Team Rincon

We've moved.....

2010-12-02T15:53:00.000+05:30

Old order changeth..... Well, we've finally done it. We have moved the blog to our own domain. The new link is here.

Please update your favourites or RSS feeds. This site will remain intact (unless google does something to it) but no more posts will be made here.

For all Alchemy / RALA Customers

2010-12-01T15:40:00.000+05:30

One of our Alchemy / RightFax Archive Link for Alchemy (RALA) customers recently faced a challenge of a different nature. Almost 18,00,000 important documents archived in Alchemy / RALA solution are in danger due to the failure of the hard drive. The documents in question hold Business critical information.

The data recovery process of the hardware OEM has only been able to recover the majority of the repository files, but the indexing information (search field values) seem to be permanently lost. This has led to unsearchable documents. At present, the documents are searchable only on the basis of file date (or archived date) which is surely not a practical solution and is not helping much to the business users.

The point we want to reiterate here is that the usage of a solution like Alchemy / RALA is to free-up your production applications (such as Fax server (RightFax)) from historical data so that it responds faster and stays healthy. At the same time, the historical data is not deleted permanently but instead archived for future reference or compliance. It is NOT a backup solution.

On a more technical note, Alchemy / RALA is an archiving solution which will store documents in a repository in Alchemy software. An Alchemy / RALA repository represents a set of files which are used to store / archive and index documents. Just like any other data files, these repository files are susceptible to corruption and other problems and should be treated with the same amount of care as any other business critical data. Alchemy / RALA repositories must be backed up.

Feel free to contact our sales team or mail us on sales@rincon.co.in to discuss this in more details and share some tips on how this risk can be mitigated. We are at your service as ever.

Contributed by Hitesh Sanghavi

New Web Site

2010-11-29T15:11:00.000+05:30

Our new website has finally taken off. A project that has been going on for God alone knows how many days. We were looking for a good host and found Godaddy.com and then a tool that would simplify the management of the website content and finally settled for wordpress. While the content as on date is the same as the old web site, expect changes as and when they come along. After all change is the only constant in life:-) Thanks to Priya and Bhavesh for their ceaseless efforts in seeing this project through.
Contributed by Manish Kamdar

Team Rincon - Our Next Generation

2010-11-19T10:23:00.000+05:30

No this in no way is to say that we are old or such but felt that we ought to highlight also what the next generation is upto. Khush Rathod, son of Bhavesh and Siddhi Rathod is featured in an advertisement for Kotak Mahindra Bank. Even if he is there for a few seconds, you can't miss the happy go lucky Khush as the child in the clip. As a part of Team Rincon, it is a matter of pride that our next generation is on to achieve laurels that we never did :-)

Here is the link

Diwali 2010 Celebrations

2010-11-08T10:37:00.001+05:30

Diwali is the festival of lights symbolizing the victory of good over evil - and the glory of light. In the midst of today's busy lifestyle, Diwali gives an opportunity to pause and be grateful for what we have, to make special memories with family and friends, to laugh and enjoy what life offers us. Every year, this festival comes back with all the excitement and merriment.

Like every year, we had another round of Diwali celebration at our office for Diwali. The office was decorated by Shankar with lamps and festoons et al. The rangoli was meticulously done by Priya and Anu (looks like it is an annual routine for them considering they do it year on year). The mail had asked everyone to be at their tradition best in attire and in keeping with it the ladies came in Saris and men in Kurta pyjamas. Some of the men decided to play truant and came in shorts and t shirts. I guess this was to do with the evolution of the lifestyle. The environment was very bright, colorful and pleasant. Kavya and Kshitij were also present that day and had to go about distributing chocolates to the entire team and wishing each one a Happy Diwali and a Happy New Year.

