Adnan's Analysis

Last thing you want Stone Edge to do is take a 5 second break every time you decide to press a button. And, if your company gets 100 orders daily, at its best that is 500 seconds per click which is bit over 8 minutes. Imagine yourself having a smooth commute to work and suddenly a school bus stops in front of you and pops out a red stop sign flashing at your face. All you can do is stare right back at it and wish you could have taken another route. Annoying? Indeed! Lucky for you, there are few things you can do to make those “stop signs” appear less and less figuratively speaking.

Make use of OM Compiler Utility

This little application is very affective and really can help speed up Stone Edge. It recompiles the application as if you have freshly installed Stone Edge again. It is better to do this twice a month. It can be accessed from Start>All Programs>Stone Edge Technologies, Inc.>OM Compiler. After the application opens up, simply click “Compile” and your good to go.

Cut off the Ribbon

Many users have noted a speed boost by hiding the MS Access Ribbon (the toolbar on the top that no one really need to use, except probably me ). Simply click on the down arrow on top right next to the “Redo” arrow and check “Minimize the Ribbon.”

Compact the Data File

This is a major one and is preferably should be done every week or two. Stone Edge stores all of the information for a particle business in one data file. That same data file is usually being used by multiple users creating new rows, running new queries, etc. All this operation on one file can make the file bigger and slower. Compacting the data file help just do the opposite of that. Make sure close all the remaining Stone Edge copies or any other application using the same data file. Perform a back up by going to Maintenance Menu>Maintenance Tab>Backup Data File>Go. And now we can compact our data file by going to Maintenance Menu>Maintenance Tab>Compact Data File>Go. It will take about 5 minutes for the whole process to take place.

Stay Wired

Its like trying to swim in a pool of sand. It can be that painstakingly slow on WiFi. Due to the nature of Stone Edge being an Access query based application where the data is being constantly shooting to and from, its definitely better to stick to a wired network.

Use Raid 0

Upgrading a workstation to two hard drives and setting them up as in Mirror(Raid 0) mode would significantly boost the speed of Stone Edge as well as overall system performance. Make sure your workstation supports Raid 0, if not you can always spend little money to get a raid adapter.

“It is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, and certainly not desirable, as one’s hat keeps blowing off.” – Woody Allen

If you have the right authority to access store setup wizard, this should be easy as following these steps:

1. Go to Maintenance Menu>List Maintenance>Sales People
2. Insert the information for the new sales person and click save
3. Click “Save”

or

1. Go to Maintenance Menu>Setup Functions>Store Setup Wizard>Users & Security
2. Click forward button on the bottom to move to page 2
3. Add Sales People
4. Insert the information for the new sales person and click save
5. Click “Save and Exit”

For those who want to make it mandatory to add sales person when creating a manual order, there is a way for Stone Edge to do that.

1. Go to Maintenance Menu>System Parameters
2. On “Search For:” type “ManualOrdersRequireSalesPerson”
3. Click on “True”
4. Click “Save”

For those who want to be able to edit sales person on any kind of orders, there is a way for Stone Edge to do that too.

1. Go to Maintenance Menu>System Parameters
2. On “Search For:” type any of these:
   • “AllowEditSalespersonForManualOrders”
   • “AllowEditSalespersonForPOSOrders”
   • “AllowEditSalespersonForWebOrders”
3. Click on “True”
4. Click “Save”

Where WiFi broadband fails, wireless broadband succeeds and thats where the concept of tethering spawned. Tethering is using a mobile device to gain access to internet for it to be used by another device, generally a laptop. One of the reasons that I like Blackberry is because of how good it performs as a modem. The speed gain you get from Blackberry is what makes it a great modem. The speed fluctuates ofcoures depending on the signal reception. However, when the signal is good, the speed that you achieve can be as close as the speed of low bandwidth DSL. On average, it doesn’t feel like your dragging your web pages. 

There are many commercial product out there for both PC and Mac, which let you use your phone as a modem, but why pay when you can do it yourself. You just need to configure your laptop to work with your Blackberry once. After that, you can connect your laptop to the internet through Blackberry just by turning Bluetooth on. Before I start going into setup, I should warn those who don’t have a unlimited data plan from their service provider. A few high quality websites can make you scream like a little girl when you look at your monthly phone bill. This article focuses on Blackberry Pearl, Curve, Bold, and Storm but is not limitted to others. For the full list of the phones that supports tethered modem you can check with the Blackberry’s website.

