Here We Go Again!

December 13, 2018 Roger Lacroix

Capitalware is being forced to change our online shopping cart again. Ugh!

When Capitalware started selling software in 2003 (yup, a long time ago), I signed up with RegSoft (owned by Digital River) to handle the online shopping cart. Everything worked well and I was happy with the setup.

In January 2011, Digital River decided that they wanted to shutdown RegSoft and told all vendors that they needed to move to SWReg (another platform owned by Digital River). They made a mess of the migration process and I spent weeks fixing everything. Once everything was fixed, the shopping cart worked well, although the report generation has always been a bit lame.

In August 2018, Digital River decided that they wanted to shutdown SWReg and told all vendors that they needed to move to Share-It (aka MyCommerce, another platform owned by Digital River). Once again, the migration process was less than perfect (not even close). Digital River said that SWReg is shutting down on December 31, 2018, so I have been taking my time fixing the various issues from the migration process for the last few months.

I think everything has been fixed and I believe everything is ready to go. So, this Sunday (December 16, 2018), I will be publishing Capitalware web pages with the new links for the Share-It shopping cart.

If anyone has any issues with purchasing any Capitalware products via the Share-It online shopping cart then please let me know ASAP and I will tried to get it resolved.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Capitalware, MQ Auditor, MQ Authenticate User Security Exit, MQ Batch Toolkit, MQ Channel Connection Inspector, MQ Channel Encryption, MQ Channel Throttler, MQ Enterprise Security Suite, MQ File Mover, MQ Message Encryption, MQ Message Replication, MQ Standard Security Exit, MQ Technical Conference, MQ Visual Browse, MQ Visual Edit, MQTT Message Viewer, Universal File Mover Comments Off on Here We Go Again!

FreeBSD v12.0 Released

December 12, 2018 Roger Lacroix

The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team has just released FreeBSD v12.0.
https://www.freebsd.org/releases/12.0R/announce.html

FreeBSD is an advanced operating system for modern server, desktop, and embedded computer platforms. FreeBSD’s code base has undergone over thirty years of continuous development, improvement, and optimization. It is developed and maintained by a large team of individuals. FreeBSD provides advanced networking, impressive security features, and world class performance and is used by some of the world’s busiest web sites and most pervasive embedded networking and storage devices.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

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Update to Java MQ PCF Code Samples

December 11, 2018 Roger Lacroix

Tim Zielke posted a comment to my blog posting of Java MQ Code to List Channel Status about an extra PCF response from a z/OS queue manager that caused the code to throw an exception.

So, I updated line # 156 in MQListChannelStatus01.java to be:

if ( ((responses[i]).getCompCode() == CMQC.MQCC_OK) &&
     ((responses[i]).getParameterValue(CMQCFC.MQCACH_CHANNEL_NAME) != null) )

You can download the updated source code for MQListChannelStatus01.java from here.

I made the same change for MQ Channel Monitor. Line # 325 of PCFChlStatus.java.

The same problem will also hit MQListQueueStatus01.java from my blog posting of Java MQ Code to List Queue Status. So, I updated line # 165 to be:

if ( ((responses[i]).getCompCode() == CMQC.MQCC_OK) &&
     ((responses[i]).getParameterValue(CMQC.MQCA_Q_NAME) != null) )

You can download the updated source code for MQListQueueStatus01.java from here.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

IBM i (OS/400), IBM MQ, Java, Linux, macOS (Mac OS X), Open Source, PCF, Programming, Unix, Windows, z/OS 1 Comment

Static Analysis of Java Code

December 10, 2018 Roger Lacroix

A few weeks ago, I was reading Java Magazine and in the current issue, it was reviewing the results of a Java Developer survey. One of the questions in the survey was “Which static quality tools do you use?”. I guess I’m part of the 36% of the people (results of the survey) who don’t use one.

I decided to try out FindBugs and see what it can do. I figured it would be pointless because I write perfect code (yeah right!).