At 3.30 pm we had a round of fun games which were conducted by Priya, Anu and Bhavesh. These were games of one minute duration when a pair was expected to do a certain task (surely not easy) and the winner of the two went to the next round. All laughed and enjoyed pulling each others' legs. The final was tied twice and the eventual winner was Santosh. Kavya and Kshitij too enjoyed the games a lot especially putting paper clips into soft-drink bottle one by one. Bhavesh distributed one pretty chocolate Gems and wished Happy Diwali to everyone (much to the discomfort of Manish who wanted all of them). This reminded me that "Good things come in small packets". Pauravi (Mrs. Manish) and Sujatha (Mrs. Kiran) also joined in this celebration. Sunil took the responsibility of getting Diwali special snacks, Besan Ladoos and delicious Sev Puri.

Priya, Bhavesh, Roopesh and Kiran also took the opportunity of taking this celebration photographs. You can see the entire collection of photographs here.

All in all we had a day full of fun and frolic and we all welcomed the new year in a very special way.

Contributed by Harshad Thakkar

Announcing Open Text Hosted Fax Services

2010-10-20T14:58:00.000+05:30

The Open Text Hosted Fax Services offering enables organizations to simplify and meet business objectives with a rich, scalable, and fully integrated hosted Fax Server system managed by the experts at Open Text.

With Open Text Hosted Fax Services, enterprise organizations in a range of industries, including healthcare, financial services and government, can now lower the total cost of ownership of their fax infrastructure by leveraging their fax infrastructure Managed Hosted Services offerings from Open Text.

Take a look at the Open Text Blog entry here.

Dassera Celebrations 2010

2010-10-19T18:36:00.001+05:30

Dassera is the festival of victory of good over evil. It is the day when Lord Rama killed the demon Ravana. It is considered a very auspicious day here in India and people worship their tools, tackle etc. on that day.

As part of the Dassera festivities, Team Rincon had organised a small party on Friday, October 14, 2010 since Dassera was falling on a Sunday this year. While we had planned that all should be in traditional outfits, only few of us actually turned up that way as the sales team had meetings to attend to. We feasted on some traditional Gujarati savouries like dhokla and kachoris from Matunga and also had a yummy sweet dish, malai sandwich.

We all wished each other with open hearts. I felt this was the time when the entire team actually met and truly opened their hearts. We enjoyed every moment to the fullest. The actual photographs are missing as our official photographer, Bhavesh forgot to get his DSLR camera (which otherwise is always stationed on his desk). Thankfully Kiran and Sunil stepped in with the cameras in their mobile phones. (God bless Nokia)

Last but not the least my heartfelt thanks to all who participated in the joy of Dassera. There is more to come.
Contributed by Shanti Devadiga

Casey's Furniture automates paper based order fulfillment

2010-10-07T13:21:00.000+05:30

Discover how Casey’s Furniture automated manual order fulfillment processes to eliminate delays and inefficiencies by implementing an integrated, paper-free content solution utilizing Microsoft and Open Text technologies.

Digital Photocopiers Loaded With Secrets

2010-09-22T09:38:00.000+05:30

Further to my post last night, came across this interesting news item on how digital photocopiers can act as leakage points in the business ecosystem.

Check this out.

FDIC issues alert regarding sensitive data on fax machines

2010-09-21T22:18:00.001+05:30

Last week, the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) in the USA issued guidance on mitigating risks posed by information stored on fax machines, photocopiers and printers. These devices are used by a lot of organisations sending and receiving a lot of confidential and sensitive information.

To quote from the report "Many financial institutions lease photocopiers, fax machines and printers for a set period of time. At the end of the lease period, the devices are returned to the leasing company and either sold or leased again. Anyone who takes subsequent possession of a device that was used by a financial institution may be able to access the hard drive or flash memory and view digital images of the documents that were processed by the device, thus giving them access to sensitive personal and business information concerning the institution’s customers."

How often do we think of the risks posed by such devices? Thought provoking...

Read the full blog post by Matthew Brine here which also has the link to the FDIC guidance.

