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Fairport News

Historical FTI news articles and PRESS RELEASES
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December 2004

IN THIS ISSUE

» Welcome
» Rogers Ramblings
» Pasture Watch News
» QALink FREE - Why?
» PAM's New Features
» PocketPAM News
» PAM Enterprise
» New in PAM AusVit
» Dealer News
    » Booth Technology
    » FarmTek Australia
    » Maelroan Computers
    » DrenKo Business Support
    » Agbis
» In Closing

Once again we welcome all our new and old clients and especially those of you reading the Fairport News for the first time!

This past year has been crazy. While, like every other year it has gone far too quickly we have managed to pack a huge amount into it. Apart from the 18 months back in 1997-98 when the development team put together the PAM 2000 product, there has never been a more productive span of time than this past 12 months. New Fairport products developed (or finally commercialised) this year were Pasture Watch, PAM AusVit, Grape Forecaster and QA Link. We also added Stock Take to the PocketPAM suite of programs.
Our PAM AusVit system is attracting interest from some of Australia’s, New Zealand’s (and the world’s) biggest wine companies while at the same time finding a place on smaller vineyards in many areas. Some of our Margaret River clients have small holdings of 20 – 30 Ha but still find the program suits their needs.
Congratulations to PAM AusVit users, Wither Hills in NZ for their success at the 2004 San Francisco Wine Competition with their 2004 Sauvignon Blanc. Also to be congratulated for their success at the same show were PAM AusVit users Hardy, Beringer Blass and D’Arenburg.
Last week I went to New Zealand for the second time in 3 months! The action is picking up nicely there now in both the broad acre and viticulture sectors. I look forward to more trips there in the New Year.
It was very disappointing that so much of Australia’s grain growing areas suffered poor seasons after showing some good promise earlier. We hope for a better season next year for all those concerned.

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Pasture Watch (the user freindly and powerful little program that delivers Pastures from Space data with the click of a single button!) has been delivered to over 130 farms this year.
The subscription period is based on a calendar year so the 2005 Pastures From Space subscriptons are available from January onwards. We strongly advise you to start subscribing as early as possible next year if you are joining for the first time. There is a process involved that can take some time. So to ensure that your software is set up in time for the break of the season, get in early!

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On January 1st 2005 Fairport in conjunction with Farmscan will release QALink – a user friendly, industry compliant spray diary for viticulture and horticulture. In fact there is no reason why it can’t be used in any cropping situation. And it’s FREE! This simple but sophisticated little program can be used as a standlone system or in conjunction with Farmscan’s spray rate controllers for “QA while you spray”.
For just $AUD199, you can add the CRC for Viticulture’s Vineyard Chemical Database.
Check it out here: www.fairport.com.au/qalink
Why Free? If there is sufficient industry support and uptake, Fairport proposes to build a special web site where grape grower’s spray diay data can be delivered and collated to enable simplified analysis by wineries. Please let us know if this interests your operation.


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New features added to PAM since our last newsletter include:
• Reports: Planned Chemical Spraying Worksheet Report : Added Nozzle and Spray Weather Conditions display.
• Reports: Planned Chemical Spray Order Form and Planned Chemical Spray Order Form with BMP Reports : Now includes Band and Configuration percentages when displaying the Total units applied.
• Reports: Chemical Withholding Period report: Non Actual Chemical Activities were being listed. Now only displays actuals.
• Recommendations: Chemical Spraying Worksheet Report: Now displays Nozzle information.
• Wool: Wool Brands now has 20 character descriptions.
• Planned Chemical Spray Worksheet (Plan) Report: You can now print this report on an Area per Page.
• Individual Animal Records: When you are entering a livestock transaction, you now have the option to select the animal's ear tags from a CSV file. To do this, choose the "Tools" menu under the box on the right side and then select the "Select Ear Tags from CSV File..." option.
• Data Entry: Machinery and Manual Tasks: You can now configure a Machinery or Manual task item with a default "per Item" unit. For Horticulture/Viticulture users, you can also configure these configuration items in "per Plant" or "per Vine" units. When recording associated Labour records for these new types of Machinery/Manual tasks, PAM will now allow you to specify a "Quantity of Items" and "Rate per Item"
• Backup and Restore: Data can now be restored directly from CD.
• Individual Animal Records: Animals with "unknown" sex can now be assigned to mobs. The animal's sex will be set to the sex of the mob, unless mob's sex is "mixed" in which case the animal will remain of "unknown" sex.
• And a host of minor glitches from many areas were fixed … including in data merging issues, the wool sales system, CBH Loadnet data importing, copying paddock activities issues, withholding period report issues …and much more.

