Village Gamer

Commercial LCD display and projector solutions provider NEC Display Solutions of America has named Chase Secondary School as the winner of its $25,000 giveaway contest. Administrators at Chase Secondary will choose $25,000 worth of NEC products for the Chase, BC secondary school. Local dealer and NEC Star Student reseller Points West Audio Visual Ltd had notified Chase Secondary of the contest, suggesting that the school submit an entry.

“We’re extremely excited to work with Chase Secondary on their technology makeover and design something that will benefit both the faculty and students,” said Ashley Flaska, Vice President of Marketing at NEC Display Solutions. “Chase Secondary’s video submission was incredibly creative with a touch of humor that really got the public audience’s attention. We hope this contest brought awareness to schools about how they can improve their classrooms and computer labs, and that NEC has programs in place to help our customers achieve their ideal setup.”

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuHCzjxuDd0]

After more than 25,000 public votes during the month of March, Chase Secondary emerged the favorite and will take home the grand prize. The school has chosen to install projectors in its classrooms and desktop monitors. The four runners up include Robbin Hebrew Academy (Toronto), Rockvale Elementary (Rockvale, TN), St. Jude School (Joliet, IL) and Valley View School (North Brookfield, MA). Each of the runners up will receive a 32-inch NEC E321 for their schools. The contest through NEC’s Star Student (education) program received more than 200 entries during the submission period, and a panel of NEC judges reviewed all video submissions to select the most creative and deserving schools for the top five.

“On behalf of all the students and faculty at Chase Secondary, we are thrilled to be the grand prize winner of NEC’s Giveaway Extravaganza and humbled to be receiving new innovative technology that will benefit our students’ education,” said Mark Wereley, English Teacher at Chase Secondary School. “The staff is very much looking forward to selecting projector and desktop models for use in their classes to help improve student achievement. NEC creates reliable products that our teachers can count on and use to enhance their lessons and engage students.”

Microsoft has announced the public beta of Microsoft® Office 365, the company’s next generation cloud productivity service for businesses of all sizes, which is set to officially launch later this year.

Office 365 was introduced in limited beta last year, bringing together Microsoft Office, SharePoint® Online, Exchange Online and Lync Online in an always-up-to-date cloud service. The public beta allows millions of people in more countries, including Canada, to try Office 365 for the first time.

In addition, Microsoft unveiled the Office 365 Marketplace today, which gives customers a simple way to find partner apps and services for Office 365. Since the introduction of Office 365, more than 150,000 organizations, from independent professionals to large enterprises, have signed up to test it.

“Microsoft has been in the cloud supporting larger organizations like Kraft Foods, Starbucks, The Royal Mail Group and Swedish Red Cross for years. It was energizing to see that worldwide, more than, 70% of the organizations that signed up for the limited beta were small businesses with fewer than 25 employees,” said Bryan Rusche, product manager, Office 365, Microsoft Canada. “Here in Canada, Office 365 resonates with small businesses that want full-featured professional technology, delivered in a way that makes sense for their company.”

With Office 365, moving to the cloud doesn’t require people to change the way they work, because it’s based on the familiar, industry leading productivity tools people know and trust.  Employees get new ways to work together with ease, on virtually any device or mobile phone, using familiar applications, such as Office, that they already know and love. Business owners get the reliability, security and IT controls they need in the cloud.

The Office 365 Marketplace gives customers a simple way to find apps and services when they want to extend and customize Office 365. The Marketplace is now live with over 40 apps and 400 services available from the established community of more than 16,000 Microsoft cloud partners – with new apps and services to be added over time.

With Office 365 professionals and small businesses can be up and running with Office Web Apps, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online and an external website in approximately 15 minutes, for $6.75 Canadian per user, per month (minimum seat is one).

