Slateboard Software October 2006 Newsletter

Announcing Our New Software Subscription Plans!

We are pleased to announce a new offering that will make your life easier and save you money: QuikCalc Subscribe.  What is QuikCalc Subscribe?  It is a new plan that allows you to pay a low monthly fee for your software.  For this low fee, you will receive:

• Permission to install the software on multiple machines, depending upon the plan you choose.  QuikCalc Plus! and Premium come in 3, 5 and 10 user packs.  Office is available in 1, 2, 3, 5 and 10 packs.
• Free updates and upgrades.
• Priority e-mail support.
• Office Edition plans include voice support.
• Cancel at any time.  If you decide you don't need QuikCalc anymore, just cancel.
• After one year, you retain the right to use the software indefinitely.  Maintain your subscription however and continue to receive the above benefits.
• Already purchased and want to convert?  No problem.  We will discount your monthly fee by 50% until the amount you previously paid (less S&H) has been taken into account.

 As you can see the advantages are obvious:

• By subscribing to the appropriate plan, you can bring your office onside with our license agreement which requires one copy to be purchased per machine.  The savings can be tremendous for offices where you require 3 to 10 copies.
• You can reduce your up front costs if purchasing new.
• You lose nothing if you've already purchased.
• You will always have the latest and greatest.
• You will be first in line for support.
• Depending on the tax laws in your jurisdiction, subscriptions can be written off immediately whereas software purchases sometimes need to be depreciated over multiple years.

As we said above, there are tremendous savings to be had and if you've already paid, the amount of your last invoice will be credited by way of a 50% monthly discount until the full amount has been realized.  Then the regular amount will be billed monthly.

If you are interested, send an e-mail to sales@slateboard.com with your registration information and the plan you are interested in.  We will prepare a subscription plan for your consideration.

This Month's Newsletter

First, an apology about last month's newsletter.  We upgraded the computer that the newsletter is sent out on and transferred the settings from the old machine to the new as instructed by the software vendor.  Unfortunately, these instructions were incomplete.  This resulted in Read Receipts being requested of all people who received the newsletter.  This was discovered too late to prevent it however has been fixed.  We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

In this month's newsletter we ask for your input on what you want in upcoming releases of QuikCalc, DebtCalc and VehiCalc. We also have links to screen snaps of the latest version of QuikCalc Amortization.  We have the answer to last month's puzzler as well as the name of the winner of a copy of DebtCalc.  This month's Fun Fact deals with Famous Computer Glitches.  Again we have tips and offers that we hope will be of interest to you.  Here's what's covered in this month's newsletter:

 The staff at Slateboard Software hope you find our latest newsletter interesting and thank you for your business.

We Need Your Input

How do software companies come up with the ideas that go into new releases?  They come from several sources:

1. Internally.  Our staff, while developing and supporting the application, come up with ideas.
2. Externally.  Our customers, while using the software, come up with ideas.

We have a huge list of enhancements that we would like to add to our software, enough to fill several new versions.  Most are things that we think you want.  Some of them we know you want because you have asked for them.  These are always given the priority when possible.

We are currently working on new versions of QuikCalc, VehiCalc and DebtCalc.  If you have any suggestions for these products, please send them to suggestions@slateboard.com.  We can't promise that your request will make it into this release, but at least it will make it onto the list for a future release.

Some examples of previous requests that made it in:

1. Reports.  When QuikCalc Office V4.0 was released, it had two reports.  Today it has dozens, all suggested by users.
2. Loan Manager.  Yup, the current core feature of QuikCalc was a user request.
3. The Office Edition.  Yes, this was a request as well.
4. DebtCalc.  The entire product was a request.
5. And the list would go on and on for hundreds of items, but we think you get the idea.

We invite you to make suggestions for new features and new products that you would like to see us develop.  We can't think of everything on our own!

And if you haven't already, try the new version of QuikCalc and see how suggestions from people like you led to the most significant facelift QuikCalc has ever received that has people raving.  Then, upgrade to any edition, no matter what you owned before, for 50% off.  Just visit our secure order site.

See Why So Many Are Upgrading to QuikCalc Amortization Version V6.0

As you read above, QuikCalc V6.0 is our most successful release ever.  If you haven't seen it yet for yourself, visit our website to try the fully-functional demo, or use the links below to see screen snaps of what QuikCalc V6.0 looks like:

Screen snap of the Solve for Missing Number Calculator.

