This week saw the launch of EndNote X3 for Windows, a shiny-new version of our most widely used, renowned reference managing tool.
EndNote has one of the biggest user-bases of all of the technical software tools we supply. That’s because it’s essential equipment for anyone who spends a large amount of time researching what other people have written about particular topics – a common task for many of our customers. Not only can EndNote help them find the information they need online, it can store and manage extracts quickly and easily, then make creating bibliographies and citations effortless.
Thorough beta-testing and customer suggestions have helped to mould the new version, which offers highly-requested features such as Cite While You Write support for OpenOffice.org Writer 3 and Apple Pages ‘09, new Group options and composite chemistry styles, side-by-side duplicate comparison, new compressed library options, EndNote Web/ResearcherID connectivity and the ability to create chapter bibliographies. You can find a more detailed list of the new features on our web pages or take version X3 for Windows for a free testdrive.
We’ve just received notification that we’ve been re-certified with the internationally recognised new ISO9001:2008 quality management standard until 2012. This revised standard addresses the need for greater clarification and consistency, plus improved compatibility with ISO 14001 which relates to environmental management systems.
It’s a great achievement for all the staff involved in the 2-day quality audit and on-going efforts to continuously monitor and improve every we do. ISO:9001: 2008 isn’t just for show! It has some real advantages, not least for our customers, but for the company as a whole.
- Customers gain tangible evidence that we’re working hard to provide them with the best possible products and services.
- Our suppliers gain reassurance that we’re the best people to sell and support their software/hardware.
- We maintain better control over our processes so we can improve efficiency, reduce waste and lower costs.
- Our staff profit from improved training and development.
Benefits all round then!
Check out the colourful certificate!
Our team has been clocking the mileage this March, travelling to various events around the country. Adept’s maths and simulation software specialist, Surak Perera gave a presentation about cutting-edge complex modelling tool, MapleSim to simulation specialists at the UKsim 2009 Conference which took place in Cambridge from 25th-27th March. The event aimed to promote the advancement of modelling and simulation in industry, research and development, so a software tool like MapleSim, with the potential to shorten the product development cycle, reduce design costs and optimise products, was always going to be of interest. Delegates were treated to an exclusive preview of MapleSim 2.0 ahead of its expected release at the end of April. The extended 3D animation and multi-body modelling capabilities, plus its efficient and fast code generation attracted a lot of interest from the surprisingly international audience (considering this was a UK-centric event).
Surak explained, “It was extremely useful to get out and talk directly to the prime audience of our simulation software tools. Delegates were happy to give constructive feedback to help us perfect and mould a fledgling product like MapleSim to suit their needs exactly. We were able to talk to potential users to find out how they’ll be using MapleSim and get their wish-list of must-have capabilities.”
Meanwhile our research tools specialists made their way to bonny Edinburgh on 24th March to attend the JISC Conference 2009. They were showcasing popular bibliographic tools like Reference Manager, EndNote and EndNote Web, as well as our interactive online technical reference collection, Knovel.
Product Manager, Stephanie Marshall reports, “It was a chance to catch up with existing customers and learn more about how they’re using their software on site. Events like this help us forge better links with users and support our efforts to help institutions promote their own software resources so they get full value from subscriptions.”
Red Nose Day is a big thing in the UK and a perfect excuse us all to have a bit of fun. This year it was on Friday 13th March. Of course it’s all in the best possible taste, well OK possibly not, but we have fun anyway. This Red Nose day we had several things going on. Apart from many of us wearing a red nose for the day we had candidates for the best moustache competition, a closely fought wellington boot throwing challenge and a bring and buy sale of all the things people should have got rid of years ago. Overall we raised £300 which is a small contribution to the £65 million raised on the day .
We had a photographer from our local paper (The Comet) come along who captured our wellie boot throwing efforts along with those of our guest for the day our local MEP Richard Howitt who really got into the swing of things! The highlight of the wellie boot throwing was Shellie managing a mighty throw which ended up with the boot on the roof our our building. As well as featuring in the local paper we also had more interesting pictures in their photo gallery we think Aileens moustache was pretty special
This photo of the less shy members of the Adept Scientific UK team shows the interesting people we have working here!
Red Nose Day 2009 at Adept Scientific
We get to see a lot of interesting projects here at Adept Scientific and we have been trying hard in the last year or so to share some of them with the wider world. We know people like to read about specific applications of our software and hardware in real world situations. As we get these stories published we are now able to include them in our new media centre so you can more easily read and refer to them. Here are a few examples, visit our media centre to link to many more.