Posted by Manish Kamdar

Our 12th Birthday Celebrations

2010-07-02T22:17:00.003+05:30

June 26, 2010 when Rincon completed 12 years and to celebrate our entry into teens we decided to do something different. Here is what some of the team members wrote:

Bhavesh Rathod wrote:

We often celebrate our birthdays with our dear and near ones. This time it was different with Team Rincon. On our 12th birthday we visited 3 orphanages. It was really nice to see the whole team together there and would like to thank the whole team for making it special by their presence.

Sunday 27th June we visited a school at Matunga where service is provided by Sunday Friends. I was stunned to see so many people waiting on the footpath (approx 150 people). Sunday friends made all the arrangements for food, packed nicely in a white box. With the help of them and some of us, food was distributed to all of them in a span of 10 minutes. I had never done this before.

Sunday friends are doing a very nice job. Many thanks to them. A drive back home made me think ... People who have every thing in life ... if they could donate a little food or some essential things, the needy people would not require to beg around the streets of Mumbai rather any where in the world.

Thanks Rincon for giving me the opportunity. Spare some time for people who require a little help.

Ashish Baby wrote:

Many of the Indians don’t know where their next meal is coming from or if they might even get one. On the occasion of Rincon's 12th birthday, we decided to feed some one needy instead of ourselves. On Saturday June 26, 2010 the entire Rincon team along with our family members joined children from Shradhanand Mahilashram and BJ Home, two orphanages for lunch. We spent some quality time with the kids at Shradhanand Mahilashram. The person incharge at BJ home showed us the kitchen and explained their routine. It was a place where our spirit soared and our soul grounded. What touched our hearts tremendously was how these organisations had embraced these under privileged children of our community!

Ruchir Sharma wrote:

I had heard a lot about under privileged kids being taken care of at ashrams. For the first time experienced how they crave for love. Two incidents which I like to share:

At Shraddhanand Mahilashram, I was standing on the side when the kids were being server with Lunch. I was as usual holding a folding umbrella in my hands. There was a boy aged around 5 years who came to me and said what is this? I actually thought have these children not seen this?

After that, there was a boy who was sitting near one of the doors and I said hello to him. He said "Mama" (as usual what other kids there said) Then I touched him on his head and he was pleased. So even I went on my knees and touched his cheek. He did the same thing to me as well. He touched my head and my cheek, and when I got up to walk, he started crawling. He was an absolutely normal boy when he was sitting, never ever thought that he couldn't walk. But God had not given him the power to stand. He had to crawl as monkeys do walk and move forward.

Both the experiences makes me feel just one thing. "Value and Thank Every Bit What God Gives Us"

Kiran Rao wrote:

On the occasion of the twelfth anniversary of Rincon, Team Rincon sponsored through Sunday Friends food packets for the welfare of the down-trodden. Sunday Friends is established with a clear concept of genuine help and they believe in “We make a living by what we get, but we make a Life by what we give”

We went to the venue and to our utter amazement we saw at least 100-150 men, women and children sitting on the footpath waiting for the food to be distributed. Sunday Friends had organised food packets and it was brought in a tempo. We were all given packets to be distributed and the volunteers of Sunday Friends clearly instructed the people to take only one packet and not to move from their place till the distribution was completed.

During the distribution, a funny incident took place. One of the volunteers was giving a packet to one lady who requested for 2 packets viz one for her and one for her child. The volunteer told her that he could not see the child anywhere. She told him that she is pregnant and the baby is inside. Obviously her request was not entertained. Meanwhile they ran out of food packets as the number of people exceeded their expectations. The volunteers requested all the people who got the food packets to move on and the people who did not get were told to be seated. Immediately they called up their resources and arranged for some more packets. At this point of time Harshad joined us with his wife and son. The next consignment of packets was distributed by Kavya (Manish's daughter) and Kshitij (Harshad's son) and they were maha thrilled about it.

