VEDIT Newsletter for VEDIT 6.21, September 2011
Here is the newsletter that
will be sent out soon to registered customers:
Table of Contents
-----------------
(Since it's been a while since the last newsletter, I apologize for
this very long one.)
* Greetings
* New VEDIT 6.21
* New User Forum
* New Contact Info
* Updates and Software Subscription Plan (SSP)
* Email Security Products
* Minecraft
* HepcFund
* Final Words
Greetings
---------
It's been quite a few years since our last VEDIT newsletter and
significant update. As many of you know, I've been busy for the
past
eight years building Greenview into an email security company,
starting with our very successful and effective SpamStopsHere
service.
Long time (since 1983) VEDIT programmer Tom Burt retired in
2006,
which put VEDIT development on the back burner until this year.
With
our 24/7 support staff keeping our SpamStopsHere running nearly
perfectly, and new email products (archiving, encryption and
hosting)
which don't involve me much, I have been able to spend most of
this
year on VEDIT development. This is largely possible because of
my
brother and business partner Phil Green who handles the email
product
development, and our COO Joel Abramson who runs the overall
business
and marketing. Also, I would like to thank Chris Stachnik who has
been
my office manager and accountant for over 12 years.
Here's an album of office pictures from the past few years:
http://s1015.photobucket.com/albums/...ce%20Pictures/
Most of VEDIT's "sales" the past few years have been for EBCDIC
(mainframe) conversion software and services. The services have
all
been performed by Tony Taylor who has been able to convert
tricky
EBCDIC files that no other software or company could handle.
New VEDIT 6.21
--------------
VEDIT 6.20 released in May 2011 was the first major update in eight
years
and first significant update in five years since 6.15 was
released.
The past few months gave us the opportunity to implement many of
the
pending suggestions from the past few years and update the many
major
macros supplied with VEDIT; the result is the current version
6.21,
which is a very significant update over 6.20.
VEDIT 6.21 include a lot of work which was performed over the
past
few years but never released. For example, Gabe Lein worked on the
new
.CHM help system for six months back in 2008. Tom Burt wrote
the
preliminary Email and Ftp support back in 2004 and due to his
retirement it was never finalized; therefore it remains in
beta-test
mode in version 6.21. I would also like to thank VEDIT
customers
Christian Ziemski, Pauli Lindgren, Ian Binnie and Scott Lambert
for
many new and updated macros that are included in version 6.21.
The primary enhancements in VEDIT 6.21 include:
* Improved support for Windows Vista and Win7, including single
and multi-user installation options, a new directory structure
and various bug fixes. While not recommended by Vista/7, VEDIT
still has a "Traditional" option for installing all files in
c:\vedit.
* Partly to support Windows Vista/7 and partly to reduce the
number of files in the VEDIT Home directory, a new directory
structure with more subdirectories is now used.
* New .CHM built-in help system. The older .hlp type help
system
is no longer supported in Vista/7. The previous content is
still
all there, updated of course, and we think it is better
organized.
* The useful new {MISC, Scribe} spelling checker is written
entirely in the VEDIT macro language and includes a 100,000
word
English dictionary. (Special thanks to Scott Lambert for
working
on this over many years.)
* A new Wildfile macro uses an all-in-one dialog box instead of
the previous wizard. It now has "history" an useful options.
* Vastly improved Ctags support including nested lookups.
* Convenient new {FILE, Open (More), Find file and open} builds
a
file search function into VEDIT.
The full summary of enhancements is quite long and can be read
here:
www.vedit.com/download/whatsnew.txt
The veditlog.txt file gives a short listing of each
enhancement,
change and bug fix:
www.vedit.com/download/veditlog.txt
New User Forum
--------------
Our original user forum (WebBoard) started in 1998 and had
become
rather dated, both in content and its user interface. Possibly due
to
its unusual interface, very few users were active on it. Therefore,
we
just started a new one running on the popular vBulletin software
which
is the standard for modern forums. You can see it here:
http://forum.vedit.com
Technically this is the news page of the forum, the actual
forum
messages are at:
http://forum.vedit.com/forum.php
While anyone can read it, you need to register in order to post on
it.