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We regret that over the past months there have been a number of niggling issues with data synchronisation with PocketPAM. While we know that many are not having any issues, we have been aware of some that have. Often the issues have been to do with the PAM and PocketPAM datasets becoming out of alignment. When you update PAM, ensure you also update PocketPAM and always update the software on the handheld computers when you update the desktop software.
For over 5 weeks Laurie (our senior software engineer) has been totally revamping the data synchronisation system for PocketPAM. The end results of all this work (which is continuing) will be a much more robust and versatile system. Even data transfer over the web to a hosted PAM on a Citrix server, synchronisation of data over a Wide Area Network to the new PAM Enterprise systems and more.
Livestock enhancements: Earlier this year we made it possible to log out one or more farms to PocketPAM while leaving other farms available for editing on the desktop or on other handhelds… Recently, we went one step further and enabled PocketPAM users with one farm logged out to move stock to one of the farms they don’t have logged out.

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The PAM Enterprise versions operate with the Microsoft SQL Server database system and allow for much larger data sets, centralised and combined datasets and virtually unlimited concurrent users.
Enterprise options and pricing are available upon request from Fairport.

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Some of the new features you can expect to see in PAM AusVit early in the New Year are:
• Row and vine details – data entry at the row and vine level, especially for manual tasks.
• Cover Crops – data entry and reporting
• More streamlined spray diary data entry.

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Booth Technology WA
The team at Booth Technology has been kept busy over the last few months with Chris and Stephen doing a considerable amount of on farm training throughout the agricultural regions.
Colin of late has signed up Goundrey Wines (which includes Amberley) and Cape Mentelle Vineyards with the PAM AusVit program.
Colin has also done some workshops with the VIC DPI on the Grape Forecaster software in Manjimup and Margaret River with a great response from all attendees.
Booth Technology is running several full day training courses in the middle of January 2005 at the Booth Technology office in Perth.
12th and 19th a PAM Mapping course
13th and 18th a PAM Advanced course
For further details please contact Booth Technology on (Ph) 9383 3334 or via email at sales@boothtech.com.au
From all of the team at Booth Technology we would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
We will be closed from 27th December until 4th January, however our User Group Members can still get support by contacting us on our mobiles –
Colin 0408 944006, Chris 0414 408458, Stephen 0415 133725
Email sales@boothtech.com.au

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FarmTek Australia VIC
FarmBIS funding for training in Victoria is now available and I have registered 2 courses for PAM training; On-Farm Individual and Group Training. To register your interested just fill out the online request at www.farmtek.com.au
Roger and I attended the Grape Growers Conference (Viticulture 04) at Mildura 26-28 October where we launched Grape Forecaster. Anyone requiring Fairport products or training in Victoria or southern NSW, please call.
Regards for Christmas and Happy New Year from Joanne Richardson
FarmTek Australia ~ 1300 544 433
www.farmtek.com.au

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Maelroan Computers WA
Thank you to our valued clients again this year. We have, I believe, achieved a lot together this last year. Here is to an even better 2005.
We have lots of bookings for the first six months of 2005. If you are looking to have a visit from us, then you should make a booking, as it is easier to cancel than be fitted in these days. We start back on the road about 14th January.
We will be at Woolorama again in March. We have a corner site this time, so should be easy to spot – look for the PAM flag.
We would like to say a big thank you to Roger and his staff at Fairport for their valued assistance again this year.
Once again it is the “silly season”. We wish everyone a safe and happy festive season, and a prosperous 2005.
Liz Alford – at home for Christmas.

