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December  2001

IN THIS ISSUE

· Roger's Ramblings
· Staff News
· GRDC Paddock Diary
· Changes in NSW
· Dealer's News
· PocketPAM News
· The 1800 Help Line
· New Features
· Lynx Mapper
· AirTracker
· FarmStar News
· In Closing

 

Roger's Ramblings

Emotions, QA & Opportunities

Greetings once more! Indeed… Season's Greetings! What happened to that year? Does anyone out there have a theory on this problem of year's disappearing? I suspect time management techniques may help.

A good client of ours said this week that it has been an "emotionally draining year". A good description for the year we have endured here in Western Australia. A roller-coaster… Is it a drought? Is it a boom? I guess if we take a wider pan, we could use this phrase for the world scene as well. September 11th certainly sent a shock wave through the system. Now Australia is riding an economic high…? Mr. Howard re-elected? That looked impossible six months ago! The Australian dollar continues to make overseas travel a painful process, but I suppose can be thanked (along with foot and mouth and mad cow) for the current buoyancy of our cattle industry. And the prices of things agricultural in general. Certainly not dull and boring times, these.
Quality Assurance ("QA") has sent, or perhaps attempted to send shock waves through the farming industry. I say attempted, as I feel there is a degree of resistance "out there". But, we knew it was coming. Many had already embraced it on their own. I know many farmers claim that PAM has played a good role in this. Understandably many out there feel that they need compensation for the impost of it. But can developing and improving systems, standards and record keeping save or generate money itself? I believe it can.

I believe the self imposed QA system we have implemented here at Fairport Technologies over the past four months has more than paid for itself.

On my return from overseas in August I enticed Laurie Smithdale back into our fold. Laurie was the main technical architect of the PAM 2000+ suite of products. While with us from early '96 until late '99 he was keen to "ramp up" the QA within Fairport and I now know that if he'd had his way we would have saved ourselves a lot of heartache. Now with Laurie coordinating QA matters here we are in much better shape. We are keeping good records and logs of all activities. Both in the front office and in the technical department. Records are kept. Progress is monitored.
The key to this are the tools for record keeping. Keep it simple! Make it easy!

So… It seems that QA on farm is all the buzz… Here are some thoughts -
Don't think of QA as an impost. Perhaps use it as a motivator to get more efficient. Enjoy the benefits of becoming organised. Enjoy being better informed. To make your life easier, get PocketPAM. Then enjoy the time you save by having your information at your finger tips. Don't keep your records in your head. That's a computer's job! Free up your head to make decisions. Get some training if you're struggling. Use the help that's available. Keep your support systems intact. Join user groups.
Is it still "cool" to be "technophobic"? Maybe not. Perhaps the day has come where technophobia is an impost on a business… Not the QA!

We at Fairport, promise to make whatever progress we can to help you with this process. In the new year we will be working on a new release of PAM. Fairport club members will of course be entitled to this new release. Non-members can use this opportunity to catch up on the hundreds of enhancements added to PAM 2000+ since August 1998.
There will be some changes, a slight name change, many improvements. No changes that will cause new learning curves.

For my part this year has been amazing. I have recently returned from an overseas trip. This time is was mainly holiday, but it is hard not to include some business… A follow up on my July trip. In July I fell in love with a wonderful lady called Marina while in Russia. In September we decided to marry. So, I went back in November and did that. Marina has a commerce degree and is keen to get some business ventures up and running between Australia and Russia. We are currently working on several opportunities and have more in the pipeline.
Hopefully early in the new year we will announce some new software products that are also in the pipeline as a result of a joint venture with a Russian company.

I would like to thank all our clients for your ongoing support through out the year. I also thank all our dealers and distributors for your efforts throughout 2001 and welcome our new dealers and look forward to a good working relationship with you all in the years to come.
And finally, on behalf of all the Fairport Team, I wish all readers a very happy and safe festive season and hope that good things come to you all next year.

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Staff News

Each newsletter seems to herald a departure or arrival. People on the move!

Since September we have farewelled John Breen who was with us for a year and a half in the capacity of our mapping software developer.

We welcome Paul Olsen. Many of our clients may have already spoken to Paul. He is currently in charge of technical support and documentation. He is very well qualified to join Fairport Technologies. Although Paul originates from the Perth metropolitan area, he has spent his working life in Queensland where he obtained a qualification as an agronomist. Paul has worked in the cotton areas of the south and tropical agricultural areas of the north of Queensland. He has considerable experience in the sugar cane industry having been based in Mackay for a long time.
In recent years he has obtained a degree in Information Technology from Central Queensland University. We were fortunate enough to pick up Paul as a fresh graduate from that course… thanks to a tip off from the Booth Technology team here in Perth. Paul had developed some Palm software for Booth for work experience.

