Deep Thoughts with Richard Schoen

I recently found an interesting site that lists open source alternatives to several software products such as Veritas Backup Exec, Microsoft Office, Visio and more.  if your shop is considering using open source products or you’re just curious to learn more about the open source alternative products available, check out the Open Source Alternative site.

IBM’s announcement of the System i blades is probably one of the most compelling statements by IBM that the System i landscape is changing and I believe it’s for the better. 

First and foremost this is an improvement on the scenario we have used for the past ten years on the iSeries with the integrated xServer cards.  They have always been one step behind current technology and have been seen as a second class way of deploying Windows on the iSeries.  However I’ve used the integrated server cards for years and found them to be very stable.

From a practical perspective the new Blade cards will allow shops such as RJS to truly consolidate their iSeries, Windows, Linux or AIX environments all together in a shared chassis with shared disk and less cables.  RJS is planning to implement one of the Blade Centers internally to consolidate our own server sprawl. I’ll post updates as we move forward.

Some say this is the end of the System i.  I say it’s just the beginning of a new way of life where our System i servers live harmonious with all of the other servers in our shops. Only time will tell for sure. Goodbye to cable and server sprawl.

I can’t say I agree with the new name change to “i”, but read about the cool new Blade Server technology here at the IBM i web site.

Check out the news release for iForms, our new native Electronic Forms and Report Writing software. Business reporting, data exporting and electronic forms in a single native iSeries applicationhttp://www.rjssoftware.com/news/news-press/iforms-press-release

Check out the news release for iPDF, our new native PDF API for RPG developers
http://www.rjssoftware.com/news/news-press/ipdf-press-release

Check out Bob Cozzi’s iSeries TV site for a Podcast done at the 19th Annual Omni Technical Conference in Chicago. This month, Bob Cozzi previews the WDSC 7 announcement. Then he visits the 19th Annual OMNI User Tech Conference–the oldest and largest Chicagoland User Group. Includes interviews with Joe Pluta from Pluta Brothers, David Gibbs from Midrange.com, Help Systems and Derek Nordaune of RJS Software Systems.  There’s also some footage from Randall Munson’s RJS sponsored presentation entitled: Discover the Magic of System i.

I found myself needing to use some Javascript this week and learned that my Javascripting skills were a little rusty.  During my travels on the web I found the following site that had some nice techniques.  Bookmark Javascripter.net as a Javascripting resource.�

Well, we completed our first round of .Net for iSeries Developers training after our initial class in Minneapolis and the second class in Phoenix wrapped up this week. It was fun to see our class attendees open their eyes to the new world of .Net programming and how .Net can be used to enhance their existing iSeries application code without re-writing existing iSeries business logic. Almost every customer we talk to is doing something or has plans to do something with .Net technology. As iSeries developers, learning .Net technology can make us much more valuable by having RPG skills, .Net skills and business analysis skills. Whether you learn .Net from RJS and High Monkey or on your own, make sure you take a look at how this technology can help you organization bring existing iSeries applications to the desktop or web without using the green screen.

I just spent my first day using the new Websphere Development Studio Client V7.0. The product was released this week and we promptly downloaded and installed it for testing. My biggest beef against using WDSC previously was the startup time of the development environment.  I would start the environment and walk away for 20 minutes while it started up.  The new environment is based on Eclipse 3.2 so the startup time has been dramatically improved. If you’re an iSeries RPG or Java developer you simply have to make the move to this new version as soon as possible.  I just may have to give up SEU in the near future.  Well…….maybe

OK, I don’t usually hang out at sites such as youtube, but……. I was down at my inlaws a few weeks back and was reading the local Madison, WI newspaper and it talked about a local film producer doing a series of shorts on Chad Vader.  If you grew up in the Star Wars generation as I did, you will probably find these funny.  If not, feel free to not watch Chad Vader.

If you’re interested in hearing more about how .Net can be used to modernize iSeries applications, check out the following Podcast at iSeries Network.  Virgill Carroll talks with Wayne Madden about why .Net is relevent to all iSeries shops.