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DrenKo Business Support Horsham Vic
Season greetings to everybody and here's hoping that everyone has a safe and enjoyable time. After a season that could best be described as 'forgettable' let's hope that the coming year presents you with some new opportunities and renewed optimism. Harvest is starting to wind down in a large number of areas, after an unseasonable delay due to a week of 'Darwin' weather. I hope that you have been able to find some good stories, amongst the weather induced horror stories that have affected the region over the last 12 months.

After promising to have formal training courses for PAM up and running by October, I must apologise for not being able to achieve this. Course material is well underway to being completed, and as such, I have scheduled course dates commencing in February of next year, which means I have to make sure it is all ready to go by then!!! Initially, the first course dates that will be offered will concentrate on cropping, with livestock, mapping and Pocket PAM courses to be added at a later stage. Course content will involve setting up and configuring a cropping enterprise from scratch, and then working through a full season of transactions, starting with budgeting, and ending with reporting. Course numbers will be a minimum of 4 participants, and maximum of 6, to ensure that all participants are given an opportunity to gain a full understanding of the program. Tentative course dates and venues are as follows;
Feb 3 & 4 Horsham
Feb 8 & 9 Warracknabeal
Feb 15 & 16 Nhill
Mar 8 & 9 Sea Lake
Mar 21 & 22 Horsham
Mar 30 & 31 Ararat
Apr 21 & 22 Horsham
May 23 & 24 Horsham
Jun 22 & 23 Horsham

Other dates and venues can be added, subject to a minimum of 4 participants. Course duration is yet to be determined, but it will be at least 1 full day, possibly 2. Any interested participants can contact me at any stage, with preferred dates and venues. Confirmed course dates and venues will be emailed to all PAM users in the Wimmera Mallee during January.
All the best for 2005.......
Paul Drendel
DrenKo Business Support
13 Darlot Street
Horsham, 3400

Office: 03-5382 3409
Fax: 03-5382 3176
Mobile: 0427-DRENKO

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Agbis NSW & QLD

It has been another busy year for the Agbis team. We continue to receive a constant flow of enquiry from people looking for a production recording and/or mapping system.

Recently, Greg Baker (Agbis, Dubbo) decided to move on to greener pastures. During the past two and half years, Greg travelled many kilometres, spent hours on the phone and delivered numerous training sessions throughout NSW and QLD. We appreciate his efforts and wish him well in his new role.

Brett McCarthy (Orana Region Communications) will be taking over from Greg in the Central West of NSW. Brett’s details as follows:

Brett McCarthy
Orana Region Communications
PO Box 7149
DUBBO GROVE, NSW 2830
Tel 02 6885 6555
Fax 02 6885 6511
Mob 0418 840 000
Email orcomms@bigpond.com

John & Lisa Minogue (Agriculture & General Consulting) have recently joined the Agbis team and will be providing software sales and support in Southern NSW. John & Lisa’s details as follows:

John & Lisa Minogue
Agriculture & General Consulting
Wilga
BARMEDMAN, NSW 2668
Tel 02 6976 3023
Fax 02 69763001
Mob 0428 763 023
Email jacknlisa@bigpond.com.au

For their continued support, we’d like to thank all our other agents and resellers, including Sarah Hall (Agbis, Toowoomba), Ed Windley & Kylie Borchardt (Graham Spackman & Associates, Emerald), Lucy House (Agbis, Rockhampton), Mick Alexander (RCS, Yeppoon), Glenn Milne (Horizon, Dalby), Dorothy Barton & Frank Manteleone (Click Start IT, Griffith) and Andrew Rice (Ivey ATP, Parkes).

Last, but not least, we’d like to thank all our clients for their support over the past year and wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.

The Agbis Armidale office will be closed from 20th December to 9th January.

Matt & Rose Meehan, Agbis Armidale

For a complete list of all Fairport dealers visit the Distributors Page at www.fairport.com.au

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The Fairport Team wishes all our clients and friends well for the Christmas period and that your 2005 is happy, successful and rewarding.
Until March 2005 … Farewell from Roger Wiese and the Fairport Team