“The IBM i is dead”; “IBM i is old and on its way out”; “IBM i lacks a sustainable competitive advantage.” There are many opinions and thoughts on where IBM and the i are headed. Last week, I attended the 2018 Michigan IBM Power Systems Technical Education Conference (#MiTEC18), and have a very different view…
Modernization Tips
Like a car, your infrastructure and mission critical applications won’t run forever without some help. It may work for a long time, but eventually you need to change the oil, give it some new tires, or replace your starter. Technology is ever changing, growing, becoming faster, smarter, and more efficient. We all hope this is…
What is your 2018 plan?
With the start of the new year, companies are setting goals and creating plans to make the new year successful. Change is never an easy thing, however it is necessary to facilitate continuous improvement. In the IT world, continuous improvement is another term for modernization. This process can be time consuming, requires the appropriate resources,…
IBM i, WordPress, and Open Source – Changing the local real estate game
Our long time customer, Grand Rapids Association of Realtors, was presented with the COMMON 2017 Innovation Award at the opening session of the COMMON Annual 2017 Conference in Orlando Florida. As I watched the presentation, I took great pride in what they achieved and the role our application development and engineering team played in the…
KML Layers- How to Harness the Power of Google Maps
Have you ever wanted to add a special layer to a Google map that identifies certain features? Features like hiking trails, county lines, special event areas, or even customer location data? This can easily be done by using a KML layer. KML stands for Keyhole Markup Language and can be used to create custom overlays…