The MacTech

It’s been a few weeks since my last post but I wanted to let everyone know about the new Daylite 3.7.3 update. Just know that this update can co-exist with other Daylite users running 3.7 and 3.7.1. So testing this update on your network is simple before rolling it out to your other users. I’ve added a few screencasts and screenshots to demonstrate a few of the new features

Here is a list of the added features:

• Daylite 3.7.2 comes with a new law database template.
  • The law template is designed to enable lawyers, attorneys, and legal professionals understand how Daylite can simplify their workflow and organize their information.
  • It covers all the stages of case management including the first contact with a client to the final billing process. You can completely customize the template and how you work with Daylite.
  • The template consists of sample data (such as projects, pipelines, forms, activity sets, categories, keywords, roles, relationships and many more information about the legal profession) that can help you with setting up your real cases in Daylite, grouping information for easy retrieval, and improving productivity.

• Added calendar view selection support to the details pane in lower right.

• Added scrolling of appointment list in the Calendar month view.

• Resources will now be shown at the end of the Users & Resources list in the Calendar view.

• Added the ability to include resources in Smart Calendars.
• Added the ability to print Smart Calendars that include resources.
• Added the details field to the selected opportunity when viewed from the main window.
• Ability to add a “stage number” column to Opportunities and Projects in the column mode.
• Merging now works for MS Word 2008, for both .doc and the new .docx format.
• Merging now works for MS Excel 2008, for both the .xls and the new .xlsx format.
• Improved speed considerably for merging with Word and Office 2008 versions.
• Added help button to Reports and Print Layouts sheets.
• Made time input fields in the appointment window and meeting scheduler more tolerant of non-standard formats and localizations.
• Offline sync failure dialogue now gives more information about the cause of a failure.

Bug fixes

• Serial column now appears before the license column in the Licenses window.
• Improved tabbing between controls in the appointment window.
• Fixed issue where refreshing the calendar would not always work.
• Fixed OmniGraffle merge support for OmniGraffle Professional 4.
• OmniGraffle merge now saves the merged result properly, so the email actions will now work properly.
• Fixed offline/online sync bug in which a sync failure would be incorrectly reported if a user had certain access restrictions.
• Added check in database upgrade validation to ensure entered username is valid.
• Now checks the associated contact name as well as the username when importing the ‘assigned to’ field during import.
• Removed unused ‘Create Charts’ permission option in the User & Teams preferences.
• Database upgrades to offline databases will now be allowed to non-admin users.
• Fixed issue affecting Smart Calendars when deleting the display state.
• Fixed issue with letter merge where invalid values were being substituted in some rare cases.
• Added check to prevent rebuilding of quick search index on offline databases to avoid duplicates in quick search results.

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Marketcircle has released an update to their Daylite product. This new 3.7.1 version has some nifty calendar updates. Now some folks may say “whoop-de-doo”. Most calendar programs have similar features. But for long-time Daylite devotees, we’re appreciative nonetheless. As always before you apply any updates, be sure to… Sync your Offline databases, devices and backup the database.

Daylite 3.7 and 3.7.1 can co-exist together so no need to update the entire office before trying out the new features.

The new features listed are as follows…

• Added ability to set either small, regular, or large font for the month view from the General preference pane.
• Optimized the display of appointment and meeting times to take as little space as possible in the Month view.
• Added ability to set whether or not the busy bar shows up in the month view (it is turned off by default) from the General preference pane.
• Automatically setting the complete date on project when the status is set to Done in the card.
• Automatically setting the complete date on opportunity when the state is set to Won in the card.
• Added ability for a standard filter to automatically appear when you drag a table into a report. The filter allows you to configure the appearance of the table and the data to be displayed in the table.

