May 2010 Newsletter

"Those who judge don't matter and those who matter don't judge!"

If Computing Hurts, You're Doing It Wrong!

Repetitive and prolonged use of a computer keyboard or mouse can lead to muscle aches and discomfort. Posture and positioning are very important. Try to incorporate some of the following tips into your work style to avoid problems:

	Maintain good posture when working. Sit all of the way back in your chair against the backrest, knees equal to or lower than your hips with your feet supported.
	Keep the mouse and keyboard within close reach. Center the most used portion of the keyboard directly in front of you.
	Center your monitor in front of you at arm's length and position the top of the monitor 2-3" above your seated eye level. You should be able to view the screen without turning or tilting your head up or down.
	Customize your computer settings. The screen font, contract, pointer size, speed and color can be adjusted to maximize comfort and efficiency.
	Place your monitor away from bright lights and windows or use a glare filter when necessary.
	Take eye breaks and focus on distant objects.
	Use good typing technique. Float your arms above the keyboard and keep your wrists straight while typing. If you use a wrist rest, use it only to support your palms while pausing but not while keying.
	Place source documents at an elevated level next to your monitor.
	Don't hold your mouse with a tight grip or extend your fingers above the activation buttons. Movement should come from your shoulder or elbow.
	Work at a reasonable pace and take frequent breaks. Take 1-2 minute breaks every 20-30 minutes and 5 minute breaks every hour. Every few hours get up and move around.

'Scareware' Pandemic

In the world of computers, there is currently a 'scareware pandemic' in play that is fooling millions of Americans every day. Scareware refers to rogue programs that scare folks into doing something that, in this case, actually infects their computer.

Users are initially exposed to such programs when visiting websites that is laced with instructions to pop-up fake warnings that your computer is infected. These warnings looks very similar to Windows screens and cause most users to follow the prompts to either 'scan' or 'fix' the problem. Eventually, the 'fix' asks the user for a credit card number and that is the time that the user knows something 'phishy' is going on but it is already too late!! Once you click on the fix or scan buttons, it instructs your computer to install evil code in the background while making you believe that it's scanning your computer for viruses.

The reason your security software didn't protect you is that it couldn't. It is because you clicked on a button that told Windows and your security program that you wanted to install a program. These programs are written so well that they look just like any other program to your operating system and your security program. These evil programmers are able to test their scareware on every major security software package that is on the market.

To protect yourself in the future, pay very close attention to the warning screens. If you have McAfee, make sure the warning screen is clearly coming from McAfee. Otherwise, cancel the warning.

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 newsletter, we are publishing instructions for 'How To Access Backup File Servers' on your Unix system:

Customers with backup file servers need to make sure their automatic nightly backup is working properly. Weather, electrical outages or spikes, etc. can all affect the main file server and at the same time the backup server. Without checking on the situation at least once a week, there is no guarantee that you data is being transferred.

We recommend that you do a shutdown on the two file servers at least once a week. There is a certain procedure to shutdown both servers and in this order:

Shutdown the main file server and leave it at the 'Press Any Key to Reboot' message.

Shutdown the backup server --> bring the backup server back up and --> bring up the main server.

To toggle back and forth between the two servers follow these instructions:

Press the Scroll Lock key twice --> Press the Up Arrow key to access the backup server login

The message SCO Open Server Release (top2) will display on the backup server above the login prompt so you know you are on the correct server. You can do the shutdown from the prompt.

Press the Scroll Lock key twice --> Press the Down Arrow key to return to the main server

Note: To see if the data on the backup server is current with the main server, you can login on the backup server and look at invoice history for current invoice numbers or dates.

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
Memorial Day	05/31/2010 *
4th of July	07/04/2010
Labor Day	09/06/2010 *
Daylight Savings Time Ends	11/07/2010
Thanksgiving Day	11/25/2010 *
Thanksgiving Day Holiday	11/26/2010 *
Christmas Eve	12/24/2010 *
Christmas Day	12/25/2010 *
News Year's Eve	12/31/2010
New Year's Day	01/01/2011

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