Office 365 for enterprises has an array of choices for midsize and large businesses as well as government organizations, starting for as little as $2.35 per user, per month ⁽minimum seat is one) for basic e-mail. Office 365 for enterprises also includes the option to get Microsoft Office Professional Plus desktop software on a pay-as-you-go basis, for the first time ever. For $29.25 per user, per month ⁽minimum seat is one), organizations can get Office Professional Plus along with e-mail, voicemail, enterprise social networking, instant messaging, Web portals, extranets, voice conferencing and videoconferencing, web conferencing, 24×7 phone support, on-premises licenses, and more.

Grey Alien Games has just announced that its latest casual puzzle title, Spring Bonus, has been released for the PC and Mac platforms. We saw this game demonstrated at last Monday’s Indie Dev Meetup, and I highly recommend this title for the whole family.

A very highly polished production, Spring Bonus is an Easter-themed game that offers very cute and well-drawn graphics, a Disney-esque soundtrack and non-irritating sound effects. While the soundtrack and sound effects are pleasant to listen to while playing the game, it is possible to adjust the volume or even turn it off. An important marker for me is if I can play through the game with no sound and still do well. I know that much effort goes into writing soundtracks and getting just the right sound effects, but being able to play a game without the sound a bonus point on development as far as I’m concerned.

Spring Bonus releases with 100 levels spread across a colourful map in a country setting, which pairs up nicely with the game’s pieces which feature spring flowers, bunnies, carrots and various Easter egg treats.  The first 18 levels of Spring Bonus are available in the game’s demo, which installs smoothly and easily.

There are a variety of board shapes, each of which with its own challenges. Some are filled with ice blocks that need to be broken either by matching the game pieces or using power-ups to break or melt them. Some levels only require the matching of a set number of pieces to advance to the next level, while others require a combination of pieces to be matched or removed. There are even some level with multiple mini boards to work through – and luckily for the player, the power-ups can cross board borders.

Every few levels feature the elusive golden eggs, which must be moved down the board by eliminating the pieces below them until the golden eggs fall off the board. To add to the challenge, you can opt to play against the clock or play in relaxed mode, which is a great option for younger children to play, especially as they may get distracted simply by looking at the the puzzle pieces or they may want to play by their own methods, as children sometimes do. The only negative point of the entire game is that it lacks a keyboard lock-out to prevent children from exiting the game and accidentally accessing your files or the web. While I don’t condone using games as a babysitter, even those parents who are sitting with their children while playing a game get distracted – the phone rings, another child needs attention, dinner needs to be prepared, and it’s always nice to know that if you do have to leave the computer for a moment, your child cannot leave the game screen.

The instructions and tool tip windows are very easy to understand, but they will need to be explained to children who either can’t yet read or who are at the beginning stages of learning how to read. This is another opportunity for parents to work with their children in learning not only game play but also new words and meanings. The tool tip popups can also be turned off if they are not needed, plus they can either be left to fade from the screen or closed by clicking on the X. Another option is to play the game either in full screen or tiled mode, which is handy if you have other things going on such as chat windows.

If you have chosen to play in relaxed mode, you can easily up the ante by switching to timed mode with a click of the mouse, as there is a check box on the game screen to switch back and forth. Even relaxed mode gives you extra bonus points if you finish within the set limit, but does not penalize you for running out of time, other than to not give you the extra points. The time limits given for each level are realistic, and really won’t put you into panic mode unless you get sidetracked with just matching the pieces.

There are several power-ups available to help you advance faster through the levels- something which comes in handy not only in timed mode but also when you need to drop the golden eggs off the board or change up some pieces. You gain power-ups by matching 4 or more pieces, with bubbles being the first power-ups to appear. When you click on a bubble, it clears the blocks around it – but in order to really power-up your power-ups and give them more range, you need to make matches with the glowing pieces. When you do this, your magic rainbow will fill up with colour, and once it’s bright and shiny, your power-ups will harness the power of the rainbow and clear even more tiles, columns or rows.

