RPG IV Seminar with Charlie Massoglia

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY: Charlie Massoglia {MUH-SO'-LEE-UH} is president of Massoglia Technical Consulting, Inc. a midrange consulting and education firm in the United States. Author of a number of books and articles on the AS/400, System/38, System/36, System/34, and System/3, Charlie is a frequent speaker for COMMON US, COMMON Europe, COMMON Australia, COMMON Latin America, and other user groups. He has been a speaker at every COMMON US Conference since October 1977 and has served in a number of volunteer positions, including Board of Directors and Vice President of Conferences. Having worked on every IBM midrange machine since the System/3, Charlie now specializes in the AS/400. His cowboy hat has become the trademark for the Massoglia AS/400 Technical Seminars he conducts throughout the United States and Europe.

Tuesday June 15th Registration 8:00am; Seminar 8:30-4:30pm

[Registration form on back page]

President's Message from Peter Maher

The Graying of the AS/400

Has everyone had a chance to look at Bob Tipton's article entitled "More Body Art- Fewer Bifocals" in the May 1999 issue of NEWS/400 Magazine? If not, I hope you get the opportunity to read it. It's on page 19 of the magazine and begins by painting a disturbing portrait of the rise in AS/400 sales versus the decline in AS/400 talent.

A quote that represents this article very well is: "We in the AS/400 market face basically two scenarios. One, we can do nothing and watch as escalating salaries associated with a tight supply of AS/400 talent undoes the platform's stranglehold on low cost of ownership. Without new blood in the AS/400 ranks, the market will simply die off through attrition. Not a pretty prospect. Or two, we can recognize we have a problem and take responsibility for doing something about it."

Then Bob proceeds to enlighten the reader about the Partners in Education program and how it can be used to infuse the market with the "new blood" talent of which he previously spoke. I don't know about the AS/400 talent in the other communities, but in the Memphis metropolitan area, I am seeing exactly what Bob talks about. We've always had two technical schools in the area (only two) that have AS/400 courses. The most prominent of these, State Technical Institute at Memphis, appears to be on the verge of dropping its AS/400 courses...or so I've been told. This is and can not be a very positive sign in the eyes of those companies heavily invested in the AS/400 and to those IBM sales representatives who are out there pushing to sell the best machine in the world.

It's a sad irony that the best machine in the world has the lowest talent pool in the world.

(Courtesy Vincent B Goldsby President/Mid-South Mid-Range User's Group)

What can I do about it?

As an individual I probably can't do much but if enough of us get together maybe we can put pressure on some of the local Colleges to offer AS/400 courses. Jon Paris has suggested that one thing we can all do is make our voices heard in the local colleges. He suggests that the Deans of the local colleges may be much more receptive to offering AS/400 classes if they feel that there is a need/demand for them. Just like any of us who are responsible for selling a product he will offer the options that people want. Right now I wonder how many of us (if any) have called the Dean of our local Community College.

The Partners In Education Program

The Partners in Education (PIE) program has proven to work in other cities and I submit that it can (and should) work here. What we need is a strong grass routes effort. If you are interested in this program then I suggest you take a few steps the first step is to call your local college. Let your voice be heard! For those of you who work at a large Company you may want to consider a more direct Partnership.

For more information please contact Board Member Ross Massey. Ross has agreed to be the WAM contact for PIE He will try to answer your questions and will be looking at ways WAM can help in this important work. You may also check out the PIE web page http://www.as400.ibm.com/educ/pieintro.htm

How about taking in an all day seminar that will help you NOW

As by now I am sure you are aware WAM is sponsoring an all day seminar with Charlie Massoglia. This seminar introduces the student to the RPG IV language. A prior knowledge of RPG/400 is assumed. Course materials include the 250-page book RPG IV for the RPG/400 Programmer. This seminar is NOT a watered down version of Charlie's regular (full cost) seminar but is being presented by WAM at a substantial discount to you our members.

But Peter, you may say, "We are not using RPGIV in our shop." That may be true but what about tomorrow? I spoke to friend of mine who is involved in IBM education and he told me that IBM is no longer offering classes for RPGIII because most if not all of the Business Partners writing software are doing so in RPGIV. So when you get your next upgrade (and you will) you will be able to hit the ground running.

Avoid the Traffic and stay for the evening session

After the all day seminar we are proud to present Charlie for our monthly meeting. Charlie's topic is Journaling. Even if you can't make the all day seminar why not come out for a few hours of good food, great topic and the greatest people!

