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Chuck, decided to start a bus route, with a brand new bus, so he ordered a bus from the distributors of Volvo. When it was delivered he was dismayed to find that, although it had a chassis, an engine, a driver’s seat and steering wheel, there was little else. All the “soft options” were missing. He called the distributor who advised that that was the way it was. Chuck had to build his own body, install seats and all the rest of it. And, as he didn’t have a license to drive a bus, he would have to employ a driver.

What’s this got to do with computers and software?

A great deal!

You see a computer is a piece of machinery, just like an engine. You can go out and buy the most expensive, most powerful automobile in the world, but without the soft options and a driver it won’t go anywhere. The same with a computer. The world’s most powerful and expensive computers, in business, government or the military are, without the software and the drivers, just

USELESS PIECES OF EXPENSIVE JUNK

It is not by accident that Bill gates is one of the two richest men in the world. As a young man he recognized the future of home computers and realized they would all need user friendly software to make them work. He fill that need with Microsoft’s MS Dos, then Windows and other software programs.

Microsoft software, is not, to be frank, the best software in the world, but it is by far the most popular and usually the most affordable. And because it is used on most PC’s around the world, it is almost obligatory to install it on your own computer, to enable exchange of documents and communicate with others.

Linux is reputed to be a better, more robust operating system than MS Windows, but few people use it because there are relatively few software programs compatible with it, and it takes some time to learn how to use it. And yet there is a free version. There are office suites (similar to MS Office) available on the internet free, there are programs better than MS Powerpoint (IMHO), but MS products are so entrenched in computerland that few people look beyond them unless they can’t get what they need from Microsoft.

Why can’t they get them from Microsoft?

MS only makes popular software that will be used by millions of people. They spend millions of dollars to develop a program, then sell millions of copies of it. A flower breeder wanting specialized software to assist him breed roses, for instance, can forget about Microsoft. They don’t have it and they are not interested in developing it. Not for the price the flower breeder could pay, anyway. There’s just not enough demand for it. No demand, no profit. No profit, no MS.

So, what can you do if you need a specialized program? Don’t give up hope yet. There are many software developers in the world who are developing niche software programs. You may find what you are looking for already available in your local computer store or, more likely, instantly available for download on the internet. If it’s not available, you can design your own. Yes, you can do that.

There are software designers available who will take your instructions concerning what you want your software to do and design your program for you. Designing and producing software can be likened to building a ship. This designer can be likened to the naval architect who takes instructions from the intended owner and draws up the blueprints for the ship. The architect needs to know a lot about the ship, what it will be used for (cruise ship, warship, cargo ship etc) and its size, capacity, functions and a whole lot more. Your software designer will need to get all this from you, exactly what you want the software to do, its functions, its capacity, its foundation (operating system) and every minute detail of what you require it to do.

Once the blueprint is completed to your satisfaction, your “ship” needs to be built, and this will be done by a programmer, who writes the code. Once the programmer has completed building the “ship,” everything needs to be tested, every little function must be tested over and over to make sure “portholes open and close, doors do the same, the engines work” and so on. In most cases, this requires a few trips back to the programmer to get bugs removed, until it is finally done. Now, once this has been satisfied, the ship will go on a “shakedown” cruise to test all the functions under operating conditions. In computer software, this is beta testing, where the software is handed to a number of testers who put it through rigorous testing to make sure that it works, works well and is robust enough to suffer a little over use or misuse.

When that’s all done, your software is ready for your use. You now own the world’s only copy of your special software.

Phew! That has taken a lot of time (several months most likely) and a lot of dollars. It may have taken 6 months to a year and cost you upwards of $50,000.00. Has it been worth the wait and the cost? Could you have gotten an existing program and had it adapted to your use? Was there a suitable program lurking out there that you did not find? Was there a way to cut the waiting time and cost? Is there a way to reduce the overall cost?

If you can join with hundreds, or thousands of others, in purchasing existing software, or sharing the costs of having special software designed and built, you can reduce the costs remarkably. This is called shareware and it is what you buy from Microsoft, Adobe and other software companies.

But can you do this with low demand software? Yes you can. You can buy accounting software, medical practise software, engineering software and many other kinds of software. Talk to people in your line of business and someone will know where to get specialized software that may help you.

