President's Message from Jack Fugiel

Have you visited our new Home Page yet ? If you have not, you should head for www.wash-midrange.org the first chance you get. The credit goes to past board member Girish Ranade and current board member Peter Maher. Girish set up and maintained the page we had last year and has been Peter's mentor in setting up the new page. Peter has grasped the ways of the net quickly and will be Home Page Guru in the future. Thanks to both of you for a great job.

Once on our home page you will be able to read the latest news letter, review the goals of the group, contact the board of directors and find out the meeting schedules, including speakers and their presentation topics. You can also review the latest schedule for the December technical meeting. This is our eighth annual and is being held on December 5, 1997 at the University of Maryland Conference Center. There are currently twenty two topics ranging from "Year 2000" to "HTML" with sessions on the latest in AS/400 topics. You won't want to miss it so take a look at the home page and choose your sessions early.

I am pleased to announce that we have formed a membership committee to bolster our membership ranks and get out the word on the advantages of being a Washington Area Midrange Users' Group (WAM) member. John Rodrigues is heading up the committee, ably assisted by Paul Lambert. John and Paul are our newest board members and we are pleased to have them handling this very important committee. You will be hearing more about it in the near future. If you have any suggestions or would like to work on the committee give them a call, their numbers are in the newsletter and on the home page.

This month I would like to say a few words about our Board of Directors. In my years with this and other organizations I have seen many outstanding board and committee members, however, this is one of the few times I have had the privilege to work with a group of people that operate so well as a team. Someone once said the definition of a real team player is one that is willing to let team recognition overshadow personal recognition. I don't know who said that, but I believe it is true. The current board is just that sort of group. They are always willing to give their honest and candid input and take a stand, however once a decision is made by the majority they always unselfishly support that position, and that is what makes an organization like ours successful. My thanks goes to all board members: our two Vice Presidents, Don Rima and Pam Johnson, Secretary Peter Maher, Treasurer K.B. Soni, Newsletter Editor Tom Jones, Directors Bill Brekke, Paul Lambert, and John Rodrigues, along with John Blum, President of Baltimore Users' Group, who has been working with us for several years on the annual technical conference that we jointly sponsor and Janice Cork member of the JAM Committee. To all of you "Thanks" for all your past and future contributions.

Hope to see everyone at our next meeting May 20th when the presentation will be on implementing the Internet on the AS/400. Jack

"Implementing Internet on the AS/400"

Mr. Drew has been with IBM for the last nine years and has come up the Systems Engineering ranks to his current assignment as the AS/400 Internet Marketing specialist. He is in the process of moving from Colorado to the Washington area to start on this new assignment. He has been lately presenting Intenet implementation strategies at seminars and various user groups. Prior to joining IBM, Steve has spent time designing RISC systems.

Some of the topics to be covered are:

• Connecting users to Internet
• Providing E-mail
• Home Page WITHOUT internal TCP/IP
• Home Page WITH internal TCP/IP
• Home Page with dedicated AS/400 server
• Firewalls
• AS/400 and the Future -

Tyson's Westpark
8401 Westpark Drive
Tyson's Corner, Va

(Parking is FREE !) Board Meeting Immediately After !

Ceasar Salad; Champagne Chicken (or Market Fresh Steamed Vegetable Platter) with Baked Potato and Tomato Parmesan; German Chocolate Cake RSVP (by Friday 5/16) to Peter 703/834-3706 $25.00/member $30.00/non-member

WAM Membership:

K B Soni
Systems Management Associates
12023 Blackberry Terrace
North Potomac, Md 20878.

You can now reach us on the Internet ! Our home page is located at http://www.wash-midrange.org. Please feel free to send any suggestions to Peter.

Bumper Stickers:

We have enough youth, how about a fountain of "smart".
Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.
Your kid may be an honor student, but you're still an idiot.
Kevorkian for White House Physician.
Forget about world peace ... Visualize using your turn signal.
Warning: Dates on calendaar are closer than they appear.

Please bring copy with you to the monthly dinner meeting for inclusion in the newsletter. First choice is WP5.1, but hard copy, Word, or other format is welcome. If unable to attend e-mail on meeting day to Tom .

Where have all the women gone ?

Viall speculates that women may be making a lifestyle choice in dropping out of IS. "Companies are under so much pressure today that the workload is tremendous and the hours are unforgiving", he notes. "Money isn't the only issue." Although AS/400 salaries are healthy, Viall says women haven't seen the same increases as their male counterparts. He notes that the discrepancies may be due in part to the fact that women tend not to change jobs as much and are thus less likely to leave current positions to pursue higher salaries. The company is digging deeper into the flight of females from the profession and would welcome any information from women currentlly working in AS/400 shops and from women who have recently left IS. You can contact the firm by telephone at 515/274-1729 or e-mail to 102546@compuserve.com.

In another trend that proves money isn't everything, Viall says his research shows mid and top-level managers moving out of the cities to jobs in suburbs and small towns. "Again, it's a lifestyle issue", he notes.

