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What's Up, DOCumentation? 2002 # 1

Robelle logo

January 2002


From:

Bob Green, President

To: Users of Robelle Software

Re: News of the HP e3000 and Robelle, 2002 #1

If you haven't been visiting the Robelle web site, www.robelle.com, at least once a week, here is what you have been missing. Included are many of the stories posted to the web since the last What's Up DOC newsletter in December 2001.

If you are reading a PDF or text version of this newsletter, remember that the headline of every story is actually a web link to the full story or more information. If you want to follow a link to get more information, go to the web home of the current newsletter:

http://www.robelle.com/library/newsletter/latest.html

Table of Contents:

 
Update Your Account
Add/Change CPUs
Contact Robelle

Ask Support
Technical Information
What's New?

Free Trials. Click for:
Qedit for Windows
Suprtool
Host-based Qedit

Partners
Ecometry Solutions
Healthcare Solutions
Education Users
Consultants Corner

Products
Qedit for Windows
Qedit for e3000
Suprtool for e3000
Suprtool Training

About Robelle
About the HP e3000
About HP-UX


News and Upcoming Events

Florida-Feb 11-15: Performance Training Seminar

The 6th Annual HP Performance Training Seminar is being held by FLORUG in Orlando Florida, Feb 11-15, 2002. On Wednesday morning, February 13th, Bob Green of Robelle is presenting a tutorial entitled "Image Internals and Performance". Don't miss it. For program details and registration, click the link above.

Mar 13-15: Southeast Summit Users Group

At the invitation of SESUG, Bob Green of Robelle will provide Suprtool training for this meeting at Founders Federal Credit Union in Charlotte, NC. For more information, email Pat Waddell (pswaddell@gtefcu.org).

Solutions Symposium: 2002 Means HPe3000

2002 means e3000: the skills to migrate — or the skills to continue to improve your e3000 infrastructure today. Either way — HP e3000 Solutions Symposium is the place to be this April.

HP e3000 Solutions Symposium
April 3- 6, 2002
San Jose Hyatt - San Jose, CA

The HP e3000 Solutions Symposium is a training environment like no other. You'll get the information you need to get more out of your systems. You'll spend 3 1/2 days, side-by-side learning, hands-on with the industry's best-known and respected e3000 experts and architects — the people who understand these solutions and the implications of migration, better than anyone. You'll also be provided with migration strategies, tools, application roadmaps and first hand migration case- studies to enable a cost effective, smooth transition when you are ready to migrate to a new platform. New this year. Sponsored by the Ecometry User Group, this 1 1/2- Day technical training track for Ecometry users will focus on Ecometry performance, reporting and system management, cycle counting and purge processes, system maintenance and tips, tricks and techniques and more!

Click the link above to read more about this year's Symposium, or click here to read reports from last year's symposium.

HPWorld 2002 Changed to Sept. 23-27

Interex has announced a new date for HPWorld 2002 in Los Angeles: Sept. 23-27. The old dates were Sept 9-13.

Adager: Response to HP Announcement

Adager's position: We respect HP's announcement and we look forward to the survival (and prosperity) of MPE/Image as independent and worthy software entities in their own right. Adager's development and support continue with full vigor.

Midwest Users Training Symposium

The Indiana Regional Users Group announces that April 22-24, 2002 are the dates for the 11th Annual Midwest HP Users Training Symposium. Location: the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza Hotel, downtown, Union Station.


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HP Tips

MPE On-line: Foptions and Aoptions

Do you have trouble remembering all the bit definitions for Foptions and Aoptions when opening a file on MPE/iX? You can find them on-line at docs.hp.com but it takes quite a while. Robelle also has them on-line in our Encyclopedia for HP Users - just click the link above.


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Qedit

Qedit for Windows Tips

MatchCharacter: a QWIN Script

One of the little-know features of Qedit for Windows, almost a secret, is the scripting language. Want a new feature? Just code it yourself!

The MatchCharacter script searches for matching left and right characters like parentheses, square brackets or curly braces. It uses the current selection to determine what to search for: If the selection is a left character, "(", "[" or "{", the script searches forward for the appropriate matching right character, ")", "]" or "}". If found, the script selects the text between the two characters.