If all else fails, send an email to mityoaks@bigpond.com and we’ll link you up with a software designer.

© 2005, Leslie H Sprankling. All Rights Reserved. Leslie H Sprankling is an Australian Business and Marketing Consultant with 30+ years in business. You can see numerous cutting edge business and personal software programs at his website, http://www.better-n-chocolate.com. These software programs are not available anywhere else on the internet. You will also find more timely business publications to help you develop and grow your business. In addition, you can get many free business articles like this one, for your own use or for publication and distribution. This article, and the others at the website,http://www.better-n-chocolate.com may be freely used, published or distributed in ezines, newsletters or websites providing the articles remain unchanged in any way and this resource box is included intact. For more information or inquiries please contact Leslie at mityoaks@bigpond.com.

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eStore Advantage allows front-office applications to communicate with back-office business environments. It has a built-in support for electronic payment processing, and serves as a core integration platform for Nodus Technologies front-to-back office connectivity suites including RMS and CRM Advantage.

eStore Advantage for Microsoft Business Solutions-Great Plains leverages Microsoft eConnect to provide seamless integration into Great Plains back office. Here are some of the highlights of eStore Advantage, and how it extends eConnect’s EAI interface to provide a complete end-to-end solution.

Reduced Deployment Time:

Microsoft eConnect is a powerful tool for Great Plains back office integrations. Although it provides a robust XML interface, the system integrators still need to be familiar with MBS Great Plains table structures and field names. eStore Advantage simplifies Microsoft eConnect’s XML document interface by providing an easy to use business object layer. Application developers don’t have to know about Great Plains or eConnect, they just utilize the provided objects to implement their business logic. All the underlying integration issues are handled by eStore Advantage, thus reducing the deployment time and the learning curve associated with eConnect implementations.

Connected / Disconnected Modes:

The eStore Advantage framework is designed to operate in both disconnected and connected environments. In disconnected mode information is exchanged through Nodus Web Service hosted at the back office, in cases where web service is down or not available, messages are queued at the front office till the communication is restored. In connected mode all the data follows to the back office without being queued, however the web service can still be deployed if deemed necessary.

XML-based Architecture:

Designed for easy maintenance and durability eStore Advantage Business Objects utilize XML for serialization, queuing and data transport between front and back office environments. It not only offers existing storefronts, web solutions, and custom applications the ability to integrate with back office environment, but also provides developers a powerful infrastructure for their electronic commerce and enterprise applications. Customers don’t have to worry about different eConnect intrinsic XML documents types and field names. They have the flexibility to define their own fields, and customize how they are mapped to eConnect documents. In addition they have the ability to access custom tables defined within Great Plains or an external database.

Simplified Integration - Helps You Focus on Business Level Issues:

In short eStore Advantage significantly decreases implementation time from months to days, enabling customers to focus on business logic and application development rather than integration issues. eStore Advantage for Great Plains comes pre-packaged with Credit Card Advantage and Microsoft eConnect Runtime providing a complete solution that’s both practical and cost effective.

For more information contact Nodus Technologies, Inc.

(909) 482-4701

http://www.nodustech.com

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: Does eStore Advantage come with eConnect?

A: Yes. eStore Advantage comes pre-packaged with Microsoft eConnect for ISV.

Q: What documents are supported by eStore Advantage?

A: Current release of eStore Advantage provides objects for SOP, Inventory, Cash Receipts, Purchase Orders and Customer Maintenance.

Q: How can we access information from other modules not supported by eStore Advantage?

A: eStore Business Objects include a DataSet object, which can be configured to access any eConnect XML Document. In addition you can use the same DataSet object to get information from custom tables defined in Great Plains database.

Q: Can I process electronic payment using eStore Advantage?

A: eStore Advantage has a built-in support for processing electronic payments. Using our transaction server you can process credit cards, echecks and ACH transactions through variety of payment gateways. The approved transactions are added as payment lines to new or existing SOP transaction and carried over to Great Plains.

Q: What if we want to pre-authorize credit cards from the web site, and charge them later upon shipment?

