Newsletter January 2007

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Novembers meeting….

Customised/Bespoke Software
by Barry Beeken

At our November meeting, Barry talked about Customised and Bespoke software.

Firstly he explained what he meant by bespoke software – it is normally created from scratch, and built specifically to meet the needs of the user/customer. The reasons for doing this are varied. Often there is no support for an existing system, yet there is no commercial “off the shelf” offering which meets the requirements. Business operations may have been changed to suit existing software, but that may now be spread across out of date and unsupported hardware, and further changes may mean that it is no longer appropriate.

He listed some key benefits of bespoke software, such as:-
Centralisation of data.
Security.
Identified Support.
Standardised interface.
Rich with your own features.
Data structured for future changes.
Technologies used are current and supported


There are also potential problems:-
Poorly specified.
Over optimistic expectations.
Poorly structured data.
Using the wrong development tools/hardware.
Users/business not challenging the experts enough.
Developers out of their depth.

He reminded us of some of the major Government projects which have had problems, e.g. Air Traffic Control, the NHS database.

His projects may not be on the same scale, but the same principles apply. 

He then described a system at his former employers which handled Materials Scheduling. An external company was brought in by management to replace the existing working system with a new standardised one using technologies specified by Head Office. 

There were many issues with this implementation, mainly because the users were not sufficiently involved, and the software house did not understand the requirements. This highlighted the need for close liaison between users and developers. When developing bespoke software, it is critical to discuss the proposals not just with senior management who are commissioning the system, but also with both the power users and the non power users, i.e. those who actually use the system for their day to day work. 

Barry then demonstrated some of the systems that he had built. These varied from a system to log, schedule, manage, and account for all maintenance work for a large transport undertaking; a system for a national sports club to manage the local clubs, competitions, subscriptions etc; an integrated system for local sports clubs, which then interfaced with the national system; and an office management system.

All of these were designed using Access databases to hold the data with VB screens to handle data input, validation and reporting. By careful design, additional functions can be added to the system and integrated with the existing, thus providing an element of future proofing to the system
Alan Danbury

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Decembers meeting…. 

Was our annual digital photographic competition, which has now become a very welcome fixture to our topics calendar. Our thanks go to everyone who entered and made it such a successful evening even though the weather outside was foul.

Once again we were lucky enough to have Arthur Payne and Barry Pratt from Melton Camera Club to come along and do the judging. Whilst they were deliberating, Mike Taylor set us a challenge with a digital photo quiz. Some of the questions were pretty challenging and the old grey matter needed some scratching to get the answers. Good fun was had by all, thanks again Mike for setting us the challenge. By the way does anybody know who won?

Well back to the photographic competition. Both Arthur and Barry were impressed by the standard of photography on display and felt that their task seems to become more difficult every year. After judging each section, they were kind enough to offer advice about every photograph on display.

This year was a particularly successful one for Geoff Walsh who displayed some really excellent photographs including the winning entry that took the Ivor Ruddle shield. Well done to Geoff. Hope you didn’t get too drunk on all that wine you won.

So the challenge is on, you all have a year to knock Geoff off top spot, but by the standards he has set, we will need to work really hard. Happy snapping.

Dave Robb

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Windows Restore Points
Microsoft are often justifiably criticised, but restore points in windows XP are a great asset, as I found a few days ago.
I was looking for animated pink panther clip arts for November’s club meeting and picked up a virus. I followed a link that appeared to be just what I wanted, but a windows type message appeared telling me that my version of movie player need upgrading, and I did, bad move. 
Although it caused no damage it did insert a virus that kept tempting me to click a bubble from the ‘Task bar’ and download all possible anti spy wear from somewhere.
The virus is called ‘Perfect Codec’ the bubble was titled ‘Critical System Errors’.
My first action was to scan the whole system for viruses and spy wear, nothing found, then I removed ‘Perfect Codec’ but this did not remove the bubble message.
My next action as usual was to contact Derek who suggested resetting the restore point to before I picked up the virus. I did not know where this was to be located and Help did not point me to the right spot. So I was going to wait for Derek who was bringing the projector for the meeting.
By coincidence the next day while in Stamford I looked at computer magazines and the first article I happened to read in ‘Computer Shopper’ was ‘Windows Restore Points’. 
They are located in ‘Accessories, System Tools, System Restore’. You take the option to restore the system to an earlier date. This removed the bubble from the ‘Task Menu’ and apart from having to reset a few desk top short cuts I had changed in the mean time it was easy. Job done I thought!
After checking the projector with Derek we were having a drink of something when I noticed an AVG message appear on the screen warning of a gremlin it had found trying to re assert its self. I noticed it was found in the system restore points.
The fix was to disconnect from the internet then delete all restore points because virus scanning does not always check restore points. You do that by ‘Control Panel, System, System restore, Turn off system restore points on all drives’. This deletes all points including viruses. Then scan again, no problems so reset restore points for all drives and force a new restore point.
The unintentional benefit has been a speeding up of the system at start up. So I will delete the restore points every so often.

Barry Beeken
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Microsoft Completes Windows Vista!
It's here! After five long years, Microsoft has released Windows Vista to manufacturing in anticipation of a November 30 business launch and a wider January 2007 launch to consumers. As a result of this early release of Windows Vista you may have noticed that the big computer companies such as Dell have been offering a free upgrade to Vista. This comes in the form of a voucher which entitles you to the upgrade when it becomes available. All you have to do is register your system in accordance to the instructions and your upgrade will be sent to you in due course. You will however need to pay the postage.

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Melton Computer Club
AGM Agenda January 24th 2007

Meeting commences at 7:30 pm

Apologies For Absence

Minutes Of Previous Meeting (January 2006)

Matters Arising

Secretary’s Report

Treasurer’s Report

Elections Of Committee Members 

Treasurer (Derek Taylor)

9. Committee Members (Geoff Walsh)
(Derek Kerr)

10. Newsletter & Club Website

11. Feedback On the Previous Year’s Meetings And Future Topics

Any Other Business


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