October 2007 Newsletter

Mindware Remote Off-Site Backup

Be prepared is no longer just a boy scout motto - it is a call to action in looking out for your company's future. Fires, floods, hurricanes, tornados, earth quakes and even terrorist attacks all factor in to the continuity of your business.

You have probably increased the amount of historical data that you store on your file server electronically. To remain competitive and grow, you will most likely continue to do so in the future. You are storing customer records, open invoices, invoice history, cash receipts history, customer special pricing, contact information, card files, ship to addresses, purchase orders, vendor information, production data, financial information, and on and on . . . . . Perhaps you have even switched from paper registers and journals to storing the information in PDF format.

Can you place a call to someone for a copy of your data if you lost all of your information? Or if you wanted to sell your company, what would you company be worth without all of your financial information? How many customers and vendors would you lose if they knew you didn't have safe, valid and secure backups?

If you have BackupEdge software installed on your file server, you now have an option to backup to a state of the art facility in Phoenix, Arizona. The location is served by two different power grids, uninterruptible power supplies and backup generators. The charge is $25.00 per month for the first company and $10.00 per month for each additional company. Please call Mindware to sign up for this service as soon as possible!

Note: Starting November 1, 2007, there will be a $75.00 one-time charge to program and set up the FTP backup.

A New Meaning for 'Desktop' PC

In the September newsletter, we featured an article on the new Acer 2000 PC. From the picture that accompanied the article, you couldn't really judge the actual size of the new 'Small Form Computer'. We are including a new picture of the Acer 1000 that we set up for a customer so you can appreciate just how this new generation of computers is causing quite a stir. Look at the size compared to the monitor in the picture to the left.

Diane White, ABC Stamp Company, Boise, ID, said "There are several advantages with the Acer 1000 that we just purchased. The unit is off the floor and doesn't accumulate the dust from every day traffic, you don't have to crawl on the floor to plug in the accessories. You can plug the keyboard and mouse into one of four USB ports on the front of the unit and the monitor, printer, etc. can plug in to the back. There is absolutely no sound coming from the unit. I have to look at it to make sure a light is on!"

Designed for today's digital office, the AcerPower™ 2000 / 1000 is small and stylish yet packs a powerful punch. This ultra-compact system has a physical volume of just over three quarts (three liters), about one-tenth the size of typical tower desktops and one-fourth the weight and three times faster.

The almost silent operation of the Acer 2000 is conducive to a productive work environment. In addition, its low power consumption prolongs component life and reduces long term costs. It can reside on top of your desk and is close to the size of a notebook.

Call Mindware for pricing at (800) 950-0401 or email support@mindwarecorp.com.

Content Filter Log Reports

Part of SonicWall's Gateway Security Suite is the Log feature, providing three reports that are available to you - Web Site Hits, Bandwidth Usage by IP Address and Bandwidth Usage by Service. See samples below:

Call Mindware Corporation at (800) 950-0401 or email support@mindwarecorp.com for setup information.

SonicWall TZ-180 Firewall Series

The TZ-180 is the latest security appliance from SonicWall and contains the same software security programs to protect your file server from Internet spam, spyware, viruses and provides Intrusion Prevention, Content Filtering, ViewPoint and 24x7 support as part of the package, which is the Comprehensive Gateway Security Suite, along with an optional wireless LAN access.

These new units are available in Total Secure 10 and Total Secure 25 node solutions. For those users that want unrestricted nodes, the TZ-190 offers unsurpassed value and flexibility.

These all-in-one solutions make it affordable for small, remote and branch offices to implement the proper and necessary protection against the wide spectrum of emerging network threats.

Contact Mindware for the new pricing structure on the above units.

UnForm 7.0 Promotional Pricing

Some of our customers are still on non-supported versions of UnForm - versions 4.X and 5.X. As of December 31, 2007, version 6.X will no longer be supported. Now is the time to take advantage of the special fourth quarter pricing from SDSI to upgrade to the newly released UnForm 7.0.

Below are the upgrade prices being offered by SDSI for the fourth quarter of 2007:

• v7.0 Laser forms only upgrade from v5.0 – 65% of new retail price.
(Example: 3 print job license Retail $1595.00 x 65% = $1036.75 upgrade retail price)
• v7.0 Laser forms only upgrade from v4.x and older – 75% of new retail price.
(Example: 3 print job license Retail $1595.00 x 75% = $1196.25 upgrade retail price)

Current normal upgrade pricing from UnForm 6.0 to UnForm 7.0 for a 3 print job license is $797.50 - 50% of the retail price.

SDSI is now charging $125.00 for non-supported versions of UnForm to reset the license for the purpose of re-installing on another computer or for a one-time incident fee.

Also UnForm version 4 has not been available for download since 12/31/05 and version 5 will no longer be available for download after 12/31/07. Mindware Corporation does not support products that are not supported by the manufacturer.

Contact Mindware Corporation to take advantage of this special pricing before the end of 2007!

Things You May Not Know About TOP

Total Order Plus allows you to export your inventory items to a text file that you can import into Excel for changing the item price or item cost or both. Select Inventory Control on the TOP Main Menu --> Select Inventory Control System Menu --> Select Import/Export File Menu --> Select Export Item Price File.

You have the option to select all inventory items or a range of items, all or specific item types and an option to export item price, cost or both fields. The file name is displayed on your screen and is created in the /TOP/EXPORT directory. You must have your computer mapped to the Export folder to be able to access the file.

After you have made all of the price/cost changes, you must save the revised file in the /TOP/IMPORT directory. You can then run the Import Item Price File on the Import/Export File Menu. The system will automatically update item prices in the inventory master file.

Question:

Last year-end we closed our Accounts Payable module before printing the 1099's and the year-to-date totals were cleared and we had to type them by hand. Would be nice to somehow recreate the totals temporarily.

Total Order Plus has a utility program on the RB Options Menu named AP Vendor Purchase. You can read the invoice or check history file and reconstruct the year-to-date totals for all vendors for a specific date range. Once you have printed the 1099's, run the utility program again with the date range for the current year.

Pictured left to right: Ned and Nadine Gibbons, Dee Jackson and daughter Megan, Myrna Jackson

Changes to Total Order Plus and UnForm are made on a continual basis. We will keep you updated by listing the most recent changes in each of our newsletters. Following are the most recent:

Printer Cartridge	List	Prebate	Price
Optra S Series High Yield	230.00	Prebate	200.00
Optra T52x Series High Yield	373.00	Prebate	325.00
Optra T61x Series High Yield	348.00	Prebate	285.00
Optra T62x Series High Yield	414.00	Prebate	360.00

Location	Date
Daylight Savings Ends	11/04/2007
Thanksgiving Day	11/22/2007 *
Thanksgiving Holiday	11/23/2007 *
Christmas Eve	12/24/2007
Christmas Day	12/25/2007 *
New Year's Eve	12/31/2007
New Year's Day	01/01/2008 *
ARA Trade Show, Las Vegas	02/25/2008
IMIA, Indianapolis	09/04/2008