FEDESSA Tradeshow

Acronym of the Month

Greetings, %%Facility name%%. Welcome to our July issue, featuring updates from a number of events we've been involved with + the usual swag of regulars.

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

The 2011 Conference of the Federation of European Self Storage Associations (FEDESSA) was held at the Tivoli Marina Hotel in Vilamoura, Portugal - a large and very well-run hotel serving both the conference and holidaymaker markets.

Located on one of the southernmost points in Europe, the hotel seemed at first glance to be rather out of the way for European delegates (and there was some subsequent criticism that several had to catch connecting flights to get there and return home) but a smaller conference was being run simultaneously elsewhere in the hotel for the major clients of a radio station based in Sacramento, California!

The economic climate meant that the number of delegates (68 firms and 125 people from Europe, plus one firm from South Africa and another from Brazil) was about 30% down on last year’s conference held in Berlin and delegates who visited the StorMan Software stand confirmed that, in some parts of Europe, the market is a lot tougher than it has been in recent years.

Several delegates blamed much of the difficulty on fewer people moving home/relocating offices and one who suggested that people are now inclined to be more ruthless in disposing of spare “assets” (mainly to the local tip!) rather than paying to have them stored... view more photos & continue reading this blog.

13th July 2011: SSAA (Self Storage Association of Australasia) Regional Meeting (Queensland). A StorMan staff member will be attending & our 6th SSAA Convention prize will be drawn at this event! Register at the SSAA website.

27th July 2011: SSAA (Self Storage Association of Australasia) Regional Meeting (Auckland). A StorMan staff member will be attending this event. Register at the SSAA website.

16 - 18 August 2011: SSAA (Self Storage Association of Australasia) Tradeshow & Conference in Melbourne. As major event sponsors, StorMan will be exhibiting at this event. Register at the SSAA website.

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.

Giant cupcake cake-mould: Cake tins come in almost all shapes and sizes... round ones, square ones, rectangular ones... I could go on all day. But what about a cupcake-shaped one?

"What's so good about that?", I hear you ask. I'm not talking regular sized cupcakes or muffin's here. I'm talking a cake tin... that's shaped to make your cake look like one MEGA cupcake (25x larger than a regular cupcake, to be correct)!

Grab yours here for just $15 (price is in AUD & is correct at the time of writing. Price excludes shipping).

Nb. All 'Latest Gadget' information & imagery is sourced from online entities & supplier websites. StorMan generally doesn't endorse, own or test any of these products; we merely link to them as you might find them interesting or fun for your own use...

Jake was standing on one side of the river and his dog Scruffy was standing on the other side; the river has no bridges. "Come on Scruffy, come, boy!" shouted Jake. Scruffy crossed the river, ran to Jake, and got a treat for being a good dog. The amazing thing was that Scruffy didn't even get wet! How did Scruffy do that?

Answer to last month's brainteaser: Three (the number of letters in the word).

StorMan is putting together a video presentation to show on the big video-screens at the upcoming SSAA Conference "Awards Dinner" in front of over 300 members of the Self Storage community... and we need your help!

Your photos on the big screen

Part of this video package is a bit of a look at the "History of Self Storage" - and we need your help putting it together! We're looking for self-storage photos; for example...

• Photos from when your facility first opened
• Photos from any self-storage related events over the years
• Photos from facility expansions
• Any funny-photos you may have (storage related)

If you have any photos that may assist, please email them to andy@storman.com as soon as possible. Please let us know if you'd like us to include your name, company or a caption under any of the photos.

Your logo on the big screen

As a StorMan user, we'd also like to say thanks and put your logo up on the big screens. If you'd like to get involved, please email your logo to andy@storman.com as soon as possible.

Thank you for your support & assistance.

StorMan is giving away six "Self Storage Association of Australasia Convention 2-Day Passes" worth over $1,200 each. These passes provide free access to the SSAA convention & tradeshow in Melbourne (August 16 - 18, 2011).

We've given away a total of five passes so far, with just one more up for grabs. Our final pass will be drawn at the Queensland SSAA Regional Dinner on July 13th. If you've purchased StorMan in the last few months, you're automatically in this final draw.

We'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate our five winners to date and look forward to seeing you in Melbourne for the conference!

• Congratulations Fiona Shaw (from Rent-a-Space at St Mary's)
• Congratulations Tina Carter (from Metro Storage at Marrickville)
• Congratulations David King (from Storage King Highett)
• Congratulations Ross Martin (from Sure Safe Storage at Mornington)
• Congratulations Jeffrey Muggleton (from Maxi Containers & Storage)

If you're name appears above and you haven't yet been contacted by the Self Storage Association of Australasia, please get in touch with them ASAP to organise your attendance information with them. Good luck to those in the draw for the sixth and final convention pass!

Computer-generated imagery (or CGI) is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media.

The visual scenes may be either dynamic or static. The term computer animation refers to dynamic CGI rendered as a movie. The term virtual world refers to agent-based, interactive environments. 3D computer graphics software is used to make computer-generated imagery for movies, etc.

Recent availability of CGI software and increased computer speeds have allowed individual artists and small companies to produce professional-grade films, games, and fine art from their home computers.

Read more about CGI at Wikipedia...

Back when computers were the size of houses & cars, their advertisements were just as quirky. Have a giggle and join us on a journey through decades & check out these 101 classic computer ads from the past few decades.

This month, we flashback to May 2008 when Ben discussed "The dangers for your business when handling a customer's private data". Read Ben's blog here.

Hide rows or columns in Microsoft Office Excel

If you've ever worked with a large spreadsheet, there may have come a time when you needed to view two columns side-by-side, but don't want to delete the columns that are in-between. Good thing, then, that you can hide columns (or rows) in Excel!

To do so, select the column(s) or row(s) in question, right-click on the row/column header and select "Hide". To unhide, select the columns or rows on either side, right-click on the row/column header again and select "Unhide".

An epic fetch...

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

The 57 on Heinz ketchup bottles represents the number of varieties of pickles the company once had.