Learn how to use the Convert Seconds to Character Timestamp (CEEDATM) and Convert Timestamp to Number of Seconds (CEESECS) APIs.

By Bruce Vining

In the last column of this series, we looked at the Get Current Local Time (CEELOCT) and Copy Numeric Value (LBCPYNV) APIs in order to simplify working with time durations involving seconds, minutes, or hours. Today, we will review the Convert Seconds to Character Timestamp (CEEDATM) and Convert Timestamp to Number of Seconds (CEESECS) APIs to see how these APIs can be used to provide a higher level of operational friendliness to the job at hand. As a reminder, the task we are working on is to send an alert from one program (CHKLSTSND) when another program (SNDUPD) has not successfully run in over six hours.

The free plug-in for Outlook promises to advance the state of social networking--for good or bad.

By Chris Smith

There are two ways to look at email: the masculine view and the feminine view. The masculine view says that your hard drive is precious, and having excess capacity is far more important than saving a lot of previously read, out-of-date, and often silly messages that just clutter up your drive and slow your computer.

The feminine view says that each one of these emails is precious and deserves to be preserved, that there is a rich fabric of emotional and factual content in the collective accumulation of these messages, and that you should have a means of mining all this data in order to make intelligent decisions now and in the future. The legal view is a subset of the feminine view and says, "thou shalt preserve thy email" because it may be subpoenaed as evidence in court.