As we plan to use it increasingly for technical support,
providing
updated macros, tutorials, announcements and more, we hope you
will
register too.
New Contact Info
----------------
Please note our new address and phone number:
Greenview Data, Inc.
8178 Jackson Rd. Suite A
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
Phone: (734) 426-7500
1-800-458-3348
The old "PO Box 1586" is no longer in use.
If you have printed manuals, you may want to update this info on
Page 1.
Updates and Software Subscription Plan (SSP)
--------------------------------------
When you select {HELP, About} in VEDIT you will see how long
your
support period is and what updates you are eligible for. Unless
you
recently purchased VEDIT, it is most likely that your support
period
is long expired. However, you might still be eligible for
future
updates. This creates potential confusion - do I need to update
or
not?
Technically, you can download and use all the updates you are
eligible
for. However, if your support period is expired, we will only
provide
minimal telephone, email or forum support.
Historically, many (if not most) users renew/purchase the
Software
Subscription Plan when their support period expires. This ensures
that
premium support is instantly available. (I know that many are
also
happy and willing to support VEDIT development).
To better serve you, we are increasing the SSP support period to
24
months (from 18) for the same price of $59.
Here are your update options:
You can either update by logging in to our website, or by
clicking
one of the links below.
>>> To log in to our website:
https://store.greenviewdata.com/vedi...tomerlogin.asp
To will need your customer ID which is:
And your serial number which is available in VEDIT under {HELP,
About}.
>>> If you already have VEDIT 6.2 (or your previous SSP
includes it)
Order/renew your SSP with 24 months of support and updates for
$59:
https://store.greenviewdata.com/Vedi...oductID=217221
>>> If your last version is VEDIT 6.0 or 6.1
Order the update with SSP with 24 months of support and updates for
$79:
https://store.greenviewdata.com/Vedi...oductID=219221
Order just an update to VEDIT with 3 months of support for $29:
https://store.greenviewdata.com/Vedi...oductID=212201
>>> If your last version is VEDIT 5.x or earlier
Order the update with SSP with 24 months of support and updates for
$99:
https://store.greenviewdata.com/Vedi...oductID=218221
Order just an update to VEDIT with 3 months of support for $59:
https://store.greenviewdata.com/Vedi...oductID=216201
If you need to order 5-user packs or anything special, please to to
our update page:
https://store.greenviewdata.com/Vedi...nCategoryID=13
Email Security Products
-----------------------
If you visit our www.greenviewdata.com website you'll see details
about our cloud-based anti-spam, email archiving, email encryption
and
email hosting (basic and Exchange-clone). Our success in this area
is
largely due to the exceptional accuracy of our SpamStopsHere (SSH)
service.
Anti-spam has become a "commodity" product and we are amazed by
the
inaccuracy of most bundled and desktop products, and that user
put
up with them. In contrast, typical SSH users see better than 99.5%
spam
blocking with an industry-best 1 in 100,000 false positive rate;
most
users never even bother setting up a spam folder. Our SSH customers
range
in size from 10 users to 20,000. SSH is our own proprietary
technology
best described as a "link and action reputation system" which
relies
heavily on URL filtering and very little on IP blocking. Yes, SSH
is
my baby and I'm very proud of how well it works. (Even though it
put
VEDIT on the back burner for a few years.)
In addition to SSH, we offer our own proprietary email
archiving,
email encryption using a hosted version of the industry-leading
Zix Corp appliance. Our email hosting is a licensed version of
Zimbra
(TM) running on our own servers with replication and fail-over. We
offer
both a comprehensive "basic" Zimbra and the full Exchange-clone
"enterprise" Zimbra.
