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Hello again, are you enjoying this weather? We've been having quite a number of emergency ice cream runs!

Let's hope the weather is particularly nice for the week of September 4th - 9th, because that’s when Helen and John are going on their holiday. If you are thinking of having a crisis or have something you want to ask but haven't quite got round to, please try to fit it around these dates. Thanks

• Don't Panic!

One or two users have been reading articles about the way databases hold dates and the disasters that may befall users when the year 2000 gets here.

Well, maybe this is fact or maybe this is fiction, but R.E.D. users have nothing to fear from the millennium, (apart from the odd party or two!). Our programs are, and have always been, designed with a very long term view in mind, and when January 1st 2000 comes along, the programs won't bat an eyelid.

• Internet/Compuserve

We are currently compiling a directory of the Compuserve e-mail mailbox numbers of all our clients for use in the future as a handy and quick way of sending updates and other things, especially to those in far away places. If you have one, please let us know. If you are not sure, ask your IT department or your local technical bod. If you haven't got one, don't worry, just look in the post for the distinctive R.E.D. label!

• Subs Update Time

The subscriptions users who hold a currently support contract will start to receive the usual Autumn update shortly. Once again, there are many exciting new features and extensions this year including:

• a new ‘suspend’ option and status for subs where publications have been returned by the post office.
• the option to import free subs with a normal status so that they can be sent a trial subscription followed by renewal notices to invite them to convert to paid subs
• updated report generator field descriptions to make it easier to pick the exact item you want to print.
• the option to enter the payment for an extra at the same time as the order itself.
• new controls to allow you to tighten up on the matches found during deduplication.
• a new option to view full subscription details from the fast entry screen
• address lists have been extended in several areas, including being able to put delivery addresses into lists created using an invoice address selection.
• the ability to decide on your own default payment comment.

• News for All

The new General Report Generator is now available for the SAC as well as the RAC and Rights’n Licence programs. It is fantastically powerful, with the user defining which tables to open and use, which tables to link to and what information to find and print.

We know that some supervisors, especially those on large networks, would like to limit the menu paths some users can take! This is now available, so the supervisor can set up the type of user and the rights the user has to specific menu options. These can be supervisory, normal, read-only, or exclude. This facility will be flexible enough to suit any combination of users.

If you're interested in either of the above, please let us know.

• In the Pipeline

Work is currently underway on a facility to allow agent renewals to be processed by disk. This will use the standards laid out in the handbook issued by the Joint Serials Committee and Association of Subscription Agents defining ‘International Standards for Exchange of Machine Readable Subscription Orders’. This will be ready by the end of the year. The first run will be done in conjunction with Blackwells.

• Not in the Pipeline!

We have looked into the Post Office’s bar coding specifications but at the moment its limitations make it almost useless for mailing magazines. For example, it only works for A5 size envelopes, which must be of paper, not polythene. We'll keep an eye on things and let you know if there are any further developments.

• On The Internet

One of our subs clients, Lettres (UK) Ltd who publish newsletters for Latin American countries, have sample pages of their publications on the Internet. Over the first two weeks there were 3000 visitors to the site, and they received 160 requests for sample copies, mostly from US corporate readers. Now there's a thing....