Last Month's Door Prize Winners

Congratulations to last month's winners:

Mark Grimley - News 400 gift Certificate, John Keeney & Joseph Shean - Midrange Computing Subscription, David Zhang - News400 Coffee Mug, and John Paulichon AS400 Owners Manual.

Additionally, a great thanks to Carson Soule for his riveting presentation!

-Peter

AS/400 JOURNALING with Charlie Massoglia

Have you ever wanted to be able to Identify and back out updates made to a file by a program with serious bugs?

Would you like to streamline or increase the frequency of backups by only backing up added, changed, and deleted records, instead of complete or changed files?

Are you interested in the recovery capabilities of checksum or DASD mirroring but can't afford the hardware required?

Do you want to synchronize data bases on more than one AS/400?

This introductory course will review the capabilities of journaling on the AS/400. How to create, change, display, and delete journals and journal receivers will be reviewed. Using an exit program to receive journal entries as they occur will also be discussed. This introductory course assumes only some basic AS/400 knowledge.

Tuesday, June 15, 1999 - 17:30

Westpark Hotel
Rt 7 & Westpark Drive
Tyson's Corner, Virginia

Parking is FREE !

Board Meeting Immediately After !

• 17:30 Attitude Adjustment
• 18:30 Dinner
• 19:15 Speaker
• 20:15 Q & A
• 20:30 Adjournment

Treasurer's Message

The benefits of being a WAM member continue to increase. As Peter Maher mentioned in a recent monthly message, as a WAM member, you can now avail yourself of many discounts from NEWS400 and Midrange Magazines. In addition, you can also save $200 off the price of COMMON by registering through Midrange Magazine as a user group member.

While most of our 1998 members have already renewed, there are still a few who have not. All 1998 members who have not yet renewed their membership for 1999 have been mailed their final reminder invoice. If you have not yet renewed, please do so at your earliest. If you have any questions, or if you would like to start a new membership, please feel free to call me.

Your 1999 membership can be renewed or a new membership started by sending in your check for $100 for the annual fee. The checks made out to WAM may be sent to:

Washington Area Midrange
12023 Blackberry Terrace
North Potomac, MD 20878

-K B Soni
Treasurer

Rick Greene of Bel Air Computers, Inc.

DOMINO ON THE AS/400: Overview of the Domino Server on the AS/400, Discuss the Advantages, Demonstrate the AS/400 side, Demonstrate Lotus Notes on the PC

WEB SERVING ON THE AS/400: Discuss the Concepts, Discuss the Setup & Overview, Demonstrate Bel Air Computerūs web site on the 400

OPERATIONS NAVIGATOR: Overview of all the functions, Discuss the Relationship to the Domino Server, Setup an AS/400 and Domino user

Rick has 10 Years of experience working with the AS/400 currently he is Technical Manager - Bel Air Computers, Inc. His responsibilities include Consulting customers on AS/400 network integration, AS/400 WWW enablement, Lotus Domino integration on the AS/400, Remote Communications design and setup, and all other areas of AS/400 System Operations and Administration. IBM Certified Specialist - AS/400 Technical Solutions V4R3. IBM Certified Specialist - AS/400 Solution Sales Associate V4R2

What the new Job-Lingo really means !

"CASUAL WORK ATMOSPHERE": We don't pay enough to expect that you'll dress up; well, a couple of the real daring guys wear earrings.

"MUST BE DEADLINE ORIENTED": You'll be six months behind schedule on your first day.

"SOME OVERTIME REQUIRED": Some time each night and some time each weekend.

"DUTIES WILL VARY": Anyone in the office can boss you around.

"MUST HAVE AN EYE FOR DETAIL": We have no quality control.

"CAREER-MINDED": Female Applicants must be childless (and remain that way).

"NO PHONE CALLS PLEASE": We've filled the job; our call for resumes is just a legal formality.

"SEEKING CANDIDATES WITH A WIDE VARIETY OF EXPERIENCE": You'll need it to replace three people who just left.

"PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS A MUST": You're walking into a company in perpetual chaos.

"REQUIRES TEAM LEADERSHIP SKILLS": You'll have the responsibilities of a manager, without the pay or respect.

"GOOD COMMUNICATION SKILLS": Management communicates, you listen, figure out what they want and do it.