It was an experience worth having, I mean about feeding the destitute and less fortunate.

Priya More wrote:

Had the privilege to visit Shradhanand Mahilashram run for the benefit of destitute women and children on June 26 at 11.30 am. The smiling faces of the little children before me filled me with happiness. The children there are bright may they their future also be bright. Thanks to Rincon... got to learn something from this visit never to waste food... I promise I will never waste my food no matter how bad it can taste and how full I may be.

Photographs can be viewed here These include pictures of our lunch together at good old Anand Bhavan whose coffee is mind blowing and whose coffee and food shaped the early years of Team Rincon.

Hospitality World - Mumbai 2010

2010-01-25T12:30:00.006+05:30

With an aim to increase awareness in the hospitality sector, we participated in the Hospitality World - Mumbai 2010 exhibition which was held from Jan 21 – 23 at the MMRDA Grounds, Bandra Kurla complex, Mumbai. The hospitech seminar attended by IT professionals from various the hospitality segments also created some ripples in the other sectors making all aware about the importance of security, data mining and the need to have a disaster recovery solution. The infamous 26/11 terror attack (in which 2 iconic hotels of Mumbai were attacked) was an eye opener. Many hotels felt the need for better IT solutions which could be managed remotely (ie from outside the hotel premises). Many propsetcs and customers visited our stall and appreciated the solutions portrayed. We are working on getting them converted from prospects to customers. Seen in the picture Ashish Baby in the foreground, Sanal Nair, a visitor, Mr. Sreekumar Nair of Concept Hospitality, Harshad Thakkar.
Contributed by Ashish Baby

IndusInd Bank's green initiative

2010-01-05T11:19:00.003+05:30

This article appeared in Business Standard of December 22, 2009 in which they talked about the green initiatives of IndusInd Bank. They have made a mention of paperless fax which happens to be nothing but OpenText Fax server formerly known as RightFax. Team Rincon is proud to be associated with IndusInd Bank in this noble initiative to conserve paper. Let us all do our bit for the environment.

The press release can be viewed here.
Contributed by Ruchir Sharma

Merry Christmas from Team Rincon

2009-12-23T15:55:00.002+05:30

Khichdi Party at 93.5 Red FM

2009-11-24T18:15:00.004+05:30

Today was the most memorable day for Manish and me. In one of our previous blogs, I had mentioned about the mid day meal project for children from Municipal and government aided schools funded by ISKCON. Red FM had in the past 3 weeks or so been promoting it on air and had collected INR 1.5 million with an expectation of INR 2 million. Today they were hosting the midday meal (Khichdi party) at their office at Lower Parel and Malishka from Red FM had invited us to join her as one of the donors.
We reached there at 11.30 am and there was an air of festivity in the office. The children (around 20) were all sitting in the cafeteria waiting for the chief guest, Vivek Oberoi. As usual the celebrities never turn up on time. This gave us an opportunity to mingle with the children and few adults who had also donated for this worthy cause. To our surprise the children were smart and well dressed and more importantly they were able to converse in English without being embarrassed.

The staff of ISKCON including the Director was also present and the children were discussing posers for the celebrity.

Meanwhile we got talking to the staff from ISKCON and wanted to know whether these kids really deserved all this. She introduced us to the Principal of the school who told us that before they started this mid day meal the children used to come to school at 7 am and go at 1 pm without any food. Sometimes the children would not come or would not be able to concentrate because of the hunger. She would then buy vada pav and give the children. Fortunately for her she came to know about ISKCON through one of her contacts and was able to get her school enrolled for the programme. This has been going on for the past 1 year and there has been a marked improvement in the attendance and the ability of the child to grasp the knowledge imparted. This was also evident from the level of English they spoke. We also learnt about the challenges the Principal of the school faced in terms of infrastructure needs. They had few rooms for the 400+students and so the moment the next batch came, the class had to be vacated to accommodate the new batch. Then the usual challenge of books, uniforms etc.

