Re: Education

There are tons of alternatives out there depending on what you are 
comfortable with & can afford.  

Midrange_L lists & links to other forums, conferences, newsletters, trade 
press, user groups.  Unfortunately there is no such thing as "AS/400 for 
Dummies" at your local book store, but there are some great books on aspects 
of AS/400 that do not cost an arm & a leg.  You can get audio tapes with 
books of exercises to try assuming you have access to AS/400 for this ... I 
want to listen to the tapes at home at my liesure but there I have no AS/400 
access.  IBM Education is great with the IBM Education card if you can get 
away from your office to attend & IBM has great discounts on lodging & air 
fare.  There are seminars all over the country sponsored by lots of outfits.  
Have you checked the archives of this place & others like it?

Here are some URLs that you might want to book mark & visit at your 
convenience.

Technical Conferences - go to a convention for a week of back to back 
seminars & rubbing elbows with your peers whose AS/400 knowhow is priceless
http://www.common.org
http://www.ibmguide.com/k0fe2b/as400/?1F2X804DNE6

IBM Lunch & Learn
http://www.envoyforum.com/as400/

Documentation - quick definition ... 
the white books are written by the people who developed some product for 
AS/400 - they explain in detail HOW to use that product, one product at a time
the red books are written by people in the field who tell you HOW to get the 
job done
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com

IBM AS/400 Encyclopaedia
http://www.as400.ibm.com/encycl/volume.htm

IBM Education specific to AS/400 - skip all the other stuff
http://www-3.ibm.com/services/learning/community/as400/

IBM Education by Geography - find a city & drill down to classes that 
interest you
http://www-3.ibm.com/services/learning/lsweb/educationcenters/

DB2 UDB is the data base system that comes native to AS/400 - it is extremely 
powerful, but the version on each platform is not identical ... here is the 
home page for DB2 UDB on AS/400
http://www.as400.ibm.com/db2/db2main.htm

IBM Software Development Know How
http://www.as400.ibm.com/developer/

Magazines & Periodicals - dead tree subscriptions - on line forums - tons of 
links - you can also subscribe to stuff to fill up your e-mail box from some 
of these outfits - they are NOT identical but I tossed together due to the 
similarity of services in aggregate
http://www.midrange.com
http://www.as400network.com
http://www.midrangecomputing.com/forums/
http://www.as400magazine.com
http://www.as400journal.com/
http://www.forums400.com
aol://5863:126/comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc

Several of the above have links to AS/400 user groups & several of the user 
groups you can link to have links to others not on above lists ... some 
groups have their own quality AS/400 newsletters & downloadable libraries of 
tips & techniques ... some good starting points might include:
http://www.tsmug.org - links to other user groups
www.tug.on.ca/ - their journal
www.wash-midrange.org - check out state of midrange

You can also sometimes find AS/400 groups disconnected from the AS/400 world, 
by going to the web sites of national computer associations (other than IBM 
users) then linking to their chapters, then linking to other computer 
associations in the same cities.
http://www.acm.org
http://www.ieee.org
http://www.cpsr.org
http://www.share.org

IBM fast access to anything that IBM is capable of fast access to
http://isource.ibm.com/cgi-bin/goto?on=frequentURLs

> Subj:   Education
>  From:    dsnyder@blcnet.com (Dave Snyder)
>  
>  I am new to the AS400 world, previously coming from an IBM VSE environment.
>  Can anyone recommend any educational resources available to me as a 
"newbie" 
> to the AS400? Where do I start? I have found and am pursuing the classes 
> available through IBM, but was wondering if anyone is familiar with other 
> options which may be better or more convenient, like CBT or internet types 
of 
> classes, or any experiences with the IBM classes - how helpful are they?.
>  Thanks.
>  
>  
>  Dave Snyder
>  Systems Analyst
>  Bank of Lancaster County
>  Phone: 717-735-5876
>  dsnyder@blcnet.com
>  


Alister William Macintyre 
Computer Data Janitor etc. of BPCS 405 CD Rel-02 on 400 model 170 OS4 V4R3 
(forerunner to IBM e-Server i-Series 400)  @ http://www.cen-elec.com Central 
Industries of Indiana--->Quality manufacturer of wire harnesses and 
electrical sub-assemblies

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