Educational Software Companies

Writen by Jimmy Sturo

Educational software companies were among the first software developers in the early days of desktop computing. They recognized the potential of using computers for learning purposes, and were quick to develop products that helped make this happen. But because of market changes and fast-changing technology, these educational software companies have to face unique challenges now more than ever.

Problems facing educational software companies

The costs of education are running high, and this its toll on educational software companies. Schools are now hesitant to install additional infrastructures such as networks that are needed to run school-wide educational software.

The peripheral expenses involved in implementing educational software are getting higher, and schools usually can’t afford to squeeze them into their already tight budgets. And even when administrators do request for budget realignment or additional funding from the state boards, their requests are denied more often than not. This is because state boards usually have budgets strictly set well ahead of time, and is almost never any room for deviation.

External financing is the obvious solution, but it may take years for schools to find this kind of money, if at all. Meanwhile, educational software companies suffer the losses and scramble to find viable financial means to subsist while schools that have already signed up to buy their educational software systems find ways to raise the funds to pay them.

The future of educational software companies

Companies that develop educational software are on shaky ground. They are very easily disturbed by downturns not only in the software and web industries, but in the educational system as well. The overall sales of both school-wide educational software systems and individual CD ROM-based systems has significantly decreased because of major changes in all these three stimulant industries around the year 2000. This is why many software companies have either closed or downsized.

Educational Software provides detailed information on Educational Software, Childrens Educational Software, Free Educational Software, Educational Software Companies and more. Educational Software is affiliated with Discount Embroidery Software.

Brand Your Website’s URL With a Favicon

Writen by Mario Sanchez

Have you ever noticed that when you look at your browser favorites menu or the address bar, some entries have their own little icon beside their URL?

It’s called a “Favicon” (a graphic file with a .ico extension) and it’s placed in the root directory of the web site. Everytime you bookmark a site that has its own favicon.ico file, it is added to your browser, and it will be visible from then on in the favorites menu and in the address bar.

At the beginning, only large websites had a favicon, but now you too can create one and use it to brand your website. The first thing you have to do is to create your favicon. To be displayed by browsers, it must have a size of 16×16 pixels. To create one, you can use a graphics program called Icon Forge (you can download a free trial version in CNET):

http://download.com.com/3000-2195-10128559.html

You can either create an icon from scratch, or import a 16×16 ‘.gif’ or ‘.jpg’ file and save it as a ‘.ico’ file.

You will then have to save your icon with the default name of ‘favicon.ico’, and upload it to the root directory of your website (where your index page is). Finally, after that, you must associate your icon to your web page. You do that by including the following HTML code immediately after the HEAD tag of your page:

link REL=”SHORTCUT ICON” HREF=”http://www.yourwebsite.com/favicon.ico”

Once you’ve done that, that’s it. To try it out, go to your web page and add your page to your favorites. You should be able to see the favicon next to your bookmarked page title. Also, the next time you type your URL in the address bar, you will see your favicon to the left of the URL.

(Favicons work with Internet Explorer 5 or newer, and with recent versions of Netscape.)

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You can freely reprint this article. Just include the following resource box at the end:

About The Author

Mario Sanchez lives in Miami, Florida, where he publishes The Internet Digest ( http://www.theinternetdigest.net ) a website and newsletter that gives you free advice on web design and Internet marketing.

Great Plains Dexterity History and Programming Overview

Writen by Andrew Karasev

As of now – Great Plains Dynamics/eEnterprise is transformed/renamed into Microsoft Great Plains and Microsoft Business Solutions is in process of merging all its accounting applications: Great Plains, Solomon, Navision and Axapta into somewhat granular: Microsoft Financials, Microsoft HR, Microsoft Distributions, Microsoft Project Accounting, etc. So the original design of Great Plains should be deemphasized. But even now – Great Plains is written on the programming language and technology, created in early 1990-th, named Great Plains Dexterity. And the graphical interface looks very user friendly and nice – these are all Dexterity forms and screens.

