Hi
Sorry I did not get back more quickly, I was too busy loading Visual
Studio
2008 :-)
I did mention in earlier posts that one of the things that we have done to
dramatically improve part of a clients business is to scan the drivers
diaries. We are talking forest workers who rarely see a town - 2am to 4am
starts with 14 hour days are typical - they maintain a diary of loads ,
fuel
and repairs that they fax in if they can get to a machine or drop at a
weighbridge somewhere. This created a lot of paper that has to be
analysed
and tax laws require to be stored for 7 years. Now they drop the diary
in,
the operator scans it into the new Vista Do***ent Imaging software and
brings it up on the screen beside the spreadsheet where she can markup the
TIFF do***ent and add comments then record the figures in the spreadsheet.
Vastly simpler and more cost effective than the old method. We will be
improving the job in other ways but need to make haste slowly.
The Vista gadget bar is another excellent addition with a notes and a to
do
gadget linked in with Outlook. Outlook is vastly improved with the
possibility of coloured groupings easily differentiating items.
The list goes on and will extend, as the number of users is headed to over
200 million IT departments are going to have to wake up - like it or not
green screens are dead along with many traditional ways of data capture as
Qantas engineering have discovered with JetSmart aka DumbJet. Now the
Apple
iPhone is going to freak IT out as it ****ges BlackBerry along.
By the way I did mean "spreadsheet ABUSE". The people who think that they
will just bang it into a spreadsheet and ignore the system are everywhere.
In my example a "clever" manager decided to put the customers he was
interested in into a spreadsheet and instead of putting the daily price
changes into the system - a simple one field entry - he showed the
operators
to just use his spreadsheet and print copies for the drivers - yes the
delivery dockets did have that info but only if you kept the computer up
to
date! Problem, he had the algorithm wrong on a couple of customers so
they
had cheap fuel for many a day plus the operators had to over-ride the
price
calculated by the system on every entry for every customer. Then of
course
the management re****ts were rendered useless as every transaction was an
exception!
A computer is not a toaster, it is a vital ever developing tool just like
a
car. A Thunderbird may be a great chick magnet on Sunset Strip but as a
car
it is useless today without airbags, ABS, Stability control, Climate
control, and fuel efficient engine - although I am willing to accept that
the average American SUV is more akin to a TBird than a car where safety
and
efficiency is concerned :-)
I saw a great quote today "We are limited not by our actions but by our
vision". The partial retirement of one of the greates computer
visionaries
this week will no doubt see more changes. Personally I am diving head
first
into a new era of study that may or may not work but I will not die
wondering. Even though I have been perfectly happy with my tools to date I
need to change the approach as life rushes on.
Peter McMurray
"frosty" <frostyj@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:wZmdnTQrp-miz_fVnZ2dnUVZ_sWdnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Got me. We've been scanning/uploading CCITT group IV multi-page
> compressed TIFF files for years, now, on WinXP. I've not seen
> Vista, nor do I care to. I suspect that like IE 7, it would break
> our application, in some way.
>
> --
> frosty
>
>
> Chandru Murthi wrote:
>> Thanks. Was sort of kidding, actually, though in general I don't care
>> to get into the details of formats. My broader point was that there's
>> no convincing reason to use Vista unless forced to, and as long as
>> you re-opened the issue, and Peter has not responded, what IS the big
>> deal with Vista and TIFF images?
>>
>> Chandru
>>
>> "frosty" <frostyj@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>> news:PJmdnfARrPZ5APTVnZ2dnUVZ_gadnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>> Chandru Murthi wrote:
>>>> I regret to say I barely know what a TIFF is. What's wrong with
>>>> gifs? What does scanning mean anyway? Like Google Images?
>>>
>>> TIFF = Lossless compressed image. Works especially well for
>>> one-bit (black and white) images, even better because there's
>>> a multi-page option, and standard TIFF viewers abound.
>>>
>>> Scanning is simply a way to archive do***ents. (There's other
>>> reasons to scan stuff, too.)
>>>
>>> --
>>> frosty
>
>
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