NEWSWire/400, a weekly e-mail newsletter from the NEWS/400 Newswatch staff, delivers the latest news right to your monitor. Every Wednesday afternoon, we deliver NEWSWire/400 * FREE OF CHARGE * ! For new subsciptions, call 800/621-1544, fax 970/663-3285, or fill out the subscription form in the Newswatch Weekly section of NEWS/400's Web site http://www.news400.com/nww/wire-sub.htm

Congratulations ! !

Linda Haataja of Sato Travel was our April door prize winner of a free subscription to Midrange Computing magazine.

Humor in the Court, by Mary Louise Gilman:

Q. Doctor, did you say he was shot in the woods?
A. No, I said he was shot in the lumbar region.
-----
Q. What is your name?
A. Ernestine McDowell.
Q. And what is your marital status?
A. Fair.
-----
Q. Are you married?
A. No, I'm divorced.
Q. And what did your husband do before you divorced him?
A. A lot of things I didn't know about.
-----
Q. Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
A. All of my autopsies have been on dead people.
-----
Q. Officer, what led you to believe that the defendant was under the influence?
A. Because he was argumentary and he couldn't pronunciate his words.
-----
THE COURT: Now, as we begin, I must ask you to banish all present information and prejudice from your minds, if you have any.
-----
Q. Now, you have investigated other murders, have you not, where there was a victim?
-----
Q. Do you drink when you're on duty?
A. I don't drink when I'm on duty, unless I come on duty drunk.

Tip Sheet

Q: How can I ensure that historical data isn't excluded from my SQL results because of missing master file entries ?

A: When two or more files are joined by a common field, historical data is often excluded because the joined master file no longer contains the records that are in the archived historical data. This is particularly true with older applications that don't maintain referential integrity. To avoid the problem without having to update your data for missing master file entries, you should use SQL's UNION ALL and NOT IN operators and the subquery SELECT statements to ensure the query includes all historical records.

First, construct your SQL statement with all file joins as required. Then use UNION ALL to combine the result tables with all rows from each file, and construct a second SELECT statemenet that will pick up any excluded data by using a WHERE condition that specifies the field that is NOT IN another master file subquery. The following is a sample query that illustrates this technique:

SELECT SlsNo, SlspName, UnitsSold
FROM SisHist, SlspMstr
WHERE SlsNo =3D SlspNo
UNION ALL
SELECT SlsNo, 'Invalid Salesperson',UnitsSold
FROM SlsHist
WHERE SlsNo NOT IN
(SELECT SlspNo
FROM SlspMstr)
ORDER BY SlsNo

The second SELECT statement can include an optional quoted text field that acts as a substitute description (e.g., 'Invalid Salesperson'). The query's result will include all history records regardless of mismatched joins.

-- Dave Lalonde

Native TCP/IP Slated For IBM's New WIN3.1 Client

Although Microsoft is prodding customers to move to 32-bit Windows -- even dropping support for 3.1 in many of its new applications industry research groups report that around 80 percent of corporate customers are still running 3.1 or 3.11. In the worldwide AS/400 market, the percentage of customers still on Windows 3.x is even higher. This enhanced 3.1 client is a recognition that the decision to move is tied to the customer's business -- rather than the business of IBM or Microsoft.

Native TCP/IP leads the list of enhancements, letting users connect directly with the AS/400 via TCP/IP if they want rather than through IBM's AnyNet SNA-over-TCP/IP protocol. The product still supports AnyNet, which has been tweaked to provide better performance. Simplified client installation and administration features include autostarting of the router -- when a user initiates a function, the client will automatically start the router if it isn't started already. The new client also sports multiconfiguration support, which lets users easily switch between LAN-based and dial-in configurations. In addition, IBM has added support for the Baltic languages to the PC5250 emulator and has improved the emulator's performance.

And now we offer as a public service.

NOTICE OF MONTHLY DINNER MEETINGS OF AITP CHAPTERS
The Association of Information Technology Professionals (formerly DPMA)

Mrs.K's Tollhouse, Silver Spring
$20.00 with reservations; $25.00 without
Roast Pork or Baked Salmon or Chicken or Veggie Plate
RSVP: 301/738-8484 box 3762 or Tom
MAY 15, 1997: Innovative Information Technology Procurement as Practiced at NIH.

Last year Congress passed the Information Technology Management Reform Act (ITMRA, aka the Clinger-Cohen Bill) in response to the Vice President's Reinvention of Government initiatives to reform practices in the Federal Government. Although any such revolutionary initiative inevitably meets with mixed results (resistance, confusion, apathy, and occasionally enthusiastic compliance), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been at the forefront in embracing ITMRA and the innovative procurement methods it endorses. NIH's NITAAC Program has instituted three innovative procurement vehicles which can be accessed by any Federal agency, and which feature multiple award, pre-competed, pre-qualified lists of vendors:

-- The NIH Electronic Computer Store (ECS) features 17 vendors offering a full range of small computer systems and software, with catalogues and price lists posted over the Internet http://nitacc.nih.gov. Volume of business in two years of operation has been in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

-- The NIH Image World (IW) features 20 prime vendors (and hundreds of subs) offering a complete menu of imaging equipment, software, and services, and is making important inroads into making this revolutionary technology available across the Federal environment.