I will simply breakdown the process into steps so we wouldn’t fall behind or ahead of ourselves. Following information is required at some point so you can referred to it when notified to do so.

Internet Access Point Name(APN)

Here are the instructions:

For Mac OS X

1. Download the modem script for your specific Blackberry model.
   • Blackberry Curve (8300)
   • Blackberry Pearl (8100), 8700, and 8800
   • Blackberry Bold (9000) Blackberry Storm (maybe)
2. Add the file(s) to Macintosh HD > Library > Modem Scripts.
3. Turn on your Blackberry Bluetooth.
   • Option > Bluetooth > Enable Bluetooth
4. Turn on your Macbook’s Bluetooth and make sure that “Discoverable” is checked and complete the setup as follows:
   • Click on System Preferences > Bluetooth > Set Up New Device… > Continue > Mobile Phone > Blackberry XXXX > Continue > Continue.
   • A passkey will be displayed for you to input in your Blackberry, quickly punch in those numbers and press enter from your phone and then press yes.
   • Back to Macbook, click on Continue > Continue > Quit.
   • Make sure the Phone Vendor is either RIM, Blackberry, or Other, and Phone Model selected as your Blackberry model.
   • Start again from System Preference, click on Network and click “+“, a screen will open with drop down menu.
   • Choose Bluetooth and change the Service Name to “Blackberry” then click Create.
   • Choose your service provider from the APN list above and enter it.
   • On your Blackberry, Options > Advanced Options > TCP, insert again the same settings from previous step and then restart your phone.
   • On your Macbook, keep the “Show modem status on the menu bar” checked.
   • Look at the telephone icon along the right side of the menu bar on top and click on it.
   • Finally you will see Connect Blackberry, just click it away and you are all done!

For Windows XP/Vista

1. Download and Install the latest version of Blackberry Desktop Software.
2. Turn on your Blackberry’s Bluetooth.
3. Turn on your Windows’s Bluetooth.
4. Click on Control Panel > Bluetooth Devices > Add.
5. Check “My device is set up and ready to be found” and click Next.
6. Select “Let me choose my own passkey” then enter a passkey and then click Next.
7. On your Blackberry, enter the same passkey as you entered in Step 6.
8. On your Windows PC, click Finish.
9. On your Blackberry, when prompted, select “Don’t Ask Again” and click Yes.
10. If you are running Windows Vista, select Classic View.
11. Click on Control Panel > Phone and Modem Options > Modems tab.
12. Select “Standard Modem Over Bluetooth Link” and click Properties > Advanced.
13. In the “Extra initialization commands” field, type +CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”<your Internet APN Account Name>, click OK, and then click OK again.
14. Now we need to configure the Dial-Up Networking
15. Click Start > Settings > Network Connections.
16. Right-click Bluetooth DUN connection > Properties.
17. Select Networking tab, then select “Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)“.
18. Click Properties > Advanced.
19. Select “General” tab and uncheck “Use IP Header Compression” and click OK.
20. Go to Start > Settings > Network Connections.
21. Double-click “New Connection Wizard” and click Next.
22. Select “Connect to the Internet“, and click Next.
23. Select “Set up my connection manually“, click Next.
24. Select “Connect using a dial-up modem“, click Next.
25. Select “Modem – Standard Modem Over Bluetooth link“, and click Next.
26. If  the “Select a Device” screen appears, check the “Modem – Standard Modem” and click Next.
27. Clear the “ISP Name” field blank and click Next.
28. Choose your service provider for specific guidelines:
    • EDGE/GPRS(AT&T/T-Mobile)
      • Type “*99#” in the “Phone number” field and click Next.
    • CDMA/EVDO(Sprint/Verizon)
      • Type “#777” in the “Phone number” field and click Next.
29. Type the username and password from the Internet APN table above and click Next and then click Finish.
30. Click Start > Settings > Network Connections > <Name of the new connection>.
31. Type the username and password from the Internet APN table above and click Dial.
32. Oh by the way, don’t let the number of steps intimidate you, I could have just used the dot bullets to make it even worst, so don’t hate, appreciate!

~FIN~

“This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.” – Winston Churchill