Google SideWiki. An excellent idea

Instead of keeping up with a million logins on a million forums, this is a really great idea.
Backed by the power of Google, this could be the best thing since sliced bread.

in reference to: Audiobooks: buy AUDIO books online at Audible.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Dear Diary,

For my birthday this year, my daughter (the dear) purchased a week of personal training at the local health club for me.
Although I am still in great shape since being a high school cheerleader 43 years ago, I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and give it a try. I called the club and made my reservations with a personal trainer named Brad, who identified himself as a 26-year-old aerobics instructor and model for athletic clothing and swim wear. My daughter seemed pleased with my enthusiasm to get started! The club encouraged me to keep a diary to chart my progress.

MONDAY:

Started my day at 6:00 a.m. Tough to get out of bed, but found it was well worth it when I arrived at the health club to find Brad waiting for me. He is something of a Greek god - with blond hair, dancing eyes and a dazzling white smile. Woo Hoo!! Brad gave me a tour and showed me the machines..

I enjoyed watching the skillful way in which he conducted his aerobics class after my workout today. Very inspiring! Brad was encouraging as I did my sit-ups, although my gut was already aching from holding it in the whole time he was around. This is going to be a FANTASTIC week-!!

TUESDAY:

I drank a whole pot of coffee, but I finally made it out the door. Brad made me lie on my back and push a heavy iron bar into the air then he put weights on it! My legs were a little wobbly on the treadmill, but I made the full mile. Brad's rewarding smile made it all worthwhile. I feel GREAT-!! It's a whole new life for me.

WEDNESDAY:

The only way I can brush my teeth is by laying the toothbrush on the counter and moving my mouth back and forth over it. I believe I have a hernia in both pectorals. Driving was OK as long as I didn't try to steer or stop. I parked on top of a GEO in the club parking lot.
Brad was impatient with me, insisting that my screams bothered other club members. His voice is a little too perky for early in the morning and when he scolds, he gets this nasally whine that is VERY annoying. My chest hurt when I got on the treadmill, so Brad put me on the stair monster. Why the hell would anyone invent a machine to simulate an activity rendered obsolete by elevators? Brad told me it would help me get in shape and enjoy life. He said some other sh#t too.

THURSDAY :

Brad was waiting for me with his vampire-like teeth exposed as his thin, cruel lips were pulled back in a full snarl. I couldn't help being a half an hour late, it took me that long to tie my shoes. Brad took me to work out with dumbbells. When he was not looking, I ran and hid in the restroom. He sent some skinny bitch to find me. Then, as punishment, he put me on the rowing machine -- which I sank.

FRIDAY :

I hate that Brad more than any human being has ever hated any other human being in the history of the world. Stupid, skinny, anemic, anorexic little #@*. If there was a part of my body I could move without unbearable pain, I would beat him with it.
Brad wanted me to work on my triceps. I don't have any triceps! And if you don't want dents in the floor, don't hand me the damn barbells or anything that weighs more than a sandwich. The treadmill flung me off and I landed on a health and nutrition teacher.
Why couldn't it have been someone softer, like the drama coach or the choir director?

SATURDAY :

Brad left a message on my answering machine in his grating, shrilly voice wondering why I did not show up today. Just hearing him made me want to smash the machine with my planner. However, I lacked the strength to even use the TV remote and ended up catching eleven straight hours of the Weather Channel.

SUNDAY :
I'm having the Church van pick me up for services today so I can go and thank GOD that this week is over. I will also pray that next year my daughter (the little sh#t) will choose a gift for me that is fun -- like a root canal or a hysterectomy. I still say if God had wanted me to bend over, he would have sprinkled the floor with diamonds
________________________________________

Average Cost. Elegant and Simple… By Mohammed Parak

I woke up this morning with a revelation on Average Cost. While I have been playing with numbers in the retail sector for one and a half decade, what came to me this morning convinced me that there are huge gaps in my knowledge.

