INFORMATION PLEASE SAMPLER There are many ways Information Please can be used to store and retreive information. This database contains a variety of single entries to give you an idea of how you can use Information Please. MY PERSONAL DIARY Information Please can be your personal diary. Like any diary, you can enter ideas, record information and capture stories. What is different about an Information Please diary is that you can quickly search for information once it is stored in the diary. For example: 1. Lots of people have ideas, but they somehow escape us unless we write them down somewhere - keep trakc of them in your diary. 2. If you are a supervisor, it is becoming increasingly important for you to keep accurate records of conversations and conferences with employees. What better way is there than to keep a Personnel Diary database? 3. Heard a joke or an interesting story that might come in handy for a speech later? Trouble is, we always forget those stories when we need them! Store them in an Information Please -- then you can search for them later when they are needed. 4. Record you personal thoughts, facts, anything that you might want to reference later -- Information Please can help you do it. EMERGENCY PROCEDURES Businesses use contingency planning to decide beforehand what to do if something goes wrong - a disaster. 1. Place an Information Please Emergency Procedures information base on each person's PC who might need to know the information. 2. When there are changes, there is no need to print a zillion manuals -- just send a new disk to all involved, or update over your network. 3. Use keywords pointing to each team (Resources Team, Personnel Team, etc), to priority and procedure. Include items like phone numbers of personnel, vendors, govenrmental bodies, and so on. Also include step-by-step procedures for dealing with emergencies. What happens when the air conditioning goes out? the phones go down? the power goes out? (Helpdesk works well on a laptop under battery power.) And so on... Access to information during a crisis can same lots of time and money! Here is A Story I Might Use in a Talk Some Day From A DAILY DOSE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM, Alan C. Elliott, Saybrook Publishing, 1989 The Beginnings of EDS "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." -Thoreau H. Ross Perot was sitting in a barber shop reading the READER'S DIGEST when he saw a quote at the bottom of the page from Henry David Thoreau, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Perot was a good salesman for IBM, but felt he was not meeting his potential. As a salesman, he noticed that people were buying computers, and really didn't know what to do with them. He had the idea of selling companies not only the computers, but also the software and staff; the entire data processing department. IBM listened to Perot's idea, but said that 80 cents of the computer dollar (at the time) was spent on hardware and only 20 cents on software. The 20 cents looked good to Perot, but IBM turned down the idea. After the episode at the barber shop, Perot made the decision of his life. He quit IBM and spent $1,000 to start EDS. He had no computer, no staff, only an idea. At first he bought time on an IBM 7070, and went around the country trying to sell his time. He went to 79 companies before he got his first sale. Without a staff, he had to find 7070 operators who would help him on their off-time. Those same people have never worked another day for Perot, but he kept them on the payroll and they received EDS stock. "If those guys hadn't done the job for me, there would be no EDS." CONSIDER THIS:There is that one moment in our lives when we decide to break out of a rut and move on to something greater. Is that moment right now for you? Each character that is displayed on the screen has an ASCII number associated with it. For example, the ASCII number of the letter A is 65. There are many characters that you can print on the screen that are not on your keyboard. These are ASCII characters number 127 to 254. To print one of these characters, hold the ALT key down, then type in the ASCII number on the numeric keypad. When you lift up on the ALT key, the character will appear. These characters come in handy when you want to make a picture, table or diagram on the screen. For example: ┌─────────────────┐ │ ┌───────────┐ │ │ │Information│ ▄ │ │ │ Please │ │ │ │ is great! │ ° │ │ └───────────┘ ° │ ┌─────┴═════════════════┴────┐ │ ▄ ▄▄▄──▄▄▄ ▄▄▄──▄▄▄ │ │ │││││││ █▄▄__▄▄█ █▄▄__▄▄█ │ └────────────────────────────┘ ┌──╥──┐┌──╥──╥──╥──╥──╥──╥──╥──╥──╥──╥──╥──╥──╥─────╥─────╥─────┐ │F1║F2││ES║ 1║ 2║ 3║ 4║ 5║ 6║ 7║ 8║ 9║ 0║ -║ =║ -- ║NumLk║ScrLk│ ╞══╬══╡╞══╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩═╦═══╬══╦══╬══╦══╡ │F3║F4││-│║Q ║W ║E ║R ║T ║Y ║U ║I ║O ║P ║[ ║] ║ │║7 ║8 ║9 ║- │ ╞══╬══╡╞═══╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩╦═╩╦══╣─┘╠══╬══╬══╬══╡ │F5║F6││Ctrl║A ║S ║D ║F ║G ║H ║J ║K ║L ║; ║' ║` ║ ║4 ║5 ║6 ║ │ ╞══╬══╡╞═══╦╩═╦╩═╦╩═╦╩═╦╩═╦╩═╦╩═╦╩═╦╩═╦╩═╦╩═╦╩══╬═══╬══╬══╬══╣ │ │F7║F8││ ║\ ║Z ║X ║C ║V ║B ║N ║M ║, ║. ║/ ║ ║ * ║1 ║2 ║3 ║+ │ ╞══╬══╡╞═══╩═╦╩══╩══╩══╩══╩══╩══╩══╩══╩══╩╦═╩═══╬═══╩══╬══╩══╣ │ │F9║F0││ Alt ║ ║CapLk║ 0 ║ . ║ │ └──╨──┘└─────╨────────────────────────────╨─────╨──────╨─────╨──┘ Some of the most useful ASCII characters for making boxes are listed below: For making single line boxes For making double line boxes ----------------------------------- ---------------------------------- 218 ┌ 196 ─ 191 ┐ 194 ┬ 201 ╔ 205 ═ 187 ╗ 203 ╦ 179 │ 195 ├ 180 ┤ 193 ┴ 186 ║ 204 ╠ 185 ╣ 202 ╩ 192 └ 197 ┼ 217 ┘ 200 ╚ 206 ╬ 188 ╝ Connectors Other Characters ------------------------------------ ---------------------------------- 181 ╡ 182 ╢ 183 ╖ 184 ╕ 127 128 Ç 129 ü 130 é 189 ╜ 190 ╛ 198 ╞ 199 ╟ 131 â 132 ä 133 à 134 å 207 ╧ 208 ╨ 209 ╤ 211 ╙ 135 ç 136 ê 137 ë 138 è 212 ╘ 213 ╒ 214 ╓ 215 ╫ 139 ï 140 î 141 ì 142 Ä 216 ╪ 176 ░ 177 ▒ 178 ▓ 143 Å 144 É 145 æ 146 Æ Look in your DOS or BASIC manual for a complete listing of these Extended ASCII characters and their decimal code numbers.
