Software Africa Newsletter - October 2022

Main Rant ~ Online Business Tip ~ Excel Tip ~ Training Tip

Rick's Editorial

Welcome to the Software Africa Newsletter: Subscribed to by the Select, read by the Elite, acted on by the Exceptional.

This month there is good news from Autodesk.  Should you upgrade your AutoCAD LT to full 3D AutoCAD?

I continue my saga with the dysfunctional Master of the High Court.

In Business tips, not all is doom and gloom.

Our two live online courses, Excel Macros and Excel for Engineers, are still scheduled, one of each for the rest of the year.  Or you can do a cheaper self-paced version online.

This month's Excel Tip looks at some lesser-known yet useful functions for rounding or truncating numbers.

We end with wisdom (or otherwise) from Computius.

Good News on the Autodesk Front

We are again selling AutoCAD: the full 3D version with specialized toolsets.  Both one- and three-year subscriptions.  That's besides AutoCAD LT, Revit and Maya LT.

Should I Upgrade from AutoCAD LT to AutoCAD?  What is the difference?

Both have 2D drafting, drawings, and documentation.  You can annotate drawings with text, dimensions, leaders, and tables. You can customize the ribbon and tool palettes.  It lets you attach and import data from PDF files, share and use data from DGN files, Navisworks, and Bing Maps.

Only full AutoCAD has seven specialised toolsets, including libraries of 750,000+ parts and symbols.  You get full 3D modelling and visualisation.  You can apply and monitor CAD standards, and create and edit 3D models with solids, surfaces, and mesh objects.  It lets you customise the program with add-on apps and APIs.  You can extract object data to tables.

AutoCAD's specialised toolsets let you work faster in your industry-specific context.  Studies show an average productivity gain of 63% for AutoCAD tasks completed with a specialised toolset.  The breakdown for each toolset is:

• Architecture Toolset: 61% productivity gain
• Electrical Toolset: 95% productivity gain
• Plant 3D Toolset: 74% productivity gain
• MEP Toolset: 85% productivity gain
• Mechanical Toolset: 55% productivity gain
• Map 3D Toolset: 60% productivity gain

Autodesk has also introduced some new and exciting features in AutoCAD, including AutoCAD Web. It's a new standalone offering giving AutoCAD's core commands and fundamental drafting capabilities on the web and mobile devices. This makes it easier than ever to work anytime, anywhere, on any device.

With those additional features and the extra productivity, is it time for you to upgrade from AutoCAD LT to AutoCAD?  Contact us now!

Or you can buy online now at our eShop.

Back to The Master of the High Court

Thank you to several readers who responded to my call for ways to do a valuation of Judith's personal effects. The consensus was that I should value them at zero and that the Master's office would accept it. And so it was.

Not that I've actually been able to hand in the documents. Far from it.

The Johannesburg Master's Office is dysfunctional. And it has been so for several months.

Firstly, the office cannot function when there is load shedding, until last weekend at Stage 3, over 6 hours a day. The government has provided us with load shedding. Should it not, therefore, give its own departments a way to work during load shedding? Such as generators, inverters, UPS units and/or solar panels, at least to power the computers?

Secondly, their computer system itself seems to have been mainly “down” for at least two months, according to staff I spoke to there last week. They will not accept paperwork while the system is down.  At least someone was willing to check it for me, before handing it back.

I met a client there who has been coming, in vain, two days a week for the last 6 weeks. The waste of time, both of the staff and the public, must be staggering.

If the computer system cannot function, doesn’t logic say that the office must revert to the manual system they used before computers? How can they keep turning people away indefinitely, leaving their lives in limbo?  The poor, as usual, suffer the most: they do not have attorneys to send someone to queue.

If the Master of the High Court does not function, it is impossible to get executorship and there is no way to wind up deceased estates.  The whole process is in limbo.  How can a vital government department be allowed to fail like this?

Probably nothing will improve until we get the ANC out of power. Let's make it happen!

Business Tip: Lighten Your Day with Future Crunch

It may seem like the country is going to Hell in a handbasket.  The government and the trade unions seem intent on destroying whatever is left.  Not that it needs the unions, the government has done a pretty thorough job on its own.

You could brighten your week a bit by subscribing to Future Crunch from Australia.  Not everything around the world is doom and gloom, but it's doom and gloom that sell news.

The most recent edition had good news on crime in the United States, wetland conservation in Argentina and electric vehicles in China. Plus, improvements in global inequality, trachoma eliminated in Vanuatu and Malawi, gay marriage in Cuba, mammals comebacks in Europe, a big conservation goal in Australia, and solar pipelines in the United States. Snippets:

• Malawi has eliminated trachoma as a public health problem, the first country in southern Africa to do so, and the fourth country in Africa after Ghana, Gambia and Togo. In 2015, there were 7.6 million people at risk of infection. In just seven years, that number has fallen to zero. WHO
• Nigeria has recorded a significant decrease in child marriage, with the proportion of girls married before their 18th birthday falling from 44% in 2016 to 30% in 2021. There has also been considerable progress in child mortality.  It has decreased from one in eight children dying before their fifth birthday in 2016, to one in ten in 2021.
• Did you know that global economic inequality has actually decreased since 2011? The size of the global middle class increased by around 68%, while the proportion of people earning less than $10K a year fell substantially. This reflects the growing prosperity of emerging economies in the last decade, a story most of us hardly ever hear about. Credit Suisse.
• You'd expect the global energy crisis to have caused an increase in coal and gas in 2022. Except that's not what happened, at least in the electricity sector. In the first half of 2022, renewables and hydro met all of the growth in global electricity demand, preventing a 4% increase in fossil generation, avoiding $40 billion in fuel costs, and avoiding 230 Mt of CO₂.