The original architect of Dexterity, Tim Brookins, pursued several goals, the main are these:

1. Engine, supporting graphical interface, which is computer platform independent – if you remember those days – the main competition was between Macintosh and Microsoft Windows. Mac was graphical and very popular, but Windows, backed by IBM cloning/platform openness was very dangerous competitor. The new engine was targeted to work on both: Mac and Windows. On the other hand – nobody could look at the future far enough to be sure that other competitors from both Hardware and Operating Systems sides not going to take over. This is why the graphical platform independent engine was required for the new type – Graphical accounting/ERP system: Great Plains Dynamics.

2. Database platform independence – initially Great Plains used Ctree (available for both PC and Mac) and Btrieve, later on with Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 Great Plains relatively easy introduced it as a new alternative: Dynamics C/S+ on SQL Server. Again – nobody could guarantee which DB will be a winner. Technically Dexterity could easy provide DB switch. Unfortunately – the necessity to support “cheap” databases, such as ctree forced Dexterity architect to use cursors or loops instead of providing aggregation, available on all SQL blends.

To resolve these goals, and following popular those days believe that C programming language is platform independent, C was chosen as the low level language to write dexterity itself.

This was the story, now to the practical side. You can install Dexterity from Great Plains 7.5 or 8.0 CD #2. Obviously it requires a lot of learning / training, but it allows your custom piece be seamlessly integrated with Great Plains interface.

1. Native Dexterity Cursors. Dexterity was designed as platform independent programming language and so if you want your code to be operable on all currently supported databases – you use Dexterity ranges and loops to manipulate the records

2. Great Plains Dexterity with SQL Stored Procs Nowadays, most of Great Plains installations are moved to SQL Server – so you can use Dexterity for custom forms drawing only and make the buttons run SQL stored procedures.

3. COM Objects calls. Beginning with version 7.0 Dexterity supports COM objects – you register them as libraries in Dexterity. Refer the manual. This technique allows you to call such nice things as web services across the internet.

4. Dexterity Forms – if you like VBA and are comfortable to do all the business logic in VBA – you can use Dexterity as new forms creator/editor. This is OK – but you have to purchase VBA/Modifier and Customization Site Enabler from MBS.

Some restrictions. Great Plains is actually integration of multiple dictionaries: DYNAMICS.DIC, ADVSECUR.DIC, EXP1493.DIC, etc. In your Dexterity customization you can deal with one dictionary – DYNAMICS.DIC. If you need cross dictionaries customization – consider using SQL Stored Procs for crossing dictionary borders and pulling data/making changes in the other dictionary.

Happy customizing! if you want us to do the job – give us a call!

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, based in Chicago, California, Texas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, New York and having locations in multiple states and internationally www.albaspectrum.com, he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.

akarasev@albaspectrum.com

Restaurant Inventory Software

Writen by Jason Gluckman

Marketing is the buzzword when talking about restaurant inventory software. Marketing starts with the determination of consumer wants and ends with the satisfaction of those wants. The concept puts the consumer both at the beginning and at the end of the business cycle. It stipulates that any business should be organized around the marketing function, anticipating, stimulating and meeting customer requirements. The customer, not the corporation has to be the center of the business universe.

Restaurant inventory software cannot succeed by supplying products and services that are not properly designed to serve the needs of the customers. It proclaims that the entire business has to be seen from the point of view of the customer. In a company practicing this concept, all departments will recognize that their actions have a profound impact on the company’s ability to create and retain a customer. Every department and every worker and manager will ‘think customer’ and ‘act customer’.

The other distinguishing feature of restaurant inventory software is integrated management action. Integrated management action simply means that all the different functions of the business must be tightly integrated with one another, keeping marketing as the pivot. This is essential because every function has a bearing on the consumer, and the aim is to see that all the functions lead to a favorable impact on the consumer. For this to happen, all functions have to be integrated and properly aligned with marketing.

