Goodness, doesn't the year fly by quickly? We hope you are all well, and enjoying the fine spell of weather (at time of writing!). There is lots of good news to report to you, so this is a bumper- length newsletter.
THANK YOU NOTE
To those who took the trouble to send us things for the wish list. We will be compiling a consolidated list that will be sent to all current users to see which wishes are the most popular.
R.E.D’s HARD DRIVE
No, it’s not what you think! R.E.D decided to venture out to Ripley for some overland racing, one muddy Saturday (wonderful excuse for sexy orange rubber overalls!). We managed to convince 11 people to join our team, competing against other computer companies - all of whom were novices, luckily.
Due to some expert driving from our team we all but won, just pipped at the post in the final stages. The whole morning was very good humoured and was rounded off with a boozey barbeque at Helen and John’s. Although we returned to work on Monday with some mighty big bruises, we shall return! If you would like to come with us next time, give a ring!
NEW SUBS FACILITIES
Those who have the Continents module will have the facility
to generate automatically the international telephone dialling
codes. While on the subject, don't forget that from next year
they will all be changing.
This is now done automatically for both form letters and labels.
No need now for *INIT()*
Yes, this is a good news day for those who have been wanting
to import demographics along with their addresses. It’s here!
Also, the speed of importing is much improved when setting up
a sub at the same time.
Perhaps it is because everybody’s number of subscriptions
is increasing that top of the wish list was faster label printing.
This has now happened, and with it two other things: it is now
possible to produce beautiful labels in proportional fonts (if
your printer will support them), and all labels require less memory
in the workstation. If you want to make use of proportional fonts,
please ring for instructions.
Were you ever niggled that when you printed to screen it flashed
past so quickly you had to have speedy eyes. No more. Mere
mortals can now have a chance because it stops when the screen
is full to allow you to read it!
There are very extended facilities in these and in the report generator to allow you to get even more information on. They are very sophisticated, but not particularly user-friendly, so fax if there is something you want but can’t see the way to get it.
NEW OPTIONS
How many times have you wished you could press the generate
or print labels or print report button once, and it would do it
for more than one publication while you go off for an extended
coffee!? Well, your dream has come true and this facility is now
available.
Oh, it must be coffee time again! Batching of your ad hoc reports
is there at a touch of a button.
This may sound a rather silly heading, but many people want to know how many people match a particular template. There is now a Count in the new Add Lists section.
BPA
We are in communication with the BPA, and, after our last abortive attempt to meet them, they will be over again in August. We hope the talks will be fruitful and useful. In the meanwhile, there is to be a meeting here on ?????? with R.E.D. BPA users.
PROPOSED FACILITIES
These are new ideas which we might implement if there is enough
interest among you. So, please let us know if any of them are
something you would use.
We are gathering details on the possibilities of automatic
credit card authorisation while entering the details in the subs
program. This idea is, as yet, in the early stages.
There are plans afoot to provide an optional PAF verification on addresses as you enter them, possibly using the GB Mailing system. Again, please let us know if you are interested in this.
TECHNICAL NOTES
A series of R.E.D technical notes is now available. The subjects so far are: Speed comparisons between different workstations, file- servers, etc,; error messages and accessing Btreive from other systems. Talk to us if you would like any of these.
PERSONAL NOTES
You may remember Stephen and Joanne who used to work for R.E.D. They have moved to Cambridge, and were married in June this year. We send them our best wishes.
Denise is working in the immunology section of Great Ormond Street Hospital; Georgina is working in Staines for a payroll company, enjoying it and doing very well and John Barry is down the road at Oracle, and looked just fine at the beginning of the evening at The Royal Oak!