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HI-TECH TALK Newsletter: August 2004 Newsletter Index Now you can order
checks, envelopes, and forms for your HI-TECH User Forum—Sign up today! Click here for more information.
RentPlus 2005 User Forum The 2005 HI-TECH User Forum will be held February 21-22, 2005 at the incomparable Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. The 2005 User Forum will be just prior to the Inside Self Storage Expo at the Las Vegas Hilton February 23-25. The User Forum includes both standard and advanced user tracks on a wide variety of RentPlus topics (see a detailed schedule on-line). Get the most from your HI-TECH RentPlus software by taking advantage of this fantastic opportunity to learn more. With thousands of features and capabilities, the complexity of running and maintaining Windows-based software, ever changing technology, and the incredible opportunity the Internet represents, you cannot afford to miss this exciting seminar. The User Forum provides a complete track of classes for advanced users and system administrators as well as a track for beginning and intermediate users. Over six hours of open computer lab time will give you the chance to review specific questions with the HI-TECH technical staff. The User Forum will provide time to meet and socialize with the HI-TECH staff, other HI-TECH customers, as well as one or more guest lecturers on topics from security to Internet opportunities. We hope you will join us. If you have any questions, please call us at 1-800-551-8324 or send e-mail to admin@hitechsoftware.com. Use the enclosed registration form to sign up today or call 800-551-8324 or visit our web site (www.hitechsoftware.com). Please register by January 24, 2005. Special Offer for Mini-StoragePlus Customers: Upgrade to RentPlus prior to January 15th and receive free attendance for up to two people! Backup Directly to CD from RentPlus Any business that relies on electronic data should understand the importance of keeping daily backups. To minimize the risk of a potential loss -- due to computer crashes, theft and other disasters -- all backups should be stored somewhere other than your computer’s hard drive. This way, even the total loss of your PC will not cause the downfall of your business. CD burners are currently the removable storage solution of choice, because they are cost effective, easy to use, and durable. You can buy a good CD burner for around $50, and with a $12 stack of 50 blank CD-R discs, you have approximately 40 gigabytes of potential storage space. With the proper software, CD burners allow you to format, write, read, and delete files to CD-R or CD-RW disc -- just as you would an over-sized floppy disk. They call this packet writing. Popular packet-writing software includes Roxio’s Easy CD Creator with DirectCD, Ahead Software’s Nero Burning ROM with InCD, and Sonic Solutions’ RecordNow with Drive Letter Access (DLA) technology. Microsoft designed Windows XP/2000 with limited packet-writing capabilities, but it doesn’t allow disc formatting or real-time access to CD burning. Unfortunately, many applications with built-in backup utilities have problems writing directly to CD – including RentPlus – unless you purchase and install one of the third-party packet-writing software tools listed above. No matter which package you choose, be aware that you normally can’t have two different packet writing applications on your PC at the same time, without experiencing problems. So be sure to remove one prior to testing another, for best results. Once installed, your InCD, DirectCD or DLA-equipped software loads automatically each time Windows is started, residing quietly in the System Tray. Insert a blank CD and these applications spring to life, allowing you to perform a full format or quick erase, so that you can read and write to disc from within any program, including RentPlus. Now that your disc is formatted, you can use it to store backups made within RentPlus. In the Backup utility, use the browse button to locate your CD burner’s drive letter. Because RentPlus automatically date and time-stamps each backup, you can easily record multiple backup files to a single CD. Once a disc is full, simply format another. If you’re using a CD-RW disc, you can manually delete old files or perform quick format to free up additional space. DirectCD and DLA packet-writing software can format both CD-R and CD-RW discs for direct access; at this time, InCD can format only CD-RW discs under Windows XP/2000. For more information about the packet-writing software mentioned here, visit www.roxio.com for Roxio’s Easy CD Creator 5.0 or higher, with DirectCD; www.nero.com for Ahead Software’s Nero 6.0 or higher, with InCD 4; and www.sonic.com for Sonic Software’s Record Now 7.0 or higher, with DLA. For a more detailed, illustrated version of this article, please go to http://www.hitechsoftware.com/news/cdburn.htm . Product/Service Survey Enclosed As part of our efforts to continually improve our products and services, we would like to ask you to please take a few moments to complete and submit the enclosed survey. Surveys submitted by September 15, 2004 will be entered into a drawing for free software. Thank you for your participation! On-Line Backup In addition to backup to CD or to a zip disk, it is also wise to backup to a safe and secure backup site using the Internet. It is quick, easy, and completely automatic. HI-TECH recommends BackupForBusiness.com and has negotiated a special rate for RentPlus users of just $99 for six months. Try it out for 30 days free with no obligation. Sign up at: www.BackupForBusiness.com TopRentPlus Terminal Services Edition Now Available HI-TECH recently released RentPlus Terminal Services Edition™ (RPTSE). With RPTSE, you get the best of both worlds: the rich full-featured interface of a Windows application for your sites, and centrally-located program and data files. RentPlus TSE lets you manage any site from any location, be it on your local area network, at your storage site, or anywhere else with a computer and an Internet connection. Manage data, settings, program updates, backups, security control and reporting all from any location. How it Works RPTSE is installed on the server at your office. The data files for your sites are also on that server. From the site (or anywhere else), you use the Internet to (securely!) connect to the server using Windows XP and Microsoft Terminal Services (part of Windows Server software). Once connected, a Windows desktop is displayed on your screen, and you can start up the RentPlus program and get to work. The difference is that the program you are starting is running on the server, not on your workstation. With a broadband connection, it is just as fast or even faster than using RentPlus on a stand alone computer. Advantages
