Inmagic Application &
Value Added Reseller

Newsletter - September 2008

Greetings!

With Fall just a few weeks away, there is already a crispness to the air and the promise of cooler days and nights to come. We hope you have had as pleasant a summer as we have and look forward to the change of seasons and the renewal that comes with it.

Andornot is gearing up for in-person visits to our clients in select Canadian cities this fall. Read on for dates when we can visit you, and other news from Andornot and Inmagic.

In This Issue

Latest Andornot News

Latest Andornot Projects

Inmagic Updates

Quick Tip

Cool Tools

Latest Andornot News

Andornot In Your City

Andornot staff will be travelling across Canada in the next few months. If you would like to have us visit you in-person for training, to discuss an upcoming project, or help with some of your existing databases and web sites, please contact us to set up a time.

Ottawa – September 17th to 19th

Toronto – September 22nd to 26th

Calgary – September 30th to October 2nd

Rex Turgano Heading to Nepal

Andornot consultant Rex Turgano is taking a career break and will be leaving for Kathmandu, Nepal in a couple of months. For the next year and a half, Rex will be volunteering with Volunteer Service Overseas (VSO) Canada (http://www.vsocan.org/) working for the General Welfare Pratisthan (GWP), a non-government, non-profit organization working in the areas of HIV & AIDS prevention and awareness, Income Generation, Education, and the Environment.

The primary goal of Rex's volunteer placement is to assist the various GWP HIV & AIDS partners as an IT Advisor. He will be sharing his skills and knowledge in Information Technology Management, Digital Libraries, and Web Development with the various field offices throughout the districts of Nepal.

Rex graduated from the School of Information Management at Dalhousie University in 2003 and has worked with Andornot since 2005. Rex has worked with us on numerous library and archive web sites for clients such as Heritage Burnaby, Imagine Canada, PRCVI, CONNECT HIV/AIDS Information Gateway, Algoma University Archives, Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania etc.

VSO request that volunteers assist in fund raising, and Rex is therefore asking family and friends to support his initiative by making a donation to VSO Canada. You can stay up-to-date with Rex's latest photos, thoughts and details about his trip by following his personal blog at www.rex-files.ca (tag = VSO).

All of us at Andornot will miss Rex greatly but admire his commitment and are very supportive of his decision. We know that many clients have really appreciated his cheery personality, his responsiveness, and his helpful, patient manner in training sessions. We hope you will join us in wishing him all the best.

Andornot Ownership Change

Kathy Bryce and Denise Bonin are delighted to announce that Peter Tyrrell is now a director of Andornot and an equal shareholder. Andornot was founded by Kathy and Denise in 1995 and has grown steadily over the years. Peter started with the company as a contractor in 2000 and most recently was employed as a senior consultant. Peter will assume the position of Chief Technology Officer with responsibility for our datacenter infrastructure; management of selected projects; and hiring and supervision of additional programming staff.

This change in ownership will allow Andornot to expand our capabilities and services, especially with regard to SQL database application design, as well as providing continued support and enhancements for Inmagic software.

Peter has a BA in English and Classics and an MLIS degree. Since starting work with Andornot he has discovered that he loves programming and application design, and has become proficient with Microsoft .Net and JavaScript. He is thus able to marry his knowledge of library and information management systems with the technical aspects of web interface design.

Latest Andornot Projects

Algoma University Launches Two New Online Databases

The Arthur A. Wishart Library at Algoma University has recently launched two new online databases to make it easier for the public to access archival resources, and student and faculty-driven research.

The first database holds records for the university's Archives and Special Collections. Behind the scenes the software used is DB/TextWorks and WebPublisher PRO from Inmagic, Inc., along with the Archives Online and Archives Starter Kit add-on packages from Andornot which are specifically designed for managing archival descriptions. Both a quick search and an advanced search option are provided, and canned searches display Archival Finding Aids dynamically from the database for selected fonds. Andornot assisted with the design and with integration of the Algoma template into the search and results pages.

The second database is an institutional repository called DigitalAlgoma designed to hold new student and faculty driven research, often referred to as "born-digital" research. Included in the DigitalAlgoma archives are over two hundred honours theses from past Algoma University psychology and computer science students. The same template and the archival databases and forms were used as a basis for designing the web interface for DigitalAlgoma, allowing this to be created in-house quickly and effectively.

The Archives and Special Collections interface also includes an iGoogle gadget to allow users to add a search box to their iGoogle home pages. (see our Developer blog post for more information on how to set these up.)

