Newsletter - September 2013

Editorial

For the first time in many months, we have a full staff complement.  Gram Letoaba joined us as a intern programmer at the beginning of the month.  It is good to have a team in place again.  We are also concentrating on staff development generally with one goal in place already.  Judith took the certified Adobe reseller examinations and has qualified.  Thembekile is now going the same route.  Willy is doing his Autodesk exams and has passed two with 100%.  Rick has passed his first one also with 100%.

Our goal here is to become Silver resellers to compliment the hair colour of the oldest members of the team!

All this must be happening because it's Spring at last and the office is full of the perfumes of the Spring flowers.

Adobe Creative Cloud

Tired of difficulties collaborating with colleagues and customers?  This could be the solution and it also cuts out your administration costs.  In addition, Adobe is constantly updating the features in the Cloud offering.  Here's a Photoshop update:

• Photoshop 14.1 is now available with Generator, a design feature you won't be able to live without! Generator allows you to create image assets in real time as you work, eliminating the tedious steps of copying, slicing and exporting each layer manually. Read about Generator and other new features in Photoshop 14.1: https://adb.im/8A720F

And look at this one for Dreamweaver:

• Dreamweaver CC gets a new Live Highlight, Modernized Live View, Enhanced CSS Designer, and more. https://adb.im/9DF593

For enquiries and more information, please contact info@softwareafrica.co.za to find out about the Team options in Creative Cloud that take professionalism and productivity to new heights.

Autodesk Specials

All new seats are discounted from now until 18th October 2013:

AutoCAD Verticals and Standalone products are discounted by 10%

The Design Suites are discounted as follows:

• Ultimate Design Suites by 20%
• Premium Design Suites by 15%
• Standard Design Suites by 10%

With two exceptions - Factory and Product Design Suites are only discounted at the Ultimate level.

AutoCAD LT excluding the Mac version is now R10,828.86 inc VAT but excluding subscription.

Please contact Judith or Willy for quotes.

Autodesk Subscription Benefits

These give real value to your Autodesk product users.  They include the following:

• Your software investment is seamlessly updated every year, resulting in your drawing office's service being constantly improved.  This often enhances productivity as well.
• You have access to flexible licensing rights.  These include being authorised to load on a desktop and a laptop; being able to use the software when abroad on a project.
• Access to top technical support via e-mail
• Wide Cloud benefits, which include:
  • Autodesk 360,
  • 100 Cloud credits to perform rendering, simulation, optimization and structural analysis tasks, when using one of the Design Suites,
  • The ability to store/view/search and collaborate in the Cloud,
  • And up to 25GB of storage.

For more information go to https://360.autodesk.com/landing and https://www.autodesk.com/subscription/overview. 

PC Tip: Change the Program that Opens a Type of File

For some freak reason all my Excel files were opening in Works (a dumbed-down version of Excel). I have no idea why this changed and can only suspect that it was a Windows update. Regardless, this is how to fix it...  To change the program that opens a type of file:

1. Right-click the file that you want to change, and then click "Open With" and "Choose Default Program."
2. Click the program that you want to use to open this file. From here on, the file will open with the correct program.

With thanks to Andy Lanning, Chief Nerd at Computer Super Secrets (Subscribe at www.ComputerSuperSecrets.com)..

Excel Tip #116 - The Data tab (VII): Data Tools - What-If - Scenario Manager

We continue looking at the "Data" tab on Excel 2010's Ribbon, in the "Data Tools" group.  After "Consolidate", which we looked at in the last Tip, comes "What-If Analysis".  This button has a submenu consisting of three items: Scenario Manager, Goal Seek, and Data Table.  We will look at Scenario Manager today.

Scenario Manager is a tool that automates what-if analysis.  It creates and saves different sets of data for the same cells, as separate scenarios. Each set of changing cells in a worksheet represents a set of what-if assumptions that you can apply to a workbook model to see the effects on other parts of the model. One uses the Scenario Manager to:

• Create multiple scenarios with multiple sets of changing cells.
• View the results of each scenario on your worksheet.
• Create a summary report of all input values and results.
• Merge scenarios from a group into a single scenario model.
• Protect scenarios from modification and hide scenarios.

On our "Microsoft Excel 2010 for Engineers and Scientists" course we spend four pages on Scenario Manager, so this is going to be a brief summary!  To create a Scenario, do the following:

1. Set up a spreadsheet containing formulas that depend on certain cells.  You might, for example, want to experiment with different growth rates.
2. Select these variable cells.
3. Go to the Data Ribbon (Data Tools group) > What-If Analysis and select the Scenario Manager.
4. To add a scenario, click the Add button.
5. The Add Scenario dialog box appears: Type the description of the scenario.  Click OK.
6. Enter values for the changing cells.  Click OK.
7. Repeat from step 4 for as many scenarios as are required.
8. To show a particular scenario (and recalculate the results for it), click the Scenario name and the Show button.
9. To produce a permanent record comparing the results, click the Summary button, select the cells containing the results, and click OK.

The next item in the Data Tools ribbon, under What-If Analysis, is Goal Seek, which we will look at in the next issue.

Computius Say:

Newspapers are disappearing.  How long before people use Kindle to light the fire?  (Probably they will call it "kindling").

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 PowerPoint 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 Engineer and Civil Engineering Geologist: AutoCAD, Caddie, dotPLOT, etc.
• 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 trading as Software Africa
"Empowering African Business with custom PC programs, databases, and templates using Microsoft technologies"
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