Future Crunch free edition is a fortnightly roundup of good news from around the world. For $5/month you can get the weekly premium edition, which also comes with interesting science and the best bits of the internet. One third of the subscriber fee goes to charity.

Excel for Engineers Online Live Course

Next Course:

Venue: Live Online via Zoom.  65-page PDF manual included, and 14 examples files.
Special Price if paid not later than two weeks before the course: Only R4,500 plus VAT per trainee.
Thereafter R5,000 plus VAT each.

Course Creator and Presenter: Rick Raubenheimer B Sc (Eng) (Wits) (1975).

For more information and to book a course online or in-house at your company, click here and send the resulting email.
Or email info@softwareafrica.co.za

Excel for Engineers Online Self-Paced Course

The Excel for Engineers live course is also available on-line as a self-paced course.  The same manual and examples.  The same trainer. No live support, however.  But done at your own pace at times that suit you.  Take half an hour a day and complete it in a month.  Spend an hour a day and finish it in two weeks.  Or dedicate two days –a weekend, perhaps?– and crack the whole course.

Sign up now and get these Bonuses:

1. Report, "Are You Making These Microsoft Excel Mistakes?"
2. A Free Support Group
3. Our Excel file "Excel Shortcut keys & My Macro Shortcuts" (you'll want this once you start building macros).

Take our self-paced online course in your own time and venue.  All the value at a quarter of the price of the live course.  Backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Excel Tip #215 -- What’s the Difference between INT, TRUNC, and ROUND?

The Excel functions INT, TRUNC, and ROUND all do similar things. What’s the difference?

INT Truncates a number down to the nearest integer

TRUNC Truncates a number towards zero. It truncates to an integer or an optional number of decimals.

INT and TRUNC produce the same result with positive numbers. They differ in the way they handle negative numbers.

INT is unique among the functions in this article, in that INT truncates downwards (smaller, more negative). All the others truncate or round towards zero. Thus,
TRUNC(number) = -TRUNC(-number)
whereas
INT(number) = -INT(-number) - 1

The examples in the blog post illustrate this.

Is Truncating the Same as Rounding?

No! “Truncate” means that it cuts off the decimals: It does not “round”, although you will find many sites using that term incorrectly. Even with 0.9999, truncating to an integer will remove the fractional part and give 0. It does not round (go to the nearest number), which in this example would be 1.

This is a truncated (no, not rounded!) version of the full article on our Excel for Engineers blog.

Syntax of INT, TRUNC, and ROUND:

INT(number) - The INT function takes one argument:

• Number (required): The real number you want to truncate down to an integer.

TRUNC(number, [num_digits]) - The TRUNC function takes two arguments:

• Number (required): The real number you want to truncate.
• Num_digits (optional): The number of decimal digits for the result. The default value for num_digits is 0 (zero), producing an integer result. For negative values, -1 to truncate to tens, -2 for hundreds, -3 for thousands, and so on. If num_digits is not an integer, Excel uses only the integer part.

ROUND(number, num_digits) really rounds, to the nearest digit (up or down as required).

What about similar Functions like ROUNDDOWN, ROUNDUP, MROUND, EVEN and ODD?  How about some Examples?  Read more here on our Excel for Engineers blog.

Microsoft Excel Macros live online course

Macros let you do repetitive work in a flash, instead of repeating the same boring stuff manually.  Save hours not working late, and spend more time with your family ...or the dog.  You can now attend the whole course live online over two days from the comfort of your own computer.  Do you have a good knowledge of Excel, and now want to program your own time-saving applications?  Then this course is for you!

Scheduled Course: Please take note of the change of date.

Venue: Live Online via Zoom.  You get an 85-page PDF manual, and valuable examples.
Early-Bird Price if paid not later than two weeks before the course: Only R4,500 plus VAT per trainee.
Thereafter R5,000 plus VAT each.

For more information including the curriculum, click here.  To book a course online or in-house at your company, click here and send the resulting email.  Or email info@softwareafrica.co.za.

Or do it Online in Your Own Time:

Instead of a doing the whole Excel Macros course over two days, you can do it online in your own time, more cheaply.  The Software Africa Quick 'n Easy Turbo-Start Excel Macros course is now online.  Take it now!

Computius Say:

Rome wasn’t built in a day – except in Minecraft.

Remember,  We can make your business run better by::

• Training your company live online, or live in-house, or via a self-paced online course.
• We train on Excel, Word, Access, and Windows (all levels from beginners to Programming).
• Automating your in-house processes with Excel macros, a custom program or database.
• Promoting your corporate image with a set of templates on Microsoft Word or Excel, linked to your address list.
• Speeding up your processes by linking to your database or spreadsheet.
• Solving your QuickBooks, Microsoft Access, Excel, Word, Visual Basic, and PowerPoint problems.
• Supplying software: We sell and support various accounting, timesheet, scheduling, and productivity programs.
• Providing programs for the Engineer and Engineering Geologist. Like dotPLOT, progeCAD, ZWCAD, Autodesk AutoCAD, AutoCAD LT, Revit and Maya LT.

All the Best from

Communication in Action cc trading as Software Africa

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Disclosure:  Some links we share might be affiliate links we promote in return for a commission.  We only promote things we've actually tried and think could be great for you too.