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PLAN IT (Amstrad Computer User) | PLAN IT (Amstrad Action) |
Oh happy day! It has finally occurred! I cannot believe it! I have received a review copy that has no bits missing! Seriously though, public-relations people should not complain about poor reviews if the manuals, disks, roms , boxes, competition leaflets, dentures or whatever 1 get bear little resemblance to what appears in the high-street computer shops. Enough! Database, long renowned for cheap. good-quality serious software has produced another compendium that will probably take a running jump high into the charts Planlt - subtitled "the COMPLETE personal organiser' - contains a financial diary, an electronic card-index and a home accounts program.
To get into any of these, you just select from a menu, using the cursor keys and Return. All the menus are in mode 1, and so are easy to read, but the programs sometimes work in mode 2, which is not so good if you have a colour monitor or modulator. The program prompts you often and rarely fails to tell you how to proceed from your present place. In other words, the modulus are very user-friendly. The press release is anything but modest. 'Plan your life with the complete personal organiser." "Allows users to control complex aspects of their daily lives ... with a few simple keystrokes'Read on for the truth. The financial diary is designed to have one file in memory at a time - this is known as the Activity file. The idea is that you type in the date, time, any relevant notes and the amount of money involved (it is a financial diary, not an ordinary one). You can store around 200 rendezvous before you run short of memory. Once you have done this, you can commit the information into a series of Monthly files. This is known as Archiving, and is just a method of storing old information that you don't need on hand but which is still available for reading. You can oven re-edit it. though I have no idea why - for fiddling the books, perhaps? This financial diary is obviously for people involved in a lot of meetings which involve money and which naturally, have to be accurately recorded; for example, salesmen keeping records of expenses This is not just a notebook, though - you can arrange fixtures months or even years ahead. Indeed there is an option to call up a calendar program that works from 1900 up to 9999 AD. which is a handy thing except that I doubt if many people will still b« using it in 9999 I would say that the financial diary is the most professionally programmed part of Planlt. although I myself would not find it very useful. The card index makes no pretence at being a state-of-the-art database. It simply tries to replace the ordinary card index with a paperless one. It is not at all difficult to use. Each card is known as a record, and each record has a number of fields. The first is already set up as the Surname field, the second as the Christian name. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth are used for the address and the last for the telephone. Only seven fields? Yes. that's all folks! The style of documentation for the card index is the same as for the other modules. What is missing is a little hard information The home-accounts module is what most people will buy Planlt for. since it is the most useful. The program can handle up to 24 accounts, for things like telephone, electricity, mongage. computer software etc. To pay for these, you have a cash account, up to nine different credit card accounts and your bank account. You can enter up to 400 transactions between these accounts during a month, and at the end of a month you receive a statement of just what has gone on. 'Personal'accounts is how the manual names this section. I cannot see anyone completing 400 financial transactions a money for just one person, which is why I renamed it 'Home" accounts. My only real complaint is that Planlt does not have anything like the potential of Mini Office II, which was another Database offering. If you are in need of a simple accounts program, a card index and a financial diary, this represents excellent value for money. I simply cannot think of many people who would want to buy it. AA, AMSTRAD ACTION #18 |
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