Acronym of the Month

Greetings, %%Facility name%% - and welcome to eNews issue #15. This month, as many of you will know, the Self Storage Association of Australasia's premier Conference & Tradeshow event takes place on Australia's Gold Coast (7th - 9th October). StorMan, as usual, will be attending - so be sure to keep an eye on our website in the days following the convention, as we'll be adding a few great blogs & vlogs (video blogs) after the event.

We're also closing in on our upcoming StorMan version 8 webcasts - so if you're yet to register for you free training, please do so ASAP as places are filling fast. As usual, if you have any comments, ideas or suggestions, just get in touch with me via andy@storman.com. Until next time, happy surfing! :-)

Regards,
Andy & the StorMan Software Team

StorMan Software support Ivor Morgan in search for gold!

If you take a good hard look at the person in the leading boat, you might just recognise him... Ivor Morgan, Manager of Jim’s Self Storage in Williamstown Victoria. By winning this race in April this year, Ivor and his doubles partner Mark became the Australian Champions and won the right to represent Australia in the World Championships.

Ivor represented Australia in 2003, then took a break to concentrate on the family business. While he was scheduled to attend last year, a boat malfunction meant they had to withdraw from the competition. So after a very hard training regime, Ivor has worked hard to get into peak condition in readiness for the World Championships and he and Mark have even won a couple of other races along the way.

As you can imagine, the cost involved in this sport is huge. It is all self funded... or, at least, it was - until StorMan Software stepped in to lend a hand. StorMan Software are now a major sponsor and are playing a huge role in Ivor getting to Portugal for the Men’s Open K2 Marathon in Portugal.

StorMan's help is greatly appreciated and Ivor will do them justice by being a great ambassador and an extremely competitive athlete. Best wishes and Good Luck to Ivor, who sends his greatest.

Thanks to the team at StorMan Software!
- by Rosemary Angyasy, Jim's Self Storage

Have you registered for your free online StorMan v8 training yet? No? Well here are some of the exciting new features & changes that you'll be missing out on...

• New "Waiting List" function for Reservations.
• Get alerted when your customers 'open' one of your SMS reminders!
• New & improved "Rent Increase" module.
• Dynamic Rent Increase Rules that you can set & forget.
• New "Merchandise Discount Plans" module - setup custom merchandise packs.
• All screens have been redesigned!
• You can now disable rent increases on a per-agreement basis.
• You can now control part-payments and set what happens to the late cycle.
• You can force StorMan to permit only one unit per agreement.
• Viewing the transaction history is now achieved via a dropdown menu.
• You can disable the waiving of late fees altogether.
• You can charge a fee per gate access.
• You can charge a fee when an invoice is printed.
• ...view the complete list of new features & changes at myStorMan.

Before you can upgrade to v8, you will need to participate in one of our compulsory "v8 Introduction" online webcasts. To register for one of our free v8 Introduction webcasts, please click here. For your convenience, our webcast session times are also listed below.

• Wednesday 14th October @ 10am AEST - REGISTER FOR THIS SESSION
• Wednesday 14th October @ 2pm AEST - REGISTER FOR THIS SESSION
• Thursday 15th October @ 10am AEST - REGISTER FOR THIS SESSION

Ivor and Mark raced late Sunday night, in a race like I have never before seen. The race started with all the 30 kayaks (yes 30!!!) lined up against the start line. The siren went and they all took off – there were paddles and water going everywhere, hard to tell what was going on and who was where.

The field soon broke into a lead pack and two other packs followed closely behind. From the onset of the first portage, the Spanish team seemed to be the main threat, they paddle hard, their portages were unbelievable and they were eventually victorious, taking out the gold. Ivor and Mark worked hard at the start to get themselves into a great position, but the work they had to do took its toll on them and they finished the race in 13th place, not ever slowing down or giving in, and making us all proud.

To finish 13th in the world, behind Spain and South Africa, Czech Republic and Portugal, is a huge effort. Just to get there, was a huge effort. Both boys put their lives on hold to get themselves into peak condition to win the right to even just win the right to represent their country.

In Ivor’s case, not only did he do this, but he managed a full time job, a wife and young daughter and in the middle of all this, found that they were expecting a 2nd child, due in January. He trained at the gym and alternated this with running every day, paddled every day, most times morning and night, and his commitment to what he does shows his love and passion for the sport.

Having won the title of Australian and Victorian Champions with Mark, he was also awarded the Victorian K1 Paddler of the Year – what a great year it has been. And it doesn’t stop there. Before he considers putting the paddle out to pasture, I think he has one more race in mind. So the training will continue, his fitness level will remain constant and he will work towards next year’s race with the same diligence that he affords to everything he does.

I want to thank StorMan for their encouragement and support - it meant the world to him. He is so appreciative for the financial assistance; it took a huge burden off him and his family and meant he could concentrate more on training than he had to on raising funds. So a huge thank you again, and I am sure Ivor will be in touch when he gets back to Melbourne. He is currently in Paris, taking a couple of weeks off with his family.

- by Rosemary Angyasy, Jim's Self Storage

This month's Secret StorMan Shortcut is CTRL + 1    (...that's the digit one)
...I wonder what it does!

This month we welcome Nardia to the StorMan Team. Nardia joins our Brisbane office and will be managing worldwide admin & accounts tasks, as well as office management tasks for our growing Brisbane team.

Hi there - I'm Darran, one of StorMan's Technical Support Agents. Each issue, I'll trawl through the deep depths of the internet to find you a funky piece of software, hardware or other interesting technological trinkets.

Wi-Spy 2.4x Spectrum Analyser

Do you often experience problems or drop-outs with your wireless network? The problem may actually be interference from someone else's wireless network or other devices such as cordless phones.

The Wi-Spy 2.4x Spectrum Analyser has been designed specifically for troubleshooting and analysing Wi-Fi networks. Wi-Spy 2.4x is packaged with a powerful little antenna, so it’s good from the start but it's also a snap to screw-on any RP-SMA antenna you choose.

There are some pretty amazing websites out there on the internet, but one of the most interesting I've ever come across if the Marine Traffic Project. It's an academic, open, community-based project that gathers vessel information (such as speed, cargo type, course, direction, etc) from real-time tracking devices and plots it on a map using Google Maps.

So... if you were out at the beach last weekend and saw a big vessel on the horizon, now you can find out what it was carrying and where it came from!

If you use a laptop, then it will most likely have a PCMCIA slot in the side - but what does it stand for (or do, for that matter)?

PCMCIA stands for "Personal Computer Memory Card International Association" (or, as some people put it: People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms" - coined to take off the official name), and is an expansion slot used on laptop computers to allow the easy addition of different devices such as modems, network cards, etc.

PC cards (as they are also known) were developed in the early 90's and were usually 'Plug and Play' devices. However, they are rarely used in today's world and the slot is becoming obsolete in laptops as manufacturers move to support faster and smaller onboard sockets & device connection methods such as USB and FireWire.

How much dirt is there in a hole two meters deep and 40cm in diameter?
Stuck? The answer is in the next issue!

Last month's answer: 23 times (the 24th time occurs when the next day has already begun)

This month's "Monthly funny" is a well-performed edit using popular image manipulation program Photoshop (some people have too much time on their hands)...

Have you got a joke or funny pic to send us?
Please let us know!