Well Done!
Here we are again! First of all, we must say very well done to Judith at Timothy Benn Publishing who won the chocolate for the U in Reduwear, which was UNDER, and to Linda at Quintessence Publishing who was a very close runner up! We don't know if these were, in fact, solo efforts, but we did hear rumour that both of them shared their prizes around with their colleagues!
Risk Magazine was shortlisted for the International Magazine of the Year (Business and Professional) during the Magazines 97 awards. To be shortlisted is really spectacular, so well done to everybody there.
Also well done to our Emma who got a merit in her Guildhall grade 6 accordion exam. Not, you understand, that it's part of her conditions of employment but she can brighten up a dull lunchtime!
What Your Really Really Really Want!
Hurrah for Matt of Market Link Publishing, who has volunteered to organise the User Group. We very much hope that it's a useful, productive, friendly and fun meeting of minds, and that as many folk as possible will try and attend.
Show Me, Show Me!
It was so lovely to see so many of your smiling faces at the PPA Magazines ‘97 show. It’s not entirely clear whether you were happy to see us, or just to have a day out of the office! Either way we were pleased to see you! The show had some particularly useful Business Briefings on interesting subjects (and also some that made our blood boil, but that’s another story!) which were well presented, not too long, and left one wanting to know more!
The exhibition itself was about the same size as last year, and certainly had something for everybody. Especially popular with us was the choice of coffee, bucks fizz, and biscuits!
Looking to the future, you'll find a couple of tickets enclosed for the Total Publishing Exhibition at the beginning of July at Olympia. We're sure it will be a really good show, but don't get so sidetracked you forget to come along and see us on stand 362C!
Heads Together!
Following the success of recent developments where we have involved interested clients in the design process, we have put our heads together with some more of you. We all met together for the first time recently to talk multi-currency sales ledger. You may not believe this, but it was very exciting, and if you too would like to be involved, please let us know!
The Sterling sales ledger has been in use for a while now, but the multi-currency version is a new challenge. We'll keep you posted as to how things progress.
Time is Man-Made?
No, we're not starting off an in-depth discussion over the works of Stephen Hawkins, or the philosophy of time, we are talking about that fact that if man hadn't invented time, we wouldn't all be worrying about the year 2000 and the effects the turn of the century will have on our computer systems etc.
We're pleased to officially confirm, (and I'm sure you'll be really pleased to hear) that all our tests show that R.E.D. software is indeed year 2000 compliant with the BSI definition*. In simple terms the definition states:
Definition
Year 2000 conformity shall mean that neither performance nor functionality is affected by dates prior to , during and after the year 2000. In particular:
Rule 1. No value for current date will cause any interruption in operation.
Rule 2. Date based functionality must behave consistently for dates prior to, during and after year 2000.
Rule 3. In all interfaces and data storage, the century in any date must be specified either explicitly or by unambiguous algorithms or inferencing rules.
Rule 4 Year 2000 must be recognised as a leap year.
Mystic Meg
Just some further information -
One of our clients, clearly rather astute when it comes to testing systems for the year 2000, has been inputting subscriptions with start and end dates well into the millennium for years!
All that Glisters ....
The idea of farming out the marketing of subscriptions to a third party, especially where there are no apparent ‘up-front’ costs, is a very appealing one, and can work happily and successfully in certain circumstances.
The idea is that the third party promotes the publication along with others; the subscribers do pay, but only an agreed rather small percentage is passed on from the third party to the publisher for the initial subscription.
In America this system can and does work well because renewal rates tend to be higher than here, so publishers get their return on second and subsequent subscription terms.
But suppose that you get many thousand more new subscribers than anybody anticipated, increasing your print-run costs by thousands of pounds. Now suppose that the renewal rate is not as high as had been expected - even rather low - perhaps because of the special introductory offers and free gifts.
We're not saying don't try it, nor are we saying there is anything underhand about it. What we do say, is make sure you can at least cover your variable costs by the initial amount you will receive from the third party, so that if all else fails, you can come out older, wiser and breaking even.
Odd-Calls
We must tell you about something which really amused us - Sue answered the telephone the other day and somebody at the other end asked whether that was the Red Cow! After a moment of complete speechlessness (not a common occurrence in this office!), it transpired it was somebody looking for a pub. Now there's an idea....!
Help at Hand?!
Are there times when you are really short-staffed and need help with your processing where speed and accuracy is of the essence and the help you need may only be for a few hours or a couple of days? We may now be able to offer you a solution. If you are interested, please call.
R.E.D. Icon
If you're running R.E.D. software under Windows (3.11 or 95) and would like like one of our pretty R.E.D. icons, just let us know and we will send you one, along with a sheet of hints and tips. The first R.E.D. icon which we saw was produced by IRS in Abindgon. Since then we've produced several designs ourselves in a variety of colours..
As a matter of interest, IRS have Mag tape drives and can do all sorts of tape to tape conversions. We can give you their number if you need that type of thing.
Sits Vacant
When you are advertising for new staff, you may find it helpful to include that experience of R.E.D. software would be an advantage to anyone applying.
Chocolate
Here's an anagram for you to fill in all that spare time! Large bar of chocolate to the winner and answer next newsletter.
WHO ARE YOU STAN T D
And Finally....
We were so chuffed the other day when we saw our program doing complex processing of records at 3,000,000 per hour - yes, three million. It's all in the hardware, you see, and this was on the most lovely equipment. Can anybody beat this speed, or is this a first?
* Taken from DISC PD2000 A Definition of Year 2000 Conformity Requirements produced by DISC part of the British Standards Institution. BSI 389 Chiswick High Road, London W4 4AL. Tel: 0181 996-9000