've only been preaching, hearing confessions, advising the parishoners, helping the downtrodden, and all the other work involved with running or helping to run various small to large churches. I've never actually written a prayer book from scratch or copied the holy word onto new parchment since completing my studies.

In school, if I do say so myself, I was quite a good artist/caligrapher and I always enjoyed it. The different inks & writing implements, the smell of new parchment, applying the gold leaf just so. I even did some projects where groups of us re-interpreted the holy word of our lord. Out in the world there wasn't much call for those skills. There are of course many times that I must repair old books and re-illustrate pages here and there. It feels like the old days but all-in-all it's not really the same.

The local baron of my latest church seems indifferent to me, but his son (who is also his right-hand man) loves my work. He is a a true convert, so I know that our church will always be welcome here. We have many parishoners and they're always complementing my sermons and my work. The parish is large enough that I'm always busy and I am comfortable here and feel secure in their love.

The monestary is very small and the working conditions & it's influence in the larger community are largely unknown. I'm not such a young man anymore and leaving my current parish would be viewed as a betrayal by the Baron's son, so if I left there would be no coming back.

What would you do?

Confessions of an iSeries Priest: Father Joe's Confessional

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:12:33 +0000

I've added a confessional to the side bar. If anyone wants to confess their past sins or simply ask for advice please free. All appropriate confessions will be kept in the strictest confidence.

Confessions of an iSeries Priest: New iSeries Bishop

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:09:55 +0000

Bishop Michael Borman after only six months has been promoted to cardinal and taking his place as the latest in a series of iSeries church leaders for marketing is Bishop Mark Shearer. Reading the article I couldn't help but feel a sense of dread. How often have we heard that our little corner of computerdom was finally going to be properly marketed only to see even poorer results down the road?

The problem of course is that our lord Ib'm wants to be all things to all people. As a strategy for the church as a whole it probably works, but it also means that the little niche sects don't get the attention they deserve and our little iSeries world becomes smaller and smaller as the years unfold. The last conference I attended I noticed that there were no young people there. Everyone was middle aged and that's not good.

We would have been better off if Pope John Akers had been allowed to continue with his vision to dissolve the larger church into smaller totally independent units. The iSeries sect would have flourished because it would have been able to preach its own sermon and promote itself. Instead we're a small niche in a huge organization that itself is preaching one sermon to a diverse world and we can't survive that.

Confessions of an iSeries Priest: Apache update v2.0.52 has problems.

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:09:22 +0000

On our web server V5R3 PTF 5722DG1-SI17010 causes HTTP/500 server failures. It might be related to SSL because our non-SSL web servers weren't affected. We're currently in touch with the almighty on this problem. Originally support thought it was related to another problem but the messages in the error log were different.

Ib'm requested and we collected an HTTP trace with the PTF applied and it's been zipped up and emailed to support. I'll add comments to this article when we know the outcome.

Confessions of an iSeries Priest: Microsoft Uses the iSeries to Run its Business.

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:08:30 +0000

Rumors have abounded for years that the false religion of Microsoft, who touts that large parishes can be run using Windows servers, actually runs their organization using more than a few iSeries systems. The heathens have always officially denied it, but the rumors don't go away. The story also goes that some time in the 1990's they tried to replace their iSeries systems with 1,200 Windows servers in a year-long project that was eventually scrapped because A) they couldn't process the data as fast as the iSeries and B) they had problems keeping so many servers operational.

If you have Windows XP then click this link (or cut and past it into an open browser window):
file:///C:/WINDOWS/Help/Tours/htmlTour/best_secure.htm
It's a web page that exists on every Windows XP machine as part of the Windows introductory tour.

According to supposedly well-connected sources the image on this page is from one of Microsoft's computer rooms in Redmond, WA. (I've also included it at left in case either you don't have Windows XP or the image at the above link is different on your version of the page.) The pic also appeared on the online Windows XP tour but Microsoft pulled it recently when it came to light what it represented.

The beige racks that take up most of the image on the left constitute a single AS/400 system circa 1991. (This is what the iSeries was called before our lord Ib'm rebranded all their platforms with the "Series" suffix.) The actual processor rack is on the far left. The next two are expansion racks holding feature cards and tape drives. The fourth rack appears to house the system's disk drives. (Probably not Ib'm drives.) Around this time Ib'm main frame computers were also housed in similar looking rack configurations. You can tell it's an AS/400 because there's a blue ribbon with a gold seal that runs diagonally down the side of each rack. Those are Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award ribbons and the only IBM systems they were ever affixed to were AS/400's.

