Neowin.net

MyShellMenu is a right-mouse click menu enhancement that provides quick access to your commonly accessed folders in Windows Explorer as well as standard Open, Save and Save As dialogs as used by many Windows applications, e.g. Microsoft Word.#

Here's what's new:

• Fixed issue in Designer where the root menu item properties was displaying incorrect fields
  
• Fixed issue where a blank config file was being created when config file didn't physically exist
  
• Fixed issue in Designer where item type change in item properties was not being stored.
  
• Fixed issue in Designer where the config file open would not work if you cancelled the save of a modified config
  
• Fixed issue in Designer where moving a submenu to a child entry caused a crash
  
• Trimmed filenames when written to the registry
  
• Tidied up message boxes in context menu
  
• Reworked custom action parser to be more intelligent
  
• Options menu screen now shows all editable items in 3D
  
• Reworked debugging output to use Win32 API for speed and efficiency
  
• Icons in menu's are now owner drawn, therefore they are now the proper 16x16 size
  
• Now show debugging warning message box prior to context menu invocation
  
• Added debugging option to show the initial windows context menu information on invocation
  
• Added ability to enable/disable debugging from the context menu
  
• Added ability to ignore windows max menu items in context menu
  
• Added status descriptions for reset and designer menu items for consistency
  
• Added warning if the number of free menu slots available reported by Windows is negative
  
• Added selection tasks
  
• Added Copy/Move to item to allow specifying of fixed destinations
  
• Added configuration file merging

News source: James Dickson Associates
Download: MyShellMenu 1.04.000

"In the '70s, we were growing rapidly in countries around the world. To get up and running quickly, we'd use this system called COSMOS [Consolidated Online Modulated Operating System]," said Jeff Berg, executive director of program management at Citibank's New York-based parent, Citigroup Inc.

"As the bank grew, we did make a mistake in that we released the source code to each of the countries, and they changed it. Now we've ended up here 30 years later," Berg said.

By "here," Berg is referring to a platform that is proprietary to each country it's in and uses that nation's language, regulatory rules and business processes -- something Citibank can no longer do in a global economy.

While not unique, Citibank's switch of back-office platforms is the largest of its kind, analysts said.

"I'm sure there's a lot of tension related to it. They'll go through months and months of parallel testing, and finally, when they do cutovers -- and that will be done in stages -- these people will be up all night, around the clock. It's not a lightweight project, to say the least," said Evivah Litan, a financial services analyst at Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn.

The conversion has rallied about 250 Citibank IT professionals worldwide, according to Berg.

"The conversions are quite exciting. Those are weekend kinds of efforts that usually occur around month's end," he said. "What we're finding is anytime you install a system like this, you have opportunities to reconsider your business processes. Because we're making the shift from a country to regional back-office system, it definitely gives us opportunity to create ... standardization."

For example, Berg said he expects Citibank to reduce the number of its data centers in Europe from 18 to about four using a standard platform provided by I-Flex Solutions Ltd. in Bangalore, India.

I-Flex's flagship Flexcube enterprise banking suite will also allow Citibank to simply change parameters in the software to incorporate a particular country's language, government regulations and currency conversions. That's in contrast to the time-intensive recoding necessary that was before.

Flexcube was designed as a modular banking system based on an Oracle database; it automates the general ledger, as well as customer accounting, deposits and withdrawals, and interest on accounts, among other services.

"As a global financial services company which is using technology to improve productivity and lower operating costs, the use of Flexcube will allow us to gain efficiencies by standardizing our operating environment," said Bob Druskin, chief operations and technology officer at Citigroup.

Both Litan and Octavio Marezi, managing director of Boston-based Celent Communications LLC, said the project will cost more than $100 million and could run in excess of half a billion dollars.

IT systems issues are not the only problems that can surface with a project that large, according to Marezi.

"There's a lot of internal rivalries and politics that goes on as well. So it's a very difficult proposition to do," Marezi said.

Berg agreed that the changeover has already created some rivalries. "Operations people defend the way they do things. We keep saying, 'Yes, we know these countries are different, but they're more similar than different,' " he said. "In terms of adopting the Citibank culture, these banks aren't as different as we think.

"We're also dealing with every time zone, which is a lot of fun. We kind of settled on early-in-the-morning meetings," he added.

Citibank has also instituted an elaborate testing program that's managed country by country. "The testing involved is the end-to-end tests to make sure not only Flexcube operates correctly but the systems it talks to are also operating correctly," Berg said.

According to Litan, mapping historical data is usually the biggest issue in a changeover of Citibank's size.

"Also, it's all the logic on the accounts. They have all these business rules ... embedded in old Cobol code. The old systems, the data and intelligence, [are] all in the same programs. They're not separated out into different ones like modern applications," Litan said.

"It's mapping the data and not losing any of the business intelligence that is imbedded in these old legacy programs that's difficult," she said.