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Fairport News
Historical FTI news articles and PRESS RELEASES
Download PDF Version of this newsletter - Get PDF Viewer hereMARCH 2008
IN THIS ISSUE
| Welcome |
A big 2008 welcome to all our new and existing clients, especially those of you reading the Fairport News for the first time!
We hope you all had an enjoyable Easter break and hope that the season ahead is a good one for all concerned.
| Roger's Ramblings |
Once again we’ve had a very busy stretch of time here at Fairport since our last newsletter. While in saying that, I am running the risk of having regular Fairport News readers claiming I am repeating myself, I can honestly say that the past three months were in fact the busiest period of all time for the Fairport team.
The pressures came from staff shortages in the support department and a more demanding than usual period on our development team. Our workload on the development front has been predominantly focused on enhancements for our PAM Enterprise clients.
| PAM 6 |
The feedback from clients upgrading to PAM 6 has been very positive. The improvements over version 5.9.9 are many and widespread and the good news is that there are lots of new features still in the pipeline to benefit our loyal Fairport Club members.
| PAM Enterprise |
The IAR (individual animal records) section of PAM has been undergoing a significant revamp thanks to Landcorp (NZ). The vast percentage of these improvements will be included in the general release of our IAR section and will make PAM’s IAR system a clear leader in this area.
We are in the final stages of developing new ways of entering livestock activities for AAco (Brisbane), to suit their new style of managing the flow of cattle trough their 29 properties ... which range from bull breeding centres, breeding stations, growing stations and feedlots. We have also been working on a new style of managing individual animals (code named the “IAR Pastoral Mode”), plus a basic livestock budgeting system and new ways of managing livestock tallies for the pastoral industry. We feel we now have mastered this challenge with the guidance, help and brilliance of the AACo project team!
We have also recently developed the PAM Enterprise “Disconnected Desktop” system which is designed to keep a database at a head office up to date with all the data collected at the remote station or farm offices. Data is synchronised with the head office over the internet – even over poor quality and slow connections. This feature will only be available in the PAM Enterprise version as it relies on much of the special PAM Enterprise database capabilities. This now allows PAM EE clients the option of choosing to have their remote sites connected or disconnected to the head office server.
Saratoga Holdings is Australia’s biggest macadamia nut producer with farms in NSW, QLD and South Africa. During the past few months we have been working on enhancements to the harvested produce inventory management section of PAM. The tracking of the post harvest movement and shrinkage (weight loss) of nuts through a series of silos is an important requirement for the macadamia industry. Saratoga obtained a Horticulture Australia (HAL) funding for these enhancements. We are hoping they will result in more sales into this market sector.
| Grape Forecaster |
We are about to release a version of Grape Forecaster to handle US Imperial measurements as a result of a sale into California for a large multi-vineyard (400 block) enterprise. The volume of enquiries for Grape Forecaster has been very encouraging and we hope these enhancements will make the product even more attractive to the North American market.
| FarmStar |
Mikhail, our mapping developer, has been working non-stop on enhancements to the precision farming mapping module. There has been ongoing work on the John Deer interface. He informs me that the paddock activities data exchange will be completed within a week, meaning that plans set up in PAM can be seen in the GreenStar II box in your tractor, then converted to completed jobs and returned to PAM. We have also been working on improvements to the CASE IH (AgLeader) interface. This includes support for their VRT systems and the new “Insight” data format. Improvements have also been made to the Topcon (KEE) VRT interface and several others. Many new exciting, world-first features are in the pipeline. For the more scientific of our clients, we are introducing new data interpolation techniques, including Kriging and “Co-Kriging”, which enables you to represent in an image, very sparse data (e.g. soil test results) with its interpolation (i.e. filling in the gaps between the data points) influenced by another set of data (e.g. yield).
We (Mikhail especially) are confident that with all these new features we will be able to claim “world best” status in precision farming data manipulation and management software. With the cost of fertiliser and other inputs rising rapidly, we sense the need for this software module is on the rise. Our focus is on being able to interface with every possible on-board device and to manage, process, and manipulate the data better than any other product on the market.
| PAM on Windows 98 |
Due to changes in PAM and the limitations in Windows, we have had to make the difficult decision to no longer support PAM on Windows 98.