For more information on scripting, visit the Qedit for Windows Scripting Language page.


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MS Windows (and Alternatives)

Linux Desktop Apps: The Kompany.com

Shawn Gordon of HP 3000 fame now works at a Linux software company that makes desktop applications such as personal financial system, database, flowcharting, development studio, web tools, etc.

Desktop: Replace Windows with Linux?

This article in CRN investigates the feasability of "Constructing A Windows-Less Office", from the point of view of the IT manager. Here is the conclusion, which might make you want to read the article:

After constructing a practical solution, the Test Center reached the following conclusion: Linux and associated Linux applications can accomplish many of the same tasks as the Wintel standard at a much lower initial cost,in this case, for 93 percent less than the software cost of a similar Windows-based network,and without many of the licensing hassles presented by traditional software platforms.

For more Windows tips, visit the permanent location of these articles.


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Suprtool

Suprtool Tips

Suprtool, CGI and the Web

You've got a Web server running on an HP-UX or MPE/iX machine. Your users are clamoring to get their data and reports from their Intranet. You remember hearing, "If it's on paper it's dead", so you need to come up with a solution that is dynamic, easy to maintain and implement, cost effective, and alluring. You may already have all the parts to your solution! The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) feature of your Web server allows you to execute custom programs or scripts, and to dynamically display Web pages. These custom programs and scripts can be written in almost any programming language. Perl is probably the most commonly used language, but you can use C or C++, COBOL, SPL, FORTRAN etc.

Click the link above for an application note.

Suprtool: Generate Random Passwords

This clever application note shows two methods for generating passwords with Suprtool. The advantage of using a program to generate new passwords is that no personal bias can slip into the password, making it easier for an intruder to guess.


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HP-UX Resources

Robelle Tech: Unix Quickstart for MPE Users

On November 14th HP announced changes to the future of the HP 3000 platform that will impact all of us. Although I am confident that 3rd party support for 3000 hardware and software will last long past 2006, HP-UX will no doubt attract many 3000 sites. The Robelle products already run on the HP-UX platform, if you should decide to migrate some of your apps to HP-UX.

Getting Used to UNIX: This Robelle Tech column from the December issue of the 3000 NewsWire, relates the MPE commands and concepts that you are familiar with to similar commands and concepts on HP-UX. This will not be a debate on the merits of MPE/iX versus HP-UX. It is intended to assist the MPE user, programmer, and operator to navigate and use commands on the HP-UX operating system.

NewsWire: Suprtool/UX--An Old Friend

The January issue of the 3000 NewsWire contains an column by Bob Green about our Suprtool product on HP-UX.

We are prepared to support Suprtool on MPE/iX as long as customers demand it, and we hope that is a long time. But we also have Suprtool on HP-UX and have had it for many years. We are even doing research right now to improve it to make migrating applications more convenient (news of that research in the weeks to come).

Suprtool from Robelle is already widely used to help integrate HP 3000 systems with HP-UX systems by sharing data. For example, one Robelle customer uses Suprtool/iX and Suprtool/UX to distribute their data from the 3000 to a nationwide network of HP-UX boxes, and then bring new data back to the 3000 for integration. If you decide to migrate some apps to HP-UX, Suprtool/UX will be there for you.

Click the link above to read the entire column.

Download Manuals: Suprtool for HP-UX

Suprtool, our incredibly useful database handyman, works on the HP 3000 and the HP 9000. And the manuals for Suprtool/UX (the HP-UX version) are now available for download on our web site, in PDF format and also in HTML Help format.

Qedit/UX Manual in PDF Format

Qedit/UX is our host-based programmer editor for the HP UNIX systems. The user documentation for Qedit/UX is now available for download in new formats: PDF format and also HTML Help format.


