Newsletters – October / November / December 2010

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Newsletter – October 2010

Editorial

As Gauteng waits for rain, the disaster at Bruma Lake, which will affect everyone on the Jukskei and Crocodile Rivers, is being attended to by Paul Fairall. It is the City of Joburg which should have moved into action on this and it is a beacon to their complete mismanagement of our infrastructure. Many of the missing billions of Rand are in fact caused, not by non-payment, but by non-delivery. We lose 40% of the water from Rand Water through burst water pipes. We can only speculate how much electricity is lost to illegal connections.

The continuing chaos on the motorways, with speed limits being completely ignored, is producing at least two bad accidents a day. What will happen when the rains do come? Anyway stay safe and remember that obeying the rules of the road saves you money!

Finally, we welcome Vivian Huang to our staff. He is a SAP expert with many years experience and has joined us to increase his skills into Visual Basic, Access and MS SQL. We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship.

Vacancies at Software Africa

We currently have a vacancy for a

Software Sales Consultant

A software sales consultant is required to stimulate our QuickBooks and Maximizer sales. Applicants must have a verifiable track record in selling software. They should have their own vehicle and be a self starter. We are looking for someone who will fit the Wealth Dynamics "Deal Maker" profile. On the job training will be given and there is potential to move into selling our entire product range over time, plus to take the company to a new level. Please send CV and proof of sales to Judith Taylor, info@softwareafrica.co.za

Green Tip

Please report all burst pipes and sewers to Joburg Water 011 688-1500 and customerservice@jwater.co.za. Hassle them as well! We cannot have water wasted when it is being polluted wholesale. If you are not in Joburg, find out your local water department and report same to them! SA is a water stressed country.

Educate your friends about water and alert them to the pollution going on around you. Look up Acid Mine Drainage on FaceBook or the Internet generally - it's frightening.

Excel Tip #82 – Excel 2007: Excel Options VII (Add-Ins)

We continue looking at the ("Hidden") Office Menu, activated by clicking the round MS Office logo at top left. On this menu, click the "Excel Options" button at the bottom right.

Today we will look at "Add-Ins".

Add-Ins are little programs that work as if they are part Excel, adding to its functionality. You can get an idea of what's available by scrolling through the list. More information for the selected list item is displayed just under the list. Note that the list comes in two parts, the Active Applications (listed at the top), and Inactive ones (bottom of the list).

To activate or deactivate an add-in, in the "Manage" drop-down list at the bottom, choose the type of add-in and click the "Go..." button. The dialog box on the right pops up, where you can tick a add-in to activate it or untick to deactivate. The Browse button will let you search for more add-ins.

Why have a separate "Add-Ins" pop-up window, instead of just putting checkboxes next to the items in the main Window? I'm glad you asked! I'll ask Bill Gates the next time we meet.

We will look at more Excel Options, the Trust centre, essential for macros, next time.

QuickBooks 2010

There are three versions of QuickBooks - Simple Start for the new business; Pro for the established business and Premier for businesses who want to have online input from their accountant to monitor the books.. For more information, phone Khanya on 011 802-2685 / 6440.

Computer Programmer Sayings

A Life? Cool! Where can I download one of those from?

Remember: We can make your business run better by:

Automating your in-house processes with a custom program or database..
Solving your Maximizer, Access, Excel, Word, Visual Basic, and even Lotus 123 problems.
Training your company on Maximizer, Excel, Word, Access and Windows (all levels from beginners to Programming).
Supplying software: We re-sell and support various CRM, accounting, timesheet, scheduling, and productivity programs.
Providing world-class programs for the Civil Engineer and Engineering Geologist.
Making your Civil Engineering Lab run smoother and more profitably with Labbie, our Data Retriever.
Promoting your corporate image with a set of templates on Word or Excel, linked to your address list.

All the Best from the team!
Judith and Rick

Members, Communication in Action CC t/a Software Africa
"Empowering African Business with custom PC programs, databases, and templates using Microsoft technologies"
Reg. 2009/007863/23 ~ VAT No 4500104387 ~ 126 Kelvin Drive, Morningside Manor, Sandton, 2191 South Africa.
Tel: 011 802-2685 / 011 802-6440/1 ~ Fax: 011 802-4576 and 086-635-7902/3 ~ Cell: 082 389-3481/2 ~ e-mail: info@softwareafrica.co.za

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Newsletter – November 2010

Editorial

A trip to the Eastern Cape to see grandchildren and family gave us a welcome break at the beginning of the month. Now Judith is off to Tanzania on an Uranium Workshop, via Nairobi due to flight times. The rains have come and with it increases in pollution in all our rivers and streams. It is frightening that no-one seems to recognise the very real threat of disease, loss of food and water security as well as loss of jobs that this situation presents. A recent study by UNISA estimates that a 1% reduction in water quality will cause 200 000 jobs to be lost. Lack of attention to our water resources is rapidly making that a reality. Expect Gauteng businesses to close within the next 5 - 10 years if nothing is done.

