President's Message by Don Rima

After these past couple weeks of just royally painful to get anything accomplished weather, I think I’m going to start looking for jobs in Ft. Myers or Vero Beach, Florida! I don’t know about you folks, but it was really nice to see some sunshine today and be able to begin to get back into some of the projects I had to put on hold during school outages, travel restrictions, etc.

If there is such a thing as getting WAM off to a roaring start, we’re doing it this year. We’re moving the meeting date BACK to the 24th so that we can have a great speaker for not only our evening meeting but for our seminar series. I urge you to checkout the WAM seminars information page. We’ve got Claus Weiss from the Toronto lab doing a full day on Java and Websphere development tools that should be enough to get a good RPG programmer to the point where they’re able to get their feet wet on their own. This is going to be a VERY full day of Java and websphere and I understand you’ll be taking home a lot more handouts than you go through in the seminar sessions that add more depth to the presentations and more examples for you to work with.

Folks, if you’re even thinking of doing anything with Websphere, you need to have a good handle on Java. We’ve heard too many stories about conversion failures because the shop’s staff just didn’t have a firm grip on Java. So, this seminar couldn’t be more timely.

With the V5R3 announcement right around the corner, this month’s WAM meeting will be your sneak peak to see what’s coming in the near future - especially as it relates to RPG and the new development tools.

Would you also believe we’re actually working on the Eserver World JAM 2004 already?! We’ve had several very good meetings with IBM and it looks like this year’s JAM is going to not only a first in terms of a joint AIX, OS/400 Linux & Websphere event, but it’s also going to help develop the AIX/L Users Group which is still being formed. Folks from Austin, Rochester, Toronto and Somers are very interested in our conference and we have wide spread IBM and user support with this year’s show. Details on the JAM and the AIX/L user’s group will be hopefully out by the March newsletter... if we don’t get a lot more snow!

We also have a seminar coming up on March 17 in College Park on IT Auditing with Stu Henderson. With more and more people wanting to look over your shoulders, it’s a good idea to be prepared for what they’re going wanting to see!

See you at WAM on the 24th. Register early and bring a friend!

February 24th Meeting

Claus Weiss is an advisory software consultant with the iSeries Application Development Tools team at the IBM Canada Toronto Laboratory. He has an Industrial Engineer degree and a Computer Science degree from the University of Hamburg, Germany. Claus worked as a systems engineer with IBM Germany and joined the IBM Toronto Laboratory in 1984. He was a developer and teamleader for System/38 development tools and has been a member of the Design Control Group for the AS/400 development tools. Claus has worked as a planner for iSeries Application Development for the past ten years specializing in Visual Tools. Claus is a frequent speaker at COMMON and other iSeries conferences. Claus is the co-author of the book, Understanding the IBM WebFacing tool, published by IBM Press and several IBM Redbooks.

His presentation, "RPG IV: the Next Stuff and Beyond" will cover things like: Does IBM’s focus on e-business leave RPG on the side lines? Absolutely not! RPG is the business language of choice for new e-business applications on iSeries! Far from a side line player, RPG remains a strategic language for strategic applications. To support and promote that role, IBM has been heavily enhancing RPG IV, and the next release is no exception. Come hear what the future holds for RPG and you.

Tuesday February 24, 2004
Holiday Inn
3400 Ft. Meade Road
Laurel, MD 20724
Phone: 301-498-0900 or 410-792-0313
5:30 PM Networking/Cash Bar
6:00 PM Dinner
6:30 PM Presentation