With kids off from school and many other businesses shut down, we have decided to also take a break from programming until the new year ;-) I have the phone so if you have tech support questions while at a show these next two weeks, feel free to give a call but know that we aren't officially in the office until January 5th.
Look for our 2009 update to be released in late January/early February with some additional reports, new features, and updates to judge's sheets and rules per association changes.
We hope that everyone has an enjoyable holiday season.
Monday, December 22
Friday, December 5
HSW and Vista
Okay, so you need to buy a new computer but no one will sell you one with XP on it. Will Horse Show for Windows work on Vista? Good question.
We've had mixed results with usage of HSW on Vista. We purchased a new machine with Vista for testing (although currently it's in the shop for other issues ;-) and we've listed what we have found so far. Not every user has experienced each of these (which makes it all the more frustrating to find solutions). If you have had other difficulties using HSW on Vista, feel free to comment to this post.
Problem - Installation - depending on the processor in your new Vista machine (and potentially some older machines but less likely), you may get an error when trying to install HSW. As it turns out, the program itself has no problems running on the higher bit processors but the installation program to load it isn't compatible with the higher bit processors.
Solution - we are working on getting either an upgrade to the installation program we have been using for 10 years or a different one; either way, it will be compatible and installation should again run smoothly. If you need something immediately, let us know and we can send you an installation that was generated on a demo that will work but we can't distribute at this point.
Problem - Adding more than one show to the database - this one is a stumper...the database has multiple tables in it...all but the show table are updating correctly. Microsoft says there is no problem. We have upgraded to the newest version of Access to no avail but expect to do more research on this issue with the Access group since the Vista group has been no help.
Solution - you can send us your database with the information on your additional shows and we will add them in ourselves and send back the database to you for continued use. If you have Microsoft Access, we can walk you through the process on your own. Ironically, once you have more than one show in the database through another source, there seems to be no problem adding more in through the program. We will continue to work on this issue until it is resolved to the point of adding all shows through the program.
Problem - connecting horses/people already in the database to new records from the drop down boxes - this is a new one just recently discovered and not yet confirmed that it's a Vista issue as we had seen this in older versions of Windows98 also. Update - looks like this issue is only with the sire and dam information so if you are not tracking those you should be okay...we are continuing our work on this issue.
Solution - at this point, the only thing to do is to add those horses/people to the database multiple times. Once we can duplicate the error and verify the problem, we'll come up with a better solution to keep things rolling properly.
We've had mixed results with usage of HSW on Vista. We purchased a new machine with Vista for testing (although currently it's in the shop for other issues ;-) and we've listed what we have found so far. Not every user has experienced each of these (which makes it all the more frustrating to find solutions). If you have had other difficulties using HSW on Vista, feel free to comment to this post.
Problem - Installation - depending on the processor in your new Vista machine (and potentially some older machines but less likely), you may get an error when trying to install HSW. As it turns out, the program itself has no problems running on the higher bit processors but the installation program to load it isn't compatible with the higher bit processors.
Solution - we are working on getting either an upgrade to the installation program we have been using for 10 years or a different one; either way, it will be compatible and installation should again run smoothly. If you need something immediately, let us know and we can send you an installation that was generated on a demo that will work but we can't distribute at this point.
Problem - Adding more than one show to the database - this one is a stumper...the database has multiple tables in it...all but the show table are updating correctly. Microsoft says there is no problem. We have upgraded to the newest version of Access to no avail but expect to do more research on this issue with the Access group since the Vista group has been no help.
Solution - you can send us your database with the information on your additional shows and we will add them in ourselves and send back the database to you for continued use. If you have Microsoft Access, we can walk you through the process on your own. Ironically, once you have more than one show in the database through another source, there seems to be no problem adding more in through the program. We will continue to work on this issue until it is resolved to the point of adding all shows through the program.
Problem - connecting horses/people already in the database to new records from the drop down boxes - this is a new one just recently discovered and not yet confirmed that it's a Vista issue as we had seen this in older versions of Windows98 also. Update - looks like this issue is only with the sire and dam information so if you are not tracking those you should be okay...we are continuing our work on this issue.
Solution - at this point, the only thing to do is to add those horses/people to the database multiple times. Once we can duplicate the error and verify the problem, we'll come up with a better solution to keep things rolling properly.
Thursday, November 27
Happy Thanksgiving!
In this season of thankfulness, I am thankful for many things...one of them is all the awesome show managers and secretaries that use Horse Show for Windows!
To those of you in the states...have a blessed Thanksgiving.
To those of you in the states...have a blessed Thanksgiving.
Monday, November 24
Coming to the end of one season and the beginning of the next
As fall comes to a close and the weather here in Ohio gets colder, our phone rings less and less. Horse shows across the country and around the world are winding down. Not that there aren't shows being held (I know several that will take place over this coming Thanksgiving weekend...hopefully you won't need my help through them ;-), but that there are fewer shows overall being held any given weekend this time of year. Those of you in the warmer climes are still plenty busy while those of us up north are gearing down for the winter.
