Solutions
by Softech
Fifth
Edition – April 1999
Softech Solutions, Inc. 300
North C.R. 427 Suite 100 Longwood, FL 32750
1-407-331-TECH (8324)
1-407-331-5570(Fax)
SSI@SoftechSolutions.com
"Solutions
by Softech" is back again! Only 9 months
since our last newsletter and only 9 months left
until the big 
Year 2000 Fiasco!
Coincidence? Yes it is, but it does serve to put
things in perspective when you can relate to a
past timeframe. So if you can remember how long it
has been since you read our last newsletter (seems
like just yesterday, doersn't it?) then you should
have a godd feel for how long you have until the
New Millennium! This will undoubtedly be our last
newsletter of this century (a somber thought) so
read on, enjoy, and we'll 'see you again' next
century!
Microsoft announced today that the release date for the new operating system "Windows 2000" will be delayed until the 2nd quarter of 1901.
We have moved since our
last newsletter. We did manage to stay in the same
building again, so please note our new
suite number (100) in any correspondence
you may have with us. Also, see "Softech On
The Go" for more information related to our
move, including information on our new voice mail
and telephone systems.
Solutions Needed: Once again we really left you puzzle freaks hanging with the "Door to Life" question. Well, again we had two winners and we decided to give golf shirts to both of them. The correct answer was - Ask either person which door the other person would tell you is the wrong door - then go out the other door. Reasoning - if you ask the person who always tells the truth, he will tell you what the lying person would tell you is the wrong door. If you ask the person who always lies he will tell you the opposite of what the person who tells the truth would tell you - again, the wrong door. In both cases the answer would be the same - the door to death - go out the other door and live to read the next puzzler! The official puzzler for this month is: A father and his son had the following conversation: Son-"Well Dad, 60 wasn't enough last time, do you think I should try 125 this time?" The father replied, "No, 125 probably won't be enough either, you had better make it 90". What were they talking about?
TYPEWRITER, is the longest word that can be made using the letters on only one row of the keyboard.
Y2K Update - tic toc, tic toc - well, we are down to the wire and it seems as if the hype is picking up exponentially! Have you picked up a newspaper or periodical or turned on a radio or TV lately without hearing or seeing a Y2K story? Well the consensus around here is that there are going to be a lot of problems encountered over the new millennium and several months of 'cleanup'. But no nuclear missiles will be launched, and no planes will fall from the sky, and no, not one of us wull be flying at midnight on New Years Eve!
We have discussed how we will allocate our resources during the last couple of months of this year and the first couple of months of the New Year. We plan to make our services available first to our current clients. We will be contacting them during the next couple of months and asking for a commitment by July 31st. After the 31st we will consider allocating our resources to new clients. Naturally if you become a client before July 31st you will be given advanced consideration for year-end resources.
If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
We continue to be "busier than we want to be" as Y2K approaches. Even though we have only done a half dozen or so projects directly related to Y2K, we find that we are picking up a lot of other projects because our client's internal staff is tied up doing Y2K work - whatever the reason, we are busy . . . Here is a recap of what we have been doing since the last newsletter. Also, don't forget that there are brief bios of all of our full time employees on our web site.
Ron has worked on multiple projects for various clients and has spent a considerable amount of time in California. He also is satying busy keeping up with his grandson who is now walking! Ron and his family are planning a vacation to Hungary to meet the family of his new daughter-in-law.
Ed has continued going non-stop and has been involved in a lot of Authorizations work, performance tuning, MasterCard, Visa, and Private Label communications and certifications, as well as other projects too numerous to mention.
Bill has kept busy on a multitude of projects including Acces front-end projects, and a major project interfacing ATM's to Vision21 and VisionPlus. Actually everyone at Softech played a part in the ATM project including several sub-contractors. Bill also managed to crack a rib in January as he passed out after donating blood - so much for trying to be a nice guy! Family wise, Bill Jr. is graduating from West Point in a few weeks and the proud parents are obviously excited, as are all of us!
Doug is still doing primarily Authorizations and Mail Order Entry work, and he helped out greatly on the ATM project. He took a long respite from traveling but now has started to 'hit the road' again and has recently implemented a project using the MQ Series Communications for Order Entry Processing - please refer to our web site for more info on this interface.
Aaron, in addition to getting married in November, is becoming a prolific coder and has probably produce more lines of code than any two of us.
Joy, who joined us shortly before we published our last newsletter, is definitely vying for the Road Warrior of the year award. She has made multiple trips to Canada, California, and Puerto Rice.
Leanne Walter, who has also joined us recently, is form the "down-under" and has brought us a wealth of PaySys experience as well as a new accent for us to contend with. She enjoys seeing the world and will be with us at least until she has had her fill of the USA!
Speaking of
"Softech On The Go", we changed floors
in our building again, and now occupy suite 100
in, once again, a much 
more spacious
environment. We are still operating in a Windows
for Workgroups, Windows95 peer-to-peer network
environment with dial-up access to most of our
clients. We have plans to go to an NT network with
ISDN Internet access sometime this summer. We have
installed a new phone system that allows us not
only to rotary inbound calls from our clients but
also our outbound modem calls. We also have
installed a full-fledged voice mail system and
each one of use now has our own voicemail box.