Although PAM will still operate on Windows 98, we can no longer guarantee that all aspects of the program will be fully functional. The support team recommend using Windows XP or Vista for PAM QA Plus version 6.2 or above.
| PocketPAM on Vista |
Attention PALM users: Palm Desktop 6.2 is not compatible with Pocket PAM at this stage. See http://www.fairport.com.au/Support/VistaFairport.asp for more detail.
| Staff Matters |
Colin Booth, our Marketing Manager, has been having a well earned and very enjoyable few weeks off touring in South Africa. During January and February the enquiries coming through the web site for PAM Enterprise and others coming from the wine industry for Grape Forecaster and PAM AusVit had him extremely busy. On several occasions he had to either get up very early or stay up late to demonstrate software to prospective clients in the Caribbean, Canada and USA. He has also been actively engaged in negotiations with new overseas distribution possibilities. As a result, over the next months, we are looking forward to establishing and working with new distributors in Malaysia, India and the Philippines.
During this past three months we have experimented with employing offshore programmers by taking advantage of a system that we have established enabling developers to log in to our common “developer desktop” via an internet connection. It is exciting to have reached this stage of technical maturity for several reasons. It means we can employ developers who can work from home or abroad.
It was also pleasing that Darren McGlenchy (who left us last September) was willing to return to our fold using this system on a work-from-home basis at the beginning of March.
Allison Coleman who started with us just before the end of last year has settled in well into her roles as Customer Services and Public Relations manager. Many clients have now spoken with her and her Fairport product knowledge is now well advanced.
| Dealer News |
FarmTek Australia VIC - SA - TAS
It was great to catch up with so many clients at the Wimmera Field Days and run through a few things on PAMQA+ and FarmStar. With prices so high it is a good time to look at new technologies to assist in obtaining the maximum benefits from monies spent.
As you will all have heard the FARMBIS funding has been withdrawn for all training. This has caused me to cancel the course at Bendigo next week.
However, we are still going to try and organize some group or in house training in areas as required. Costing will start from $550 per day plus travel. If you would like to organize something please contact me so we can tailor something to specifically meet your needs.
The Training request is still on-line at www.farmtek.com.au or www.fairport.com.au so please keep the requests coming in to assist us in scheduling training in your area.
Wishing everybody a safe and happy Easter break; until June.
Joanne Richardson
FarmTek Australia
Ph 1300 553 446
Email: Joanne@farmtek.com.au[top]
PAM TRAINING: NSW & QLD
Thank you to all that attended the Young and Dubbo training sessions in February... all in all, I think these were a couple of good days training and hope that you all got what you wanted from the sessions.
It seems that the FarmBis subsidy scheme is winding up and will no longer be available. Paul will still be travelling NSW & QLD providing training without the assistance FarmBis.
After travelling down the Newell high way last month, it was great to see some greenery from the road. I hope that the recent rains have given a good summer crop and have set you all up for a good winter season.
Don’t forget to check out the free software and help notes available from www.agit.com.au
All the best and don’t be shy should you need any phone support, or training over the coming months.
Paul Olsen
Ag IT
Ph/Fax: (07) 3802 1458
Mobile: 0419 727 086
Sales & Support: 1800 658 998
email: paul@agit.com.au[top]
If you need help using PAM QA, Booth Technology will be running PAM QA Training Seminars at our Perth Office.
PAM Training Seminars:
Mon. 28th April - PAM QA Basic
Tues. 29th April - PAM QA Advanced
Wed. 30th April - PAM QA MappingFor further assistance please call Booth Technology on (08) 9383 4443
Ben Coman – 0414 408 458
Email: sales@boothtech.com.au
| In Closing |
Please contact your local dealer or Fairport for more information on any item in this issue. Farewell from the Fairport Team
... Until JUNE 2008!
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Copyright © 2008
FTI |