If you are interested in working with us to write up an application and get it published please email an outline to michelle.bonness@adeptscience.co.uk . Of course it needs to feature one of our products too!
It has been a trying week for the team in our UK office as it has been very difficult to get to our building in Letchworth. Snow has fallen almost every day which is very unusual for the south of England and it’s still coming down. Unlike places that are used to heavy winter snowfalls the English authorities are not really set up to cope with these weather conditions. Many local authorities have now run out of salt and grit for the roads so driving is a slippy and slidey nightmare.
The good news is that many of the team can work almost as well from home, so that’s where they have stayed. We long ago invested in the technology to allow remote working so that people who wanted quiet time could work from home. On days and weeks like this it has proved very useful as people don’t have to battle through traffic jams or train delays to get to work. Of course there are still the dedicated few who have been able to get in each day to answer phones or ship out packages and even have had time to make snowmen in the car park.
We hope normal service is resumed next week although it looks like winter still has a firm grip on the UK.
As a visitor to our website you’ll know that it’s big, you’ll also know that it covers a lot of products and sectors. Our website has changed quite a bit over the years and we are wondering if it’s time for another change. Have we crammed too much information on each page? Is it easy to find the things you are looking for? Does it look OK in your browser? Does it tell you what we do, who we are, what our expertise is and how long we have been in the technical computing business?
We’d love to have your feedback on what we could do to improve our website and the services it provides. If you have any examples of websites that you particularly like please let us know and we can see what we can do to emulate them. Please send any feedback to me using paul.bragg@adeptscience.co.uk , I look forward to hearing from you.
P.S. For your interest Adept was founded in 1984 and we set up our first website in 1995. We have some general information on our history here
MapleSim is a ground breaking product from MapleSoft and we are relieved and excited that it’s finally been released. Its had months of intense pilot testing and feedback from approximately fifteen hundred organisations spanning 85 countries, more than for any product release we have ever seen. For all those who have been involved in its testing and development we say a massive thankyou for your commitment to making MapleSim really worth waiting for.
Maplesoft originally hoped to release MapleSim early in 2008 but people kept coming up with such good ideas for features that it was decided to delay it’s release until now. Although we would all have perhaps liked to have seen MapleSim released sooner we are really pleased that MapleSoft had the courage to delay it’s release to make sure it really is right first time. We have lots of information about MapleSim on our website and you can try it out by joining the MapleSim evaluation programme.
OK it’s very tough if you are in automotive or residential property, but you have to ask yourself why? Is it because credit has totally dried up? I am told it hasn’t for those who have the ability to repay. Of course you can’t get 125% mortgages anymore, but who thought that was a good idea, except the people selling them. People we know in the finance sector are saying that the problem is that there is a buyers strike. Why are people not buying? We think it’s primarily because of the fear and uncertainty stirred up by the media. House sales are picking up from their low point but that’s not a story thats been covered, no - all we hear is that they are way down from this time last year. What the media doesn’t mention is that last year we were in the midst of an unsustainable and unaffordable lending boom.
Of course with all this media generated doom and gloom frenzy its hard to think that the sky is not falling but for most people and organisations it isn’t. At least for most of the organisations that Adept Scientific works with it isn’t and long may that situation continue. Of course every project and purchase has to be carefully cost justified to make sure there is an appropriate return on investment but in recent years has that not always been the case? We now live in a very competitive fast moving global market where the keys to success are innovation coupled with ever increasing efficiency.
Our goal at Adept Scientific has always been to help people work smarter and not harder. By supplying technical software and hardware designed to let people perform tasks that they were not able to do before or allow them to speed up old processes by orders of magnitude.
We like this comment from Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, during a previous economic downturn.
He was asked, “What are you going to do about the recession.”
He answered, “We don’t plan to participate.”
We have recently been notified of this event being held at Lancaster Unversity.
Departmental Colloquium
Professor Friedemann T Freund
(NASA Ames Research Center, California), “Physics behind Pre-Earthquake Signals”
Stressed rocks generate electric currents, leading to the emission of IR photons, which constitute Earth’s Thermal IR Anomaly (TIR); observable days before earthquakes. Detection of TIR from space can be the basis of an earthquake warning system.
Venue: Cavendish Lecture Theatre, Lancaster University
Date/time: 4 pm Wednesday 19th November, 2008
If there are other events like this that people would like us to publicise we will do our best to help spread the word. If there are enough of them you may set up a special area on our website to cover them