In organizations that do not practice integrated management, the different functions of the organization are preoccupied with the optimization of their specific activities, often at the cost of optimization of the overall result. Consumer satisfaction, which is a major theme of restaurant inventory software, is again not an end in itself. The concept does not preach that a firm must generate consumer satisfaction and forget the other goals of the organization. Instead, it treats consumer satisfaction as the pathway to the attainment of all the goals of the organization.

Inventory Software provides detailed information on Home Inventory Software, Inventory Accounting Software, Inventory Management Software, Inventory Software and more. Inventory Software is affiliated with Fleet Maintenance Software Reviews.

Microsoft CRM – Consulting in the Post-Recession Time

Writen by Andrew Karasev

New post-recession era has new features, which didn’t exist in late 1990th during high-tech boom. This will be in our opinion on new directions for Microsoft Business Solutions products consulting, including Microsoft CRM. New features:

1. Overall cost reduction campaign. We see general direction, when companies hire new executives who specializes in cost reduction, work force reduction, secondary departments functions outsourcing, etc.

2. Computer ERP systems literacy among mid-management. If you look back to 1950th when management consulting was booming, then for now it is included in all the MBA university programs and managers themselves know the subject. The same happens with ERP systems – managers have general knowledge and can learn the new system, applying their education, experience and intuition

3. Databases Support cost reduction – today we would dare to say that IT department can easily support such databases as the ones, sitting on Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle is also following the idea of zero support efforts. You don’t have to hire DBA with 10 years of experience – this means that even small business could move to industry-strength database platforms

4. Software Customization and Development cost reduction – well – many of us probably like to purchase cheap and reliable goods from department stores, manufactured in China. The same happens with software development. Now if you have your software product designed – you better find the company to do real coding somewhere in Brazil or India. We do not want to judge – is it good or bad – this is what is going on with our market.

5. Increasing Demand for Quality – this is not a secret that in the era of internet boom – late 1990th – consulting companies had to hire college graduates to do highest complexity assignments. And market was tolerating this – not any more. All these features will enforce the consulting companies to reduce cost, seek nation-wide clients via remote support, web sessions, abandon traditional software leads generation techniques and move to internet sales, increase the quality of their consultants (we don’t know the answer how)

Happy implementing! if you want us to do the job – give us a call 1-630-961-5918 or 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving Chicago, California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York, Australia, UK, Canada, Continental Europe, Russia and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.

Microsoft Business Solutions Customization Options – Overview for Programmer

Writen by Andrew Karasev

Several years ago Microsoft purchased Great Plains Software, then Navision (Denmark based software development company). At this time Great Plains Software already was active ERP applications consolidation player – it already acquired Solomon Software couple of years prior. Then in 2002 Microsoft released Microsoft CRM (Client Relation Management system). Also Microsoft decided to attack retail marked and acquired QuickSell (now Microsoft Retail Management System/ Microsoft RMS).

At this time Microsoft had robust package to automate business processes for small, midsize and large company and it formed so-called Microsoft Business Solutions (at the earlier stage the official name was Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions – later Great Plains words were dropped)

We would like to make brief review of customization options for such products as Microsoft Great Plains, Microsoft CRM and Microsoft RMS

Technology overview. Microsoft Great Plains, Microsoft CRM and Microsoft RMS have similar database platform – Microsoft SQL Server. There are differences in the tables design between three – due to the fact that they were originally developed by three different companies. Great Plains has Great Plains Dexterity core (this is Great Plains Software proprietary c-language based technology and development environment), and as it was primarily targeted to be platform independence – Great Plains has old-fashioned UNIX style of tables names: RM00101 stays for customer master file, GL00100 – account master file, etc. At the same time Microsoft RMS and Microsoft CRM have more natural language based names: Microsoft CRM: Account, Activity, Contact, Lead; Microsoft RMS: Customer, Transaction, Tender, Register – we believe that these structures are self explanatory.

