JPY Newsletter - Summer 2008

Welcome to the Summer JPY newsletter. For more information on any news item, click on the appropriate link, call us on 0208-390-8487 (overseas callers replace initial 0 with 0044) or visit our main website for other contact details.

In this issue...

• Archiware PresSTORE 3 is showered with stars... and mice
• HELIOS will exhibit (but not sing) at Drupa 2008
• Windows of Opportunity for Mac OS consultants
• And now the bad news...
• Well I never thought of that...
• Brighton bike ride for the British Heart Foundation

Archiware PresSTORE 3 is showered with stars... and mice

On March 6th, JPY launched Archiware PresSTORE 3 in the UK. This release offers users the first hands-on experience of CDP (continuous data protection), automatic client updates, and the new improved interface.

PresSTORE 3 has generated a great deal of interest from the press, with reviews appearing in Macworld, MacUser and other magazines. Chris Green, writing for MacUser wrote,

"PresSTORE offers unrivalled capability and control over data storage and recovery",

and awarded it the top rating of Five Mice.

Macworld followed suit by awarding PresSTORE 3 its top rating of Five Stars, and additionally nominated it for a Macworld Award. The Macworld Awards are held on the June 12th, and if there is any justice, Archiware will be able to add to its already bulging awards cabinet.

If you don't already know about the PresSTORE product range, you can see what all the fuss is about here.

For additional information mail Kevan Hamman or phone him on 020-8390-8487.

HELIOS will exhibit (but not sing) at Drupa 2008

Drupa, the largest printing equipment exhibition in the world is held every four or five years in Dusseldorf. This year, starting on May 29th, HELIOS will be at Drupa to show off its HELIOS UB+ products.

Not only will HELIOS demonstrate the continuing technical superiority of EtherShare with its blistering 600MB/s performance, HELIOS will also be providing four free seminars of great interest to existing and prospective HELIOS users. These seminars will cover , "The Future of DTP", "HiD (High Definition) Colour", "Customer Retention with WebShare" and "PDF Production". The seminars will be repeated on four different days to give visitors every possible chance to attend. You can get full details and register on the HELIOS website. But be sure to register soon, as space is strictly limited.

On a lighter note, one thing HELIOS won't be getting involved with is the now infamous Drupa corporate anthem.

In 2005, The Register did a poll to select the worst corporate anthem, and the 1986 Drupa Song ran against the Glaucoma Hymn, and KPMG's song. It didn't win that time around, but this year's song might have a chance. You can listen to it here.

If you are intending to make it to Dusseldorf this year, and you would like to meet up with the HELIOS team, let us know. We can make an appointment for you, so you can avoid the inevitable queue at the HELIOS stand.

Windows of Opportunity for Mac OS consultants

Over the last few years the consulting arm of JPY has been working overtime to solve networking and workflow problems for various clients.

For example, we recently helped a customer track down costly intermittent file corruption when sharing files between Macs and Windows workstations.

While we would like to take some credit for expanding the business, we owe a lot to the transformed fortunes of Apple. Many corporate users have belatedly come to the conclusion that Apple really does provide a cost-effective alternative to Windows and the sales of Macintosh workstations and laptops have reflected this. However, there are relatively few service organisations that understand Apple AND Windows networking and JPY is one of them. When networking knowledge needs to be combined with graphics workflow, then JPY is out on its own. As a result, not only have we been selling more of our cross-platform solutions, we have seen the demand for our consultancy services soar.

Over the forthcoming year, we shall continue to build our services division particularly in areas that our customers have most needs - such as email and messaging, networks, data security/backup/archive, colour management, and remote access.

If you have a problem, or perhaps an ageing system, that would benefit from the kind of specialist advice JPY can offer, then just drop us a line. Our expanding team of experts have decades of experience in designing workflows and network systems.

For more info on how JPY can solve your specialist technical problems, speak to Kevan (kevan_hamman@jpy.com, 020-8390-848).

And now the bad news...

Having remained unchanged for the last 5 years, we shall be increasing our charges for consultancy with effect from 1st June 2008 to the following:

Daily rate: £1,000
Half-day: £600

Click here for full details on our consultancy charges and conditions.

Well I never thought of that...

Cumulus 7.5 makes it possible for standard catalogue field values to be calculated by a formula. Formulas can be complex, but they can also be very easy and will have you wondering how you ever got along without them! A formula can be as simple as the concatenation of two field values into a single string, or as complex as "if-then" decision making.

Formulas can be assigned to record and category fields. Values for existing records and categories are calculated (or recalculated) when the record or category's metadata is saved after an edit. Formulas are executed during cataloguing operations for newly created asset records and categories.

Field formulas offer many significant benefits including:

Metadata display versatility: Used in conjunction with "display only" metadata fields you add to your catalogues, field formulas enable you to provide users with data displays formatted in more meaningful ways. An example of this may be rounding a video's "Duration" field which may contain the value "25.566." A simple field formula can round that value and display it with adjacent text that provides more concise information: "Length: 26 seconds."

Calculations Fields: Values can be calculated to provide useful, searchable metadata values that would not otherwise exist in your catalogues without manual data entry. Let's say you have a field for Cost Per Use. Another field, Times Used, tracks how many times you've used the particular asset. A third field, Total Cost of Use, uses a simple multiplication formula to offer a sum of the total costs associated with the asset.

Workflow monitoring and guidance: Field formulas can also set values in asset records that are later used as "flags" by managers, Live Filtering or Scheduler actions for further consideration. An example of this may be where individual fields for named approval users are created. An "Overall Approval" status field calculates if all approval user fields are set to approved and then sets the status to "Approved".

Brighton bike ride for the British Heart Foundation

In a moment of uncharacteristic weakness, John Yardley and David Fox agreed to take part in the London to Brighton Bike Ride on June 15th, to raise money for the British Heart Foundation. Both are reluctant cyclists, begrudgingly using their bikes to commute to work. However the gruelling 58 mile run to Brighton offers some more challenging terrain, with the last miles including Ditchling Beacon, an 813 foot climb.

Depending on whom you would most like to most ingratiate yourself with, please sponsor John or Dave (pictured right) or both!