Here in the office, it means the time of year where we work to put together our first release for the next show season; contacting the breed associations to see what rules changes they have up their sleeves, going through the wish list we've compiled from users, and updating our development environment with the most current tools.
This year we hope to develop some 'how to' video clips to post online to help answer the most often asked questions we get in the office regarding show set up. Our plan is to walk you through different types of shows and how we would set them up. We are putting together some tools to help us do this smoothly and once we get that completed we'll start working on the clips and post them as they are finished. If there are particular set up issues that you find difficult or confusing, please let us know so that we can generate a clip for it. As usual, our purpose is the make the lives of our show managers a bit easier!
Here in the office, it means the time of year where we work to put together our first release for the next show season; contacting the breed associations to see what rules changes they have up their sleeves, going through the wish list we've compiled from users, and updating our development environment with the most current tools.
This year we hope to develop some 'how to' video clips to post online to help answer the most often asked questions we get in the office regarding show set up. Our plan is to walk you through different types of shows and how we would set them up. We are putting together some tools to help us do this smoothly and once we get that completed we'll start working on the clips and post them as they are finished. If there are particular set up issues that you find difficult or confusing, please let us know so that we can generate a clip for it. As usual, our purpose is the make the lives of our show managers a bit easier!
Friday, November 14
Welcome to our new blog
In the new world of blogging and keeping people connected via the internet, we decided to start a blog for horse show management information specifically geared for the Horse Show for Windows user. We hope to use this blog as a way to offer tips and tricks in the usage of HSW. Feel free to send your comments our way...our software has grown over the years (see we've come a long way baby! post) largely due to information and requests from you.
And not to leave anyone out, certainly feel free to push out our blog (as well as our products ;-) to other show managers that might not be using HSW but might get some useful information from fellow managers on how to run a better horse show.
And not to leave anyone out, certainly feel free to push out our blog (as well as our products ;-) to other show managers that might not be using HSW but might get some useful information from fellow managers on how to run a better horse show.
We've come a long way, baby!
I started working in the horse show industry almost 15 years ago. It's a little know fact that other than riding in camp when I was growing up, I've never actually shown a horse so I came in to this field fairly blind. I have learned so much about this business over these years; both from the co-workers I've programmed with and the users I program for.
The original version of this software was written as a DOS program for the Ohio Quarter Horse Association as their All American Quarter Horse Congress got bigger and bigger year after year. This was all before my time; Tony Lewis got it all started through his first company that I can't even remember the name of (it will come to me in the middle of the night...anyone else remember?...not CyberTech...before then even). When I first began working with Tony in 1994, he had 'remade' the Congress software to accommodate OQHA's weekend show managers. Word of the software to run horse shows easily spread from Ohio managers to surrounding states and Tony started selling his Horse Show System to managers across the country.
Over the years that I have been working with this program, a lot of changes have taken place. We've grown from usability for AQHA shows to encompass basically any breed or open show. We've moved from selling largely in Ohio to hundreds of users across the country and around the world. The development platform has changed several times along the way as we moved from DOS to Windows. We've been through several versions of Microsoft's Windows that has made the usage and technical support of our products a challenge (don't get me started on the issues we are still trying to work through with Vista).
Each of these changes has improved the software. I'm working through some new things now that will continue to allow the program to grow and help you run your shows more efficiently. As noted in a previous post, keep the comments coming...the software gets better because of them. I won't promise to incorporate every new idea but many items that we might not be able to add in lead us to others that are similar or just as important.
The original version of this software was written as a DOS program for the Ohio Quarter Horse Association as their All American Quarter Horse Congress got bigger and bigger year after year. This was all before my time; Tony Lewis got it all started through his first company that I can't even remember the name of (it will come to me in the middle of the night...anyone else remember?...not CyberTech...before then even). When I first began working with Tony in 1994, he had 'remade' the Congress software to accommodate OQHA's weekend show managers. Word of the software to run horse shows easily spread from Ohio managers to surrounding states and Tony started selling his Horse Show System to managers across the country.
Over the years that I have been working with this program, a lot of changes have taken place. We've grown from usability for AQHA shows to encompass basically any breed or open show. We've moved from selling largely in Ohio to hundreds of users across the country and around the world. The development platform has changed several times along the way as we moved from DOS to Windows. We've been through several versions of Microsoft's Windows that has made the usage and technical support of our products a challenge (don't get me started on the issues we are still trying to work through with Vista).
Each of these changes has improved the software. I'm working through some new things now that will continue to allow the program to grow and help you run your shows more efficiently. As noted in a previous post, keep the comments coming...the software gets better because of them. I won't promise to incorporate every new idea but many items that we might not be able to add in lead us to others that are similar or just as important.
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