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SAP Crystal Reports software is a trusted name in reporting. Since 1993, developers and authors have been using Crystal Reports to create flexible and dynamic reports from virtually any data source. Crystal Reports provides comprehensive tools to generate specialized reports and deliver actionable information to all the stakeholders. Crystal Reports 2011 builds on powerful features of Crystal Reports 2008 and provides certain new features to the report designers and application developers.

 New Features:

 The new Read-Only format

 This feature helps in protecting your investments and securing your intellectual property within your reports.

• By leveraging the new read-only report format, you can protect the investments made in the design of your reports. This is useful for standalone report designers and application developers who want to distribute their reports without worrying about them being modified after distribution.

• You can export the reports to the read-only report format (RPTR) from SAP Crystal Reports 2011.

• This feature ensures that your reports cannot be opened inside the SAP Crystal Reports designer. The reports can only be accessed from the viewer.

Exporting reports to the Excel 2007 workbook

 This feature is useful in exporting your reports to the Microsoft Excel 2007 workbook format from either the designer or the viewer.

•  Export your reports to the new Microsoft Open XML Excel format that allows for smaller overall Excel files via the Office 2007 compression technology.

• Leverage the new XSLX format to export up to 1 million rows from a Crystal Report

• You can export to a Microsoft Excel 2007 (XLSX) workbook from a Crystal Report through the designer or the viewer.

Build applications with Crystal Reports for Visual Studio

With this feature you can continue to build custom applications that embed Crystal Reports content using Crystal Reports for Visual Studio.

• Integration of the Crystal Reports with Visual Studio has been developed as a separate product from the core Crystal Reports product. It is available as a separate download which is installed on top of Visual Studio. This allows SAP to better serve the needs of the Visual Studio developer market and ensures that we have the flexibility to deliver the features that developers find valuable.

Windows 7 Compatible

• Windows 7 compatible – SAP Crystal Reports software 2011 is certified compatible with Microsoft Windows 7.

Essential Features:

 Flash Integration

A variety of flexible data presentation options are available through Flash. Flash (SWF) files can be integrated into your report and report data can be shared with SWF via FlashVars for interactive and information rich reports. SWF files can quickly be embedded in the report or linked via a Web site, saving IT and development time. You can create dazzling visualizations by adding dynamic charts and video files to your reports.

 Broad Data Connectivity

Connect to information sources spread across the organization directly. Data sources include: Native, ODBC, OLE DB, and JDBC connectivity to relational, OLAP, web services, XML and enterprise data sources.

 Built-in Barcode Support

Generate barcodes with a few clicks of the mouse by using the new ‘turn to barcode’ function in the context menu. Easily convert fields to Code39 barcodes without any coding or extra steps. This saves design time and reduces your cost. Additional barcode fonts are also available from third-party vendors.

 Hyperlinking wizard

By using this wizard, report designers can save time by automatically creating the SAP Crystal Reports formula required to invoke SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise ‘opendocument’ hyperlink.

 Extensile Pagination

This feature facilitates better online report viewing to the end users. Designers can customize page size and easily control page breaking after n records/groups. A single report can combine portrait and landscape oriented pages. White spaces at the end of groups can be eliminated by compressing the page footers.

 Multilingual Reporting

You can choose your preferred working language by just selecting the language packs you would like to use during your Crystal Reports installation. The report content locale can be set explicitly for each report file. This setting controls sorting and formatting that matches the conventions of the local language.

Satish contributed to this article.

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Continue reading »]]> EaseUS is a global software manufacturer committed to providing powerful, user-friendly Backup & Recovery, Partition Management and Data Recovery software to small and medium businesses, technicians, end users, and enterprises alike.

Taking the essence of the Windows driver development, file format technology and file system into their own hands, EaseUS empowers their customers with the ability to efficiently and effectively protect their data.

Since 2004, EaseUS has been striving to give their customers the most powerful and easy-to-use software, using the most advanced and independent R&D technologies.

Some of the exceptional software products offerd by EaseUS include:

EaseUS Todo Backup 3.0

The world’s first all-in-one backup & system disaster recovery software special for business users. It performs complete backup & recovery with multi-ways, such as one-click to restore system to dissimilar hardware without reinstallation, incremental/differential disk and file backup, network shared file backup, dynamic volume backup, and automated schedule backup, etc.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard 5.5.1

Advanced and Best data recovery software to do format recovery, unformat and recover deleted files emptied from Recycle Bin or lost data due to partition loss or damage, software crash, virus infection, unexpected shutdown or any other unknown reasons.