Power-ups come in the form of the aforementioned bubbles, birds in a nest, four-leaf clovers, storm clouds, hammers, magnifying glasses and the sun.  The nesting birds fly out horizontally when you click on them, clearing from one to three rows, depending on your shiny Rainbow power. Storm Clouds will clear one to three columns, while the Four Leaf Clovers clear a star-burst pattern vertically, horizontally and diagonally. The Hammer will break ice cubes, the Sun will melt a circle of ice cubes much the same way as the Bubble clears squares, and the Magnifying Glass will clear one tile of ice.  There are also Mystery Boxes which appear later in the game (beyond the 18 demo levels) that contain a surprise. I imagine there are power-ups hiding inside, but one never knows.

Spring Bonus is a very high quality casual game – the colours are bright and appealing, the characters and scenery are well-drawn, the menu is easy to use and understand, and you can even save the game’s background to your PC or Mac as desktop wallpaper. For those of you constantly on the go, Spring Bonus will also be available for iPad and Windows Phone 7 in the near future. The game has also been localized into 9 languages including English. Spring Bonus does not require the latest computing power to run on your PC or Mac, which is always a bonus, because not everyone has the latest high-powered gaming rig, and as it’s a downloadable title, I can even play it on my netbook.

PC Minimum System Requirements:

Operating System: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Windows 7
Processor Speed:1GHz
RAM: 512MB
Hard Drive Space: 27MB
Graphics Card: DirectX7 or OpenGL compatible 3D graphics card
DirectX Version: 7
Sound Card: Any

Mac Minimum System Requirements:

CPU: Intel or PowerPC
Operating System: OSX 10.3
Processor Speed: 800MHz
RAM: 512MB
Hard Drive Space: 32MB
Graphics Card: OpenGL 3D compatible graphics card
Sound Card: Any

Spring Bonus offers very good value for it’s price of $9.99, is DRM-free and also has a 60 day no quibble, money back guarantee. Overall, I give Spring Bonus a 9.5 out of 10 – if it had a keyboard lock-out option, it would be a 10.

The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) Federal Enforcement Section of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) executed nine Search Warrants at business locations in the GTA, as part of an investigation dubbed Project OCREEK, involving the manufacture and sales of counterfeit DVDs.

Of significance to the investigation is the seizure of tens of thousands of packaging materials such as plastic sleeves and jewel cases used to produce and distribute the counterfeit DVDs. Also seized were over 50,000 counterfeit DVDs, 20 burners and $20,000 cash. The DVDs included new North American titled movies currently playing in the theatres. It is alleged that pirated copies are being manufactured, distributed and offered for a sale amount of between $2.00 to $20.00.

“Piracy is a widespread problem not only in the GTA and North America, but worldwide.  Legitimate businesses and Canadian jobs are adversely impacted by Intellectual Property crime. Criminal organizations involved in piracy reap the benefits and have no regard for the negative effects this activity has on the Canadian economy,” says Inspector Todd Gilmore, Officer in Charge of the GTA Federal Enforcement Section.

Charged with one count of fraud contrary to Section 380(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada and seven counts contrary to the Copyright Act is:

1. Chak Hing CHONG (Tony) , 38 years old of Markham

Also charged with Copyright Act offences are:

2. Nguyey Quynh DUONG of Brampton
3. Lai CHing Irene CHUNG of Mississauga
4. Han DENG of Brampton
5. Niao Na CHI of Mississauga
6. Tian DAI of Mississauga

The investigation is still ongoing, the first court appearance for the listed accused is scheduled for June 23, 2011 at the Brampton court.

Rove has released a new version of Rove Mobile Admin that turns an iPad into a high-performing, secure IT management platform, enabling IT staff to work from a mobile position to more effectively address the continuous demands being placed upon them and maintain control over their environment.

Taking full advantage of the iPad’s portability, large multi-touch screen and Apple’s Push Notification Service, Rove Mobile Admin provides users with immediate notification of issues, and access to the industry’s most comprehensive suite of functionality for incident notification, diagnosis, triage and resolution from a mobile device.