As soon as the celebrity interview got over, the children came over to display the autograph they got. Some children had it autographed on their arms as well. The most touching moment was when they asked us to give our autographs. This feeling cannot be expressed in words.

All in all it was an experience that taught us more than what we could teach the children. They had simple pleasures in life and were making their best attempts to learn and show their skills too. Led us to believe that given an opportunity, these little minds can be channelized for the betterment of India.
Contributed by Kiran Rao

Document Warehouse

2009-11-23T15:15:00.003+05:30

Document Warehouse, a new solution launched by Rincon's development team, allows organisation to reduce the need to store paper and to find and retrieve information in an instant. Even with the evolution of technology, there are times when there is simply no way of avoiding storage of the source documents somewhere. Aptly named, Document warehouse, it allows the organisation to release expensive real estate, stores your essential paperwork in a secure environment and lets you have almost instant access to it whenever required. The product is tightly integrated with Active directory so there is no botheration about the credibility of users who can access the software.

Developed on Open Text Document Management, Alchemy Edition and using ASP.net makes the product robust and a great web utility for archiving and retrieving documents for any organization of any size. The built-in security model allows access to limited documents to selected users based on the various criteria configured.

A simple, easy and ready to use software not only gives the IT team a great relief in terms of support and maintenance but also provides a solution that eases retrieval of information in the organisation.

Contributed by Ashish Baby

Rincon supports ISKCON’s initiative

2009-11-14T18:04:00.005+05:30

As per an NGO report, 47% of children under the age of 6 are malnourished. It also states that India ranks below countries like Bangladesh and Nepal on the state of hunger. This tells a lot about India being a developing nation.

ISKCON has taken the initiative to correct this anomaly. Since 1995, ISKCON has with the help of Government aid is providing midday meals to all the municipal and government aided primary schools in and around Mumbai.

Fortunately I came to know about this through my wife. All you need to feed one child a meal for a year is just Rs. 700.00. Imagine the small amount – It is less than what we spend at a restaurant for ONE meal for two at an average Mumbai restaurant and here we had an opportunity to sponsor a child for an entire year in that amount. I decided to contribute and make life easier for these children in whatever little way I could. I called up the Project Manager of ISCKON, Mr. Harish Desai and told him of my interest in the project. Meanwhile Manish had also heard about this program on FM and shared the details with me. He too showed interest in it.

Mr. Harish Desai came to our office and explained about the project and the scope of work being done. He also wanted us to visit the kitchens where the food is hygienically prepared. Just imagine how much we spend on useless things when the same can be better utilised and make India a truly developing nation. What a coincidence that today happens to be Children's day.

Having donated you also get an opportunity to go there, serve the children and have food with them on a special occasion like your birthday or wedding anniversary. This is truly for a good cause and we would urge all to do your bit for the society at large.

As part of Team Rincon, Manish and I are already donating and Rincon as an organisation is also sponsoring students. I am sure a lot of other team members will also come forward for this noble cause.

Contributed by Kiran Rao

RightFax Success Story for Mumbai International Airport Ltd. (MIAL)

2009-11-08T12:14:00.001+05:30

We did a success story recently on the RightFax deployment at Mumbai Airport. The project was a result of the hardwork put in by the sales team led by Harshad and the support team (with contributions from all and Jeeson being the visible face at site). Happy to know that it has been picked up by other sites as well as will be seen from the links below.

www.tmcnet.com
Aviation India Blog

Contributed by Manish Kamdar

October 2009 Birthday celebrations

2009-10-26T11:01:00.003+05:30

Every month with Cold Activity we celebrate birthdays of team members for the current month. Priya More (15th Oct) and Manish Kamdar (24th Oct) were on this month’s list. The day started with a lovely card from TEAM RINCON to Manish, we can say in specific from Priya to Manish... This was a hard hitting counter reply from Priya who was sent a nice greeting from Manish.