I decided to try it out against MQ Visual Edit first. FindBugs is pretty easy to use as everything is on by default and holy cow does it produce a lot of information. I liked how besides the main JAR file and auxiliary JAR files, that the source code can be included. Even better, it supports multiple locations for the source code which is great because I have various components of MQ Visual Edit in different Eclipse projects. By clicking on the listed bug and viewing the source code, FindBugs makes it really easy to decide if it has found a bug or is being overly sensitive to the code. I like some of the category names it uses: “Dodgy Code”, “Dubious method used”, etc..

The best part of using it, it actually found a couple of bugs and it found a couple of potential bugs. So all in all, it was worth my time using it. I have created FindBugs projects for all of my Java projects (commercial and open source) and I have gone through all of the projects and fixed all of the bugs it found.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

IBM i (OS/400), Java, JMS, Linux, macOS (Mac OS X), Programming, Unix, Windows, z/OS Comments Off on Static Analysis of Java Code

SQLite v3.26.0 Released

December 6, 2018 Roger Lacroix

D. Richard Hipp has just released SQLite v3.26.0.
http://www.sqlite.org/news.html

SQLite is a software library that implements a self-contained, serverless, zero-configuration, transactional SQL database engine. SQLite is the most widely deployed SQL database engine in the world. The source code for SQLite is in the public domain.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

C, Database, IBM i (OS/400), Linux, macOS (Mac OS X), Open Source, Programming, Unix, Windows, z/OS Comments Off on SQLite v3.26.0 Released

New: MQ Channel Monitor v1.2.0

November 28, 2018 Roger Lacroix

Capitalware is pleased to announce the release of MQ Channel Monitor v1.2.0. It is a free open source project.

MQ Channel Monitor (MQCM) application is a software package that is designed to gather and to display the status of MQ channels of the queue manager. MQCM displays 16 columns of channel status information. The display is automatically refreshed. The user can define filters so that only particular channels will have their status displayed.

    Changes:

  • Added code so that the MQ DTD will be embedded in the MQCM.jar file.
  • Updated code to support the latest release of IBM MQ.
  • Updated code to support Java i18n – I included 55 language property files.

For more information on MQ Channel Monitor, please go to:
https://www.capitalware.com/mqcm_overview.html

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Capitalware, IBM MQ, IBM MQ Appliance, Java, Linux, macOS (Mac OS X), Open Source, PCF, Programming, Unix, Windows Comments Off on New: MQ Channel Monitor v1.2.0

IBM MQ V9.1.1 Announced

November 27, 2018 Roger Lacroix

IBM has announced IBM MQ V9.1.1:
https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?docURL=/common/ssi/rep_ca/1/897/ENUS218-511/index.html

    Highlights:

  • MQ V9.1.1 base provides the following:
    • Support for running applications on Microsoft™ .NET Core
    • Provision for a list of acceptable Transport Layer Security (TLS) CipherSpecs
    • Dynamic TLS CipherSpec negotiation
    • More effective integration with IBM WebSphere® Liberty
    • Improved queue manager restart and client reconnect times
  • MQ Advanced V9.1.1 includes the capabilities in MQ V9.1.1 base and new REST API calls for MQ Managed File Transfer (MQ MFT) administration.
  • MQ Appliance V9.1.1 firmware includes the capabilities in MQ V9.1.1 and is available for the following appliances:
    • MQ Appliance M2000
    • MQ Appliance M2001
    • MQ Appliance M2002

Planned availability for IBM MQ V9.1.1 is November 30, 2018 for Electronic software delivery.

IBM MQ (aka WebSphere MQ) homepage
https://www.ibm.com/products/mq

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

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Capitalware IniFile GUI Tools Updated

November 26, 2018 Roger Lacroix

If you read my ‘Size Matters’ blog posting, this is just a continuation but for Capitalwre’s IniFile GUI Tools.

Many of Capitalware’s back-end solutions have a lot of keyword/value pairs, so each product has an associated IniFile GUI Tool program to make it easier for the MQAdmin to configure the IniFile rather than using notepad or vi. They are:

When I originally created the first IniFile GUI Tool for MQAUSX, I simply hard-coded (in English) the labels, buttons and menu items, since the important items were the keyword/value pairs that the MQAdmin would be adding/updating/editing. As, I added more back-end solutions, hence more IniFile GUI Tools, I simply cloned the original one (Programmers never write new code unless they have too!!).