“Rove Mobile Admin on my iPad lets me check into things extremely quickly and diagnose problems right on the spot, so no matter where I am I never have to worry about finding a computer or a network to get the essential details of an incident,” said Erik Woodland, Technical Support Supervisor and Network Administrator for Fenner Drives, a leading manufacturer of products for industrial power transmission, motion transfer and conveying applications. “We can respond faster and be more productive with Rove – we have it loaded up on our entire IT staff’s iPads!”

“Rove Mobile Admin combined with an iPad is a real game changer for the IT support discipline,” said Russell Ure, President and COO, Rove. “Rove gives users much improved situational awareness plus the power to address issues and requests as they arise from wherever they are. Many of our customers are looking to realize this immense potential for improved efficiency and effectiveness in short order and are rapidly adopting our solution for this purpose.”

Users with an iPad plus a smartphone are free to access their network with whichever device they are carrying at the time. Their Mobile Admin user profile remains the same, enabling them to transition seamlessly between the devices used during their work day and off hours.

Rove Mobile Admin for iPad is available immediately for download from the Apple App Store. Visit the official site for additional details and a free 14 day trial of Rove Mobile Admin.

Banff World Media Festival organizers have released the lists of nominees for this year’s Rockie awards, and while congratulations are due those who made the cut, I’m a little disconcerted that there were no Canadian finalists in the Non-Fiction History & Biography, Investigative & Current Affairs, Popular Science & Technology, Youth (2+), Youth (13+) Categories.  Canadian productions were also shut out of the Fictional Animation, Continuing Series, Made For TV Movies and Soap Opera categories. I find it hard to believe that with the caliber of creative talent in our country, none were deemed worthy enough of  being named as finalists. Then again, I could be biased.

Canada fared better in the Comedy Category with three Canadian nominations going up against two UK productions. Nominated are:

CAUTION: May Contain Nuts – “Blowed Up Zombie Real Good” Produced by Mosaic Entertainment Inc. For APTN

lol 🙂 – Season 1, Episode 2 Produced by Quebecomm For TVA

TV With TV’s Jonathan Torrens – “Freak Shows” Produced by TV Torrens 2 Productions Inc.  in association with Canwest Network For TVTropolis

In the Music and Awards Show Category, the 2010 MTV Music Video Awards (USA), Jimmy Kimmel Live – “After the Academy Awards” (USA), Doctor Who at the Proms (UK) and Netherlands production X De Leeuw will be going up against two CBC productions, Battle of the Blades – “Finale Performance Show” Produced by Insight Production Company Ltd. in association with CBC For CBC and Season of Song: Canadian Tenors and Friends Produced by Suddenly SeeMore… Productions Inc. in association with CBC, also for CBC.

Joint Canadian/German production The Pillars of the Earth, produced by Tandem Communications and Muse Entertainment in association with Scott Free Films for For Starz, The Movie Network, Movie Central and CBC-TV was nominated in the Mini-Series Category. The show is competing against productions from Japan, Germany and the UK for the Rocky.

Call Me Fitz – “The Pilot” is the lone Canadian nominee in the SitCom Category. The show is produced by Amaze Film + Television in association with Entertainment One, for TMN/Movie Central. Call Me Fitz is up against three shows from the USA and two from the UK.

In the Children’s (2+) Programs, The Olive Branch – “Sleep” (USA), Hansel and Gretel (UK) and Angelo Rules – “Who Killed The Rabbit?” (France), are in the running against three Canadian entries:

Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More To Life, Produced by National Film Board of Canada in association with Warner Home Video For The Movie Network

Stella and Sam – “Night Fairies” Produced by Radical Sheep Productions Inc. for Family Channel and Playhouse Disney

Wingin’ It – “Hold the Dressing” Produced by Temple Street Productions in association with BBC Worldwide Distribution For Family Channel

In Youth (13+) Programs, Vacation with Derek by Shaftesbury Films Inc. for Family Channel Canada and Anash and the Legacy of the Sun-Rock – “Death and Peace”, produced by Panacea Entertainment and The Thing With Feathers Productions For APTN, ACCESS and SCN are vying against productions from Australia, Germany, Hong Kong and the UK for top honours.