Of course to be fair the minions of that false religion would counter that the existence of a picture of an old AS/400 system on every Windows XP machine doesn't prove that Microsoft uses that system to run it's organization and I would have to admit that such an assertion is technically correct. It doesn't prove anything, but it sure is a fun urban legend, especially for a group as beleaguered as the iSeries faithful.

Thanks to my friend and colleague Rabbi Mark for bringing this one to my attention.

Confessions of an iSeries Priest: Some Source to Download

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:08:02 +0000

A colleague of mine has posted some programmer tools on his web site. Just click on the above link. The functions include service programs for Dynamic Arrays, Subfile Control, and Message Subfile Control. He's also included an example program that illustrates using the latter two service programs.

Confessions of an iSeries Priest: IBM PE's seven PTFs for V5R4.

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:07:12 +0000

While my pastoral duties at this community are normally rather dull, my favorite activity is working with the most holy code (i5/OS) and PTFs (Parchment Temporary Fixes). I especially love it when I find an error in the code that causes the cardinals and bishops in Rochester to do something drastic.

A couple months ago, as part of a HIPER recommendation, we installed PTF 5722SS1-SI34484. The following Monday morning the BACKUP job was looping forever waiting for an HTTP server job to end. We didn't associate it with the PTF right away because this isn't the first time the backup got held up by something like this. By the time we'd figured out that this was a trend we'd already installed another HIPER recommendation, PTF 5722SS1-SI34576, which superceded the one installed previously.

So we were now stuck in an untenable situation. We couldn't remove the PTF and we didn't want to reload the O/S. Being in this kind of pickle can really focus the mind. I ended up writing a program that detected these zombie HTTP server jobs and killed them with ENDJOBABN.

The minions of our Lord Ib'm eventually discovered that a thread in the HTTP job was prematurely destroying the list of open files. The job would then sit there forever waiting of the files to close not knowing that that list was gone. In the end they had to PE a bunch of PTF's and since two of them were HIPER recommendations the fixing PTF (SI35317) was also made a HIPER.

Final tally was seven PE'ed PTFs and one HIPER, all from one PMR.

Confessions of an iSeries Priest: Recommended PTFs for Enterprise Externder is Incomplete.

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:24:59 +0000

The list of V5R4 recommended PTFs for Enterprise Extender (EE) is incomplete. I had to open a PMR with the minions of our Lord Ib'm because the old testament SNA communiation controllers on our development coding system failed to connect to the production systems, so we were unable to use SAVRSTOBJ.

The support priest sent me the complete list of recommended PTFs for EE and we were missing three PTFs. I have since confirmed that those were probably the three that we needed because after applying them the systems are again able to communicate using the old protocol.

When I checked I found that the EE list noted above wasn't up to date. I've sent feedback to the keepers of the web site, but as a courtesy I thought I'd post the complete list here as well:

PTF	Release	Cumulative Tape	Modules
MF40235	540	7107	HPRIP ctlr with exchange ID defined will not vary on and SDLC XID has problem if HPR=YES.
MF43629	540	8305	*HPRIP ctlr with exchange ID defined will not vary on.
MF42291	540	8183	DLUR and HPRIP controllers go vary on pending after Activate instead of VARIED ON, CPA58D1. MSCP changed to allow DLUR to recover on VTAM deactivate or activate.
MF42499	540	8057	NETWORK ID ALWHPTWR and HPR are *YES, ICF applications fail w/CPF5535, jobs remain in a UNKNOWN state. Sequence of BAD XID network frames case EE to be improperly initialized with invalid controller's values.
MF42587	540	8057	EE HPRIP controller remains in VaryOnPending status with no XID's being sent out.
MF45692	540	1000	EE using HPR and RTP receives timeout error. application joblogs show CPF5355. APPN&SrcSink shows RTPburst timer did not expire AND EE/HPR CONNECTION STALLS AND NO DATA IS SENT
MF44200	540	8305	EE endnode unable to locate a CICS region on ZOS LPAR
MF43891	540	8305	LDLC remains in a reset status, LatePrenegotiation XID does not send a NULL XID on its own.
MF45851	540	1000	HPR config is active, but active connections lock up, When you vary off APPC *HPRIP controllers and vl 07000C1F occurs, the process to activate PTF. An IPL will be needed to reset error condition. AND EE/HPR stops sending data when incoming stream data packet missing
MF46217	540	1000	EE task may block streams on gate before error is sent back
MF46237	540	1000	Vary On HPRIP CTL fails after IPL, XID does not complete
MF44897	545	8305	DLUR and HPRIP controllers go vary on pending after Activate instead of VARIED ON, CPA58D1. MSCP changed to allow DLUR to recover on VTAM deactivate or activate.
MF45170	545	9104	NETWORK ID ALWHPTWR and HPR are *YES, ICF applications fail w/CPF5535, jobs remain in a UNKNOWN state. Sequence of BAD XID network frames case EE to be improperly initialized with invalid controller's values.
MF44262	545	8305	*HPRIP ctlr with exchange ID defined will not vary on.
MF45881	545	9104	HEA fc181X and Virtual Ethernet fc268C lossing data in UDP layer
MF46122	545	8305	NETWORK ID ALWHPTWR and HPR are *YES, ICF applications fail w/ CPF5535 and will now accept retransmitted frames in BIND.
MF43329	545	8183	Partition/system crash with srcB6005121 on vary of EE controller
MF44072	545	8183	EE HPRIP controller remains in VaryOnPending status with no XID's being sent out
	545	do not order - test status	MF44344 - EE/HPR ICF application fails. CPF5107 E015 unbind received RTP did not check for this error
MF46366	545	1000	Vary On HPRIP CTL fails after IPL, XID does not complete
MF46218	545	1000	EE task may block streams on gate before error is sent back
MF46063	545	1000	APPC using HPR/EE gets RTP timeout
MF46064	545	1000	EE endnode unable to locate a CICS region on ZOS LPAR

