U2Blog

Remember all the excitement about the year 2000? Yes, it did affect multi-value environments; well it did where I was…

It is back, but in a new form and this time it has absolutely nothing to do with computer systems!

Apparently around the USA, there are approximately 17,000 gas pumps with old mechanical meters which can not display prices greater than $3.99 per gallon. I got this from an interesting article in the Express Newspaper (I can’t seem to find an online reference).

So, there you go. Computers do not cause all the worlds problems. Actually, a computer based meter would not have this problem.

So, what was the mv y2k problem I had?

At the time, I was working at a financial organization which needed to forward calculate charges and interest on outstanding balances, anything up to a year in advance. So the y2k problem showed up in early 1999. The programmer had decided, in his wisdom, to calculate the difference between dates using a two digit year and then simply tack a ‘19′ on the front to get the final date. So, we got end dates like 1902, with charges and interest of over 100 years added.

To make matters worse, the software house decided that they would not fix the problem, but try and force all clients to upgrade to the latest release, at some cost.

They were not popular, and have now gone, via a rather messy ending. What goes around, comes around.

Cedarville University maintains a rather useful utility for exporting data from U2.

Version 7.30 has just been released and is available from ftp://cedarville.edu/download. There is also a pdf available with 102 pages of documentation!

Since the new install of WordPress 2.51, search now works again. It is at the top of the right hand column.

I hope that it helps.

Well, I have had fun over the last couple of days; upgrading this web site blog to the new version of WordPress.

It all started with the need to upgrade the underlying operating system on the virtual host that I have. It was a very old version of Fedora Core and I now had the opportunity to upgrade to CentOS 5.1, which I prefer.

Continue reading ‘WordPress, categories, record keys and more’ »

I have almost rebuilt the web site. It is rather interesting. WordPress (the blog software) enables you to back and restore all the posts (export and import). But, some of the plugins e.g. polls have no function to backup the data and restore. So I have to start using sql…

Most functionality is here, except polls and ratings. I hope to fix the rest tomorrow.

Cheers,

David Murray

I am rebuilding my web server so the web site may be off-line for a day.

Cheers,

David Murray

Got the Podcast?

Read the release announcement?

Get the trial then!

Well, this morning I noticed that wIntegrate 6.1 is available from the trials page.

When I finish my RHCE, I will install it. I am interested in the thin-client web browser version. It will be interesting to see how it works.

I wonder if IBM will also announce or release a t-shirt version…

I have been gearing up this weekend for the RHCE course and exam that starts on Monday.

I am certified on Red Hat version 7, which is now a bit out of date. So, it’s 4 days of intense training and then 4 hours of exams on the Friday. It is going to be fun, but also very hard work to bring myself up to date to RedHat 5.1.

Then the week after, I start on a course and certification for PHP through Zend.

No rest for the wicked…

To match the release of the podcast this week, IBM have also released version 6.1 of wIntegrate. It appears to have numerous enhancements ranging from reporting to Javascript applet integration, and the long touted thin client java-in-a-browser install mode.

I stopped using wIntegrate some years ago when I switched to SBClient, for the full gui 4GL experience.

I will have to wait and see if a pe version is released. It really does sound rather exciting…

Well, the U2 mail lists are up and running again. It appears that a technical issue brought the mail server down while the moderator was on vacation.

OK. Fair enough. The mail lists are a voluntary run service sponsored by the U2UG. But, this got me thinking about where you go for U2 support and also the type of questions that are being asked within the lists and forums.

Continue reading ‘Where is U2 Support?’ »