Re: Stupid AS/400 web site tricks -- MIDRANGE-L

>I suspect that Roger - in recent years - may have spent more time on the MS
>sites than IBM's and thus has the reverse experience to myself who works
>the other way round.  IMHO most web sites with few exceptions are as useful
>as they could be.  IBM's VisualAge for RPG/ Code/400 web site was the

Jon--

It's not just AS/400 and IBM Web sites, it's the entire scheme of AS/400
documentation delivery and availability.

For less than $200 a year, you can get a great collection of CDs that enable
you find almost any answer for any MS product very quickly. The AS/400, on
the other hand, takes a passive approach, where you search and scour looking
for anwers that might be provided on the Web and delivering the lamest
Windows-based help imaginable. Further, IBM offers no global search
facility, even the various web sites don't know about each (try searching
for Host On-Demand at www.as400.ibm.com)!

It is further frustrating that there is such a hodge-podge of places to
look. NetServer? It's own web site (with a tangential mention in one white
manual). CA/400 APIs? They are on the web as HTML and PDF, but you'd better
know where to look to get the PDF format. Telnet SLL Proxy Server? No
mention in the manuals (unless, of course, you just happened to notice the
new VPN redbook), but a decent amount of information on its Web site, if you
had Nostrodomus at your side to know to go looking for it in the first
place!

Examples? You want good examples? I'll admit coding examples are more widely
available than they've ever been, but their coding quality is often dubious
at best, sometimes they don't compile (an ODBC exit point program I
downloaded wouldn't compile it had so many errors). But examples can also be
frustrating to find--Project Lightning for example is woefully
underexampled.

And, further, consider the plight of vendors needing low-level details. I've
had vendors (major vendors with guys with big brains) bemoan the lack of
low-level details available. Since the demise of the Licensed Program
Interfaces program, vendors have had to knock their heads against the wall
to build software for the AS/400. That, by the way, is when IBM sees its way
clear to discuss the topic in the first place! The latest example of this is
BOS's recently-announced TCP/IP over Twinax solution--which BOS had to
reverse engineer!

And it's not good enough to say, "Hey, all Web sites are bad. Take what you
can get and be happy." We're talking about the biggest computer company in
the world here! If IBM can't fix it, who can? And, doesn't it bug anyone but
me that the computer leading the charge to e-commerce can't even take a
credit card over the Web to sell me a redbook! Or provide an effective link
to make it easy for me to buy white manuals. I don't expect all this stuff
to be free, but I expect it to be easily available.

IBM should be ashamed of its AS/400 documentation! It is mind-boggling to me
that the AS/400 is such a superior box with such inferior documentation.

Whew. Lordy, I feel better.

rp


rp










-----Original Message-----
From: Jon.Paris@halinfo.it <Jon.Paris@halinfo.it>
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com <MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com>
Date: Tuesday, February 16, 1999 11:04 AM
Subject: Stupid AS/400 web site tricks


> >> And we still complain about Microsoft's horrible habit of making
>information
>hard to find? ;-)
>
>I have yet to find anything useful on MS sites - while I don't like the IBM
>sites and agree that they are tough to navigate (even worse if you're
>foolish enough to personalize the AS/400 site!) at least I can eventually
>find something useful on them.  The only thing I've ever found on the MS
>sites (other than the fact that they like to make it look as if "pay for"
>service is the only way to get answers) - was the advice that to deal with
>the problem I was experiencing with audio/video I should upgrade to the
>latest driver.  I followed their advice and neither the MS product or my
>Real Audio drivers have worked since.  Needless to say I can't find
>anything on their site to explain this.
>
>latest to confuse me.  I knew they had a news group for Q & A but couldn't
>find it on the site under support or anything similar.  I finally hit the
>"Contact Us" hot spot to send them an e-mail to ask where it was - there in
>the middle of the page were the newsgroup Ids I needed!!! Maybe it's just
>me .........
>
>
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