Jenniefer Halverson's Open Salon Blog: Barbie the Geek and i

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:02:10 +0000

Why did it take Mattel so long to make a Computer Engineer Barbie?

In 1990, I pryed a Barbie at her PC toy from my baby's Happy Meal filled hands. Note the cool skirt and ankle straps...

...and the hair, evidence of a mom vs daughter with fries episode.

Today I received my Manta CD. Tomorrow I will begin my quest into geekness...Barbie-style.

**note to self, appointment for highlites next week!

The Buzz: Geek Barbie, Courtesy of You!

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:35:56 +0000

My very most favorite and most memorable toys from my childhood were Barbie dolls. I think it had something to do with my vivid imagination....

ILE RPG programming tips and techniques: Prototyping and passing parameters in ILE RPG

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:24:38 +0000

The intent of this article is to explain prototype parameters and procedure interface specifications in a basic, straight-forward fashion. You probably already know that the ILE RPG programmer can...

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iDevelop: Open Source and i: Not an Oxymoron

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 19:03:47 +0000

You've probably read a lot lately (including from us) about taking advantage of cross-platform open-source applications written in PHP. You may or may not be...

Musings, rants on open source and IBM i: A Busybox encounter

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:18:32 +0000

If you have worked with embedded systems you have probably bumped into Busybox. If you are a long time Linux geek, you probably know Busybox. My first encounter with Busybox started last weekend and has been almost non-stop since. Here is the scoop:

You know that I have a Java based Absence Management System called ASAAP . I have recently been contracted to develop an automated time clock system and make it work seamlessly with a payroll package. I naively figured it would be a snap. This being the 21st Century, I figured I’d just find a electronic time clock that had a JDBC compliant interface and within a couple of weeks hook it up to ASAAP which already has payroll posting capabilities. After poking around the Internet, attempting to contact sales people and gather information, I settled on a clock that had a “polling” package to collect the data on a scheduled basis and also push the employee information up to the clock.

After receiving the clock and having a chance to try it out, I was less than enamored with the user interface and my attempts to interface with the DB were frustrated by the fact the DB was an MS Access DB and the JDBC-ODBC bridge is slow and unreliable. What I wanted was something that allowed secure access to the data over a network. So, back to square one.

The company I had purchased the timeclock from had a “barebones” configuration that basically had nothing but a scripting api that accessed clock functions in a embedded Linux distro called Busybox. So, I went with the “start from scratch” approach and have been learning (and re-learning) Linux commands and their particular implementation in Busybox.

This tiny footprint Linux distro is pretty cool and the folks on the Busybox mailing list have been very tolerant of this noob as I have bumbled my way through the learning curve. At this point I have a functioning application that will take input from the keypad or the Proximity badge scan (RFID), look up the employee in the database, display the employee name, prompt them for a punch in or out and store that information in the database.

Next step is to work on data import/export. Unfortunately the Busybox distro I am working with has a relatively old version of Sqlite3 which doesn’t support JDBC, so my plan is to use the HTTP server and CGI to post data to and retrieve data from the DB. THAT should be fun!

So I’ll keep you posted on the progress (or lack thereof). All in all, Busybox provides enough to work with to build this application, I just need the smarts to make it work.

Simply 'i': Replicate system using RAP utilities

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:37:05 +0000

We are in the process of building our new i520 ready to take over the development role from the old 520. One of the problems we came across was the use of the virtual images we have been using for the daily saves, unfortunately the FTP transfers always set the CCSID to 00819 event though More >

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