October 15, 2021
ExpatPaul starred StevenBlack/hosts
Python 18.9k 2 issues need help Updated Oct 14
October 9, 2021
ExpatPaul pushed to master in ExpatPaul/sinfest-rss
October 8, 2021
Paul has challenged himself to read 33 books in 2021.
Paul is currently reading 'Precursor'
Paul is currently reading Precursor
by
C.J. Cherryh
Paul added 'Monstress, Vol. 6: The Vow'
Paul gave 5 stars to Monstress, Vol. 6: The Vow (Paperback)
by
Marjorie M. Liu
Absolutely spectacular. And the last two pages... I really hope they hurry up and get volume 7 published.
ExpatPaul pushed to master in ExpatPaul/sinfest-rss
October 6, 2021
Paul added 'Children of Ruin'
Paul gave 5 stars to Children of Ruin (Children of Time #2)
by
Adrian Tchaikovsky
September 28, 2021
Paul added 'End of Empires'
Paul gave 4 stars to End of Empires (Chronicles of Isambard Smith, #5)
by
Toby Frost
Returning to the world of Space Captain Smith is always a pleasure. As with the previous books in this series, it's all very silly. It's also very funny and managed to have me laughing out loud far too often.
September 24, 2021
Paul is currently reading 'Children of Ruin'
Paul is currently reading Children of Ruin
by
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Paul added 'Tentacles and Teeth'
Paul gave 2 stars to Tentacles and Teeth (Land of Szornyek Book #1)
by
Ariele Sieling
September 21, 2021
Paul added 'End of Empires'
Paul gave 4 stars to End of Empires (Chronicles of Isambard Smith, #5)
by
Toby Frost
Returning to the world of Space Captain Smith is always a pleasure. As with the previous books in this series, it's all very silly. It's also very funny and managed to have me laughing out loud far too often.
September 8, 2021
Paul added 'The Great Hunt'
Paul gave 3 stars to The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time, #2)
by
Robert Jordan
It's all suitably epic, but I have to admit the the major characters managed to consistently annoy me. They were all a bit too whiny and a bit too pointlessly mulish about the events surrounding them.
And things are not helped by the fact that far too many of the plot points rely on these characters being stupid, naive or both.
August 5, 2021
Paul added 'Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema'
Paul gave 4 stars to Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema (Paperback)
by
Jasper Sharp
The depth and level of detail in this book really is incredible. There is so much in it that it can feel quite heavy going at times but, if you have any interest in the genre at all, then it really is a must-read.
April 12, 2021
New Links
IBM recently completed the migration of their online documentation from the IBM Knowledge Center to IBM Documentation. The tile based navigation takes a bit of getting used to, but it’s not too bad once you do. But if you’re in a hurry, all of the IBM i documentation starts here.
May 27, 2019
Searching strings in SQL with LOCATE_IN_STRING
I’ve been somewhat remiss in maintaining this blog over the past few months, but the LOCATE_IN_STRING scalar function really is worth mentioning. The LOCATE_IN_STRING function returns the starting position of a string (called the search-string) within another string (called the source-string). If the search-string is not found and neither argument […]
November 19, 2018
Close *ALL the files on-exit
I have previously mentioned the ON-EXIT operation code, and now it’s the turn of something I should have known about years ago. Back in the old days, handling files was simple. All of the files you declared would be opened when the program starts and closed again when the program […]
October 22, 2018
Submitting a job as a different user
We are all familiar with the SBMJOB command, but it’s rare that anyone looks beyond the first few parameters. Until you need to. One overlooked parameter is USER which allows you to specify the name of the user profile for the job being submitted. Obviously, you need to have enough […]
October 8, 2018
Querying data queues with QMHQRDQD
Someone recently asked me if I knew of an API that could be used to retrieve the number of entries in a data queue without pulling the entries from the data queue. I didn’t, but a quick search turned up QMHQRDQD.: The Retrieve Data Queue Description (QMHQRDQD) API retrieves the […]
October 1, 2018
Using QSYRUSRI to check whether a user profile exists
Sometimes you have a table that captures user profiles. Obviously, if the user profile is deleted, there is nothing to delete these table entries. And sometimes, auditors can see this as a problem. There are several ways of handling this, one of which is to make use of the QSYRUSRI […]
June 18, 2018
30 years of The System
On June 21st 1988, IBM launched the AS/400. This was replaced in 2001 by the iSeries which, in turn, was followed by the IBM i on Power. For 30 years, IBM have managed to deliver a robust platform that delivers exceptional security and a business resilience that you can rely […]