-- The Chief Information Officer's Solutions & Partners (CIO-SP) features 20 prime vendors (and hundreds of subs in teaming arrangements) offering a wide range of complete information technology solutions, with turn-key design, development, and maintenance of almost any information technology-related Federal project. Volume of sales in CIO-SP's first six months of operations has also exceeded $100 million.

Our Speaker will discuss these three vehicles in the context of the larger ITMRA environment. The audience will have an opportunity to learn more about where the Federal Government's procurement strategies will be headed over the near and long-term, and as exemplified at NIH.

Mr. Williams has over 20 years of experience in the areas of research and development, construction, station support, and IRM contracting. He has held positions of increasing authority at the Department of the Treasury, NASA (Goddard Space Flight Center), and at the National Institutes of Health. He is currently the Director of the Division of Station Support Contracting in the NIH's Office of Procurement Management, a position overseeing 55 contracting officers and contract specialists. This division processes more than $200 million in contract actions each fiscal year. He is certified as a Level IV Senior Acquisition Manager by the Department of Health and Human Services. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Maryland. He received the NIH Award of Merit in 1992.

June 19, 1997: Information Storage and Transfer within Human Cells

We will see a biological implementation of information storage and data transfer that our bodies perform at the moecular level. First Mr. Fannon will introduce some basic molecular biology and then show us how they use high performance computers and networks to help scientists make discoveries that (they hope) will lead to medially useful products.

As Director of Bioinformatics at Human Genome Sciences (HGS), Mr. Fannon has been instrumental in designing the advanced data collection, genetic analysis and information retrieval systems essential to the success of HGS's high-volume genetic sequencing efforts. Under Mr. Fannon's direction, HGS's biological information management systems have become the premiere systems in the industry to support gene-based research and development programs. Bioinformatics systems represent a significant asset for HGS and have been a major component of business deals accomplished by HGS.

Prior to joining HGS, Mr. Fannon was the president of TSI Consulting, Inc (TSIC), an information system consulting and technical services business he founded in 1990. At TSIC, Mr. Fannon specialized in designing and developing laboratory management systems for biotechnology companies. For eight years prior to starting TSIC, Mr. Fannon held a series of technical and manaagement positions with Martin Marietta's Information systems Group in Orlando and Bethesda.

Mr. Fannon received his MBA in Operations Analysis from The American University and completed his undergraduate work in physics at Rollins College. He has given presentations at a variety of industry meetings and conferences. Mr. Fannon has published papers on laboratory automation, computer-assisted gene expression analysis, integrated data collection systems and network security.

The Information Management Exchange (T.I.M.E.) 1st Annual Conference & Luncheon

May 22, 1997
07:30 to 16:45
Center for Innovative Technology
2214 Rock Hill Road
Herndon, Virginia
Members $97.00, Non-Members $147.00; events and luncheon included
Registration: 703/834-6023 or pts@erols.com

General Session I: Coaching Your Team to Exceptional Performance - Stephanie Katz

Stephanie Katz, Certified Professional Effectiveness Coach (CPEC), is a coach, trainer, and professional speaker. she is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and President of Development dynamics, a management consulting firm that focuses on leadership development and training, change management, and creative career design. Through one-on-one coaching, workshops, and seminars, Stephanie helps managers become highly effective leaders who inspire creativity, commitment, and initiative from their employees and colleagues.

General Session II: Maximizing Your Productivity - Sue McMillin

Miss McMillin is the author of the books: "If I File It, Can I Find It?", "The Organized Woman", and "Clearing the Clutter". Previously a teacher and counselor, she established her company, With Time To Spare, and now helps national and international corporations organize their offices for greater productivity.

Keynote Session: Beyond 2001: Thinking in the Future Tense - Glen Hiemstra

One of the most respected futurists in the United States and co-author of "Strategic Leadership: Achieving Your Preferred Future", keynote speaker Glen Hiemstra counts Boeing Computer Services, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Washington State Employees Credit Union, Weyerhauser, City of Seattle, and Regional Transit Authorities among past and present clients. An educator in his early career, Glen was elected 1980's "Most Influential Professor" at Whitworth College. The youngest person to win that award, he later served as Washington State Centennial Futurist. Now a consultant, Glen travels extensively throughout the United States working with leaders in industry -- aerospace, telecommunications, transportation, and financial services among others -- and government, helping them develop their visions for the future and plans to get there. Glen also publishes the newsletter, "Thinking in the Future Tense". Web site: http://www.futurist.com. Reception and an hour of Networking follow.

The Information Management Exchange, founded in 1995, is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to enhancing the ongoing technical and professional development of information management professionals at all junctures of career development.

As the profession of information management evolves, TIME seeks to develop programs and services that respond to its members' emerging technical, educational, and professional needs.

TIME strives to help members develop and strengthen their skills through: Continuing Professional Education Certification Leadership Professional Interaction

Contact: Dave Tong 703/834-6023; fax 703/834-6499; pts@erols.com; http://www.timeUS.org