It will do an amazing job when the data loss disaster strikes, especially when you want to recover data from formatted drive. Data Recovery Wizard supports hardware RAID and hard drive, USB drive, SD card, memory card, etc. It provides the comprehensive data recovery solution for computer users to recover lost data.

EaseUS Partition Master 9.0

As Partition Magic alternative, EaseUS Partition Master Professional Edition is an ALL-IN-ONE partition solution and disk management utility. It allows you to extend partition, especially for system drive, settle low disk space problem, manage disk space easily on MBR and GUID partition table (GPT) disk.

The most popular hard disk management functions are brought together with powerful data protection including: Partition Manager, Disk & Partition Copy Wizard and Partition Recovery Wizard. Moreover, you can create bootable CD/DVD in case of system boot failure.

For more information about EaseUs, visit their website at www.easeus.com

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Since 1982 Cougar Mountain Software has provided business accounting software and hardware solutions to more than 20,000 retail, wholesale, nonprofit, and service-based businesses throughout the world.

Cougar Mountain Software employs accounting and business experts for their product development, sales, support, and training staff, many with accounting degrees. For 29 years these teams have worked together to build and enhance accounting applications based on feedback and requests from businesses across many industries. Through accounting expertise and customer input, Cougar Mountain Software has designed a robust, scalable, and user-friendly accounting solution, meeting the needs of small to large businesses.

Cougar Mountain Software was recently given the highest ranking in its class for the DENALI product line by CPA Practice Advisor.

Product Highlight

DENALI is a fully integrated module system scalable to meet the accounting and business needs of small to large companies.

Primary Accounting and Financial Modules Include:

• Accounts Payable
• Accounts Receivable
• Bank Reconciliation
• Budget Management
• Donor Tracking (Nonprofit)
• General Ledger
• Fixed Assets
• Inventory Control
• Payroll
• Point of Sale
• Purchase Order

For more information, visit Cougar Mountain Software on the web at www.cougarmtn.com

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Update: This promotion has ended on Thursday, September 15th, 2011.

Virtualization and cloud computing seems to be the wave of the future, and for those of us who aren’t tech experts or computer wizards, understanding the ins and outs of these systems and software can be more than a little daunting. Thankfully, VMware is -for a limited time- including free training with VMware Essentials and Essentials Plus purchases.

Until September 15th, 2011, when customers buy VMware Essentials/Essentials Plus, they will receive vSphere Fundamentals for SMBs online training for free. This training course is designed specifically to teach new users the vSphere architecture, best practices, and guide you through the installation process.

Time Frame:

• Customers who purchase eligible products between March 8th and September 15th, 2011, will receive redemption tokens in April 2012, when the training course is launched.
• Eligible products must be purchased between 3/8/11 and 9/15/11 and will have until November 15th to redeem their tokens.

Eligibility:

• This promotion is open to all commercial, academic and U.S. Federal customers who order eligble products through a VMware authorized reseller, such as SoftwareMedia.com
• This promotion is NOT open to customers ordering from EMC,  or OEM partners.
• Limit one (1) eligible order per customer.

SoftwareMedia is a cerified reseller of VMware Licensing.

You can also call our sales team at 1-800-474-1045 for more information.

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Update: This promotion has ended on 9/30/2011. Sign up for our email notifications to stay current on up-to-date software news, reviews and promotions.

For more than 20 years, Trend Micro has been a worldwide leader in web, messaging and endpoint security software with such amazing software titles as Endpoint Protection, Business Security and Control Manager.

In response to overwhelmingly popular demand, Trend Micro has announced that they are reviving the wildly popular “3 for 2″ program. Until September 30th, 2011, customers purchasing new, 2-year licenses  of Trend Micro Enterprise Security for Endpoints or  Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security will receive an additional year at no extra charge.

Enterprise Security for Endpoints is a combination of anti-malware and in-cloud protection software that safeguards your PCs, notebooks, tablets, smartphones and laptops from external threats. The new File Reputation in OfficeScan shifts the burden of pattern file management into the cloud, freeing up your resources, and Web Reputation ensures the security of your endpoints by denying access to known malicious sites.

Worry-Free Business Security is an anti-malware and anti-spam software that provides businesses with a more effective, more intelligent, and more easy-to-use to safeguard their assets from internet threats. Worry-Free Business security defends against viruses, spyware, spam and other threats before they reach your business, and continuously updates your protection in order to more quickly detect and block threats.

To learn more, call our certified licensing experts at 1-800-474-1045 Ext. 3  or email our sales team at sales@softwaremedia.com.

