To read the complete newsletter in a browser, visit: http://www.lsoft.com/news/issue2-2009-us.asp ######################################################################## LISTSERV at Work - Issue 2, 2009 ######################################################################## In this Issue: * Court Approves L-Soft's Reorganization Plan * Last Chance to Beta Test LISTSERV 16.0 * Ask the Email List Guru: Where Less Meets More * Tech Tip: LISTSERV * Tech Tip: LISTSERV Maestro ######################################################################## *** Court Approves L-Soft's Reorganization Plan *** By L-Soft Staff The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland has approved L-Soft international's reorganization plan, signaling the company's emergence from its voluntary Chapter 11 petition. The reorganization plan becomes effective June 17, 2009. On that date, L-Soft international will no longer need to seek court approval for decisions outside the ordinary course of business. L-Soft international has continued normal business operations since its petition, filed two years ago to help resolve protracted litigation. The reorganization plan includes a final settlement of this litigation. L-Soft international's parent and sister companies in Sweden, Germany and the UK were dismissed from the litigation in 2003 and have not been subject to any bankruptcy proceedings. ######################################################################## *** Last Chance to Beta Test LISTSERV 16.0 *** By L-Soft Staff LISTSERV 16.0 beta testing is underway and will close soon. The highlights of LISTSERV 16.0 include a brand new newsletter template management system, which allows customers to send HTML newsletters without expert-level HTML skills. Newsletters can be created by simply clicking on placeholders and filling in the content. Additional new features include an integrated HTML editor, message draft capabilities, new testing and content analysis features as well as UTF-8 support, which facilitates lists and sites that operate in non-English languages and rely on charsets other than ISO-8859-1. Customers who are interested in beta testing, please contact: [log in to unmask] as soon as possible. ######################################################################## *** Ask the Email List Guru: Where Less Meets More *** Q. How can I do more with less and still be effective when it comes to email list communication? Answer by The Email List Guru Thank you for posing this current yet timeless question. During a recent rumination, I learned that many of our readers use email list technology for a specific purpose - often a single purpose - such as a customer discussion forum or a member newsletter. This was an "aha" moment for me as herein lies the juncture where email enlightenment meets the hard realities of our times. So how do these seemingly opposite concepts work together to address the question at hand? Let us take a look ... ######################################################################## *** Tech Tip: LISTSERV *** Q: How can I automatically monitor LISTSERV to make sure it is functioning? Answer by Liam Kelly Senior Consulting Analyst, L-Soft For many L-Soft customers, LISTSERV is a key component of their IT infrastructure. As with any key component, it is important to monitor the LISTSERV service to make sure that it's responsive and operating normally. In this Tech Tip, we will look at how to verify that LISTSERV is available through email and the web, and how to make sure that the application itself is running and responding to commands. ######################################################################## *** Tech Tip: LISTSERV Maestro *** Q: How can I synchronize external data with the recipient warehouse? Answer by Ben Parker Chief Corporate Consultant, L-Soft Several of our LISTSERV Maestro customers who have existing data stored in an external database have asked how to synchronize that data with data stored in the Maestro Recipient Warehouse (for example in Hosted Recipient Lists). While LISTSERV Maestro can of course pull the data directly from the external DB for mailing, features like subscriber pages, subscribe/unsubscribe management by Maestro and forward-to-a-friend are available only with data and lists hosted in the Maestro Recipient Warehouse. Again, it is possible to transfer the data to LISTSERV Maestro in a one-time move, but often, the data must remain stored externally for legacy reasons (such as being in a CRM system), so periodic synchronization is the only feasible solution. ######################################################################## *** About LISTSERV at Work *** LISTSERV at Work is L-Soft's customer newsletter. Published quarterly, LISTSERV at Work keeps customers and the L-Soft community up-to-date with the company's latest developments. Each newsletter contains the latest LISTSERV product and industry news, as well as opinions, guidelines and tech tips. ######################################################################## *** Contact L-Soft *** L-Soft international, Inc. 8100 Corporate Drive, Suite 350 Landover, MD 20785-2231 USA Phone: 1-800-399-5449 / 1-301-731-0440 Email: [log in to unmask] Web: http://www.lsoft.com ######################################################################## *** Subscription Details *** You are subscribed to "LISTSERV at Work," L-Soft's quarterly newsletter. To unsubscribe, please visit: http://www.lsoft.com/news/n-subscribe-us.asp ######################################################################## © L-Soft 2009. All Rights Reserved. ########################################################################