Good News for Mac (and Linux) Users

As we noted in last week's blog, we're theoretically on vacation this week in beautiful Carlsbad, Calif. Apparently whoever controls the weather read that blog post and decided to make us feel better about working by cancelling the sunshine during our stay. Locals tell us that we're suffering from "June Gloom," which runs from late May to the end of June. Yes, we are very much aware that it is now nearly the end of July, but "June Gloom" is what they're calling it. Seems somewhat ironic that we may have to go home to Ontario to get some sunshine! Not complaining too much though--we've been taking long walks on the beach twice a day and thoroughly enjoying it.

So what's been happening this week? Well for us Mac users (and Linux users too) the big news was IBM's announcement of a "Technology Preview" of the new "IBM i Access Client Solutions." This is a Java-based application for 5250 display and printer emulation. It features all of the usual suspects, including support for multiple sessions and file upload and download. Interestingly it also provides support for 5250 emulation for LAN Console.

To obtain the preview go to the IBM i Access Web page and look for the download link. Installation is as simple as unzipping the jar file and launching it.

So how well does it work? So far we've been favorably impressed. The overall look and feel will be familiar to those who have been using IBM's Windows emulator client. This helps in familiarizing yourself with the interface, which is useful considering that because this new tool is platform neutral (you can even run it on Windows--but why would you want to? <grin>), it therefore does not have the native Mac look-and-feel.

The customization options are more comprehensive than we had expected in a preview version and it seems to perform well. Setting up a new connection is a breeze and does not seem to have the same limits on the number of connections you can store that the Mochasoft product does. So far we've only found one major annoyance. It doesn't adapt to a new window size as well as other emulators we have used. When you resize the window it often leaves a lot of black space round the edges. Other emulators we have used, such as Mochasoft, scale the font size automatically to provide a best fit for whatever window size you have chosen. It would be nice if IBM could make this new client work the same way since in every other aspect it appears to be a big improvement on the other offerings. Now if only Rational would hurry up with a Mac version of RDP ... oh well, we can but dream.

Time to wrap this up. There's a teeny tiny bit of sunshine creeping through the gloom and we hear a beach calling. ...

Trying to Get a Life

We're writing this in New York's La Guardia airport waiting for our connecting flight to Atlanta. Actually, Atlanta is not the final destination as in a couple of days we will be moving on to Costa Mesa for the OCEAN User Group's Annual Conference. OCEAN is a great group and works really hard to put on this event every year.

Like many user groups around the world, OCEAN struggles these days to attract volunteers. People sign up for positions thinking that it would be nice to "help out" for a year or two, only to find that nobody comes forward to replace them. So they stay in the job longer than they had intended--a situation which does not go unnoticed by their potential replacements. It seems to be a self-perpetuating situation. People can't roll off the job because there's nobody to replace them, and potential replacements won't come forward because they're afraid they will get trapped!

Perhaps it is all tied up in the whole life-work balance thing. While we wouldn't argue that cell phones and other portable devices add a lot to our lives, they also seem to make it impossible to get away from work. Case in point. When we speak at a conference it is not uncommon for at least one member of the audience to be texting away (or even answering the phone which is frankly rude and _really__ annoying) and they will then often end up pulling out a laptop and proceed to sign on to their system to sort out what we assume is the "crisis de jour." It didn't used to be that way. Most folks when away from the office would perhaps call in at lunchtime to see what was going on, but that was about it. The office survived. In all probability nobody died. So what is so all-fired important that today we can't even seem to escape the clutches for more than an hour or two? It is hard to believe that our efforts are really that much more critical to the well being of the business than they were say five or six years ago. What's the big difference?

In part this thinking comes about because following OCEAN we had decided to take a week's vacation on the California coast and rented a beachfront apartment. We began to realize though how screwed up our work-life priorities have become when we found ourselves listing high-speed internet as a "must have" for any potential vacation home. Now we can always make the excuse that since we run our own business it's important for us to stay in touch with our clients. As it happens, we also discovered that three of our ongoing projects have deadlines rapidly approaching and that we are going to have little choice but to work during at least part of our vacation - but at least we'll be able to do so with a view of the ocean!

Our friend Trevor Perry often delivers a session called "Get a Life" where he encourages people to find their passion and to get their work-life balance in order. Perhaps we need to attend the session again and take more notes this time! In the meantime perhaps you could share your own secrets. In the face of the growing pressures of an ever-connected world, how do you find time for a life?

Need Some Help?

Many of the companies we work with either don't have Help Desk software or have a homegrown application that is muttered about in dark corners. Most of the time the inhibiting factor is the cost of commercial packages. Recently though we've become aware of several free offerings in the PHP world that render that part of the equation moot.

So for those of you in the "we can't afford it" category, here's a couple for you take a look at.

First up is Mantis/400, which in its native IBM i version is distributed and supported by Curbstone, which, having used Mantis internally for some years, ported it to the IBM i and enabled it to directly use DB2 tables. In this regard it remains the only package we are aware of that can do this.

Next on our list is osTicket and we have to say that we really like the clean user interface this system provides. It gets good reviews and seems to have many happy users. However, getting new releases out on time does not seem to be a strong point. The developers seem to get tied up in real paying work--go figure! Apart from being prettier than Mantis, the major difference is one of focus. Mantis is developer centric whereas osTicket is end-user centric and can be used as a direct customer support site as well as for entry of issues by in-house staff.

The latest one to show up on our radar is HESK--thanks to Dan Devoe for pointing this one out to us. HESK is similar in look and feel to osTicket and also has a strong end-user orientation. Since it seems to be the free part of a commercial offering, we suspect that updates may be a little more timely--a thought that appears to be born out by the activity level on the support forum.

Both osTicket and HESK use MySQL and would therefore require IBM's DB2 storage engine in order to store some or all of their data in DB2 tables. Since they are free, it is hardly a barrier to implementation.

Hero Opportunity?

Both osTicket and HESK have such strong end-user orientation that they would be useful additions to any customer facing online systems your company may already have in place. Good self-help facilities can be a major selling point for any company and can also help identify product deficiencies and market opportunities that can otherwise be missed. This is just another of those opportunities to be a hero to your users by demonstrating that your IBM i system can be a vital part of the growth of your business.

A quick rant from Jon: Am I the only one who is constantly frustrated by the "automation" of some of life's basic requirements? For example, a couple of weeks ago I was soaked to the skin by a washroom tap whose sensor was so badly aligned that you had to have your hand almost touching the tap's opening before it would activate--and of course when it did. ... On a similar note, am I the only one who is unable to get a self-flushing toilet to flush when it should? I encountered one recently that flushed six times before I was ready for it! And don't get me started on those silly plastic seat wrap things. When we were at a conference at a Las Vegas hotel the auto-sensing paper towel dispenser was mounted in such a way that it was actually impossible to enter the bathroom without activating it. And on and on. Am I just becoming a crotchety old man, or are others as frustrated by these unwanted additions to our daily lives as I am?