Now to the Customization Options:

• Great Plains Dexterity – please install Dexterity from CD #2 and take a look at its manuals – this is again legacy and proprietary Great Plains technology. We have described it in this article: http://www.albaspectrum.com/Customizations_Whitepapers/Dexterity_SQL_VBA_Crystal/DexterityCustomizationOptions.htm

• Microsoft CRM Customization – this is the whole topic – we would like to reference you to our posting: http://www.albaspectrum.com/Customizations_Whitepapers/Dexterity_SQL_VBA_Crystal/MSCRMCustomizationOptions.htm

• Microsoft RMS. Please review this article: http://www.albaspectrum.com/Customizations_Whitepapers/Dexterity_SQL_VBA_Crystal/GPRMSIntegrationOptions.htm

Happy customizing! if you want us to do the job – give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

About The Author

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, based in Chicago, California, Colorado, DC, New Jersey, Washington, Texas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, New York and having locations in multiple states and internationally (www.albaspectrum.com), he is Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM; akarasev@albaspectrum.com

Microsoft Great Plains Implementation & Customization: Computer Parts Retailer Example

Writen by Andrew Karasev

Microsoft Great Plains fits to majority of horizontals and retail business is good fit as well. We’ll consider the system, consisting from Microsoft Great Plains as Accounting, Inventory Pricing and Microsoft Retail Management System (RMS) Headquarters and Store Operations Manager. In this case you can base web commerce off Great Plains databases and POS automates walk-in retail store. Inventory count might be done from both sides: Great Plains or RMS, depending on the main line – if it is eCommerce – consider Great Plains inventory cycle counting, otherwise in the case of POS – it should be done in MS RMS

eCommerce. If the business is small/mid-size, instead of using eConnect – consider working with direct sql custom stored procedures. You will avoid license fee for eConnect and you could use rather simplified logic. You need to know Great Plains Tables structure and data flow: Tools->Resource Description->Tables. More likely you will need Sales Order Processing (SOP) and Inventory Control (IV) tables: SOP10100, SOP10200, IV00101, etc. You should consider purchasing standard internet basket and integrate it with your e-commerce web application. It should work with Great Plains Inventory catalogue

Catalogue update. If you resell computer parts – you should have utility, updating your inventory items and price list as you get new catalogue from the distributor. This might be done as SQL routine or Great Plains Dexterity customization. Dexterity will allow you to alter Item Maintenance screen – if you have additional description line for the item, or similar little things

Microsoft RMS->GP transactions integration. You can purchase integration directly from Alba Spectrum Technologies, and it works on Sales Order Processing or Accounts Receivables transactions integration level and has also Purchases integrated. This integration could work as nightly SQL routine and bring all the daily sales transactions from RMS stores or Headquarters to mapped Great Plains companies.

Promotional pricing. These campaigns are automated in RMS and Great Plains, however promotion scenarios might be not the same. One of the ways to synch both systems is to use RMS promotions and update Great Plains price list via custom stored procedures.

Inventory Items Synchronization. Again you can base your items in either one of the systems: Great Plains or RMS and then synchronize via stored procedures.

Additional RMS custom issues. Some customers mentioned the need in editing global customer data on the store level and the second interesting suggestion was immediate propagation across all the stores gift card balance – if customer walk in into several stores within the day – the chances are that balance is still not updated via Headquarters worksheets

Good luck with implementation and customization and if you have issues or concerns – we are here to help! If you want us to do the job – give us a call 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies – USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving clients in Chicago, California, Texas, Florida, New York, Georgia, Arizona, Minnesota, UK, Australia and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is CMA, Great Plains Certified Master, Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer. You can contact Andrew: andrewk@albaspectrum.com

Payroll Software

Writen by Sandro Azzopardi

With payroll software one cannot not stop and think’how did large organizations cope without them?’ When you think of what’s involved in paying your employee, one finds it hard to believe how this can be achieved without a full blown payroll software.

There are various payroll software applications on the market today, but how do you decide which one is right for the business you conduct? Let’s start by having a look at the main items a good payroll software application must possess.

