Software Africa Newsletter - May 2019

Autodesk Tip ~ Online Business Tip ~ Excel Tip

Editorial

With Election Day over, plus the Special Vote days, we are all now waiting to find out whether we will have change or same old, same old. Seems we will have to wait until mid-week to face our new reality. At the moment the Rand is fairly stable, but this could well change.

Autodesk is becoming innovative around upgrading your legacy software. See the details below. In other news, Microsoft has extended the life of Windows 7 - now they tell me!

ArCADia update

Here's an exciting link!

This is a "Buy outright product" with upgrades available and excellent BIM.

Please contact Judith for more information

On-Line Business Tip #26: Google Hacks 4 - Currency and Range:

Google is the world's most popular search engine. So it helps to know a bit more about using it than the average person.

It is easy to go to www.google.co.za and type in words to search for. Google will then search for pages where all those words occur. Sometimes that is not good enough; instead we want to search for a product selling within a range of prices.

One can search for a currency by putting a $ in front of a number or, in our case, an R.

We can search within a range of numbers: Put .. (two dots) between two numbers.

For example, buy "chainsaw" OR "chain saw" R1200..R2000 to find places selling chain saws in the R1,200 to R2,000 price range.

AutoCAD News

There are a number of developments in the next few months, as follows:

Revit Update

Experience faster response times when editing detailed steel connections in a 3D model. #Revit 2020 uses background processes to carry out these performance-intensive tasks.
See everything new in Revit 2020 autode.sk/2uYLYaE

Announcing Autodesk Q2-Q3 Global Field Promotion (GFP)

Autodesk is pleased to provide a special offer encouraging eligible customers with 2014-2019 perpetual licenses not on maintenance to upgrade to subscription.

From May 7 through October 25, 2019, you may receive up to 20% off the Suggested Retail Price* of a new 1- or 3-year subscription when you terminate your associated perpetual license.

In addition to more value and flexibility than perpetual licenses, you can save up to 20%** when trading in qualifying perpetual licenses that are not on maintenance plans, for a subscription to the latest Autodesk industry collections or to most individual products—like AutoCAD® including specialized toolsets, AutoCAD LT® , Civil 3D® , Revit® , Inventor® , 3ds Max® and more.

Compelling Events

Event

Applies to

Date:

Introduction of

Multi-year Moving to Subscription

Maintenance plans moving to a 3-year subscription

As part of this offer, now if you have a 1-year or 2-year subscription Move to Subscription can choose to switch to a 3-year Move to Subscription at the time of renewal

March 27, 2019

Pricing Increases

5% increase

20% increase

Moving to Subscription

Maintenance Plans

May 7, 2019

Note than Maintenance Plans' pricing is increasing by 20%.

You can act on this 90 days before expiry.

Autodesk Developments.

Autodesk Knowledge Network (AKN)

AKN is the community content site providing tech support, training materials, product knowledge, and interactive discussion forums for you as customers. Please make use of it.

QuickBooks' Cloud Solutions

QBO is proving a multi-faceted platform.

Please contact Judith for more

Excel Tip #175 -- Preparing to Record an Excel Macro

Last time we explained what Excel Macros are: Mini computer programs, that you can write yourself, or create with the Excel Macro Recorder (and then change, if need be).

While there are other ways to record a macro, we will use the Developer ribbon because this gives the most control.

The Developer ribbon is hidden by default. If yours is not visible on the right of the View ribbon, click File > Options > Customize Ribbon. In the right-hand list, tick the Main Tab, Developer. The Developer ribbon looks like this:

In the Code (first) group, we will use the button Record Macro to start recording. This button then becomes Stop Recording, which you use to stop recording.

Note the button Use Relative References just below Record Macro. If it is off (not “ lit up ”) when you record, the cells you select will be recorded using absolute references and the macro will always use those same cells. If it is turned on (“not lit”, as shown above), cell references will be recorded relative to the cell where you started recording. If you later run the macro starting in a different cell, the macro will use cells relative to the new starting point.

Next time, we'll record your first macro. Don't miss this life-changing experience!

Computius Say:

Game of Thrones addiction, you might have, when you name your daughters Brienne, Arya and Sansa.

Remember: We can make your business run better by:

Promoting your corporate image with a set of templates on Word or Excel, linked to your address list.
Automating your in-house processes with a custom program or database..
Speeding up your processes by linking to your database or spreadsheet.
Solving your QuickBooks, Access, Excel, Word, Visual Basic, and PowerPoint problems.
Training your company on Excel, Word, Access and Windows (all levels from beginners to Programming).
Supplying software: We re-sell and support various accounting, timesheet, scheduling, and productivity programs.
Providing world-class programs for the Engineer and Civil Engineering Geologist: dotPLOT, ArCADia, Autodesk products like AutoCAD, etc.

All the Best from the team!
Judith and Rick

Members, Communication in Action cc trading as Software Africa
"Empowering African Business with standard and custom PC programs, databases, and templates using Microsoft technologies"
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