For the Non-Fiction section, no Canadian titles would be representing the country in the Arts and Performing Arts Program Category but 6 Rides to Sunday, produced by White Iron Pictures Inc. For Rogers Broadcasting Limited (OMNI) got the nod in the Documentary-Style Reality Program Category.

Two shows, Tipping Point: The Age of the Oil Sands, produced by Clearwater Documentary Inc. for CBC and Architects of Change – “To Innovate is to Imitate” produced by Les Productions Vic Pelletier and Lato Sensu Productions for RDI, TFO, TV5 Monde, Ushaïa TV and TV8 Mont-Blanc are nominated for an Environmental Program award.

Dragons’ Den – Season 5, Episode 8, produced by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for CBC is the lone Canadian finalist in Reality Program Category, and as far as the Lifestyle & Information Program Category goes, two Canadian shows were named as finalists.  Income Property – “Mike & Antoinette” produced by RTR Media Inc. in association with HGTV for For HGTV US & HGTV Canada and X-Weighted: Families – “Adrienne” produced by Anaïd Productions Inc. for Slice  are up against the American-made Storage Wars and three UK-made entries, Embarrassing Bodies, Heston’s Feast and Young Talent.

In the Wildlife & Natural History Category, Beasts of the Bible, produced by Associated Producers Ltd. for Animal Planet and Vision TV is up against two shows from Germany as well as two from the UK and one from Austria.

One Canadian program was also named as a finalist for Social & Humanitarian Documentaries. Life with Murder, produced by JS Kastner Productions in association with the National Film Board of Canada for CTV is up against two British programs as well as one Australian, one French and one American show.

For the Interactive section I am very pleased to see Museum Secrets (Kensington Communications Inc.) named as a finalist in the Best Cross-Platform Project along with One Ocean Interactive (Merit Motion Pictures in association with Tactica Interactive) and The Dating Guy (marblemedia).

Congratulations as well to Jill Golick Enterprises for the naming of Ruby Skye P.I.  as a finalist in the Best Online Program – Children & Youth Category. Four Canadian productions are finalists in the Best Online Program – Documentary Category, and all four were produced by the National Film Board of Canada:

Highrise/Out My Window
Holy Mountain!
This Land
Welcome To Pine Point

And rounding out the Canadian finalists, nominated for Best Online Program – Drama are three Canadian productions:

Being Erica Season III Webisodes – “The Road Less Travelled” Produced by Temple Street Productions in association with CBC For cbc.ca

En audition avec Simon / Casting Call – “Julie Le Breton” a_ média For tou.tv

Temp mort:Saison 2 – Episode 1 Produced by Productions Babel in association with CBC/Radio-Canada

There were no Canadian productions named as finalists in the Best Online Program – Entertainment or Best Branded Entertainment categories.

The finalists in twelve categories were announced today for the upcoming Canadian Videogame Awards, which will be held in Vancouver on Wednesday, May 18th at the Centre for the Performing Arts.

More than 70 nominations were received this year from all parts of Canada, with 31 submissions represented in the list of finalists.  Winners will be voted on by a body of industry experts from across the country.

Members of the public can get in the game and cast their vote online for Canadian Game of the Year now.

The Canadian Videogame Awards will be held the night before the Canadian Game Conference (formerly GDC-Canada) in Vancouver. As the third largest developer of video games in the world, the show will celebrate Canada’s spot on the world stage as a leader in interactive entertainment. Video Games Live will be back to provide the entertainment for the evening and the show will broadcast across the country on Citytv and G4 Canada through the Rogers Network.  Tickets start at $30 and are now on sale at the event website.