Warning: Dates is Calendar are closer
than they appear!
(We thought this one was worth repeating)
Mime Files: Have you ever
recieved an email that looks like someone has been
sitting at a keyboard just randomly typing all the
letters and symbols and it just goes on and on and
on? Maybe you thought it was garbage and you just
deleted it. Chances are, you were looking at a
"mime" file. A mime file is an Internet
email file that you were not supposed to read. In
fact, you are not supposed to even get that file
in that format. It was really supposed to be a
file attachment" such as a picture or
possibly a spreadsheet or maybe even a word
processing document. Mime files represent a way to
"fake out" the Internte and send non
text-based files to others. They are essentially
an encoded email that was supposed to be decoded
when you recieved it, but, for some reason your
ISP or your Internet server did not recognize it
as a Mime file. There are several techniques you
can use to try and have the file decoded. One is
to try and save the file with an extention of
"UUE". Most software will recognize a
file with that extension (myfile.uue) as a Mime
Encode file and try and "decode" it for
you. If you want to learn more helpfule techniques
on how towork with these special files or would
like to understand more about their background and
the "nitty-gritty" on how they work,
visit "Mime Files" under "Techie
Tips".
Always remember you are unique, just like everyone else!
Besides the 'normal stuff' we do like system enhancements, fixes, conversions, training etc, we also get involved in some major projects. We like to keep our clients, and potential clients, informed of these projects because we can save you time and money by not "reinventing the wheel". Naturally our major area of expertise revolves around the PaySys family of applications. While all of us have varying degrees of expertise on PaySys applications, as a company we believe that we form one of the best pools of knowledge on these applications. We have also done a tremendous amount of work with the Fair Isaac Triad product which has included implementation work, enhancements and performance tuning. We have integrated an ATM network for a retailer with both Vision21 and VisionPlus - this included not only the authorization and logging of cash advances and bill payments, but also full statement print at the ATM and full reconcilement processing with the network provider. We also have interfaced BASE24, LINK24 and LINKX on both IBM Mainframe and UNIX platforms. Our existing software handles the Parse/Format of BASE24 Messages, maps BASE24 messages to/from the host authorization (FAS) system; and supports ATM, TELLER, POS, TELEBANK and NETWORK Messaging. We have also interfaced FAS and CDM to non-PaySys applications using MQ Series (Messaging and Queuing), and been involved in several new implementations of VisionPlus. Training continues to be very much in demand as we continue to do a variety of standard user and technical training for CardPac, Vison21, and VisionPlus, as well as a good deal of customized training. These customized sessions have involved taking the actual control records and screens from a customer and tailoring the training to their specific needs. We have also given "Executive Overviews" which give a high level look at how all the applications work, and how they interface to one another. Currently we are working with two clients to develop internal training courses and materials. At latest count we have worked for 24 clients (63 if you count the clients of our clients), on over 500 projects including 22 conversions, 38 implementations, 7 projects over 1,000 hours, and 52 of less than 8 hours. We have used 22 different resources including our full time employees and contractors.
Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
As part of our
jobs we run across numerous PC & Mainframe
related software packages, some good, some not so
good.
We will occasionally
pass along the ones that we feel are good ones. In
the past we have recommended Visio, Intuit's
Expensable and ClickArt. This issue we want to
recommend Microsoft Outlook as a great mail and
calendar program, SPF/PC as a great text editor
with TSO look and feel, and Word 97 which we used
to produce this newsletter. (We wish we used
MSPublisher)
For those of you who had some problems recently with the Melissa Virus we thought we would pass along a story that should make you feel a little better. Bill's son, who is in his final year at the United States Military Academy at West Point, is the Brigade Information Systems Officer. In that position Bill Jr. is essentially responsible for assuring that the 8000+ PC's used by the Corps of Cadets are operational, and functionally in compliance with Army SOP. Well, when the Melissa virus struck West Point that Friday afternoon, things got interesting to say the least. Since the first 50 entries in the network address book at West Point are all distribution lists, every time Melissa did her dirty deed, she did not send out 50 emails, but more like 2,000. Multiply that by each cadet who opened an infected email and you can imagine what that did to the internal mail servers! Needless to say, Bill Jr. had an interesting weekend.
Bob Barnett, a long time
friend and colleague of ours, passed away
recently. Besides being a good friend (pictured
here on a "dive" boat with his
co-divers), Bob was one of the original structural
engineers of the heart and soul of CardPac,
Vision21, VisionPlus (you know… the
"posting program"). We know that many of
you have probably crossed paths with Bob in the
past. Bob was with PaySys (fka Credit Card
Software) for over 18 years and was living and
working in South Africa at the time of his death.
We all will miss him very much.
Copyright © 2000
[Softech Solutions, Inc]. All rights reserved.