We have traditionally always chosen “last cost” as the indicator of the cost of an item. It worked well in establishing the most accurate current reckoning of the total value of ones stock holding. The fact that it is the most recent value meant that it was also the closest thing to replacement cost. What constantly irked our clients was that in a market where they occasionally buy goods cheap the last cost often overstated the entire stock holding by the current high, or understated it the current cost was lower, as the case may be.

Clients often stated that they received new items at a higher value, but existing stock was purchased at a lower value or visa versa. The Last cost method Inflated, or deflated the value of the stockholding.

We at CAD RETAIL evolved a line of faulty logic where we told clients that the “last cost” was actually the “evolutionary practical average cost”. As new prices could theoretically go higher, or lower, we spun the theory that that the difference between the overstating stock and undervaluing stock would “come out in the wash”. In reality prices generally only went one way and on that basis the yarn could easily come undone. Surprisingly, no clients called us out on this one. Possibly because they did not want to burst our bubble of being so apparently knowledgeable in matters “retail”.

Anybody who defended the last cost method was in my book hiding his inability to vouch for the quantity on hand. To explain this is to understand that average cost is calculated by taking the value of existing stock (Units on hand X “Past Cost”) and adding it to the value of current purchase ie: (Units purchased X “Todays cost”). Add these two and divide by the total number of units and you will get the “average cost”. Companies that have little regard for the accuracy of the units on hand, are skeptical of their ability to accurately calculate this value. If the on_hand is wrong, or worse still “negative” then the resulting average would be catastrophic. The on_hand figure may even be correct in the system, but incorrect as a result of theft, resulting in the same distortions.

This logic, I find is the prevailing logic amongst all retailers and software vendors. This deduction is not, as my recent revelation reveals, entirely accurate. It is possible to track average cost in two other ways that could still be accurate, even if the stock on hand were compromised.

Before I go on I may add that ironically, this thought only occurred to me at a time when we resolved all technical difficulties with accurately tracking stock on hand. These arguments would have been infinitely more useful to us in the past, when we had inaccuracies to contend with.

The First method, I call “Historical Purchase Average” .
In this method one simply takes the cumulative past Purchase value (total excl) and divides by cumulative quantity purchased. The resulting figure is truly the most accurate average cost in the business, and the current state of the system quantity on hand and the actual number that remain on the shelves are insignificant to this calculation. I am amazed that in all of the years that I have dealt with this issue that something so simple eluded me and the “super brains” that it has been my pleasure and privilege to work with.

The second method I call simply “Period Average”
In this method we simply take all the various “unit” costs between any given period and run the classic AVG function on them to derive the average. Note that this method uses individual costs of individual items, not the total value derived from cost times quantity. This could give a different figure based on the size of the period in question. More recent averages may be higher that older averages. This would indeed be an interesting average to consider, as the purchase period would be used to derive the result.

Clearly one could use other methods in calculating the Historical Purchase Average and instead of using cumulative figures, one could use purchase information for a given period and calculate Historical purchase average, on a targeted cross section by date. Finally on could take the unit cost from day one and use the AVG function to achieve the resulting average.

Which of these is a more accurate average? The question should rather be what do we want to do with the cost? If one needs to assess the value of your stock holding then clearly the accuracy of the stock on hand one of the two key factors. Cost and stock on hand. If either one of these is inaccurate then the resulting valuation would be flawed. The client needs to embrace one or other of the cost values, ie replacement (Net realizable value), last cost, or the various type of averages, and the problem is easily solved.

For the proposes of the profitability of a sale, the quantity on hand is not significant. Which ever cost calculation method the client embraces, is simply cast against the quantity sold and assessed against the selling price. (excluding VAT).
This may help explain why many retailers ponder why they appear to make a good GP (Gross Profitability) on a daily basis but appear to be making a loss in their financials. The inaccuracy of the stock takes, and stock on hand figures may skew the fiancials, but not the apparent profitability of sales.

Ansible and Virtual Airtime two new plugins

Wednesday, June 04, 2008


CAD RETAIL have recently released the long awaited interface with Comm_Express, virtual airtime, and would like to introduce all our valued clients to “Ansibel” a product that is more than a little ahead of its time.