The Canadian Videogame Awards are sponsored by in part by Kinect for XBOX 360, G4 Canada, Sony PlayStation, Nintendo 3DS, Entertainment Software Association of Canada, The Georgia Straight and the Canadian Studios of Electronic Arts.

FINALISTS

Game of the Year

·       Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
·       Dead Rising 2
·       FIFA 11
·       Mass Effect 2
·       Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction

Best Console Game

·       Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
·       Dead Rising 2
·       FIFA 11
·       Mass Effect 2
·       Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction

Best Game on the Go

·       Lil’ Pirates
·       Osmos for iPad
·       Scrabble for iPad
·       A Space Shooter for 2 Bucks
·       Trainyard

Best Downloadable Game

·       Dead Rising 2: Case Zero
·       Deathspank
·       HOARD
·       Shank
·       A Space Shooter for 2 Bucks

Best Audio

·       Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
·       Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising
·       Mass Effect 2
·       Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
·       Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction

Best Social/Casual Game

·       Dex Hamilton: Alien Entomologist
·       GardenMind
·       Mercenaries of War
·       Pocket God on Facebook
·       Pot Farm

Best Game Design

·       Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
·       Deathspank
·       Mass Effect 2
·       Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction
·       Trainyard

Best Technology

·       Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
·       Kinect for XBOX 360
·       Mass Effect 2
·       Scrabble for iPad
·       Your Shape Fitness Evolved

Best Visual Arts

·       Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
·       Mass Effect 2
·       Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
·       Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction
·       Tron: Evolution

Best Writing

·       Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
·       Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising
·       Mass Effect 2
·       Prince of Persia – The Forgotten Sands
·       Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction

Best Student Game

·       Codex
·       Ginkgo
·       Hootlin
·       WOMP!

Innovation Award

·       Kinect Joy Ride
·       ModNation Racers
·       Scrabble for iPad
·       Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
·       Your Shape Fitness Evolved

For full event information please visit:  www.canadianvideogameawards.com or follow along on Facebook or Twitter.  The Canadian Videogame Awards are produced by Reboot Communications in partnership with Greedy Productions and are officially endorsed by the Entertainment Software Association of Canada and DigiBC. The producers are joined by a national committee of developers, leaders, and associations from the Canadian interactive entertainment industry.

WestJet is warning the public about the re-occurrence of a scam being perpetrated by fraud artists trying to obtain credit card information. The scam is occurring nationally via telephone whereby callers pose as WestJet or other reputable companies.

Although there are variations to this scam, fraudsters are randomly calling people to say that they are eligible to win a prize, but will have to purchase a product or send money to receive it. Credit card information is usually requested.

WestJet does not engage in telephone marketing or share guests’ personal information with third parties for use in telephone marketing. Those responsible for this fraud are calling telephone numbers they have selected at random.

“We have taken steps to warn our guests in the past when these scams have surfaced, and now this one appears to be making the rounds again,” said Bob Cummings, WestJet Executive Vice-President, Marketing and Sales. “We want Canadians to know that this is a scam, and that we are not providing any guest information to these fraudsters.”

For more information on this and other scams, visit the Canadian Anti-fraud Centre. Anyone receiving one of these calls should hang up immediately and call 1-888-495-8501 or email info@antifraudcentre.ca to report it.

The Edmonton Social Media Breakfast (SMBYEG) is pleased to announce internet marketer extraordinaire, Jennifer Banks as this month’s guest speaker. This month’s topic is “What the heck? Why aren’t you doing SEO?”

Search engine optimization is probably the most effective, misunderstood, bad-mouthed, and ignored component of a high performing online presence- including blogs and social media. The idea is simple; create your content so that Google knows what you do and assists you with gaining visitors/followers and ultimately, making money from your website. Why is this so controversial? There are no secrets, and the basics are straightforward.

