Efofex News

We have recently upgraded our website so that it supports the https:// secure web protocol. We had previously had secure pages for credit card payments but now the whole website can be accessed using the secure protocol. Even though the change makes little difference to how secure our operations are, this is the way that the web is moving and we have to move with the times.

The change will have minimal effect on how you use Efofex in the short term but eventually we will change the website so that access MUST be through https. This WILL affect how our new cloud products access registration information and data.

New versions of all of our products, that utilize https will be released in the new year. We will not force https access for six months so everybody has ample time to move to the new versions. In the long term, you will need to have the newer versions to use the cloud based features.

This article particularly applies to Queensland Department of Education customers.

We have done more work on authenticated proxies which are used in a small number of school systems, in particular Department of Education schools in Queensland.

Lots of school systems use a proxy system for their internet. This allows the school to manage internet access and have more control over the sort of information provided to students. Some schools have an authenticated proxy system which will force you to put in your username and password to use any program which accesses the Internet. It is believed that this makes the system more secure but typically users hate the extra intrusion.

Efofex products can be successfully installed into this environment (including EdQld computers) and we have recently made some changes to ensure that the impact on your usage is minimized.

If you think your school uses an authenticated proxy and you have found our products difficult to use in this environment, now would be a great time to download fresh versions.

At the moment, the Efofex team is in a not so sunny Vancouver as we prepare to attend the British Columbia Association of Mathematics Teachers’ annual conference on Friday. We will be there, in our Efofex jackets, so if you are attending the conference please come and say hello.

We also planned to attend the biannual NZAMT conference in Christchurch. We booked flights and accommodation and proposed two sessions to the conference organisers. We have attended many times in the past and didn’t anticipate any issues. Alas, it was not to be.

Even though our main session was going to be (as always) “How to get the most out of FX Draw”, our sessions were deemed to be commercial and were not permitted unless we were “Gold Sponsors”. Efofex will never be big enough to be a gold sponsor so we have been effectively prevented from offering New Zealand customers support.

We have certainly been to conferences in the past where a major sponsor has been subjected to “ambush marketing” by a competitor who doesn’t pay any money but offers lots of sessions. We understand why a company like Casio would insist on this condition when sponsoring a conference. Having said that, we feel like we are collateral damage in a fight between multi-national companies and, in the end, it is teachers who miss out. We hope that our New Zealand customers quietly suggest to their association that this particular rule be implemented with a little more nuance!

We have uploaded FX Draw 7.001.16 for both Windows and Mac. This version includes two neat new features that will allow you to modify the font of multiple objects in one command.

1. Change The Font Of All Selected Objects

This command allows you to change the font (and optionally, the font size) of every selected object. This allows you to change every font in one operation.

Many FX Draw objects have text and their own font settings. If you want to change the font of a few objects at once, this can become tedious.

The new alternative is to select all objects and choose Change Fonts For Selected Objects from the Edit menu.

You can change the font and, optionally, the font size. Note that setting the font size is not always appropriate as would affect things like the titles of graphs.

2. Change All Default Fonts

This is a very similar command (available in the Tools menu) which changes the default font for all objects. This will only affect objects created after the change but allows you to standardise on one particular font in all contexts.

We have just uploaded new versions of all Efofex products. There have been a number of small improvements and bug fixes, particularly for FX Draw and FX Stat, but the main feature that has been added to all products is option syncing.

If you regularly use more than one computer to create your work, option syncing will make your life much easier. If you change the default text size for marked points (for example), that new option is automatically saved to the cloud and will be loaded into your other computer the next time you start FX Draw. Option syncing means that you can work across a consistent environment on all devices.

Syncing works between the Windows and Mac versions of the products (for those of you forced into using a platform you do not prefer at school) but differences between installed fonts can cause some issues. If, for example, you set a default font of Helvetica on your Mac, but your Windows machine does not have that font installed, Windows will replace the font with something as close as possible.

Other than that, it should work seamlessly!

If you have ever found yourself reaching for a calculator as you type up equations, the FX Equation calculator tool is for you. It allows you to create worked solutions quickly and easily.

If you are using FX Equation to show how to use the quadratic function (for example) you might already have typed in something like this…

(5.2+sr(5.2^2-4*3.23*1.23))/(2*3.23)

which FX Equation will turn into a fully formatted equation for you. If you actually want to evaluate this, you would probably reach for a scientific calculator and retype everything – which is both boring and slow.

In FX Equation, you can just select this string and push the calculator button. FX Equation will automatically evaluate your selection and you can paste the result directly into your next line.

We have uploaded a video of the process. You can find the video here.