Welcome to AVAwire!

Welcome to the latest edition of AVAwire - our periodic newsletter created to maintain a constant flow of information to our customers. We want to keep everyone informed through both this newsletter and our website, www.AVAware.com.

Chicago – “The Windy City”, home to stunning architecture and a rich history, hosted our industry’s foremost event, the 2010 DHI Annual Conference and Exposition. Located in the Navy Pier, the venue itself is one of Chicago’s premier tourist attractions.

The Navy Pier was originally built during World War I as a public gathering place, and was later used as by the University of Illinois as a college campus before returning to its original function. We enjoyed both the city and the show itself, which gave us the opportunity to meet

with our existing clients and make new contacts and relationships.

We would like to thank the Door and Hardware Institute for putting on another great show this year.

 
We have gone through some major technological changes this month, improving the connectivity and security of our communications infrastructure. Our internet and phone systems have their own dedicated connections which back up

eachother, so if either service loses connectivity, it will switch over and use the other services connection to keep emails and calls coming in.

Emails are handled by our new, dedicated Quad Core email server running the latest edition of Microsoft’s flagship unified communications solution, Exchange 2010. An additional Quad Core network server was added for enhanced security and user authentication to keep our internal network protected and running safely and smoothly.

Another significant change was the switch to a new internet host

on October 8th. Although this was a seamless transition, of which our online visitors and anyone downloading catalogs were completely oblivious of, it is a noticeable upgrade on the backend of our online presence. A faster connection and improved hardware provide expanded email capabilities and potentially faster catalog downloads for the end user. Even our website has a backup internet connection, ensuring that software, catalogs, logos, subscription information and more will be available for download when you need it.

Microsoft has announced that as of October 22nd, manufacturers are no longer permitted to preload netbooks with Windows XP. Netbooks were the last category of PC to be preloaded with Windows XP, which means no more new computers will be sold with Windows XP installed.

On  this  same  date  Microsoft discontinued packaged software sales of Windows Vista. Vista is

scheduled for total discontin-uation on October 22nd 2011, the planned date for the end of all preinstalled Vista sales.

As Microsoft is making a move to focus on its newest OS, Windows 7, we are also moving forward. We recently published our newest release, AVAproject 2010, which is fully 64-bit compatible with Windows Vista and Windows 7.

AVAproject 2010 increases power and performance on newer Windows installations, and is part of our ongoing commitment to stay on top of updates to the Windows OS.

AVAproject Tips: How to Copy and Paste Rows in AVAproject

One of the questions commonly asked about AVAproject is if information can be copied between spreadsheets, projects or into other applications. This can be a useful tool if there are many hardware items or openings with similar properties, and can dramatically reduce the amount of time spent entering data.

There are several different scenarios in which AVAproject allows you to copy rows.  Rows can be copied within a project, between two projects, and between AVAproject and Excel or another text editor. If you are pasting the rows within AVAproject, the information that you copy must be pasted into the same type of table that you copied it from. For example, hardware items copied from the Hardware List must be pasted into another Hardware List, and openings copied from the Openings Schedule must be pasted into another Openings Schedule. If you are copying between two projects, be sure that both projects are open in the same instance of AVAproject.

1.     Using the row headers, select the rows you want to copy. You can select multiple sequential rows by click and dragging along the row headers. If you do not select the full row by the row headers, only the data in the selected cells will be copied, while selecting by the row headers copies all visible cells in that row as well as data in hidden columns.

2.     Right-click one of the selected row headers and select “Copy”.

3.     Open the table that you want to copy these rows into, select the row header at the point you would like to insert them, then right-click and select “Paste Copied Rows”

The AVAware Catalog team has been hard at work updating existing catalogs and converting new printed price books into AVAware Catalog files. Several updates to existing catalogs have been released over the past few months, including minor revisions to the National Guard, Schlage, Markar and Pemko catalogs. A more significant update was made to the Yale

catalog, adding the new 350 Series of mortise deadlocks.

As we are approaching the end of the calendar year, the amount of catalog revisions and updates being published by manufacturers has decreased. Because of this regular annual drop in catalog releases, our catalog team is now focusing on adding Catalog Cuts to more of our catalogs.

Catalog Cuts are a valuable resource, creating the ability to view product images in the product builder and attach vector Catalog Cut pages to Hardware Schedules and submittal documents within AVAproject.

Industry Watch: LEED

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ is a new, international initiative to promote green design, construction and maintenance of buildings. LEED has focused on five key areas of sustainability, creating a holistic approach to environmental health.

Each of these five key areas is evaluated in an independent review and given credits based on performance. Certification is separated into four different levels (certified, silver, gold and platinum) each representing a different green rating for that

building. LEED is designed to fit several levels of green building strategies and building types.

Being a LEED certified organization garners recognition and achievement, as well as qualification for a number of

government incentives that are increasing every day.

More information about LEED can be found online on the U.S. Green Building Council or  Canadian Green Building Council websites.