Re: General AS/400 Question -- MIDRANGE-L

Sorry to hear about your experience Laura.  You'll be happy
to note that RBTSYSLIB at least now only carries *PUBLIC
*USE.  You'll be unhappy to know that there are three system
state MI programs now included.

I have worked with Help Systems for years and never really
had your type of experience.  That type of response is not
justifiable.

One thing I have noticed is that over the last two years there
has been a dramatic shift (by those of us who know and listen
to people like Steve Glanstein) in security conciousness by
customers.  We are not relying solely on the belief that OS/400
and IBM will give us 100% of the necessary security for our
systems.  What I have also seen is a much slower shift by
vendors, they just are not responding the way that they should.
Help Systems is not alone in this category.

Despite Laura's experience I would still recommend their
products.  Now if they would only listen to Dean and fix their
screen navigation standards I would really be happy! :-)

Despite Al's statement regarding OS/400 remote spool
writer capability I would also recommend the Broderick
product in some situations.  I have found it to be more
granular in it's configuration and better performing.  If you
are in a multiple system environment with lots of print and
printers I would take a look at Broderick.  The OS/400 function is very
nice and free.  The Broderick product is relatively affordable.

I would highly recommend the TAATOOL product from
Jim Sloan.  For the money it is THE BEST BUY out there.  It can
help in so many ways and is priced extremely reasonable.

For tape management I recommend the MMS product from LXI.
It also installs a library in the system portion above QSYS but
it is documented (you have to look) in the user manual.  Coming
from a mainframe, it is probably the most comprable tape
product  you can find.  At least that was my conclusion 5 years
ago when we dumped our lameframe for the AS/400.....


<SNIP>
>So I loaded.  And I found
>that their install program, WITH NO FOREWARNING OR PERMISSION, in the
>documentation or on a screen at install time, CHANGED MY QSYSLIBL.  They
PUT
>RBTSYSADM (or some such library name, their baseline library at any rate)
AH
>EAD OF QSYS in my qsyslibl WITH *PUBLIC *CHANGE authority. Needlless to
say I
>was not happy.  I was even less happy when I discovered *2* SYSTEM-STATE
MI
>programs in their libraries.  I was told by their tech support that 'this
is
>the only way' they can make their function run - but in the case of at
least
>one of those programs they simply needed the correct MI command.  When I
called
>them on these two intrusions, questioning the whys and wherefores I was
told
>that they do this for their customers' convenience and that they didn't
need my
>business (I was in state government at the time) if I didn't like the way
they
>wrote their code.  That came from one of their Vice Presidents.  They
didn't
>get my business.  I don't do business with hackers who hide under the
covers of
>"this is the only way" and "our customers want the convenience".








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