December 2010 Newsletter

" Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is? "

UnForm V8.0 Year-End Upgrade Pricing

Special promotional pricing is available immediately for customers interested in upgrading from previous versions of UnForm until December 31, 2010, to UnForm Version 8.0. The upgrades are all a percentage of the list price of $1895.00. Please contact Mindware if you are interested in this offer.

	Upgrade from 7.X to 8.0 is now 40% of retail price $758.00
	Upgrade from 6.X to 8.0 is now 60% of retail price $1137.00
	Upgrade from 5.X or less is now 75% of retail price $1421.25

Note: UnForm versions 4.X, 5.X and 6.X are no longer supported by SDSI. Mindware Corporation does not support any versions that our vendor does not support.

Total Order Plus 2000.Q Now Released

Total Order Plus 2000.Q has been released and is now being installed on our customer's systems. There are numerous new features in this upgrade - too many to list in this newsletter. Please go to our website www.mindwarecorp.com and click on TOP Features for a complete list of what is included in this upgrade.

Things To Do With Your Old PC

Now that you have purchased a new PC, your old one is sitting in a corner and perhaps you feel guilty about throwing it away. After all, it's perfectly functional. When you first bought it, it was near state-of-the-art. If your new PC replaces one that's really on its last legs, by all means, take it to a reputable electronics recycler. But it's amazing how many users ditch perfectly good machines when they pick up a shiny new system.

You can do plenty of things with an old PC besides sending it to the recycling heap. Let's take a look at a few ways you might put that old system to work.

	If you're running a home network and have multiple users--you, your spouse, your kids--reuse as network-attached storage.
	If your PC isn't too archaic, consider donating it to a local school or daycare center. It could go to the high school computer lab (most schools have one) and be used as a test bed, to take apart and reassemble for training.
	Give it to someone in your family who has modest computer needs. Just make sure you are not now 'on call' for tech support!
	Want to do a little good for humanity? How about dedicating your old PC to one of the various public distributed computing projects.
	Do you have a favorite multiplayer game? If so, check and see if it's a game where you can host a server on a local computer--you might consider making your old system a dedicated game server.
	Use it for 'old school' games. For example, install Windows 98 so you can install the old Windows 95 and DOS games.
	Set it up in your living room - we have a small PC in our living room that's often used for quick Web surfing and to check e-mail. Occasionally, our kids will come down and do homework on the communal PC when they get tired of being cooped up in their rooms.
	Salvage it! If you build your own systems, you may reduce the cost of your new system by salvaging parts from the old one. Good candidates for salvage include the case (if it's not a proprietary, prebuilt system), the optical drive, the power supply, and, sometimes, the memory modules.
	Sell it! Someone on eBay or Craigslist is always looking for a used PC. A general rule of thumb is to stick to selling locally to protect yourself from scammers.

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 Help' manual and a 'TOP Intro" manual online on our support website www.mindwarecorp.com and can be accessed by clicking on 'Documentation' on the left side of the screen. These manuals contain numerous screens and instructions to help you with Windows issues, UnForm, UPS, Anzio Lite, Unix commands, End of Day and End of Month processing, how to use the TOP Report Writer, TOP menu commands, 'How To' reverse cash receipts payments, etc.

In this newsletter, we are publishing some of the 'TOP2000.Q Features'. The Order Audit detail can be displayed on the Order Data Entry Sub-Menu and the Invoice Data Entry Sub-Menu. TOP keeps an audit trail on each order and invoice entered into the system. Tracks the entry of the order, any editing done to an order, printing the order, sending the order via email and any additions or deletions. These records are removed from the audit file after a specific number of days after the order has been completed. Below is an example of the type of information that will be available to you.

You can view the entire feature list on our support website www.mindwarecorp.com and Click on TOP Features.

	Modified TOP Order Data Entry detail file to enhance the use of ODBC data base information
	Added country code to the A/R ship-to record, O/E ship-to record, UPS ship-to record and the ODBC tables
	Ability to search customers by an email address
	Added an option to the Find Order/Invoice Utility to search by inventory item code
	New system card file OE_NOTEC has been added to display during conversion of an order into an invoice

Location	Date
Christmas Eve	12/24/2010 *
Christmas Day	12/25/2010 *
News Year's Eve	12/31/2010 *
New Year's Day	01/01/2011 *
MLK Day Observed	01/17/2011
CHA Winter Los Angeles	01/29/2011
ARA Int'l. Las Vegas	02/22/2011
Daylight Savings Begins	03/13/2011
Spring Begins	03/20/2011
Good Friday	04/22/2011 *
Memorial Day	05/30/2011 *
Fourth of July	07/04/2011 *
Labor Day	09/05/2011 *
Daylight Savings Ends	11/06/2011
Thanksgiving Day	11/24/2011 *
Thanksgiving Holiday	11/25/2011 *
Christmas Day	12/25/2011
Christmas Day Observed	12/26/2011
News Years Day	01/01/2012

	Order Audit Display has been added to the order and invoice data entry sub-menu
	Order and Invoice history detail records have been added to the ODBC Data Dictionary

Question: