For those of you who care, I have created my Twitter account. You can find and follow it at http://twitter.com/BMaytheYiP
I’m sure there will be plenty of YiPs and IBM i stuff sprinkled in the randomness that is tweeting. This is not an “official” YiPs account. Do you guys think we should have one? I am still new to it so I don’t know how useful it might be, other than just being another medium to make announcements. Thoughts?
Profound Logic TV (www.profoundlogic.tv) is a new educational video blog that has been created for the IBM i community. It focuses on delivering short, useful videos that summarize and clarify many of today’s latest trends, ideas, and technologies in application development and modernization.
The goal of Profound Logic TV is to provide an educational forum for busy IBM i professionals that wish to learn about emerging technologies and methodologies but don’t always have the time. The site provides concise videos that span roughly three to five minutes covering the latest trends and topics that are important to the viewers.
In fact, to help this video blog site remain relevant to its audience, Profound Logic TV has placed a large emphasis on viewer interaction. It does this by encouraging viewers to comment on videos, ask questions, and even suggest new topics to be covered. Currently, the videos available on the site cover the topics of AJAX and Rich Internet Applications, but many new topics are planned for the future.
Additionally, Profound Logic TV is looking for potential speakers within the YiPs community who would like to share their knowledge and insight for viewers by creating a short video. If you are interested, please contact Philip Roestamadji at philipr@profoundlogic.tv with your information along with any topics you would like to contribute.
I have read this book cover to cover and can honestly say that it is a great reference for anyone looking to move into PHP on IBM i. The topics are well organized, the examples are informative, and the information is easy to understand. This is a must read.
And just for all of you YiPs followers in the community, MC Press is offering a 10% discount code. This code is good on sale prices too, so snatch it up.
You can find the book at this link:
http://www.mc-store.com/5096.html
During checkout use the discount code “YOUNGPROF” to get your 10% off.
webERP is a complete web based accounting/ERP system that requires only a web-browser and pdf reader to use. It has a wide range of features suitable for many businesses particularly distributed businesses in wholesale and distribution. You can find more information about the application and how to log in on the sandbox page.
http://www.youngiprofessionals.com/site/index.php/sandbox
As always, I am open to more suggestions of applications to run in the sandbox. Just let me know if there is something specific you would like to see.
COMMON this year was fantastic.
I mean, sure, the economic downturn we’re experiencing let to lower attendance in general (as with everyone else in the industry). I was excited and encouraged, however, to see that while the overall number of attendees was down, the number of YiPs who made the conference this year was relatively unchanged. The COMMON board of directors made announcements at MoM this year regarding the difficulties we’ll face as an organization moving forward—changes are being instituted in order to pave the way for another 50 years of success. While “change” is never necessarily easy to swallow, we are technologists in a fast moving world and must be able to adapt quickly and respond effectively. As a community, I have full faith that we will continue to work together to do just that.
We had a very successful Young i Professionals roundtable. (Special thanks again to Zend for providing the WebEx support to broadcast the meeting!) Young i Professionals had an opportunity to voice their opinions and provide feedback to Steve Will, Chief Architect of IBM i.
Many plans were set for the Young i Professionals this year at COMMON and I’m excited at the possibilities of what we, as a community, will be able to accomplish in the coming year. As things progress, we’ll be looking for volunteers and interested YiPs to get involved—stay tuned!
Until next time……
This is Aaron Bartell coming to you so I can convey the success of the most recent RPG & DB2 Summit conference which occurred this past week. The RPG & DB2 Summit team were generous enough to give us our very own table in the vendor showcase area as their effort in helping us pursue the various efforts we have going in the YiPs corner of the world (we do have our own world right?).
Despite attendance being lower because of the econmoy (the WMCPA conference saw the same percentage drops earlier in the month) there was still a good time to be had by all with some excellent content and speakers. Many stopped by the YiPs booth and asked what we were all about. The most common question/statement: “I am too old for this I think…” :-) To which we replied: “Well, we let Jon Paris join so if you are younger than him you are good to go!!” (sorry for throwing you under the bus Jon 
Many hadn’t heard of the YiPs so it was a great chance for us to spread the word and hopefully get more people involved. We had a FAQ sheet for people to take with them and also a video playing so people could see screen shots of the different things the YiPs are accomplishing (i.e. all the different PHP apps being ported).
My plan was to wear spandex at the YiPs table but the 80’s called and said they wanted it back - so I went without spandex.
I had the opportunity to attend one of Mike Cain’s session on SQL performance schtuff and I must say that my attention was glued the whole time. Aside from Mike being a solid speaker and being incredibly interested in the subject matter, he also may have just convinced me that SQL *is* faster than RPG native IO. I will see if I can get a hold of some documentation on the subject, but it basically boils down to using some proprietary DB2 EVI (Encoded Vector Indexes) technology to build “indexes” in a specialized way. If you get a chance to see Mike give this session at the upcoming COMMON conference make sure to catch it as it will be well worth your while.
Please be sure to stop by the YiPs booth at COMMON and say hi. If there is a loud curly haired kid sitting there then that is me and feel free to encourage me that RPG isn’t going the way of the buffalo and that I will have a job in the coming years. Don’t forget to tip your waiters and waitresses…
- Aaron Bartell
After a long hiatus, I am very glad to see activity on our friend Angus the IT Chap’s website.
Angus actually served as the administrator of the first version of the YiPs website. The site was no more than a discussion board back then, but we were glad for his help and guidance. That chap sure knows how to get things done.
Pay Angus a visit on his site. http://www.angustheitchap.com
Tell him Brian sent you!
Our friends at System i Developer have shown their support of our group yet again. I am happy to announce that they are offering a $200 discount to any YiPs that will be attending the RPG & DB2 Summit in Orlando, Florida April 15 - 17. Read the rest of this entry »
It is conference season again, and I am very glad to announce that the Young i Professionals have added a new conference to this year’s schedule of appearances, the RPG & DB2 Summit.
The conference will be held April 14th - 17th in Orlando, Florida. The YiPs will have a table top display that Aaron Bartell and I will be manning through the conference. We will be available to answer any questions you may have about the YiPs or the projects that we are currently involved in.
System i Developer, who produces the conference each year, is offering an “early bird” registration discount now through February 20th that will save you hundreds of dollars. This is the lowest price that will be offered so register now!
If any of you are planning to be in attendance, please let me know. I would love to get together with you during the coneference.