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Continue reading »]]> Hackers and viruses and spam, oh my! In the modern digital world, internet security is an absolute necessity for any business. Unfortunately, not every business is capable of keeping an information technology department on staff to continually deal with the constant maintenance and administration that many internet security systems require. The Trend Micro antivirus and internet security program, Worry-Free Business Security, is an anti-virus and anti-spam solution that prides itself on being fast, effective and simple, and is available in standard or advanced editions to custom-fit the security needs of nearly any business.

Below, we have compiled a nifty little buying guide to help you decide which version is best for your business – big or small.

Worry-Free Business Security Standard is a cloud-based, on-premise hosted security solution, designed for use by small businesses with little or no IT resources. Insanely simple to install and operate, it runs scans quickly and quietly, controls access to USB devices, secures wi-fi connections and URL filters block access to inappropriate web locations.

Worry-Free Business Security Advanced is equipped with all of the ease, speed and iron-clad protection of the standard version, plus new, improved and expanded features for an even stronger defense of your machines, servers and data. In addition to improved internet protection and data-loss prevention, the advanced edition has been designed to also support Macintosh clients and servers.

Some of the features found in Worry-Free Business Security Standard

• Web threat protection stops viruses and threats before they can affect your system
• Smart Scan – faster  scanning, quicker updates and minimal performance drop
• Smart Feedback – faster identification and response to threats
• Supports PCs, Laptops, Windows Servers, VMware and Microsoft virtualization
• Defends against viruses, spyware, bots and rootkits
• URL filters block access to unwanted websites
• Intuitive web console
• On-site management server
• USB Device access control
• Scans and blocks spam

Some of the features in Worry-Free Business Security Advanced

• Support for Macintosh computers and servers
• Data loss prevention via email messages
• Hosted email security inbound filtering
• Integrated threat protection
• Mult-layer antispam for Microsoft Exchange Servers

These programs and other great deals on software are available at SoftwareMedia.com

Or check out our other great software guides.

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Continue reading »]]> As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, SoftwareMedia is now able to offer a free 30-day trial for the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). Along with this free trial, SoftwareMedia.com is offering a free $25 gift card with every completed trial sign-up (more details below).

Microsoft BPOS is a bundle of popular messaging and collaboration software that is hosted in the cloud, and is available to your company as a pay as you go service. Microsoft BPOS includes Exchange Online, Sharepoint Online, Office Communications Online, and Office Live Meeting.

So why consider a hosted solution from Microsoft for your messaging and communication software? The reasons are different for every business, but most every company can benefit from lower costs, more uptime, less complex management, and disaster recovery. A hosted solution allows companies to free up their IT staff from having to deal with the burden of managing email and collaboration servers. It also reduces up-front hardware and software licensing costs. With BPOS you pay as you go, for as many users as you need, instead of buying software up-front and having to manage CALs for all of your employees. The software included in BPOS is constantly updated to the latest version, with no need to upgrade every 3-4 years or having to stay on top of critical patches and updates. All of this is taken care of by Microsoft in the cloud. Your IT staff is now free to focus on more important tasks than keeping your email up and running.

With over 2 million users currently subscribed to BPOS all over the world, this hosted solution from Microsoft is gaining more and more support every day. Microsoft guarantees its Online Services to deliver 99.9 percent uptime through its global network of redundant data centers. You will never have to worry about having access to your business-critical data or emails, and you can be assured your data is safe with constant back-ups. BPOS is also gaining the support of companies with high-level security concerns and government agencies. It also complies with numerous international standards for security, like SAS No. 70 Type II and ISO 27001.

By far, the most popular part of BPOS is Exchange Online. This service gives your employees access to their email from anywhere, on most any device. It come with 25GB of storage per user, as well as anti-spam and anti-virus security. You can also boost your productivity through shared tasks, calendars, and contacts that again, can be accessed from anywhere.

Now you are probably wondering, “What is all of this going to cost me?” BPOS pricing tops out at $10 per user, per month, with a 12-month contract. If you have more than 250 users, the price goes down because of volume discounts. This is truly a great deal when you consider Exchange Server software begins at $655 per server and $67 per User CAL (these are the prices currently found on SoftwareMedia.com). And this is only for Exchange! SharePoint Server will run you another $4000 (at least) with $87 per CAL. Factor in software upgrade costs every 3-5 years as well as hardware costs, and BPOS looks more and more attractive.

If you are interested in learning more about BPOS, check out the Microsoft BPOS page on SoftwareMedia.

For a limited time, you will also receive a $25 Gift Card to SoftwareMedia.com just for signing up for a FREE 30-day trial of Business Productivity Online Suite. This gift card can be used for any future purchase on SoftwareMedia.com. Simply provide your email address and contact information in the Free Trial Sign-Up section, and SoftwareMedia will email you a $25 gift card, as well as a link to begin your BPOS 30-day trial.

