Support Site
For more information visit our LabCom support pages which, includes basic problem solving, user guides, tutorials and links to all our handy How To's.


Video tutorials
We will be adding a selection of video tutorials to our Support area. These will be designed to guide you and your staff through various aspects of LabCom; they can be used for refresher information or in training new members of staff.
WATCH THIS SPACE!


Current Version
To check what version you currently have, open LabCom and click on the ABOUT button. A small box will display, in the centre you will find the version number, it should read 2.3.8 and the date below should show 03 April 2008. You can download the latest version (reads as 2.3.9) of LabCom from our website.


Who are Village?
Founded in 1986, Village Software has extensive experience in software support and development particularly in the business to business field.

Village has brought the latest development technologies and ideas to bear on the LabCom product and continues to bring innovation to its clients through its products and services.

Web-based LabCom
Wherever you need it


Working with LabCom in various settings has taught us that one man's computer heaven is another man's computer hell. One of the most common problems with transferring data via the internet is getting it out there to start with. There are trusted systems, terminal services, viral screeners, hardware firewalls, software firewalls or logging systems that want to block your every move.

To overcome this Village have created a new method of LabCom access, via internet browsers. Browsers are known programs with pre-defined access, LabCom inside a browser gives clients the ability to view their data wherever they are and whenever they need to, only requiring access to the internet and nothing more.

While the rich Windows based LabCom is feature rich the browser based alternative does offer some features for people to use. The web version of this can be accessed from the (New) LabCom web site, by clicking on login on the top right. You can use your normal username and password to access the live system through.

Please have a look. We are interested in your experiences during this Beta testing phase. Please feel free to send us your thoughts or comments via email or phone.

Support Desk
Help is on hand
The LabCom support desk can supply various help to enable you to run your business smoothly. This includes writing custom reports and extracting unusual data.

Example
     Send me a full list of site locations used in last 12 months - £100
     Can you customise a report for sending onto an end client? - £300

Human Interest
When we're not working!
Village MD Johnny, is expecting the pitter patter of tiny feet in the spring. "There goes the plasma screen cinema surround sound megaplex in the lounge" said the father of two, soon to be three.

How To
Cut and Paste Data
Locate your information on screen, be it sample, test or search information.

Select

For 1 sample, click on the grey tab at the left hand side

For the entire collection press [Ctrl] + A

For a group of samples [Shift] ([↑]) + click on the top sample then the bottom sample.

For a mix of samples [Ctrl] + click on each individual sample.

Highlight

Then release the [Ctrl] or [Shift] ([↑]), your chosen lines will be highlighted (grey).

Copy

Pressing [Ctrl] + C will copy the data

Move

Open your document and place the cursor where you wish to deposit the information

Paste

Press [Ctrl] + V to paste the data

Give it a try, copy information from the test screen into excel.

Further How To
Export Data to Excel
You can also export your sample(s) directly into Excel. Using the same method above to select and highlight your sample(s), you then click on "Export Samples" in the toolbar. This method will prompt you for a filename and to choose the location where you wish to save the file to.


Once saved you can open the CSV file by double clicking on it, it will open in your spreadsheet application and display your sample information. If the information appears as ###### the column needs to be resized to fit the data. Once you have finished altering your data you can save it as an Excel (.xls) worksheet.



F.Y.I
For Your Information
Our programmers are at work on the list of new features we want to add to LabCom but, there are also interesting features that we are never going to get around to. To this end we are collaborating with 2 final year students from Liverpool University who are working on their final year dissertation.

Mel is working on talking to LabCom through a blue tooth headset, possibly useful for result recording in lab and sample reception, but mostly for fun. Somewhat more down to earth, Peter is working on web services a means for other systems to communicate automatically with LabCom over the web.