Now you can expand your product offering to include Virtual Airtime from Vodacom, MTN, Cell C, Virgin and even Telkom prepaid.
All of these amazing services without having to purchase upfront, or manage any stock.
Airtime can be provided on consignment and billed on a daily basis, as you sell.

Any till in your organization is able to print a virtual voucher, using your existing equipment and infrastructure. All PIN numbers are stored using TDES (Triple DES) encryption. (One of the most secure methods of encryption on the planet).

Field trials began a while ago and the system has proven to be secure and able to reconcile vast volumes of sales down to the cent!. To find out more about integrating Virtual Airtime, Credit Cards, loyalty programs and Bill Payments into your Point of Sale application, please do not hesitate to call us for a “no strings” demonstration.



“An ansible is a hypothetical machine capable of superluminal communication.” Wikipedia


The greatest challenge facing any Multi store Point of Sale collection device is the reliable collection and storage of huge numbers of records. The second, is to be able to transmit this “clean” data across great distances, reliable and in cost effective way.

With the most powerful and versatile database in the world , and leveraging the communications skill of Linux our software developers at CAD RETAIL have outdone themselves, with an automated product that Milks the stores in real time. No other commercially available point of sale solution can claim to move the kind of numbers that we have over the past year, with Zero failure rates.

Ansible brings sales back to the head office as they happen. All new items, and price changes are sent out to the stores in Real time as well. Any store in the group is able to able to query stock, budgets and sell off rates of any item, by size and colour. Studies by Department, supplier, category, size, colour, style, season are just a few of the amazing interactive indicators that the new technology has made possible and even common place.

One very special client planted the seed of the “Buyers Assessment” module (B.A.Module) and to him (he knows who he is) we are grateful. The BA Module allows an organization to go beyond the OTB (Open to Buy) studies and assess the profitability of the products brought in by the various buyers. Their spending, is monitored against their stock holding, Sales, profitability and seasonal markdowns. The resulting indicator is a remarkable tool that allows one to allow the buying team to focus on the Trade and not on the mundane IT details that seem to bog down most large companies.

We take this opportunity to thank you, our valued clients for the input and, often for all of the friendly criticism that has made all of this possible. Your pursuit of excellence, was the whip and the carrot that drove us to do better, and your patience gave us hope allowed us to perform not at our best but at a level that puts us technologically ahead of the pack. But for your support we would surely have given up, or settled for meritocracy.

Thank you, for staying with us, even when it looked like the long overdue retail suite seemed like an unachievable dream.

Accurate Sales, Multi store reporting, Size and colour matrixes, Client server databases, Slice and Dice business intelligence, amazing speed, Unbreakable Bullet proof POS and above all, secure and pure, data.

We share this achievement with the hundreds of clients who have touched our lives. You have all made this moment possible, and this is as much your moment too.

While we have come a long way, our insatiable need to invent a “better mouse” trap drives us to constantly explore new frontiers. When all software is able to use today’s amazingly powerful hardware to produce brute force results, the leaner and more efficient systems will prevail.

Ansible Finally up and running

Ansibel:. A device that enables users to communicate instantaneously across great distances.

When we planned to have the store databases feed everything to central Operations Center, it was decided that we would move away from the traditional methods.

In the retail sector most applications work with a "day end" package at the stores. This package is produced by a process that is triggered by the the day end reports. In push models this typically zipped archive is sent to head office by FTP or some similar transport layer. In the Pull environment the transfer process is initiated from the central head office as the store is sequentially polled for the zip file.

The archive is extracted at head office and text files / data files imported into a head office database, that represents the reconstruction of the aggregation of stores.

Our model is very different, yet in broad strokes can still be described in the Push / Pull categories.

ERP Integration with Nomad

Having been certified EMV compliant we completed the integration phase with the Nomad EFT Portal.

MySQL Error cannot create/write to file c:\temp

#error cannot create/write to file c:\temp bla bla bla

Edit my.ini and in the [mysqld] group insert the line

exit-info=65535

then restart the MySQL service.

Seems that Macafee Anti Virus and MySQL fight for control of the temp folder.