When I look at my customer base for Capitalware’s back-end solutions, for non-English customers, it is probably around 33%. Of course, now I’m thinking why didn’t I add multi language support in the begging. D’Oh!

    So, for each IniFile GUI Tool:

  • I added language support for 55 languages for button, menu items and section titles but NOT for the product keywords.
  • I added code to get the font width of each label, button text, etc. and calculating the necessary width of the component and setting the size.

Note: The product keywords were NOT translated because I don’t want to add 55 different language processors to each product to when it is reading/processing the keyword/value pairs.

As an added bonus, I thought I would also include 6 of the “other tools” that are in MQ Visual Edit to each IniFile GUI Tool. Here are the 6 “other tools” that were added:

  • Hex Converter tool can convert a hexadecimal number to its corresponding string representation and vice versa. i.e. 0x’3132333041424344′ to ‘1230ABCD’.
  • Hex Editor is a simple multi-purpose HEX editor. The Hex Editor supports multi-file editing.
  • Text Editor is a simple multi-purpose plain-text editor. The Text Editor supports multi-file editing.
  • Tail File is a simple multi-purpose file monitoring viewer. The Tail File supports monitoring of multiple files at the same time.
  • XML Editor is a simple multi-purpose XML editor. The XML Editor supports multi-file editing.
  • Visual Difference is a simple file to file comparison tool. It visually displays differences between 2 files.

These IniFile GUI Tool updates are available for download. Send the email to support@capitalware.com if you want to use the latest release.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Capitalware, IBM i (OS/400), IBM MQ, Linux, MQ Auditor, MQ Authenticate User Security Exit, MQ Channel Connection Inspector, MQ Enterprise Security Suite, MQ Message Encryption, MQ Message Replication, MQ Standard Security Exit, Unix, Windows Comments Off on Capitalware IniFile GUI Tools Updated

IBM MQ Fix Pack 9.1.0.1 Released

November 19, 2018 Roger Lacroix

IBM has just released Fix Pack 9.1.0.1 for IBM MQ V9.1 LTS:
https://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ibm10738815

and for IBM i:
https://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ibm10740195

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

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Size Matters

November 15, 2018 Roger Lacroix

Ha! Got your attention. 🙂 This posting is not what you think it is about! So, get your mind out of the gutter. 🙂

A couple of weeks ago, a customer using MQ Visual Edit sent me a screenshot of an issue they were having. The column label on one of the windows was truncated. He was using it on Windows, so I did a quick test on my Windows desktop PC and everything looked normal. I scratched my head and as I was starring at the screenshot and my running copy of MQ Visual Edit, I noticed that his font appeared larger.

After an email exchange with the end-user, I found out that he had set his PC’s screen resolution at “125% of normal” (i.e. DPI of 120).

Now I do have some code in MQ Visual Edit to make the docks larger so that the text would fit but it was more of some simple coding. I had previously tested MQ Visual Edit on Windows, macOS and Linux (desktop) to make sure everything fit in the windows, column labels and buttons but I never thought about testing it for users who might have issue with normal screen resolution. My bad.

It occurred to me that MQ Visual Edit may have the same issue with non English languages even at normal resolution. I have tested non English languages at normal resolution and never noticed an issue but that does not mean end-users might not be having an issue.

So, I have spent the last 2 weeks adding code to MQ Visual Edit to get the font width of each label, button text, etc. and calculating the necessary width of the component and setting the size. It has been a whole lot of tedious work but I am happy to say everything is looking good. I even set my laptop’s screen resolution to “125% of normal” and been using it to test all of the screens.

I have also made the changes to MQ Visual Browse and MQTT Message Viewer.

If you are having an issue with truncated text, labels, buttons, etc. then send me an email and I will send you the latest release of MQ Visual Edit, MQ Visual Browse or MQTT Message Viewer. Send the email to support@capitalware.com

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Capitalware, IBM MQ, Linux, macOS (Mac OS X), MQ Visual Browse, MQ Visual Edit, MQTT Message Viewer, Windows Comments Off on Size Matters