If you have any questions, concerns or ideas, please let us know. We are here to serve you and your business. We take that mission very, very seriously.

Thank you and have a good day,

Tom

If you have installed Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) and have issues using the browser, you can always install Firefox in addition to IE7. Firefox has grown in popularity over the past year and is available at www.getfirefox.com.

If you have not installed IE7, you may want to defer this installation as long as possible. Over time, one would think most of these issues would be eventually worked out, saving you the aggravation that many of us have already encountered.

You can learn more about IE7 at www.microsoft.com.
 

Office 2007 brings a whole new look and feel to the Office environment. As opposed to menus (a navigational methodology that we all have gotten used to) the new Office 2007 uses what Microsoft calls a “ribbon”.

In addition, Office 2007 supports new default file types for each of its documents that are all based on XML. Office 2007 users will have to use the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack to save the files in the legacy formats required for interoperability with earlier Office products.

Users who have “test driven” Office 2007 report a positive experience. Like the new Windows Vista, there are plenty of editions available: Microsoft Office Basic 2007, Microsoft Office Standard 2007, Microsoft Home and Student 2007, Microsoft Office Professional 2007 and Microsoft Small Office Business 2007. Each of these products has its place and price tag. For example, Microsoft Office Standard 2007 retails for $399 and can be upgraded for $239 per user.

You can learn more about Microsoft Office 2007 at www.microsoft.com.
 

If you want to learn more about the issues of Document Management, take a look at www.copelanddata.com/docusyst and give us a jingle.
 

Another solution that is very popular in Europe is a free software product called Skype and is available at www.skype.com. You can download this to your desktop and use a microphone and speakers (or a combination headset) to place a call. You can make calls to other Skype users for free. In addition, for a price of $30/year, you can use Skype to place unlimited calls to any phone in the U.S. or Canada.

In addition, we now have Skype integration built into our systems. From any screen that we choose, we can issue a CALL function to automatically dial the phone number of the entry we have on the screen.
 

There has been some progress from the hardware manufacturers on 64-bit Systems. The question is, "should you be using a 64 Bit System?" To use a 64-bit hardware platform properly, you need to have a 64-bit Operating System (like the 64-bit edition of Windows Vista). A user will see great advantages when running applications like CAD (Computer Aided Drawing) and other scientific applications, especially when these applications are designed for this 64-bit architecture. Most applications today, however, are not designed for 64-bit environments. Most business users who run standard software like Microsoft Office will not benefit from the new hardware and software. There will be a day when we are all running 64-bit environments, but we are not quite there yet.  Current 64-bit applications are rather scarce and have had their share of stability concerns. So for most business users, the 32-bit world will be your reality for some time to come.