A: When processing pre-authorizations through eStore Advantage, the payment information is saved in Nodus-specific tables. No payment lines are created for the associated order or invoice. When shipping department is ready to fulfill the order they use Nodus’ Credit Card Advantage to charge the credit card. This automatically creates the payment line and sets the amount received.

Q: Is it possible to migrate from Microsoft eCommerce to eStore Advantage?

A: Yes. Microsoft eCommerce uses a disconnected model, where Front and Back Offices are kept in-sync through Business Document Exchange (BDX) messaging. By replacing the BDX components with Nodus Web Service, and modifying Front Office Commerce Server pipeline to use eStore Business Objects, we can provide the same integration using Nodus’ eStore Advantage and Microsoft eConnect.

About The Author

Nodus Technologies, Inc. delivers State-of-the-Art Electronic Payment Processing solutions which allows companies to easily and quickly set up and accept electronic payments within Microsoft Business Solutions - Great Plains, Small Business Manager, Retail Management System, CRM, eOrder, and eCommerce. Our Payment Advantage Suite of solutions includes Credit Card Advantage, eStore Advantage, CRM Advantage, and RMS Advantage. For more info visit: http://www.nodustech.com

josh@nodustech.com

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The profession physiotherapy or physical therapy is a respected health care profession around the globe concerned with the way humans function and using a variety of methods to improve and maximize efficiency of movement in muscles and limbs.The idea of these physiotherapy methods is to promote, maintain or restore physical, psychological and social well-being. The methods used in physotherapy are scientific in application, research and evaluation. There are many different uses of physiotherapy and this is proven by the wide selection of sub categories of this particluar type of medical career. These specialist areas include cardiopulmonary, geriatrics, neurologic, orthopaedic and pediatrics. It can be used to alleviate pain from muscle stiffness or damage in the lower back, knees, neck, arms, legs and ankles. It is commonly used by sportsmen and women and the public for rehabilitation after an injury but some of the lesser known uses include intensive care, mental illness, stroke recovery, occupational health, and care of the elderly.There are many ways to get physiotherapy treatment and these include private health care and also public health plans. Many people assume that physiotherapy is expensive but there are ways to get treatment cheaply including home treatment. Find out more about physiotherapy.

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When you first think about multicurrency - you probably have in mind the revaluation question. Currency triangulation - which was the need when European currencies were fixed to Euro is not an issue any more.

1. Sales and Purchasing multicurrency - when you are selecting accounting package with multicurrency, you need first understand if it has multicurrency on the Sales and Purchasing modules level, not just in GL. The problem behind is like this. When you have sales in foreign currency - you will probably get the payment later on when currency may potentially lose some value against your functional currency (like US Dollar or Euro - however in our days Dollar is very good candidate to do so, but this is outside of the scope). Then - even if you do have payments upfront in foreign currency - you probably don’t plan to convert this currency to functional for repatriation, you probably keep it in the local bank and so your foreign money is subject to fluctuation in comparison to functional currency

2. Unrealized and Realized Gains and Losses - gain or loss is unrealized when transaction is not yet settled (like payment is not received and not applied - but you would already like to know if you have unrealized gain or loss). When transaction is settled - then realized gain or loss might be in place - this is simply the difference of what if you would get immediate payment and got payment now.

3. Revaluation - this is when you decide to recalculate your Sales, Purchasing transaction and post realized and unrealized gains or losses. As the result you usually want GL transaction to be created

4. GL Multicurrency - is simplified version. You may have transactions entered directly in GL with foreign currency selected - in this case it is subject for possible revaluation.

5. Microsoft Great Plains Multicurrency - it is on the level of the following modules: GL, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Sales Order Processing, Purchase Order Processing, Bank Reconciliation, Project Accounting. So it is full-featured multicurrency.

Happy implementing! if you want us to do the job - give us a call 1-630-961-5918 or 1-866-528-0577! help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer in Alba Spectrum Technologies - USA nationwide Great Plains, Microsoft CRM customization company, serving Chicago, California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York, Australia, UK, Canada, Continental Europe, Russia and having locations in multiple states and internationally ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ), he is Microsoft Great Plains Certified Master, Dexterity, SQL, C#.Net, Crystal Reports and Microsoft CRM SDK developer.

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