Check out the press release or contact us for for further information.

Inmagic Updates

Genie 3.2 Now Available

Just released, the Genie 3.2 includes several enhancements that make library administration easier. Genie v3.2 features include:

Self-Service Lending. Patrons can now check materials out of the library and/or renew their own outstanding loans, either from a public terminal or from their own browser.
Direct navigation between records in a set while editing. This eliminates the need to return to the search results to select the next record.
Lending screens now display detailed information about the borrower and items being loaned as the user moves through the screen, eliminating the need to click buttons to see this information.
The ability to pre-set the default Boolean value of a button on a query box.
The ability to specify the sort order for item records appearing in a Catalog full display report.

The install is straightforward and quick. No conversion or modifications are needed to an existing Genie v3.0 install and configuration settings are retained.

Please contact us if you would like assistance implementing these new features or are upgrading from a version earlier than version 3.0.

Genie is now also available for DB/TextWorks, as well as Content Server. With this change, Genie becomes an even more cost-effective solution for smaller organizations looking to leverage their existing Inmagic solutions.

Maintenance Price Increase

Inmagic will be increasing annual software maintenance fees by 5% as of October 1, 2008. Maintenance agreements give Inmagic users access to the latest software upgrades, service packs, technical support information, support knowledgebase, live telephone and email support, and other help in getting the most out of your Inmagic technology. Contact Andornot for pricing or check out the Inmagic website for more information on the Inmagic maintenance program.

New Inmagic Blog

In June, Inmagic launched a blog at http://inmagicinc.blogspot.com/ to help keep users up to date with the latest news from Inmagic.

Inmagic at Internet Librarian

Inmagic will be at Internet Librarian, October 20-22, in Monterey, California. The theme of the 12th annual conference is "Beyond 2.0: User-Focused Tools & Practices". If you are attending, stop by the Inmagic booth to chat with staff about the latest developments at Inmagic.

@Inmagic Newsletter July 2008

Check out the latest @Inmagic Newsletter to read more news from Inmagic, including:

President's Message
OPAC Query Screen Enhancements in Inmagic Genie
Rock Star Librarian
Inmagic Forming Customer Advisory Panel

Quick Tip: Highlighted Search Term Navigation

WebPublisher PRO allows you to highlight search terms entered by users wherever they appear in the search results. Now in version 11, you can enable navigation between search terms on a page.

Search Term Highlighting This is particularly useful in records with full text content, where search terms may be far apart on the page.

To use this new feature, you must edit your dbtwpub.ini file (usually found on your web server in the folder in which WebPublisher PRO is installed). In the [WebPublisher] section, add WebHitNavigation=1.

Then, you must enable search term highlighting on the web form and check that the field where you are applying the highlighting and navigation does not contain any other HTML code (i.e. be sure to "Treat content item" as "Do not alter").

Contact Andornot for assistance in adding this feature to any of your sites.

Cool Tools

We have a quartet of cool tools for you this issue. These are tools used by Andornot staff for their daily work that can help you be more productive with yours.

Hott Notes are electronic post-it notes that you can stick on your Windows desktop. They are great for reminders of things you need to complete, and take up much less space than paper sticky notes. They come in an attractive pallete of colours too, so you can co-ordinate with your overall Windows colour scheme.

Taskbar Switcher is one of those "why isn't this just included in Windows" tools. As the name implies, it allows you to rearrange the buttons on your taskbar for applications you have running in any order you choose. If you like to have your email client always the leftmost application in the taskbar, this is the tool for you!

Beyond Compare is an indispensable tool for webmasters working with local and remote folders, as it allows you to easily see the differences between the two. Can't remember whether you were just editing a web page on your own computer or on the server? Use Beyond Compare to look at the two folders and see at a glance.

Fireshot is a Firefox web browser add on that makes it super-easy to take a screenshot of a website. Unlike other screen grabbers, Fireshot includes editing and annotation tools that let users quickly modify screenshots and insert text and graphical annotations.

Have any cool tools of your own that you'd like to share with other readers, send them to us and we'll include them in an upcoming newsletter or on our developer blog.

Latest Posts from Our Developers' Blog

Here are the latest posts from Andornot's Developer Blog. Click the link to read the full article, or subscribe to the RSS feed to stay up to date.

Andornot Consulting Inc.
Tel: 1-866-266-2525
or 604-269-2525
Website: www.andornot.com
Email info@andornot.com