Screen snap of the Amortization Schedules Plus! window.

Screen snap of the Loan Manager.

Screen snap of the Office Edition's Client Manager.

Screen snap of the Payment Grids.

We encourage you to try out the demo at http://www.slateboard.com/info_demos.htm.

QuikCalc V6.0 is so dramatically different in look and feel that it may seem like an entirely new product!

• We have resized the application to work in 1024 x 768 or better by default, thus giving us much more real estate to work with.  We have also increased the font size from 8 point to 10 point making it easier to read on higher resolution systems.
• We have reformatted some of the windows and renamed some of the fields to make them more intuitive.
• We have added a Navigation Bar along the side that is much like those you are used to seeing in XP.  It provides single-click access to most features.
• We have dropped some fields and streamlined the Loan Manager Detail tab so that it is less confusing.
• We have split the reports so that the Escrow columns are only displayed when necessary (i.e. Simple Interest U.S. Rule selected as the interest compounding method).
• The Solve for Missing Number Calculator allows you to specify units (Days/Weeks/Months/Years) for the Amortization Period.

To make sure you enjoy your 50% discount as an existing customer, visit: http://www.slateboard.com/ORDERSITE/cat3_1.htm

Note that we have recently added PayPal as a payment method to our website.  Through PayPal we accept not only Visa and MasterCard, but American Express, Discover and eCheck as well.

For more information visit http://www.slateboard.com/pro_quikcalcpro.htm.

Important Notice: With the release of QuikCalc V6.0, we are dropping support for Windows 95, 98, ME and NT.  V6.0 will function on Windows XP, 2000, 2003 Server, Media Center and Vista.  We apologize to those few users still on these unsupported versions of Windows who will not be able to take advantage of this upgrade.  Rest assured we will continue to support your current version as before.

What You're Missing If You Haven't Updated Your Software

We recommend that you update your software at least once a month.  You can do this easily by going to your Help menu and checking for updates.  For users who haven't downloaded an update lately, these are some of the things you could be missing out on:   A Volume of Interest Chart has been added to the Loan Manager. Plus much more!

Tip Of The Month

Your license agreement allows you to install your software on both your home and office computers.  If you install on more than one machine at your office, you need to buy multiple copies or subscribe to one of our monthly plans.  If you want to "take" your work home, how do you do this?  It is actually quite easy.

1. At your office, go to the File Menu and select Backup Datafile.  Create a backup either on your hard drive, a USB memory stick or some other type of removable media that can handle several megabytes (sorry, floppy disks are not large enough).  E-mail this file to yourself at home or use the removable media to bring the file home.

2. At home, save the e-mail attachment to your harddrive or plugin your removable media.  Run QuikCalc, go to the File Menu and select Restore Datafile.  Point to the file you backed up and you should have access to your data.

On some machines, due to access rights problems, the backup/restore may not work properly.  You can get around this by manually copying the file.  Normally this is located in the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Slateboard Software\QuikCalc6 directory and is called qcm6.mdb.  Moving the file between home and the office will accomplish the same as the above steps.

Fun Fact

*Source: wikipedia

Last Month's Puzzler Contest Answer

Last Month's Question

When the two met, one was half the other's age plus seven years.  Ten years later, when they married, the bride was thirty, but this time one was nine-tenths the age of the other.  How old was the groom? ( no fractions, no partial years---whole numbers only.)

Answer

The bride was 30; the groom was 27.

And This Month's Copy Goes To...

This month's copy of DebtCalc Home Edition goes to: Ticia Wicks of New York.  Congrats!

This Month's Puzzler Contest

Send your answer for the puzzler below to contest@slateboard.com for a chance at a copy of DebtCalc Home Edition.  We will randomly draw one name from all of the correct answers received by October 31, 2006.  The name and correct answer will be revealed in the next newsletter.   Question: Arrange the ten digits 0 to 9 in three arithmetical sums, using three of the four operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and using no signs except the ordinary ones implying those operations.  This example should make it quite clear: 3 + 4 = 7          9 - 8 = 1          5 X 6 = 30 But, the example is not correct, as the number 2 has not been used and the number 3 has been used twice.  Can you come up with a valid solution?