Re: Outsourcing spooled file and a little .NET rant

Thanks for your replies. I will follow up. 

iConvert? It goes back because it was a package deal with the Xerox printer.

PDF not an option? We do not want to add any programming steps here. Too bad, 
though because a searchable document would be nice. There are vendors (thanks 
for your assistance here) out there who can do what we need. I'll find them.

Not to knock MS too much, but just FYI when we were debating whether to go the 
.NET route we figured we had two options. Keep the data on the 400 and pass the 
data back and forth or just bite the bullet and go SQL Server. Well, we tried 
option one at first and found that it took too long to transfer data. It is not 
an option anymore - we just need the speed. So, here we are developing 
everything in Visual Studio 2005 with the data in SQL Server. 

However, I kept asking our IT (.NET crew who know nothing about the AS/400) 
about down time, rebooting PCs and servers, backups etc.  We cannot be down 
during our heavy tax season or realistically anytime.  I got all the stories 
about how our PCs mustn't be configured properly if they crash. Servers don't 
crash, blah, blah, blah. Well, guess what?? Our PCs seldom crashed until we as 
developers started using Visual Studio 2005. It crashes constantly - at least 
four times a day. Is it the combination of VS and VSS? Even the server had to 
be rebooted a couple of times!!! 

And, now we are hearing that processing huge number of records won't be an 
issue in SQL Server 2005. Huh???? We asked specifically about a million or so 
records. No problem - so they said. That was before SQL Server 2005. We ran 
into a couple of issues with large volumes of data right now in development.

Just something to consider. You can ask the right questions and get 
reassurances from the people who maintain the computers, but there are no 
guarantees. I'm sure they are tired of hearing "It doesn't happen on the 400". 
I was a 400 bigot and may be leaning back in this direction. At least you can 
depend on its reliability.

OK. I'm done now.


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message: 1
date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 20:56:08 -0600
from: pnelson@xxxxxxxxxx 
subject: Re: Outsourcing spooled file

Planet Press will take a spool file from the System i and convert it to a 
pdf. That software is a print formatting package. It takes "spool files" 
from just about any source and allows you apply overlays and then print or 
convert to pdf format.

If you are an ATT long distance customer, your bill was printed by one of 
my clients. They get the call details from ATT, rate them and tax them, 
then they export the spool file to Planet Press