What are you waiting for? Check out this FREE 30-day trial now…you don’t even have to provide credit card information to sign up!

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Continue reading »]]> Ever wonder how your work week breaks down? How much time are you spending on e-mail and fact-checking each week? Chrometa may help with that curiosity!

You may remember this time management app from an article last month. About two weeks ago, I downloaded a free trial and took Chrometa for a test spin. Words of wisdom, Chrometa logs everything… EVERYTHING.

My day-to-day at work has gotten fairly routine — just the way I like it. I usually ride in on my bike (okay, I lie to sound cooler than I really am… it’s been snowy, cold and rainy, but if it had been warm, this would hold true), turn on my computer and open up each of my daily applications. Since it takes a few minutes before my computer is fully booted up, I’ll grab my Nalgene and walk around the corner to fill it up.

Microsoft Outlook. Mozilla Firefox. Tweet Deck. Google Chrome. Once those are all up and running, I get to it. Basically, half my day is spent here, at SoftwareNewsDaily.com, and the other half is spent on SoftwareMedia.com. I activated Chrometa for the past week, March 17 to March 24, for a more exact breakdown.

Okay, what about a review of the software? Chrometa is a great, easy-to-use and very thorough time logging application. Just how thorough you ask? Well… Google Reader is my homepage on Chrome. I’ll run through hundreds of posts each day using Reader. As I read posts or as more posts come in, the title of that page will change to reflect how many posts are unread — i.e.: Google Reader (545). Chrometa logs every single one of those title changes and how long I have been on that particularly titled page. And when I was installing an application (or uninstalling) or even when a program popped up a crash error, Chrometa would also log it. It’s that thorough. So, you can only imagine how much I had to sort through when it came to categorizing each item logged on Chrometa.

Chrometa’s best feature? It’s simple and hardly needs any attention at all. Once you’ve installed the program, just set it up to launch at startup (plus any other options you may desire) and let it ride. That’s it. Chrometa runs seamlessly in the background when your computer is turned on, logging each of your tasks automatically. It’ll also automatically detect whether when you are away. There’s an option to adjust your idle time before logging away time as well. When you get back to your computer, Chrometa pops up and asks how you would like to define that time away from the computer — lunch, phone call, etc… I was amazed at how easy Chrometa was to implement!

Despite the amazing detailed logging and the ease of using Chrometa, I felt there were a couple of faults: the lag and tags. While I was trying to compile the data together for the past week, I found the program to lag quite a bit. While I was trying to categorize each of my tasks, I found Chrometa took a few seconds after I created a new category to gather itself together again. There was also a bit of lag from clicking off or onto the “all categories” view.

Secondly, tags. Each task logged in Chrometa may only be assigned to one category — this is understandable. Say, you are a lawyer and each category represented a client you represented… Obviously, you could only tag each task to one client (or, at least, you shouldn’t be billing multiple clients for the same task, right?). However, I wish there was an option tagging to multiple categories. Spoiled by my Gmail, I like to sort my items to multiple tags. What if I wanted to break down a chart in various ways?

Let’s say I logged 3 hours researching on the Internet with Firefox for Client A and I want to create a pie chart using the types of applications I use and the clients I would be billing. Unfortunately, I can’t tag those 3 hours of research to two categories to create those two separate charts. Rather, I would need to categorize every task for one a chart in regards to the client. Then, re-categorize it (losing the previous categorization) to create a chart in regards to the application.

Recommendations for Chrometa 3.0? *Ability to create charts within the program — so I don’t have to type the data into Excel. *Tagging items to multiple categories with the advanced capacity to create “sets” of categories for creating different charts — uh… creating a “set” of category for each set of data that you would create a chart for… does that make more sense? *Fix that lag time.

All in all, Chrometa is a great easy-to-use program that captures your time thoroughly. It’s definitely worth a try if you need a time management app.

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Continue reading »]]> Effective June 30, 2010, Microsoft will be discontinuing their mid-market infrastructure solution, Windows Essential Business Server (EBS). The Windows EBS blog explains, “midsize businesses are rapidly turning to technologies such as management, virtualization and cloud computing as a means to cut costs, improve efficiency, and increase competitiveness. Those capabilities are already available through other offerings, including Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft System Center and the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS).”

This announcement does not affect any other Windows Server products — Windows Small Business Server (SBS) remains unaffected. Current EBS 2008 customers may take advantage of a limited time offer from Microsoft. From June 30, 2010 to December 31, 2010, “currently EBS 2008 customers can get the individual component software from the EBS 2008 suite for free (local taxes, shipping and handling charges may apply).” Visit http://www.microsoft.com/ebs for more information on this offer.

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