10015. Created EPPMS 5.210 to correct the IPPIS nominal import error observed at NRC yesterday and also stop automatic data retrieval for the IPPIS Import Notes list. We re-imported the IPPIS September nominal and payroll data and investigated the disparity in the gross pay totals produced by EPPMS and the IPPIS payroll spreadsheet, finding the difference to be due to the two people whose payroll data were not imported because their IPPIS IDs were not found in the database.

10026. Implemented EPPMS 5.22 to automatically add any staff found during payroll import with IPPIS ids that didn’t exist in the database, along with creating the Ctrl+Q shortcut for querying, then re-imported the September payroll to see that the gross pay total now corresponded to the IPPIS payroll spreadsheet total.

10052. Made the first of four visits to NRC this month, to update the EPPMS database and application files.

10074. After the Printwiser client reported that the database servicing update prepared for them few days ago did not work we decided to pay them a visit to resolve their Printwiser Planning database issues. Their technical staff had unknowingly downloaded the same database he sent us via WeSend rather than the repaired one via our email link, which was the reason he reported it still didn’t work. And on top of this, they complicated things by disorganizing the ODBC settings, in their bid to resolve the issues, and somehow got the database engine’s Windows service deleted.

10155. We looked into the issue of writing text in Igbo language. An author had referred to an “Igbo Times New Roman” font on Twitter, and we saw nothing as such on checking the web, but only a system of mapping keyboard keys in MS Word to the dotted vowel symbols shown on the “Latin Extended Additionals” character subset of the Times New Roman font. We implemented such in OpenOffice Writer via macros, so that pressing Alt+Shift with O, I, or U produced the Igbo vowels Ọ, Ị, Ụ, while pressing Ctrl+Shift with the letters produced the lower-case versions.

10181. EPPMS user reported that after someone “touched” their system (in his absence) all the EPPMS program icons changed to PDF icons, wanting us to tell him how to resolve the issue. We investigated the issue online and printed out a resulting page from the Adobe website with some solutions, seeing that the issue could result from installing Adobe Acrobat or Reader. We revised Gerian to address a couple of nagging issues having to do with the PriceBenders Auction List (“Cursor not in a valid state” error message, found resulting from a zero divide attempt) and failure sometimes on the HIDDEN form in pasting of clues copied from the HIDDEN web page (found due to the presence of carriage return and newline characters in copied text).

10203. Continued revision of Gerian by implementing a faster display of the Key Code List, with the signups and hits being updated via triggers rather than being calculated when the list was being displayed, and then updating the Affiliate List with the columns SQ, SV, CV for sales quota, sales volume and commission volume, the first two introduced with the new SFI in September.

10214. We visited NRC to resolve the reported issue from earlier in the week. What we found on the computer there was baffling, some application files and ODBC settings missing and all shortcuts set to be opened with EPPMS, not showing as PDF as earlier reported. It turned out someone not familiar with EPPMS had used the Search function of Windows and then chosen Acrobat as the program to use to open the EPPMS shortcut files that were found. That was when all shortcuts on the Desktop got changed to PDF icons and in a bid to reverse the mistake the person had gone on to select EPPMS as the application to open shortcut (.lnk) files, which further complicated things. We were able to resolve the issues—thanks to the research we did on Monday—and recreated ODBC settings and replaced the missing EPPMS application files from our flash backups.

10225. Revised Gerian to have the PriceBenders Auction List display in descending order by date, address an issue with importing Rewardical redemption records copied from the website, and finally shift when a copied clue that was pasted onto the HIDDEN game form was checked for extraneous characters, to right after entry and before specifying the word pattern. Further revision later in the month displayed a marker when such extraneous characters were seen to avoid confusing the user, as if the extraneous character was the newline, nothing might be seen in the edit box and it would look like nothing was pasted.

10251. Revised the key code hits summary report in Gerian as well as the HIDDEN new game form: Sorted the report so that the key code with highest hits came tops, and to avoid situations when the word copy button was not pressed successfully and the word not copied, changed the display of the word to italics once the copying was done.

10273. Revisited the web research on Igbo keyboard, testing out the Igbo keyboard available in Windows via Control Panel, then reviewing a number of websites that offered virtual keyboards where you could type the accented Igbo letters, with Branah.com having the best features. We ended the research by creating two OpenOffice Writer macros with Alt+Shift+N and Ctrl+Shift+N to produce the Igbo characters Ñ and ñ, to add to the ones done earlier in the month. We also had Alt+Shift+G for producing the ₦ sign.

10284. During our last visit of the month to NRC they reported that EPPMS payroll totals for the districts when added up varied from the summary total for all staff in the months of January, June and August. We investigated and saw no such thing so whoever had written down the figures had made calculation or transcription errors instead.