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New Year News
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%IF $FIRSTNAME != 'Subscriber'%Dear %FIRSTNAME%,
%/IF%Welcome to the January 2010 Sotic newsletter and greetings from Hastings! This month, the newsletter comes direct from sunny Sussex by the sea, compiled by Naomi 'Oreo Cookie Cake' Gotts.
We hope you have all had a peaceful Christmas and New Year. Read on to find out what we were up to through December and over the festive period...
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Naomi Gotts - Web Developer
Having now been at Sotic for nearly 3 years, I've seen the company grow from strength to strength (and office to office!) over that time. The technical team has morphed from 3 to 9 people, taking on bigger and ever more challenging projects.
These days I spend my time working on the Web Applications team, particularly with statistical data feeds, ticketing systems and interfacing our dynamic content with the RedDot webpages (smile and nod;)).
For those of you that work over weekends, you will sometimes find me covering our match support hours. However these hours are carefully planned in advance so I can avoid the Formula One weekends, when I am generally more concerned about the on-track shenanigans of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button!
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MatchDayStats has received an overhaul
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New look MatchDayStats
MatchDayStats, Sotic's sports statistics management software, has had a complete overhaul with a new design making user management of the system easier than ever. MatchDayStats is the first in our range of products to receive the rebrand.
As well as providing the 'bread and butter' functionality of any statistics database, such as detailed fixture and player management, MatchDayStats has a wealth of extra features that can assist in this essential area of your business.
The competition structures are highly flexible so that even the most unusual league or knockout formats and points systems can be set-up. In addition, MatchDayStats can be configured to work with a number of different sports regardless of the size of the team and the shape (or indeed lack) of the ball! We have also developed a sophisticated reporting system that can ask any question of the database and produce the results in a range of formats, including CSV, XML and HTML.
MatchDayStats is available as a standalone product, and is therefore ideal for any club or governing body who wish to maintain their internal statistics database while providing automatic updates to third parties and their own website.
For more information on MatchDayStats contact Leo Mindel.
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Find your event space with the Venue Finder
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Venue Finder
For our clients with event space for hire, the Venue Finder allows website users to get instant advice on the best venue choice for their event. After the user selects the required date, number of guests and event type, a venue will be recommended from a set of venues which are easily editable by the venue owner. The user can then choose to contact the venue owner to arrange a booking.
For more information on the Venue Finder, please contact John Ludlam.
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Download fixture lists to your calendar
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Downloadable Dates for the Diary
Our rugby clients are now benefitting from the introduction of downloadable fixture lists. Fixture dates can be imported into any application which supports iCal (.ics) or XML format, including Outlook, Apple iCal, iPhone, Thunderbird or Google Calendars.
Fans can choose either a one-time download or to subscribe to a fixture list so kick-off times in their calendar will update automatically!
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Work on our new content management platform has begun
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Platform Upgrades
December saw the introduction of our new development server. This has improved our ability to develop and test features before they are released to the live sites. In turn this is helping us to respond to your queries faster and to deliver higher quality work.
We have also started the build and testing of our new content management platform. In time this will replace Manage Content.
To improve our meeting facilities, we now have the use of the Webex application for online meetings.
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Thomas joins the team in Hastings
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Thomas Wilhelm
Hello, my name is Thomas Wilhelm. After graduating from Portsmouth University in July 2009 with a degree in Software Engineering, I joined Sotic in November as a Web Developer in the Hastings Office.
As part of the Web Applications team, I am responsible for developing new features for websites as well as fixing any bugs encountered with existing features (in the rare event that these things occur of course!).
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The Guinness Premiership iPhone App
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GP iPhone App downloads top 50,000
The Guinness Premiership iPhone application has now topped 50,000 downloads. The application, available as a free download from Apple's App Store, has been well received and widely praised by rugby fans.
If you're interested in having your own iPhone App set up please contact John Ludlam for more details and pricing.
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Contracts have been renewed with the IRFU and ERC
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Continuing Partnerships
Sotic are pleased to announce extended relationships with both the Irish Rugby Football Union and European Rugby Cup. Both clients have renewed contracts on a long term basis.
We have also now become an Adobe partner, to add to our existing partnerships with Microsoft, RedDot, Zen and a number of other technology suppliers.
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Sotic FC - On the Ball in 2010
In preparation for what will no doubt be a summer of football, the sensational squad that is Sotic FC have decided to reform for 2010. The 5-a-side team will be aiming to quash memories of previous seasons (an 18-0 defeat springs to mind...), and keen to make a more positive mark on the 2010 league. Let's hope Fabio's talent scouts are out eh boys?!
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And that's it for the January newsletter! Next month the news will be brought to you by a member of the Content/Production team, hence I'm sure there will be lots more to read about then!
For me, the countdown is on to March 14th, when the new McLaren all-British superteam will race for the first time, the F1 legend that is Michael Schumacher returns for Mercedes (still unconvinced about this...), former champ Fernando Alonso and a recovered Felipe Massa join forces at Ferrari, and a whole host of new teams join the grid... Let's hope for a Hamilton-Button 1-2:)
Happy New Year to one and all!
Regards,
Naomi
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