Bug fixes listed are…

• Fixed letter merging for high ASCII and Unicode (though if you want to merge unicode you must ensure that your database encoding is also set to unicode).
• Fixed a few minor bugs in the reports.
• Apple Help articles will now properly update themselves from the server if necessary.
• The month settings in the General preference pane no longer require a restart of daylite in order to take effect.
• On Leopard, the buttons in the Trash window toolbar now visually show the pressed state properly.
• Snooze/Dismiss buttons in the Notifications window are now positioned the same as in other types of notifications.
• Show/Hide Due list menu item no longer causes a crash when the calendar has focus.
• Changed the location of the online/offline sync logs to be in ~/Library/Logs/Daylite/OnlineOfflineSync.
• During long online/offline syncs Daylite should no longer beachball and show up as “Not Responding.”
• Improved support for external and USB modems for dialing phone numbers.

The MacTech is hosting a fabulous new webinar! Saturday Feb 23 at 2:00pm EST, you can find out more about all the new features in Microsoft’s newest version of Office for the Mac which includes, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage.

Learn about the new features in Office 2008 for Mac, including: Elements Galleries, SmartArt graphics, Themes, XML File Formats, and more!

Hosted by long time colleague and experienced Microsoft Certified Trainer, Travis Hamilton.

or Check other upcoming webinars.

Just getting into Daylite and not sure where to start? Why not sign up for our upcoming Daylite Basics Webinar on Feb 20th at 10:00am. We’ll get you up and running with Daylite in quick fashion.

Learn how to quickly setup a database, customize the preferences and start working. Learn how to create contacts & organizations, how to use the calendar & tasks, the importance of linking and how to use a simple workflow to track customer inquiries and how to follow-up with them.

Our friendly webinar environment allows for participants to ask their questions and be a part of the conversation.

or Check other upcoming webinars.

JULIO OJEDA-ZAPATA over at TwinCities.com wrote an interesting article on the MacBook Air today…

Apple laptops are increasingly popular because they’re so versatile and easy to use. But the Macintosh portables have one big problem - they’re, well, big.

Weighty high-end MacBook Pro models aren’t meant to be lugged for lengthy stretches. Even the more compact consumer MacBook can be a burden, as I’ll attest after my recent trip to Macworld Expo with one of the machines in my backpack.

So, Apple has gone superlight and superthin with its MacBook Air. This gorgeous laptop is aimed at those who carry their computers everywhere and will pay a premium for portability in a stylish package.

Read the rest of his article here…

If you haven’t heard yet, Apple released 10.5.2 the other day and IMHO, this is a MUST have update. This update has my STRONG approval and recommendation. Daylite is working well for me as are all of my other programs.

The ability to modify “Stacks” back to Folder icons is awesome, other interface changes are welcome, it loads noticeably faster on my MacBook Pro, so far it seems to feel and be more stable.

4 of 4 stars from The MacTech.

Here is a list of the most prominent improvements

• Updates Stacks with a List view option, a Folder view option, and an updated background for Grid view.
• “Improvement of AirPort connection reliability and stability”
• 802.1X improvements
• Resolving kernel panics related to AirPort.
• Adding support for more third-party routers to “Back to My Mac”
• Improved performance of certain Apple Dashboard widgets.
• Addresses an issue in which Finder could unexpectedly quit when displaying folder contents in Column view.
• Addresses a hanging issue that may occur when connecting to an AFP network volume.
• Addresses issues with Safari reliably resolving certain domains.
• Adds a menu bar option for accessing Time Machine features (the menu extra can be enabled in Time Machine preferences).
• Improves backup reliability when computer name contains slash or non-ASCII characters.
• “Improves general stability when running third-party applications.”
• Adds RAW image support for several cameras, as detailed in this article.

A full list of enhancements can be found here.

The new release is available through Software Update or via the following links:

• Mac OS X 10.5.2 Combo Update [343MB]
• Mac OS X Server 10.5.2 Combo Update [382MB]

Now that doesn’t meant that people haven’t had their fair share of issues. Check this MacFixit Article for a rolling list of troubleshooting items. Just as a rule of thumb, I always repair permissions BEFORE and AFTER applying any Mac OS updates. Another quick troubleshooting tip is to trash all the Cache files found in both the /Library/Caches and ~/Library/Caches folders and restarting.