1. create and manage detailed company details

2. create and manage detailed employee details

3. can be run during a specific date range (normally weekly, fortnightly and monthly)

4. processing of individual departments or all departments

5. accountability of all emoluments and tax paid for each employee and department

6. standard tax reports as required by the local authorities

7. flexibility in allowing bonuses, overtime and special end-of-period additions and deductions

Needless to say, a good payroll software program holds many features which reduce paper work needed to control your employees’ remuneration. Having said that, some required paperwork like pay vouchers, checks, company reports and tax reports are a must for any payroll software.

But what is the main feature a payroll software application must excel in? Without any doubt this has to be security. Payroll software databases hold one the most sensitive information a software application can hold. By many, the salary they get is considered as the most well kept secret in their lives. That information is probably held in a computer somewhere forming part of a payroll package. As such, confidentiality of that information must be stressed heavily and checked thoroughly when one is enquiring on payroll software.

But most payroll software applications are not stand alone modules. Many come integrated with other modules like the purchases ledger, general ledger and/or job costing module. If you have a production business, having your payroll software integrated with your job costing module is, to say the least, a must. This will ensure your costing is truly reflecting all the costs your business is incurring, and the payment of your employees, including taxes, is definitely one of them.

As like all tailor made software, a payroll software application would normally require user training before one can reap the benefits from it. Payroll software is quite a complex piece of software and the fact that people are employed in human resources departments just to be responsible for the payroll aspect of the company is proof of this. This is true, although, the payroll software used should also be straight forward for clerks who work in a payroll environment. It should be intuitive and present all tasks in a simple and clear format, with help available on the spot.

Since many payroll software exist today, it is very hard to determine which one is right for your business. The decision needs to rely on the structure of your business, number of employees, different work times and shifts, plus other factors. Based on this, a standard payroll software might do, or maybe not. What’s important is that before committing to one, and probably also, before being trained on one, all the features (and non-features) of the package you choose have been made clear and proved to function correctly and as desired.

The Death of Windows

Writen by Stephen Bucaro

I have always regretted how Microsoft price gouges and rips off computer users. I really regret Windows XP activation. I have always intended to convert to Linux, but it isn’t easy for a Windows user since version 3.0.

Recently, I purchased the book “Moving to Linux” by Marcel Gagne. The interesting thing about the book is that it includes a bootable Linux CD-ROM. “Knoppix” is a special version of Linux that you can run entirely from your CD drive. You can run Linux without uninstalling Windows or making any changes to your PC.

I tried the Knoppix CD on a Windows 2000 machine with a 200 MHz pentium II and 128 RAM, a very low power machine by today’s standards. Linux provides you with step-by-step status information, and I ignored several error messages as Knoppx was booting. It took a while for Linux to boot from the 52X CD-ROM drive, but then Windows 2000 also takes forever to boot on this machine.

To my amazement, Knoppix booted successfully, with the proper screen resolution and access to all the drives. To my further amazement, the CD-ROM contained OpenOffice.org 1.0. I used OpenOffice to create a file. I couldn’t save the file to the hard disk, probably because of access rights (NTFS or Linux), but I could save it to a floppy disk. Later, I opened the floppy disk file on a different Windows 2000 machine with the Windows version of OpenOffice.

In his book, Marcel Gagne gives you several tips to make knoppix start faster and work faster. For example, he provides a command that creates a Linux swap file on your Windows partition, and a command that saves Knoppix configuration to a floppy disk.

Note: If you have a broadband Internet connection, you can download Knoppix from www.knoppix.net (700 MB). You also need to know how to burn raw data to CD-R. The book gives you all kinds of information about the different Linux distributions, appications, and how to use Linux, plus the included Knoppix CD is all set to run, so I think the book is worth the extra cost.

If want you to explore and learn about Linux without uninstalling Windows or making any changes to your PC, Knoppix is the way to go. Maybe someday everyone will carry a Knoppix CD and a CD-RW to use on any computer they find. That day will truly be the death of Windows.

