Technical Articles - PowerWire

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Technical Articles

A collection of 260 posts

A screen a story – IBM i Startup Program QSTRUPPGM?

A screen a story – IBM i Startup Program QSTRUPPGM?

Although it is possible not to use a Start-up program, finding a customer who does not use one, is like finding a needle in a haystack. Please allow me to use another expression which, when finishing reading this article makes sense for you: “if it ain’t broke don’t

A computer screen with many colorful lines Description automatically generated

Language Comparisons Continued …

In my previous article, I explored a range of functions and delved into how syntax varies across different programming languages. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, I highly recommend giving it a read. You can find the article right here. As a quick reminder,

Head outline and magnifying glass

Language Comparison's

As the landscape of programming continues to evolve, many of us IBM i developers find ourselves exploring a diverse array of languages beyond those with which we began our coding journey. As more and more of us get involved with different languages I thought it would be a good idea

A screen a story – WRKACTJOB?

A screen a story – WRKACTJOB?

One of the commands used by every system administrator is WRKACTJOB. I think it if fair to say that this command is in their top 10 most often used commands. It might for some be the rock solid number one of all time. In order see what is happening on

A screen a story – the system value QSECURITY

A screen a story – the system value QSECURITY

You may wonder what the screen below has to do with the system value QSECURITY. A change in this system value was part of the announcement of IBM i 7.5, which had a strong focus on security. Level 20 is no longer supported and a new system is shipped

Generating PDFs

Generating PDFs

Those of you that took a look at my updating of open source packages on IBM i, will know that I have always been one for recommending the conversions of Spool files to PDFs when ever possible. My open source updating article can be found here https://powerwire.uk/open-source-updates/

A screen a story – Sometimes a question mark is not enough

A screen a story – Sometimes a question mark is not enough

By now you must be getting used to seeing a new version of IBM i Access Client Solutions (ACS) every time a new Technology Refresh (TR) is released – you are keeping your ptf’s up to date aren’t you?! In the official announcement letter we can read what is

RPG Data-Gen Operational Code

Looking back at when I first started writing articles for PowerWire.eu nine years ago, I was bought onboard to cover RPG articles. Looking back over the last few years I have failed miserably in this task and maybe got too carried away in the ‘open-source’ frenzy. In this anniversary

Eclipse AI Chat Integration

My good friends at Remain Software have just released an AI chat integration feature for Eclipse and Rational Developer for i . According to their website, ‘This tool leverages the power of AI to provide contextual suggestions, code snippets, bug checking and documentation proposals. Empowering you to write code faster and

A screen a story – A User Reporting Slow ODBC Performance

In my last article I wrote: “IBM i Services allows a modern system administrator to move away from having to use 5250 emulation, not because you should, but because using IBM i services is quicker in getting the job done. In my next episode of a screen a story I

A screen a story – The Contact Information National language version

Recently Scott Forstie created an SQL script allowing you to create a procedure with which it is a piece of cake to review the special instruction PTFs. What the link is between the contact information and the PTF cover letters is something I will explain later on. Please allow me

A screen a story – The Run SQL Scripts bottom bar

If IBM is following the same schedule as it has in previous years it is fair to say that a new version of IBM i Access Client Solution (ACS) is waiting just around the corner. In the past April was the month in which a new ACS version was released

DB2 for i Multisystem

In this article I will be taking a look at a feature we should all be installing, and using, on our IBM i servers. As I mentioned in a recent article I wrote on the advance job scheduler (which can be found here), IBM announced in May 2022 that half

A screen a story – What does “move active records” mean?

The latest Technology Refresh (TR) for IBM i 7.4 and 7.5 has something new within them for reorganizing a file. If you have lost count of the TR levels IBM i 7.4 is at TR7 and IBM i 7.5 is at TR1. Every time a new

Node-RED & Security

I gave a quick demonstration of Node-RED to a client recently and I didn’t get the response I was expecting. On bringing up the Node-RED browser interface, the first question I got asked was why doesn’t Node-RED use a TLS (Transport Layer Security), or SSL (Secure Socket Layer)

A screen a story – What does this button do? Part II

In my last article A screen a story – What does this button do? The SQL button was used to retrieve SQL statements which I then tweaked to get the job done. The purpose of it all was to build an SQL script to automate changing the object owner of a

Node-RED & DB2 for i Connector

I know I said in my last article that was the end of my little project on the Raspberry Pi with Machine Learning talking to the IBM i. Well since my last piece I have found how to correct a couple of the moans I had with Node-RED on the

A screen a story – What does this SQL button do?

When working in the IT business we all appreciate it if we are being helped by the operating system. For that purpose in the New Navigator for I IBM created the SQL button. Should we all start to use the name Navigator for i or keep it short, like I

A screen a story – Not our problem anymore

Last week I ran into an issue, which did teach me something new about the command WRKPRB. After checking a test LPAR after having applied the latest group PTFs for IBM i 7.4, I noticed the following when checking the apply: When looking at the joblog of QSYSCOMM1 spoolfiles

Raspberry Pi and Machine Learning

In this follow on from my last PowerWire article on ActiveMQ, we will be using a Raspberry Pi, with Machine Learning, to take photos of birds feeding in our garden. This part of the series will focus on the ML segment to take a photograph and let machine learning decide

Cleaning Up Spoolfiles - Record Count

Because sometimes I get the most interesting challenges to play with! On a dark and stormy night, or if we want to be precise a grey and miserable afternoon… I have a partition with about 4000 QPDZDTALOG spool files dating back over a number of years. For those not familiar,

A screen a story – Db2 Symmetric Multiprocessing part II

The sayings are “practice what you preach” or the more down to earth expression “eat you own dogfood”. Eating your own dog food is a phrase that refers to the internal use of a company’s own products or services in its day-to-day operations. So over the years I have

ActiveMQ

I’ve got a little home project that I’ve been looking at for a while. In this article, I’ll prepare our IBM i for that project. It will involve some IoT devices sending data to the IBM i. To receive that information the IBM i, will be using

Power10 for the masses is finally here!

In June, IBM announced the replacement for the popular 1, 2 and 4 socket Power servers which make up the mainstay of the Power installed base. If you missed it, Northdoor have covered the highlights in performance, security and scalability in our latest blog. With significant CPW improvement per core

A screen a story – Db2 Symmetric Multiprocessing

Part of the announcement of IBM i 7.5 was a change in what is entitled as part of the base operating system with IBM i. If you want a complete list of the Price Change(s): Price Decrease on Selected IBM i Sofware Products please have a look at