March 2009 Newsletter

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.

By Robert Frost

Create TOP Purchase Order from Open Order

Many of our customers are not aware that you can import line items from an open order into a purchase order. You can create as many purchase orders as needed for each open order. This is a very time saving feature not being utilized in Total Order Plus.

Once you have an open order created, go to the Purchase Order Main Menu --> Select Purchase Order System --> Select Purchase Order Data Entry. Enter the PO number and vendor code, name and address. Once you are at the Ship-To entry field, press the F2 key to go to the Order Number field. Enter the order number you want to import or enter a ? to display all open orders and select the order you want to process. Once the order is selected, the customer code on the order will display next to the order number. TOP will ask if you want to create the PO from the order.

Note: If you want the items to be shipped to you, Press F4 at the customer code field to bypass the ship-to name and address. If you want the line items to ship to the customer on the order, press the Enter key at the customer field and the customer name and address will replace the current ship-to address.

Once you answer (Y)es to create the PO, the line items from the order will display on your screen. Enter the line number you want to import into this PO. When you are through entering the line numbers, press F4 to continue with the PO input.

Monthly Tips for 'Green Computing'

Research has said that the technology industry accounts for 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions, which matches the same percentage of emissions from the aviation industry! With so many people using a personal computer, there is no doubt it has a major impact. We all need to start thinking about green computing if you want to help fight global warming or just plain want to save money on energy. Each month we will provide a tip that will allow you to help.

TIP: Optimize your computer's performance. If your computer takes a long time to boot up and seems to be getting slower in some of your applications, not only is it annoying but you are wasting energy. A lot of users have multiple software applications in their Start Up menu. Anything running in the background is expending your computer's resources and wasting a lot of energy at the same time.

Perhaps it is time to take your computer to a service center and get it 'cleaned up', especially if you haven't done so in more than a year or two. Getting it serviced will not only lower your blood pressure but will reduce the power consumption.

If you have a laptop and a personnel computer, use the laptop more. Laptops by design are more efficient users of electricity so use your laptop as much as possible. Don't forget to unplug the power supplies that come with your cell phone, ipod, etc. as they are using electricity if left plugged in.

Things You May Not Know About TOP

Many of our customers may not be aware that Total Order Plus has a 'User Appendix' manual online on our support website www.mindwarecorp.com and can be accessed by clicking on 'Documentation' on the left side of the screen. This manual contains numerous screens and instructions to help you with Windows issues, UnForm, UPS, Anzio Lite, Unix commands, End of Day and End of Month processing and how to use the TOP Report Writer.

In this month's newsletter, we are publishing the instructions for 'How to Create RecoverEdge Media':

All Mindware customers that use Microlite's BackupEdge software for their nightly backup should immediately make a RecoverEdge media CD or DVD in case of system failure. This media is used to restore your file server's operating system, printing configurations and system specifications if a file server is not able to reboot to the Unix SCO Login. When you first receive your system, it includes a CD or DVD with this information.

Periodically, updates are available from Microlite's website whenever a new version of the software is released. Once an upgrade is downloaded and upgraded, you need to make a new RecoverEDGE to update the information. It is a good idea to label the DVD with the date it was generated and keep it in a safe place. This only takes a few minutes to generate compared to the several hours it would take to configure a new Unix operating system.

You receive a nightly backup summary printout or email. When it is necessary to make new media, you will see this message on the printout 'RecoverEDGE Media is out of date'. Once the media is created the message is no longer on the summary.

Follow these instructions to create RecoverEDGE CD/DVD media:

Insert a new CD/DVD disc in the file server drive that you use for your nightly backup.
Login to the file server as root --> Type edgemenu at the # prompt
Select Setup on the menu --> Select Make RecoverEDGE Media
Select Boot Media (i.e. dvd0) --> Select Make Media --> Select Continue
Medium Generation Status will display.
Select OK after 'Bootable Medium Created Successfully' message is displayed.

To test the RecoverEdge media, select Test Media on the Setup menu.

Picture Of the Month

Charlie Steele, pictured on the left, worked with Mindware Corporation on several projects. He passed away on January 17, 2009. Some of our customers will remember him from his attendance at several of our TOP User Conferences.

Question:

I would like to sort the PDF files that TOP creates under the EXPORT folder from my PC by name or date. What do I have to do to have that capability?

Your PC will need to be mapped to the EXPORT folder. You will open Explore --> Select View --> Select Details.

Click on the sort order you want: File Name, Size of file, Type of file or Date Modified. You can change from ascending to descending order or vice-versa by clicking on the column more than once.

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:

Time Zone	DST	MCA
Eastern Standard Time	11:00 am	08:00 am
Central Standard Time	10:00 am	08:00 am
Mountain Standard Time	09:00 am	08:00 am
Pacific Standard Time	08:00 am	08:00 am

Time Zone	No DST	MCA
Eastern Standard Time	10:00 am	08:00 am
Central Standard Time	09:00 am	08:00 am
Mountain Standard Time	08:00 am	08:00 am
Pacific Standard Time	07:00 am	08:00 am

Location	Date
Daylight Savings Begins	03/08/2009
Easter Sunday	04/12/2009
NBM Show, Ft Worth	04/30/2009
Cinco de Mayo	05/05/2009
Memorial Day	05/25/2009 *
NBM Show, Indy	05/28/2009
Independence Day	07/04/2009
CHA Show, Orlando	07/28/2009
NBM Show, Long Beach	07/30/2009
NBM Show, Baltimore	08/27/2009
Labor Day	09/07/2009 *
NBM Show, Tampa	09/24/2009
NBM Show, Charlotte	10/22/2009
Daylight Savings Ends	11/01/2009
Thanksgiving Day	11/26/2009 *
Thanksgiving Day Holiday	11/27/2009 *
Christmas Day	12/25/2009 *
New Years Day	01/01/2010 *