While you might not be the IT manager for your company, I hope
you
will put in a good word for us with your IT department in case they
are
looking for a comprehensive cloud-based email solution. Besides
the
accuracy of our antispam system, what really sets us apart
is our exceptional 24/7 technical support. I've made sure that
experienced and carefully trained 3rd-level support people are
always
in-house to provide any assistance a customer needs.
Minecraft
---------
You might be familiar with the "Minecraft" phenomena - a game
where
you build worlds with structures consisting of everything from
basic
blocks to complex logic circuits. We have been running a
Minecraft
server which has become one of the more popular ones with huge
worlds
of structures.
* Over 150 users
* 8 worlds with portals for moving between them
(New users limited to two worlds to prove their "good
intentions")
* Over 1 million blocks placed
* Snapshots/backups made every 1 to 4 hours in case destructive
users
access a world
Here is an album of screen shots from our worlds:
http://greenviewdata.imgur.com/
And a couple of YouTube videos created by our users:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-Z5AIUgr5Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e1XGvrXvKk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnPK3rGo-cw
Our Minecraft server became popular after our Minecraft office
prank
video hit YouTube: (Over 100,000 views so far.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_FG1av56JQ
If you are a Minecraft gamer, I hope you will join our server
at:
mc.greenviewdata.com
(If not already a Minecraft gamer, you need to purchase a license
at
www.minecraft.net and download the software. You can
then run the
software with any Minecraft server.)
Hep-C Fund
----------
Long-time VEDIT users may recall my charitable efforts over the
years,
such as fund raising bike rides for the Make-A-Wish foundation
that
some of you contributed to. In order to give back a little to
the
medical research that has so helped our family, my wife Debbie and
I
started a charity several years ago to raise awareness and help
find a
cure for Hepatitis C. This serious disease affects 4 million
Americans, the vast majority of whom are unaware of it until they
have
liver failure. Over 10,000 Americans per year die from it and it
is
the main reason for liver transplants. (One of the photo
album's
pictures is of an "awareness" billboard we ran.) We funded one
completed study and a current research project at the University
of
Michigan. We also provided seed money to a project at the
University
of Miami. Our goals is to provide seed money to research projects
that
might then qualify for Federal grants. We are considering
expanding
our efforts to also include liver cancer. Our charity's website
is:
http://www.hepcfund.org
If Hepatitis C research is something you would like to support,
please
make a donation (via Paypal or Google Checkout) at:
http://www.hepcfund.org/donate.html
Final Words
-----------
Well, that pretty much brings you up to date on everything related
to
VEDIT. While we still promote our Software Subscription Plan, you
may
have noticed that I didn't mention any "upcoming" features.
Obviously
I have a list in mind, but I know it will change rapidly as
more
users become active on our new forum. Speaking of the new forum,
we
haven't yet used its Blog function; we also plan to post user
written
articles on the News page. I'm certainly open to suggestions on
how
the forum, news and blog would improve your VEDIT experience.
Instead
of emailing me, I would prefer to see suggestions posted on our
forum.
This lets me determine the level of interest and often the best way
to
implement it.
As always, you are welcome to email me at ted@vedit.com or call our
main number 734-426-7500. (As this is a relatively new number, you
may
want to update page 1 of any printed manuals you have.) Please
note
that while our support staff answers the phone 24/7, currently
only
Tony Taylor and I can answer complex VEDIT questions.
Personally, my family is doing well; our two daughters are
enjoying
their careers and big-city living in Denver and Chicago. On a
lighter
side, I like to say that every father should take their daughter
drag
racing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojw_D5Yww0E
I still bicycle and the company still supports the Ann Arbor
Velo
Club and other community bicycling projects:
http://www.greenviewdata.com/community/
Thank you again for your support!
Ted Green
Greenview Data, Inc.
8178 Jackson Road
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
Phone: 734-426-7500
Email: sales@vedit.com or
support@vedit.com