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Links/Resources

3k.com: Public Domain Software

Links to some of the best MPE freeware (Apache, Sendmail, Perl, Python, Equater and more, including ZIP and UNZIP, which are ports of PKZIP and PKUNZIP to the 3000. They were ported by Neil Harvey & Associates (http://nha.co.za/): "ZIP 2.1 is a compression and file packaging utility. It is compatible with PKZIP 2.04g (Phil Katz ZIP) for MSDOS systems. There is a companion to zip called unzip (of course)."

Adager: HP 3000 Terminal Emulators

On their web site, Adager now has a survey of various terminal emulators for the HP 3000 system. Click the link to see if you know them all!

ICS Group: 3000 Hardware Support

The ICS Group announces continued independent maintenance for HP 3000 systems:

We will continue to provide hardware support for our beloved 3000 and partner with the gurus at Allegro to provide software support.);

Hardware Maintenance: Atlantic Tech Services

David Mason (dmason@atserve.com) points out that

Atlantic Tech Services (ATS) is a hardware maintenance company and has been servicing the 3000 line since 1984 and will continue to do so.

ATS is located in NE Ohio, between Akron and Cleveland. It started as a regional maintenance company, but has grown into a multi-office company with coverage extending throughout the United States. Add them to your list of alternatives to HP for maintaining your HP 3000 hardware.


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qedit

Host-Based Qedit Tips

Inside Vesoft: Combining MPEX and Qedit

The November issue of the 3000 NewsWire has a great article by Steve Hammond, "Playing Well Together", about using Host-Based Qedit with the MPEX product with VESOFT:

I like to think of MPEX as an old friend. Up until about a year ago, I still had one of the original manuals we got from Vesoft — the address was on Mockingbird Lane. Many is the time this old friend has come to my rescue. An even older friend is Robelle’s Qedit. It was the first editor I used other than Editor/3000. When I changed jobs to a TDP-using site about 15 years ago, within a year I had everyone using Qedit. These two old friends can work together to make your tasks complete faster and easier — and isn’t that what friends are for? They qualify for the “Plays Well with Others” award.


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Internet Tips

Internet Magic: Network Address Translation

Since most of us at Robelle have multiple PCs at home, when we started installing high-speed Internet at home, we used inexpensive router/firewalls such as the Linksys. These connected to the Internet via a single IP address, then asked us to configure our workstations to use DHCP to dynamically assign an internal IP address for each user.

But when the users access the Internet, they all appear to live at the same IP address. They can pick up their email, surf the web, run Qedit for Windows (this did require using the Qwin/firewall option on MPE), even Instant Messaging.

This seems like magic. How can answers come back to the correct PC, when they all look like they same came from the same place?

The link above is to an article that explains the answer: Network Address Translation, also known as IP Masquerading.


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Newsletter Distribution

Robelle Solutions Technology Inc. provides the What's Up, DOCumentation? newsletter as a service to our customers. The newsletter is available on the web: in HTML format for browsing and PDF format for printing. Visit www.robelle.com/library/newsletter/

Comments about this issue, as well as ideas for future issues, including news, tips, and suggestions for articles, can be sent to bgreen@robelle.com.


Previous Issue: December Newsletter

The December 2001 issue of Robelle's What's Up DOCumentation newletter contains these highlights:

* Suprtool Tips: Exchange data between Image and Oracle

The Robelle Tech columns in the November issue of The 3000 NewsWire shows how the Ecometry site Hammacher Schlemmer exports data from IMAGE on the 3000 to be imported by Oracle SQL-Loader on Windows NT.

Another case study shows how Alliant Foods is using Suprtool to synchronizing IMAGE and Oracle databases on HP-UX.

* Use Suprtool to check business rules in your database

Business rules are usually included in the data entry programs but sometimes 'stuff happens' and the data gets messed up. Suprtool's IF command can help find these problem records.

* Future of the HP 3000

After HP's announcement of the five-year plan for the HP3000, the HP3000 community responds with commitments and plans.

These are just some of the informative articles in this issue. Read the complete issue to learn more!

Browse the HTML issues at
http://www.robelle.com/library/newsletter/w2001-08.html

Download the PDF issues at
http://www.robelle.com/library/newsletter/w2001-08.pdf

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