Is RentPlus Terminal Services Edition For You? RPTSE is targeted for companies with five or more sites. Upgrading from RentPlus Professional Edition to RentPlus Terminal Services Edition is quick, easy, and requires no conversion of data. For more information, please contact us at 800-551-8324 or info@hitechsoftware.com. Direct Referral Program Started HI-TECH has started a new program that rewards you for referring business to HI-TECH. Through our direct referral program, you can receive up to $25 for every referral you send our way that results in a sale of our products or services. A few rules—it can’t be a referral to a related company or business, it must be a referral to someone we haven’t spoken with already, and they must purchase within six months. E-mail referrals with the contact information to sales@hitechsoftware.com or call 800-551-8324. Translation Project Nearing Completion HI-TECH has been expanding the scope of translation throughout RentPlus and has nearly completed the project to translate every screen and report. The programming for the project has been completed, and the actual translation is now in progress. Up until now, RentPlus has had the ability to translate only documents that go to the customer into the local language—that is, letters and receipts. When the current project is completed, all of the screens, reports and messages will be translated into the local language. Initially, translations will be done for Spanish, Dutch, Italian, German, and French, although translations can potentially be done for any language. 20,000 words and phrases have to be translated, about 12,000 of them are unique. The first fully translated editions of RentPlus are expected to be made available in the 4th Quarter of 2004. This issue’s security warning is about a new form of spam going around called “phishing”. These e-mails usually appear to be sent from banks and credit card companies, such as Citibank or Discover. They are very official looking, and include a request that you click a link to ‘verify’ your account information. If followed, the link can lead to very serious loss of personal information and identity theft. Banks and credit card companies will NEVER send you an e-mail with a link like that. E-mail messages from them are advertisements for business or notifications of account activity. For example, a recently received phishing e-mail from “Citibank Support” stated “Recently there have been a large number computer terrorist attacks over our database server. In order to safeguard your account, we require that you update your Citibank ATM/Debit card PIN.” They then go on to offer a link to click to go do this. The link would look like an official Citibank site but it would be a fake. If the account information was entered, you would be giving the information to criminals. For more about phishing, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spam/phishing.mspx. For general security information, go to http://www.microsoft.com/protect The number of on-line updates downloaded by RentPlus users continues to grow. Updates to RentPlus are made available frequently—about once a week or so– where they are easily downloaded. Installation of the download is instant and automatic as RentPlus will automatically update your data files for any new features. To download the update, you must have already upgraded to version 1.8 and you must have a current support agreement. The direct link to the download site is: http://www.hitechsoftware.com/cgi-bin/rpupdate/rpupdate.cgi. Enter your serial number and zip code as well as your e-mail address. On the download page, click the link “List of the changes in this update” to learn about the new features that are included in the update. After downloading, follow the instructions on screen to automatically update your RentPlus software. Alert Messages instead of Pop-Up Notes The new Alert Message feature is often a better choice than the pop-up notes to remind you of details about a particular customer. For example, let’s say you have a customer that you want to flag as needing a new address. Using popup notes, you would add the note to the customer’s notes, then flag the notes as popup notes. When you work with the customer, all the customer notes would be displayed in a popup window. Instead, you can use an alert message that contains only a brief note, such as “Need Address”. To create (or cancel) an alert message, click the icon in the lower left corner of the Customer Properties screen. New Multi-User Features Additional options and features have been added to the multi-user edition of RentPlus. Go to Tools | Options and click on the new Multi-User tab to activate and adjust some of the settings. New features include more alerts that another user is working with a customer record, and automatic updating of the RentPlus Map and the RentPlus Explorer screen to reflect changes made on other workstations. Reservation Module Added Recently added to RentPlus was the new Reservation Module. Using this module, you can reserve either a specific unit or a size or range of sizes, accept a deposit, and collect all of the client information. When the customer is ready to move-in, the reservation can be converted to a move-in, and the reservation deposit is applied toward the new move-in charges. Reserved units are displayed in a different color on the map, and are flagged on vacant unit lists. Reservations are also tied into the Prospects information in RentPlus. You will find Reservations on the Favorites menu. |
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