January 2004

Technical Support Analyst of the Quarter – 4th Quarter

Kate Adams

The Technical Support Analyst of the Quarter for the fourth quarter is Kate Adams. She is always patient and friendly with customers and is a consummate team player. As one customer put it, "Kate was quick to respond and gave me the solution that worked." Another appreciated the "we are in this together" attitude that Kate regularly displays. Kate is the project lead for Fiji and has been a strong voice for the customer.

Congratulations, Kate!

Advisor’s Corner
Susie Chapman

Hope everyone had a safe and happy Holiday Season. This month we are going to talk about our Audit Logging feature. Audit Logging is installed with Alchemy Server and allows the Alchemy Administrator to keep track of certain events and procedures associated with an Alchemy Database. To configure the Audit Logging, go to Start | Programs | Alchemy | Audit Logging. The following window will magically appear:

To configure, click on the “Configure Local Computer” Link in the right hand pane.

A list of Databases under Server control will appear in the left hand pane.

To set the properties for each database, right click on the database name and select “Database Log Properties”.

From here you will be able to configure which events and which profile fields you want to gather information about.

For complete instructions on how to configure Audit Logging, refer to your user guides. Happy New Year and see you next month.

January How to Guide

I hope everyone had a good holiday season. In November we looked at how to check NTFS and Share permissions. This month we’ll look at the similarities and differences between NTFS permissions and Share permissions.

The main difference between NTFS and Share permissions is in how you access the resource you’ve applied permissions to. NTFS permissions will be considered if you are accessing the resource locally or from the network. Share permissions are applied only when accessing a resource from the network. Both NTFS and Share permissions are cumulative based upon the user and the groups they are located in. For example, a user is a member of a security group that has Read and Write permissions to a folder, that same user account only has Read permissions to that folder. When the user accesses the folder locally, their effective permissions are “Read and Write”. The same holds true for Share permissions as well. They are also cumulative based on the user and the groups the user is in.

Here’s the GOTCHA When accessing a resource from the network, both Share and NTFS permissions are factored to provide effective permissions. The way this works is the users cumulative Share permissions are calculated as are the cumulative NTFS permissions, the most restrictive permissions will become the effective permissions. For example, a user is accessing a resource on the network, their cumulative NTFS permissions are READ and their cumulative Share permissions are Full Control. Their effective permissions are READ.

Enough mind numbing stuff. Next month we’ll go over some common XP tweaks.

ODBC: Did you know you could use it with Alchemy? (Part 1)

There is a component of Alchemy that is not used too often and can be overlooked. It is called Alchemy ODBC. ODBC is handy if you want to view, populate, or export data to or from Alchemy profile fields to or from other applications.

What is ODBC? ODBC stands for Open DataBase Connectivity. This is a standard translation that all ODBC compliant software must adhere to. Because it is standardized, there are tasks you cannot do though ODBC. When looking at Alchemy databases through ODBC with another application, you cannot look at the files themselves. The ODBC will send the code though it, but unless the database you are going into can read it the file will just be code. Alchemy ODBC is good for is looking at, searching, and changing the profile information. You can also add a file to a database too. The file will be in the un-built state until you go in to Alchemy and do a build.

Not all profile fields can be modified with ODBC. The only Alchemy default fields that can be changed are Document title, ParentID, and NextID on a built document. If you are adding a record/file, then you must fill in the File name and the file directory (the path to the file) and then fill in Document title, ParentID, and NextID if you wish. If you do not, then the Document title will be the file name and the file will be added to the root of the database. ParentID is the ID of the file or folder that the file will be under in the tree view. Any file that has the same ParentID as a folder will be in that folder. If it is attached to another file then a compound document is created. Multiple files can have the same ParentID. You can change the NextID, but until you understand how this field is used, it is a field that we would recommend you not use. It is the Id of the file that follows this document. If “0” is in the NextID then nothing follows this file. By default “0” is what Alchemy will put in this field on a new file. If you change this field and another document has the same NextID then it will corrupt the database.

ODBC is most handy for is interfacing with custom fields. Any custom field is editable though ODBC. Most of IMR’s customers that use ODBC use it to populate the custom fields. With ODBC and an Access table, a lot of customers will save themselves hours of entry time. Using Queries in Access or another database program, you can change the information in the custom fields. For example, say you had a set of documents that needs to have the customer’s name in a profile field, and that information is in a database, such as Access. Using the ODBC connection, you can attach the customer name to the appropriate document. In next months newsletter, we will show you how do you do this.

Adding custom files to your Alchemy CD / DVD

Did you know that you could add your custom files to an Alchemy CD or DVD directly with Alchemy? Modifying your Ausearch.inf can do this.

The ausearch.inf, located in your Alchemy directory, is the instruction list for what files need to be copied to a CD / DVD during the burn process. This inf file is what creates your Alchemy search program. However it is wise to remember to never modify the initial code that is already in place. Always make a back-up of the ausearch.inf before modifying the file.

Let’s say that you have a read-me file or an auto-run file that you would like to include on the CD / DVD at the time Alchemy creates a CD / DVD. How do you do this? Simply open the ausearch.inf file in any text editor. Notepad works very well for this. You will notice at the bottom of the file there is a section marked, “Add your customization below.” Below this comment you will add your path to the files you want to add. This is known as the source destination. Where 'Source' defines the source files or directories. Full paths are supported, as well as ALCHEMY, WINDOWS, and SYSTEM, keywords. ALCHEMY: will expand to the directory on the hard drive where Alchemy is installed; while WINDOWS: will refer to the Microsoft Windows installation directory, and SYSTEM: - to Windows system directory.

For example:
C:\DOCS\README.TXT full path to a single file
C:\DOCS\*.TXT full path to multiple files
ALCHEMY:MYFILE.TXT single file in the Alchemy directory
WINDOWS:ALCHEMY.INI single file in the Windows directory
SYSTEM:MSVCRT.DLL single file in the Windows system directory

After adding your source directory, you will need a destination directory. Destination is the destination file or directory relative to the CD-ROM root directory.

For example:
\README.TXT copy single file to the CD-ROM root directory
\SETUP\ copy single or multiple files to the SETUP directory

The complete path should look something like this….
C:\DOCS\README.TXT \README.TXT

If you have any other questions regarding this procedure, please feel free to contact IMR Technical Support.

 

Knowledge Base

We want to make the Knowledge Base work better for you in 2004. Do you use the Knowledge Base? If not, please let us know why not. If you use it, what information have you looked for that you didn’t find? what would make it easier to use?

We want to hear your suggestions for improving the Knowledge Base. Please send your comments and suggestions to support@imrgold.com and put KnowledgeBase in the Subject.

Supported barcode formats

Alchemy Scan OCR supports collecting bar-coded information using PixTools. Pixel Translations provided additional barcode formats in Release 6.4, however, version 6.3 is the version currently used by Alchemy. These are the barcode formats supported in the current Alchemy release:

Code 39
Code 128
Code 93
Interleaved 2/5
UPC-A
UPC-E
Codabar
EAN-8
EAN-13
ISBN Addon 2
ISBN Addon 5

Alchemy Training:

Learn more about Alchemy Software products from IMR Certified Instructors. IMR's Educational Services team is pleased to offer 2 of our advanced technical Training Courses geographically near you. The courses being offered are designed to inspire innovative solutions utilizing all of the exciting new features and product extensions just released by IMR.

Alchemy Training Schedule