I recently saw a posting for a law office who was looking for a custom piece of software that would renumber single page tiff files (and maybe text files) from their scanner into a specific numbering system (CTRL00001.tif, CTRL00002.tif, etc.) for their law offices case document management system. When I saw this project posted, I realized that with very small changes to their process, our Art-Copy Scripting software would do this out of the box saving them thousands of dollars they would have to pay for custom software. We specifically designed the numbering system of Art-Copy scripting to handle these types of needs. I contacted them and told them what Art-Copy Scripting would and would not do for them. If they wanted the extra stuff, they could buy our SDK and modify it which would still be less than an entire custom development project.

They tried Art-Copy Scripting and had a few questions about file ordering in windows. It turns out that if you select a group of files in windows by selecting the 1st file and then holding shift and selecting say the 17th file in a standard file open dialog, the will come in the order of 17, 1, 2, 3 because 17 is the last file the mouse selected. If you select then 17th file then hold shift and select 1st file or just do a select all, they will come in the correct order. Our tech support loves these types of customer tests.

Once they figured out this issue, they purchased Art-Copy Scripting out of the box and are able to use it ASIS for their document management numbering system as well as other applications around the office.

Art-Copy scripting is a very powerful and flexible product. It is always nice as a developer to see it doing what it is designed for.

With the internet, there has never been a better time to be a programmer. Before, you would have to spend a lot of time in college libraries and buy a lot of expensive books in book stores. Then the internet and Google came along, and now you can search for almost anything and find a code sample and documentation for what you wanted to do.

Now Microsoft has taken learning on the internet to a whole new level. Microsoft has come out with a product called Microsoft Virtual Labs at the website:
http://www.microsoft.com/events/vlabs/default.mspx

With Microsoft Virtual Labs you actually go through a lab-like experience where you are given an Internet Explorer interface to a virtual machine running through the browser. Microsoft gives you a PDF to follow along and 90 minutes to complete the tasks. It can be from configuring IIS to cache web pages and check the statistics to programming C# web forms in .NET framework 3.0. It’s an excellent learning tool for technology.

This means you can not only get documentation but hands on learning without buying anything. It still will not do the work for you but if someone really wants to learn a new skill, they have the ability to do so; it is a great time to be alive and programming.