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About The Author

Copyright(C)2002 Bucaro TecHelp. To learn how to maintain your computer and use it more effectively to design a Web site and make money on the Web visit bucarotechelp.com. To subscribe to Bucaro TecHelp Newsletter Send a blank email to subscribe@bucarotechelp.com

Adobe Software Discount Scheme for Registered Students of UC

Writen by Brenda Fleen

Applications, particularly those that specialize on a specific field of modern information technology, are usually expensive. These applications have the necessary set of functions and features on a single aspect of IT, and users rely heavily on these applications for their day to day activities. Students use an assortment of internet browsers, word processors, lay-out applications, and the like for their regular workload. Employees of corporations and businesses also have a standard set of office applications and other programs designed to suit their company’s purposes regarding profitability, advertising, marketing, and management systems.

Sometimes, in place of computer and software discount shopping, there’s a number of alternative applications offered by providers. There are applications which are freeware. These programs are freely distributable, which means that it can be downloaded from the developer’s website without any charge. It can also be used without any functional limitations and time restrictions. Shareware, on the other hand, are programs which are evaluation versions of the full applications. These programs can be downloaded free of charge from the developer’s website. But the freely downloadable versions of such shareware applications have functional limitations and time restrictions that can be lifted from the programs by buying the products.

The Macromedia flagship has a suite of the most advanced photo editing and video designing applications in the market. But the functionality and quality of these applications are assured due to the years of experience the Macromedia team of developers have on the specific field of the digital information industry. The suite of graphical editing products is known as the Adobe set of applications.

Among the applications included in the set of Adobe graphical editing products, the Photoshop program is probably the most widely used photo editing application in the market. Students and professional graphic artists alike use this program for the convenience and functionality it provides their respective day to day editing grind. Newer versions of this product integrate the finest set of functions and features necessary in a photo editing program.

The Adobe Illustrator and the Adobe Freehand are applications which are used by more advanced graphical artists. These programs have functions and features that provide these people a means to efficiently produce unique sketches and creative illustrations. These products from the Macromedia flagship also have a standard set of editing functions and features found on most of the company’s graphical editing products. But these applications have more advanced editing functions so as for its users to fully optimize their sketches and illustrations done by hand.

The Adobe Premiere is another product from the Macromedia flagship that is solely for video editing purposes. This powerful video editing software has a set of functions and features that provides flexibility in terms of video editing techniques used by professional video editors. Students and pros alike use this program, along with the other applications from the Macromedia Corporation, for their daily workload, and this is the reason most universities seek discount schemes from the company for such software.

Adobe Systems, Inc., a department of the Macromedia Corporation, has just renewed a discount system incentive that was given to the University of Cincinnati. The former discount scheme, known as the Contractual Licensing Program, was given to the university so as to provide as much as an actual 65% discount on all the Adobe suite of programs. The discount incentive was formerly just for university staff and its departments. The contract is a volume licensing one, which means that the University of Cincinnati can obtain Adobe software in huge numbers with an appropriate discount incentive. Thus, the departments of this university is reporting close to $100,000 in annual savings just from the discount incentive included in the contract.

March 9, 2005 was the date of the renewal of the discount scheme contract between the University of Cincinnati and the Adobe Systems, Inc. The former contract excluded students of the university to avail such discount incentives from the Macromedia Corporation. The new contract now allows students to have discount incentives on various software packages developed by the Adobe Systems, Inc. The software packages were designed for maximum usability, and each package closely identifies to a specific student’s purpose.

Five discounted Adobe software packages have been made available for students for their discount shopping needs. The first package is the Adobe Acrobat Professional, which is available with an almost 75% discount incentive. The next is the Adobe Acrobat Standard, which also has the same discount incentive as the professional version of the program. The third package is for graphical editors, which is the Adobe Creative Suite Premium. This package includes all the necessary photo and video editing applications from the Macromedia Corporation, and provides UC students close to 60% as a discount incentive. The fourth and fifth packages are the Adobe Video Collection Professional and the Adobe Video Collection Standard, respectively. Each of these packages has a discount value of almost 60% from the standard educational pricing of the company for its software.