Volume III #23
IN THIS ISSUE:
A D M I N I S T R I V I A
A I V I R T S I N I M D A
We're not suggesting that any of these situations will happen to you, but consider that if these things, as crazy as they sounded before, can happen, how much more likely is it that something will happen to your computer system in the next 12 months which will make you glad you had decent backups. 2. Use all those end of year coupons you have laying around from Staples and OfficeMax and get some goodies to beef up your IT infrastructure:Two years ago, no one here ever thought that we would have to move out of our office because of toxic substances in the foundation!
Twelve months ago, no here ever thought that we would have an earthquake! (In fact, though we did not need it, it turned out the Suntower Systems was amongst only 10% of business and homeowners in the area with earthquake insurance.)
Three months ago, no one thought seriously about having a plane fly through their windows.
Make this the year you switch from network hubs to switches for linking your computers. There's a really good article in PC Magazine this month about it. Too technical? Fine: switches are much faster than hubs. They are now the cheapest things you can do to add instant speed to your network. For $200, you may see a 200 percent increase in speed. And while you're at it, if you're not using 100MB Ethernet cards, switch. They're all plug and play and they speed things up for less than $50 a PC.
Put some more RAM in everyone's machine. Put a lot more RAM in. This is the key to fast performance in SAFE.
Get at least one machine with XP and note how much nicer it is to not have to re-boot all the time. 3. Make certain you have upgraded to SAFE 4.2a. Although we put a couple of tweaky little interface improvements in, the real changes were the final frosting on a number of under the hood changes to the database which were necessary in order to make all the cool goodies in SAFE 5.0 possible without a lot of pain and suffering for all considered (read: backward compatibility). 4. Start cleaning up your data in SAFE. Trust us, there are ch-ch-ch-changes coming in SAFE 5.0 and you need to do these things in order to be ready. Here are three that should keep you busy (at least until our next issue):
Start using Contacts for everything. In SAFE 5.0 there will be no more Contact 'First Name' and 'Last Name' fields in the Customer, Vendor, and Sites Master Files. There will only be links to Contacts. So for example, you should start now to link the Billing Contacts for your Customers and the Sales Contacts for your Vendors and so on. Because these will be required in SAFE 5.0.
Set up your Units of Measure! Not many of you have checked over in your Units of Measure, but for those who have, there are seems to be another one of those pesky Unit, Lot, Pack Option Boxes. You should set those up today. Because in SAFE 5.0 these will drive all of inventory. In fact, there will no longer be 'Unit/Lot/Pack options anywhere in SAFE except in the Unit of Measure master.
Start using Site LOCATIONS for everything. So many of you like the idea of looking up Customers and Vendor Sites by LOCATION that we made the field required in SAFE 4.2a. So heed this requirement and fill in a LOCATION for every Site you use.
Suntower Systems Closed Christmas Week!
Just a note that we will be officially closed Christmas week (
Saturday Dec 23rd through Tuesday January 1, 2002.) We will re-open for normal hours
(7AM-5PM PST) on Wednesday January 2nd. For those of you who insist on continuing to work
full tilt that week, two lumps of coal for your stocking, but fear not: for genuine
dreaded emergencies we shall have people on stand by.
CIARAN'S CORNER:
Windows XP: Not The Weakest Link!
Ah, but now that it's too late, you all want to complain about XP. I tell you it's simply business as usual from Microsoft and I really do not understand all the flap. They're no better or worse than ever. As I said last month, it simply more of the same old tricks, now backed by a more 'business friendly' administration. So why do I still recommend that you move to Windows XP? Because for all their diabolical ways to get their hooks into you, MS has finally developed a stable operating system that will work properly with most all the gear you have. Why not stick with Windows 2000 or NT? Simple: they don't work with most of the consumer-level hardware that, frankly, most of you use instead of the more expensive 'business-class' PCs that large corporations run. Honestly, given the choice, most of you buy Compaq Presarios instead of the more expensive DeskPros. Why? Because they work just as well, if not better than the more expensive PCs for Windows 98. And NT? Well NT and W2K don't let you play all the cool video games (strictly business, mate!) So why buy the more expensive PCs just to get W2K compatibility and not get any fun out of it? We could never convince enough of you that it was worth it. Well, XP changes all that. You can take the bargain-priced moo-cow PC you bought last summer for $800, fork over $199 for XP Pro (with the free memory chip most dealers are offering, of course) and you're ready to experience something you may never have experienced before: now sit down for this one: a PC that doesn't lock up at least three times a week! That's why we're so enthusiastic about XP. Everything else about it pales in comparision. Since we make a mission critical app (I think we can all agree that an accounting app should never crash) it is in our best interest to do whatever we can to get you to run SAFE on the most stable platform available. And XP is it. World without end, Amen. So with that great benefit, should you be wary of the mine fields in Passport, Windows Activation, Microsoft E-Mail programs? Absolutely! Be paranoid about security. Do not register for anything Microsoft offers to help you with. Get a good book on how to secure your PCs and read it. Generally speaking: Fight the power! Use the good bits of in XP and a pox on the rest.My how things have changed: For years we grumbled about all of Microsoft's product shortcomings and nefarious business practices. And during that time we heard nary a peep from users. The computer press seemed to be truly in Redmond's pocket. Now, with the coming of Windows XP, all kinds of people are coming out of the woodwork to complain about Windows and Microsoft. To them I say, 'where were you two years ago when Microsoft could have (should have) been sent to the woodshed proper?'
Right, back to normal. To sum it up: If you already have NT 4.0 W2K, great! pat yourself on the back for your good sense. But if not, then thank MS for finding a way to get you to do what we could not: getting you to run SAFE on a more stable OS. But if a little monopolistic nagging was required to get you moving in this direction, well you're still not The Weakest Link in my book.
Goodbye!
---Ciaràn
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End of E-News From The Suntower, Volume III #23