Let me tell you, the whole TEAM enjoy a very healthy relationship… and small fun things like these strengthen our relationship even further. 3 cheers to TEAM RINCON. Hip hip hurray, hip hip hurray, hip hip hurray.

Before cutting the cake … I wonder why are both of them looking up, nice work by Roopesh who captured this.

Contributed by Bhavesh Rathod

Diwali 2009 Celebrations

2009-10-20T14:20:00.004+05:30

Friday, October 16, 2009 was a special day for us as we celebrated Diwali at the office. Anuradha had requested everyone to come in traditional attire. The whole office was colourful with the ladies looking bright in their saris and men looking debonair in their Kurta Pyjamas. Shankar decorated the office with the assorted decorative pieces you normally get during Diwali.

We had also organized a small party at 5 pm after playing housie. The game was supposed to start off at 4pm but was delayed due to the Rangoli being done by Anu and Priya. The housie was a big hit with everyone shouting their lungs off to get their final number and win the prizes. All in all we played 3 games with prizes in different categories. After the games, we all trooped into the pantry to gorge ourselves on the various delicacies which are the highlights of Diwali viz. Chakli, chivda and ladoos.

We ended the eventful day with pictures of everyone in various stages of eating. Group photos were then taken for posterity sake. After wishing everyone on the happy occasion we dispersed to our respective homes to enjoy 3 days of bliss!!!
Contributed by Kiran Rao

Zetafax supports Windows 7

2009-10-15T12:07:00.002+05:30

Windows 7 is due to be launched on October 22, 2009. Equisys have now completed work on updating Zetafax to support Windows 7, after extensive testing with the release version from Microsoft. This support is now available free of charge for customers with Software Assurance, as a Platform Feature Pack for Zetafax 2009. The feature pack also includes support for Windows Server 2008 R2 – a major update for Windows Server which is being released at the same time by Microsoft.

Want to learn more about fax servers?

2009-10-15T11:09:00.001+05:30

A great place to start is the WindowsITPro eBook “The Essential Guide to Fax Servers”.

Microsoft Publishes Case Study on Open Text Fax Server Integration with Exchange Server 2010

2009-10-14T18:12:00.002+05:30

Microsoft Publishes Case Study on Open Text Fax Server Integration with Exchange Server 2010

RightFax v9.4, Windows 2008 and TR114 series cards

2009-10-14T13:16:00.001+05:30

It came as a rude shock to know that the Brooktrout TR114 series is not supported on Windows 2008 server. RightFax v9.4 works on Windows 2008 but with Brooktrout TR1034 series. And this technote was published only in early September by which time we had already picked up an order to Upgrade one of our large installations in Delhi. That one definitely was a big big shock for us. TR114 is an extremely robust series of fax cards and to think that we have to do away with that is unimaginable.
Contributed by Roopesh Mistry and Manish Kamdar

Alchemy Licencing

2009-10-14T10:59:00.000+05:30

I was always under the impression that Open Text Document Management, Alchemy Edition(formerly Captaris Alchemy) was licensed based on the system ID. But it so happens that it is not so far. Atleast not as of October 14, 2009. Thanks to Hitesh for clarifying this.
Contributed by Hitesh Sanghavi and Manish Kamdar

First Blog

2009-10-13T11:42:00.000+05:30

This is the first blog post for Team Rincon. We are bunch of fun loving people who also work hard(ly) :-) Life is for fun so enjoy it. Last Saturday, October, 10, 2009 we had all gone to the Village for our Diwali lunch. It was all vegetarian food all the way which must be discomforting for many but well change is the law of nature. Supposed to be a typical village setup, it was to some extent but in the air conditioned comforts of a mall. The Rajasthani singer was totally out of synch and it prompted Hitesh to play a prank and announced the October birthdays as if they were on that day. That prompted that singer to belt out some songs which were completely out of synch. Fun Day.