IIUG Insider (Issue #38)
17 October 2003
Other Issues
Highlights: See You in Las Vegas, Run for the Board, Referrals Over and More...
Welcome to the International Informix Users Group (IIUG) Insider! Designed for IIUG members and Informix user group leaders, this publication contains timely and relevant information for the IBM Informix community.
Contents:
- See You in Las Vegas!
- Do You Want to Run for the 2004 IIUG Board of Directors?
- 2003 IIUG Member Referral Program a Total Success
- IIUG/IBM Storage & Monitoring Survey
- New SIG: Portuguese & Brazilian Members Get a Dedicated SIG
- Bloor Research Report on Customer Loyalty to IDS
- IBM alphaWorks and the IBM Informix XSLT DataBlade
- November & December User Group Meetings in Your Area
- Free IBM Online Tutorials for IDS Problem Determination
- IBM Announcement: Informix & SCO Support
- Useful Links
- Closing and Credits
See You in Las Vegas!
The IIUG Board and hundreds of IIUG members will be attending the IBM Data Management Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 27-31 October [http://ibm.com/training/conf/us/dm]. If you are planning to attend, please stop by the IIUG booth in the main exhibit hall.
IIUG will also be hosting its Annual General Meeting at 5:30PM on Tuesday, 28 October. For more details on the location of the meeting, please inquire at the booth or check your conference schedule.
Of interest too is IIUG's sponsored "Meet the Executives" session, which will be held on Monday October 27th from 5:30- 630 PM in Ballroom A at the Las Vegas Hilton, and will be hosted by Jerry Hamilton, IIUG President. The Panel of IBM Executives this year will include:
- Alan Grady Vice-President, Data Management Support Services
- Paul Rivot Director - Database Servers and Business
Intelligence Software
- Kim Lockwood Director, Channels Development, DB2 Information
Management
- Kevin Biggs Vice President, Worldwide Data Management Sales,
IBM Software Division
- Tom Rosamilia V.P., WW Data Mgmt Development & SVL General
Manager
- Paul Taylor IBM Distinguished Engineer
As in the past, we have solicited questions from you to be answered by these panel members. Please take some time out of your busy schedules and prepare a question or two for this event. E-mail these to conferences@iiug.org.
Also to keep in mind and perhaps sway you to attend:
Free IBM Informix Certification
Did you know that there will be complimentary IBM Informix professional certification testing offered at the Data Management Technical Conference (DMTC)? There is no better way to validate your skills than with professional certification. Take advantage of this opportunity for savings and check out the certifications available at DMTC: http://www.ibm.com/services/learning/conf/us/dm/certification.html
Free Informix Tutorials at Las Vegas Conference
Be sure to take advantage of an additional learning opportunity with the Informix tutorial offer worth $500 in savings. These tutorials are free for DMTC registered attendees to provide additional insight into the continued enhancements of the Informix Dynamic Server. Each tutorial will range from 1.5 to 3 hours in length. Check out the tutorials available and register at: http://www.ibm.com/services/learning/conf/us/dm/informix.html
Do You Want to Run for the 2004 IIUG Board of Directors?
The IIUG Nominating Committee is still taking nominations for the 2004 term of the IIUG Board of Directors. The slate of candidates is growing and includes IIUG leaders, successful business people and educators from around the globe.
If you have a passionate interest in Informix products, and the drive, vision, and commitment to lead and represent the most influential community of Informix users, please give your potential nomination serious thought.
Nominations will be entertained through 31 October and elections will take place on-line at the IIUG website during the month of November. Results will be announced in December.
For additional info, visit: http://www.iiug.org/iiug/committee.html.
If you would like to nominate yourself or a colleague, please contact the IIUG Nominating Committee as soon as possible by writing to Nominating-Committee@IIUG.org.
2003 IIUG Member Referral Program a Total Success
The 2003 IIUG Member Referral program has come to a close with 559 new IIUG members and one big winner: Mr. Gerd Kaluzinski of Germany, who referred a total of 16 new IIUG members and is the winner of a free and fully functional copy of Server Studio courtesy of AGS Limited (http://www.serverstudio.com).
This is the highest number of referrals by any single member in the two years we have been running this contest and we congratulate and thank Mr. Kaluzinski!
The following IIUG members also referred three members and will be receiving an IIUG Lapel Pin: Tusha Patel, Starcks Hsieh, Eric Chen, Bo Liy and Eo Hwee Kiong.
Each of these individuals will be receiving an e-mail in the next few weeks to confirm a mailing address to receive your lapel pin.
The IIUG also had many members that referred two members and we had a
cutoff point of three referrals to receive a lapel pin, so we would like to offer these good people another 30 days (until 15 November, 2003) to refer another member each in order to receive their lapel pin.
If you think your name is on the list of possible people, please visit http://www.iiug.org/referral.
The International Informix Users Group would like to thank their special
friends at AGS Ltd for the free copy of Server Studio.
IIUG/IBM Storage & Monitoring Survey
IIUG and IBM are working together to better understand the storage and monitoring needs of the Informix user community. This anonymous survey will provide IBM with valuable customer information that will be used to develop solutions to help solve real life problems as well as get input for future IBM product releases as relevant to Informix products. Please take the time to take this survey and provide your objective feedback. The survey can be obtained from We are proud to announce that we have set up a new SIG (Special Interest
Group) for Portuguese speaking IIUG members. While this new SIG may mostly concern Portugal and Brazil residents, all speakers of the Portuguese language are welcome to participate!
Let's also welcome our 3 new SIG Champions: Maria Clara Blanco, Rodrigo Meyer and Vlaunir J. Da Silva. Maria will be our IBM Vendor Champion, Rodrigo and Vlaunir are our Tech Champions.
The document's purpose, as stated in its introduction: "This briefing note sets out to understand exactly how loyal Informix customers are remaining to IBM, particularly with respect to Informix Dynamic Server within the EMEA (Europe, Middle-East, and Africa) region."
Not to blow the punch line, the report's conclusions are quite optimistic.
The IBM Informix XSLT DataBlade module creates new SQL functions (which are called user-defined routines (UDRs) that allow transformation of documents from one format to another using XSLT style sheets and libxslt (the Gnome C XSLT library).
As 2003 comes to a close, a few Informix Local User Groups have scheduled meetings prior to the end of the year. Take note and contact your local user group steering committee if you want a meeting and don't see one in your area:
Take the New Informix Dynamic Server Problem Determination Tutorial Series Free! This series of eight tutorials is designed to assist anyone supporting or developing in an Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) database environment, to quickly identify and resolve problems or errors encountered. It will familiarize you with the IDS problem determination facilities and tools available and help you determine when it is most appropriate to use them.
On September 23, 2003, IBM announced that Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) 9.4, Informix Client Software Development Kit (CSDK) 2.81, and Informix Connect 2.81 will not support the SCO UnixWare + LKP platform.
IBM was unable to obtain the necessary operating system fixes from the operating system manufacturer to successfully complete testing and certification on this platform. At this point, IBM has no plans to ship future releases on the SCO UnixWare +LKP platform. IBM will continue to support previous versions of IDS, CSDK and Connect on the existing SCO platforms.
In response to your input, we have created a new page on the IIUG web site
containing all the links we used to include. Please find it at:
The International Informix Users Group (IIUG) is an organization designed to enhance communications between its worldwide user community and IBM. IIUG's membership database now exceeds 18,000 entries and enjoys the support and commitment of IBM's Data Management division. Key programs include local user groups and special interest groups, which we promote and assist from launch through growth.
