Slateboard Software November/December 2006 Newsletter
Announcing Our New Blog!
There
has been much debate over the benefit of blogs for corporations.
Many companies have them, even more don't. We have decided that
having a blog where we can make announcements, share news, tips, etc.,
certainly can't hurt and should only prove to be a benefit to our customers.
Our intention is to not load it with frequent "fluff" posts, simply when
there is something we feel may be of interest, we will post it.
This may mean one post a week or one post a month. We also promise
that there will be no commentary on this blog, merely information related
to our business. You can view our blog at https://www.slateboard.com/slateboardblog.
We intend to include summaries with links on some of these posts each
month for those who don't regularly view the blog.
This Month's Newsletter
In
this month's newsletter we ask for your input again, this time by asking
three questions to help stimulate your thoughts on this. We have
the answer to last month's puzzler as well as the name of the winner of
a copy of DebtCalc (it's a surpise this month). This month's Fun
Fact deals with Aesop. 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
Latest From the Blog
- We Need Your Input
- See
Why So Many Are Upgrading to QuikCalc Amortization Version V6.0
- What You're Missing If You Haven't Updated Your
Software
- Tip
Of The Month - Changing the Margins on Reports
- Fun
Fact - Aesop. Real or Not?
- Last Month's Puzzler Answer
- This
Month's Puzzler Contest
The
staff at Slateboard Software hope you find our latest newsletter interesting
and thank you for your business.
We
Need Your Input
We're
always open to suggestions on how to improve our software. This
time to stimulate ideas we are asking three questions:
1.
If you could change one thing, what would it be?
2. What is the one feature you use the most and why?
3. What is the one feature you use the least and why?
Send
your answers to suggestions@slateboard.com and
we'll go through them to see how we can improve our next release.
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 https://www.slateboard.com/info_demos.htm then
enjoy your 50% discount as an existing customer by visiting https://www.slateboard.com/ORDERSITE/cat3_1.htm
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:
- We've simplified the Terms tab on the Loan Manager so
that the opening balance is only shown for the first term.
This eliminates the confusion of trying to figure out what the
balance would be.
- Plus much more!
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Tip Of The Month
Have you ever had a report that
almost fits on one page, but not quite? Well, there is
a solution. When looking at the Print Preview window, there are
little arrows in the margin rulers that can be dragged. Dragging
these will change the margins to whatever you want and update the preview
at the same time. This will allow you to get that extra inch or
so that you may need to fit that final payment on the one page.
Fun Fact - Aesop. Real or Not?
| Aesop Was Real
Aesop
was a slave, born about the year 620 B.C., probably in the province
of Lydia. Thrace and Phrygia have also been considered possible
birthplaces. All three provinces, however, locate Aesop firmly
in Asia Minor in the area we know as Turkey today.
During
his slavery, Aesop served two masters; the second freed him because
the young man had acquired learning and a great wit.
He
was a man whose mind brimmed with curiosity and a craving to learn,
and so he traveled widely through Greece, Thrace, and Phrygia.
Ultimately he arrived at Sardis, the capital of the hugely wealthy
king of Lydia, Croesus, of "rich as Croesus" fame.
Aesop
became a favorite in the court of Croesus, and the king urged
him to remain in Sardis. Croesus used him as an ambassador throughout
Hellas, particularly in Corinth, Athens, and Delphi. In these
years Aesop used his parables... his fables... as a art of persuasion
and diplomacy.
It
was in Delphi where Aesop met his death. Croesus sent him to
distribute a sum of gold to the citizens, but their greed and
chicanery so disgusted Aesop that he sent the gold back to the
king. The Delphians, infuriated, put him to death.
A
legend grew from the unjust execution. The people of Delphi
underwent a series of catastrophies. A phrase, "beset with the
blood of Aesop," became widespread. True to Aesop's heritage
there was a lesson learned. Today we would say: What goes around,
comes around.
| Aesop
Wasn't Real
Was there really somebody in ancient Greece named
Aesop? While it is impossible to prove that such a person did
not exist, there is also no concrete historical evidence that
he did exist. Because the legends about Aesop are very old, they
predate any of our written sources and thus we cannot be sure
if the legends are not themselves the source for the "history."
The one surviving reference to Aesop that claims to be historical
is in the writer Herodotus, who lived from appx. 485 BCE to 425
BCE. In his History (read the passage online), Herodotus claims
that Aesop was a slave from the island
of Samos and that he
was killed by the people of Delphi.
But the story of Aesop and the Delphians was already an old legend
before Herodotus was even born. So when Herodotus repeats this
story as "history," there is no reason to believe that it is anything
other than legend.
The most references to Aesop in any classical Greek source can
be found in the comic plays of Aristophanes, who lived from 448
BCE to 388 BCE. Aristophanes makes it clear that Aesop was an
extremely popular character in ancient Greece - everybody already knew
who he was, everybody already knew the fables of Aesop. And they
knew the fables of Aesop not because they had read the fables
of Aesop in a book, but because they had heard the stories. In
much the same way that the epics attributed to "Homer" were an
oral performance tradition that was later committed to writing,
the fables of Aesop were a centuries-old tradition in Greece before they were eventually
written down. People in Greece (and Rome) knew the story of the tortoise and
the hare - along with the story of the beetle and the eagle, the
fox and the raven, the lion and the mouse, and on and on.
And when were these fables first written down? The first collection
of fables probably belonged to the Hellenistic period of Greek
history, which centered on the library at Alexandria (the Egyptian city founded by
Alexander the Great in 332 BCE). It appears that Demetrius of
Phalerum, who died in 280 BCE, put together a collection of Aesopic
fables, but no copy of it has survived.
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*Source:
aesopbyshannon, mythfolklore & wikipedia
Last
Month's Puzzler Contest Answer
Last
Month's 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.
Answer
7
+ 1 = 8 9 - 6 =
3 4 X 5 = 20
And
This Month's Copy Goes To...
This
month's copy of DebtCalc Home Edition goes to: No
One of No Where! That's right, no one got
it right! We had several very close answers but those all missed
the requirement that three of the four operators needed to be used.
Better luck next time
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 December 31, 2006. The name
and correct answer will be revealed in the next newsletter.
Question:
Kevin is 14 inches taller than George. The difference between
Kevin and Richard is two inches less than between Richard and
George. Kevin at 6'6" is the tallest. How tall are Richard and
George?
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