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Hi Dave, > What do you all think about the iSeries Network. This seems to be the > place that IBM recommends as it "Forums" for iSeries. There are pros and cons of using the iSeries Network's web-based forums vs. using Midrange.com's e-mail forums. One nice thing about the web forums is that you can see the entire of messages and replies all together on the same page -- instead of having to scroll through many e-mail messages on Midrange.com. Another nice thing is that as soon as someone posts a message it's immediately visible to everyone, as opposed to having a few minutes of lag time between when someone sends an e-mail to Midrange.com and the time that it shows up in your mailbox. The immediate response prevents 10 people from posting the same message because they "didn't think anyone had replied yet." Another nice thing about the web-based forums is that you don't get all of the aggravating "Out of the office" replies. On the other hand, an e-mail/newsgroup forum like this one has a lot of advantages over web-based. For one thing, it's open to everyone without the need for a membership and a user-id/password to login with. For another, because of the use of E-mail/News technology, you can use any reader that you want -- for example, I can use a Unix text-based reader like pine to read my mail, while you use a windows program like Outlook. We all have the freedom to choose. Plus, I can set up scripts and filters that run on my e-mail. For example, I use filters to put all of the MIDRANGE-L messages into a separate folder from the RPG400-L messages. Or, perhaps you'd prefer to use filters to, say delete all e-mail coming from a particular person. You can't do that on the iSeries Network! The other advantage that Midrange.com has over all of the other forums that I've looked at is that it simply has more people. That means more experts to jump in and answer your questions, and a wider variety of experiences with products. That can be invaluable. There are more IBMers or other industry experts on Midrange.com than anywhere else that I know of. So, like I said -- there are pros and cons. Of course, the iSeries Network has other features besides the forums. In particular, if you're a programmer, they've got a really good programming tips e-newsletter! That guy who edits that newsletter is really awesome! :)
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