From the dotPLOT Help Line

Q: Help! My dotPLOT worked fine yesterday, but today it says that my licence count has been exceeded and it runs as a DEMO!

A: With a bit of questioning we established that during the last run, the program paused to complain about a data error. The correct way to deal with this is to press Escape (or indeed any key) to allow the program to proceed and finish its run normally. Instead the user killed the black DOS window by clicking on the "X" (Close) button at the top right. This aborts the program abnormally and means that it does not give back the licence it was using. The good news is that after a few hours the licence expires and can be re-used, so all is not lost. We also have ways of restoring the licence faster in an emergency.

Vacancies at Software Africa

We currently have a vacancy for a

Software Sales Consultant

Green Tip

It's your life and those of your children that are at risk. The mouth of the Toti River is pure sewerage as are many of the seas off our beaches. Please encourage your business to support river clean-ups by companies who know what they are doing and who are able to create sustainable jobs. It is also your job which will be amongst those lost when the water is no longer clean as it comes from our taps. Think the piped water at Hartbeespoort, where the water is undrinkable and smells vile. Look on www.wet-africa.org and join up to assist this project get up and running. Canvass your local councillor to put pressure on Joburg Water; your MP to put pressure on the Department of the Environment and Water Affairs.

Excel Tip #83 – Excel 2007: Excel Options VIII (Add-Ins)

We continue looking at the ("Hidden") Office Menu, activated by clicking the round MS Office logo at top left. On this menu, click the "Excel Options" button at the bottom right.

Today we will look at "Trust Center". The settings here are vitally important to running your spreadsheet macros, and very different to the Macro Security in Excel 2003. To do anything useful, you have to click the button "Trust Center Settings..." at the bottom right:

Macros are small programs that you or others can write to automate Excel, adding to its functionality. They are stored in individual spreadsheets and only work when their particular workbook is loaded.

We will look first at Macro Settings (selection on the left). Your best setting here is "Disable all macros with notification". You want them disabled so that code in unknown spreadsheets, which might contain viruses, doe snot run without your permission. You want notification in order to be told that there are macros so that, if you want to use them, you can do something about it.

Once you have the above setting on, when you open a file containing macros, you should see a message under the ribbon: "Security Warning: Macros have been disabled". The message also shows an "Options..." button. Click it. In the "Microsoft Office Security Options" window, choose "Enable this content" and click OK.

Otherwise, return to the above screen (Click the round button at top left of the Excel window, then Click the button "Excel Options" (at bottom right of the menu window). In the "Excel Options" window, click the button "Trust Center Settings".) In the "Trust Center" window, click the first option on the left, "Trusted Publishers", or the second option on the left, "Trusted Locations". You can then set, respectively, either the publisher (if there is one), or the place you stored the file, to be "Trusted" That means that you will be able to run macros from that publisher or folder without it disabling the macros. Of course, if you choose "location", and then later move the file, you have to do this again for the new location!

We will look at the last of the Excel Options next time.

QuickBooks 2010

Computius Say:

He who places head in sand, will get kicked in the end!

Remember: We can make your business run better by:

Automating your in-house processes with a custom program or database..
Solving your Maximizer, Access, Excel, Word, Visual Basic, and even Lotus 123 problems.
Training your company on Maximizer, Excel, Word, Access and Windows (all levels from beginners to Programming).
Supplying software: We re-sell and support various CRM, accounting, timesheet, scheduling, and productivity programs.
Providing world-class programs for the Civil Engineer and Engineering Geologist.
Making your Civil Engineering Lab run smoother and more profitably with Labbie, our Data Retriever.
Promoting your corporate image with a set of templates on Word or Excel, linked to your address list.

All the Best from the team!
Judith and Rick

December 2010

Wishing all our customers and associates a wonderful Festive Season
and all the very best for 2011

Regards

The Software Africa Team

Judith and Rick

P.S. Visit our web site at https://www.softwareafrica.co.za where you can find all sorts of free stuff to download.