This session will cover:

What is Search Engine Optimization?
Why do I need SEO?
How do I integrate SEO into my blog/website/social media?
Live website audits (time permitting)

Stay after the discussion to network and share ideas within the realm of social media. Marketers, PR pros, entrepreneurs, bloggers, podcasters, new-media fanatics, and online social networkers are all welcome to attend. More seats will be released on April 15th at 12:00 p.m. Seating is limited and fills up quickly so hurry to book your place on Eventbrite.com. (Registration will be taken at the event.)

Nevada-based independent payment gateway organization Shift4 Corporation is pleased to announce a recent integration with Burnaby-based POS innovator Squirrel Systems. This integration pairs Squirrel’s state-of-the-art POS system with Shift4’s SaaS-based enterprise payment solution.

“I’m excited by the potential this relationship holds for both organizations,” said Bob Lowe, Shift4’s Director of Strategic Relationships. “It’s nice to see Squirrel building their POS with truly modern Microsoft SQL technology. Now with a certification to Shift4’s Dollars On The Net^®, their offering just got that much better.”

Both companies are industry veterans, recognized as technological innovators in their respective spheres. Squirrel was the first vendor to introduce POS touch screen technology and continues to innovate today. Shift4 introduced tokenization to the credit card industry in 2005, and remains at the forefront of payment technology. Squirrel Systems integration of Shift4 payment solution is a next step in meeting the needs of their customers.

“With the integration of Shift4’s solution to Squirrel, we are able to provide our customers with a very flexible, proven, and secure payment processing platform. Our customers are thrilled with the capabilities and cost-effectiveness of Dollars On The Net,” said Joe Cortese, Squirrel’s Vice President of Product Development.

The integration premiered at the Fort Garry Hotel, Spa, and Conference Center in Winnipeg, Canada. Fort Garry also opted to install Shift4’s It’s Your Card^® gift card solution, which enables gift card use across POS and PMS systems, and allows guests to use the same gift card throughout the property’s various revenue centers.

“Thus far, the Dollars On The Net feature most impressive to me is the back-of-house reporting functionality,” said Fort Garry Controller Mike Watson. “It’s all online, accessible from anywhere, and the lookups are flexible — so when I go to search for info, it’s right there at my fingertips.”

In addition to top-notch auditing features, this integration brings Shift4’s industry-leading security, speed, and reliability to Squirrel’s clientele while offering them enhanced flexibility and lower costs.

MultiCIM Technologies Inc. has released eXadox™ WIZ, a software wizard that simplifies the creation, re-working, and sharing of document naming and storage policies for all organizational entities (e.g., departments, work-groups, business-units, etc…). Organizations should institute file naming and storage policies to ultimately benefit from fast and precise searching, identification, and retrieval of their electronic documents. This helps increase productivity and collaboration amongst all staff needing to share and access common electronic files/documents. A filing policy plan is always essential, regardless of whether the organization plans to implement a manual document management strategy, or deploy a dedicated document management system. 

Vincent Santaguida of MultiCIM Technologies states “As organizations migrate from paper-based operations to paperless or ‘less-paper’ practices, staff generally lack direction in terms of electronic document naming and storage policies. Each individual names and saves departmental files as they see fit. Therefore, there is hardly any consistency in how everyone names and stores electronic files. The end result can be utter chaos and awful inefficiencies in the file searching and retrieval process. A minimum initiative is to institute storage and file naming policies for each business activity in the organization. We created the eXadox WIZard to make it easier for our clients and others to start instituting best practices for file naming and storage. The rewards in productivity gain can be incredible with minimal effort.”

eXadox WIZ operates in a wizard-mode by automatically guiding the user through five simple steps to quickly build a unique filing policy plan. It also comes with ready-built filing policy templates to help expedite the planning process. Users may modify, mix and match several templates in order to build a unique filing policy profile that best satisfies their operational requirements. The plan import/export feature enables the planning team to collaborate in planning activities by taking advantage of everyone’s contribution to more readily establish policy consensus. Read the rest of this entry »