We also welcome Darren McGlenchy. Darren is an experienced programmer and comes from the south west of Western Australia. In his past work he has programmed for one of our competitors (F.A.R.M.S. … no longer in business) so comes with some valuable experience and understanding of the rural software scene. Darren will be working primarily in the livestock area, finishing off some important work in the Individual Animals area and a Livestock Budgeting module.

As I write, Shorna is in Sydney competing in a national ice skating (dancing) competition. We suspect this will be her last shot at ice dancing for a while as she and her husband Andrew, are expecting their first child next March.

Since arriving Paul Olsen used his skills and revamped our web site. Have a new look. The content has not changed greatly but it much better organised. We have lost the Fairport Forum as a result of moving the site to a new Service Provider. We decided that the Forum wasn't getting enough patronage to warrant changing it to suit the new site.
In due course we will be doing more work on the site and providing yet more help and technical information for both our current and prospective clients.

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GRDC Paddock Diary

Recently we completed the GRDC project called "GRDC Electronic Paddock Diary". Using our PocketPAM as a template we built a Palm OS and a Windows CE (Pocket PC) version of the traditional GRDC Paddock Diary booklet. You can download this software from either our web site or the GRDC web site. The data entered in this system is not transferred to PAM but to a small program that can generate three simple reports. However, if users of the GRDC Electronic Paddock Diary should decide to buy PAM and PocketPAM their data can be migrated across to PAM. This is a good way to get started in production recording without spending any money… and provides the user with an upgrade path to a full PAM system.

Please Note : If you already have PAM 2000+ you should buy PocketPAM, rather than use the GRDC Electronic Paddock Diary. The data from the GRDC Electronic Paddock Diary can not be "merged" into your PAM data.

Changes in NSW

This month we have appointed Noble Management (Ian and Luke Willersdorf) dealers for the central New South Wales area. While officially designated territories are not the "go" in NSW, Ian and Luke will be doing their best to cover that general area.
I would like to thank Ian and Luke for their work over the period from October 1999 until November 2001. Throughout these years and months they have manned our 1800 help line during the morning hours and have help establish dealerships in Eastern Australia. Luke has done many training runs throughout NSW, QLD and Vic. The product knowledge Luke and Ian now have as a result of their roles in these recent years will stand them in good stead in their new role.

I encourage all of you in the area mentioned above to use Noble Management for your upgrades and new products. As I said above, they are very knowledgeable on all our products, including Pocket PAM.

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Dealer's News

Noble Management News

We are planning on conducting a number of training sessions around central NSW in February/March next year. This has been overdue for some time but hopefully we can start to cater for those who would like learn more about PAM 2000+ and how it can help their farm business during this time. It helps us immensely if you can let us know that you would like to attend and what your needs are as early as possible. We realise this time may not suit everyone but please let us know despite this so we may start to plan for other times as well. We would like to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and may you do well in the coming year.
Regards,
Ian & Luke

Please contact Luke or Ian at :
Noble Management Aust Pty Ltd
PO Box 467
YASS NSW 2582
Australia
Phone 02 6227 1293
Mobile 04 0885 4449
Fax 02 6227 1246
email : mail@noblemanagement.com.au
Website : www.noblemanagement.com.au

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Queensland News

We welcome Glenn Milne from Jimbour in Queensland to our list of dealers.
Glenn is an agronomist and well known in the Dalby area.

Greetings from the Downs

Hello from the Darling Downs in Queensland. I am an Agronomist studying Agricultural Science at Queensland University. I have been fortunate having worked as an Agronomist for DPI, IAMA, Du Pont (Australia) as well as Farming full time in a syndicate. I am currently consulting full-time for myself working in association with Horizon Rural Management based in Dalby. When farming full-time we were looking for a paddock-recording program and hence started looking at what was available. A friend who was a consultant in Central Queensland had just spent time evaluating all the packages came up with PAM as the easiest to use and generated very good reports.

Since using PAM myself I am very happy with it and the growers who are using it that I work with are very happy with it also. A common remark is that the more they use it the more of its capabilities and short cuts are realised. It is of great value being able to transfer configuration lists to new Clients as this sets up PAM so they can start imputing data immediately. This can save the growers many hours of setting up different crops, fertilisers and chemical lists.

So I am happy to run with PAM for its easiness to use, suitability to our crops on the Downs (including skip configurations of Cotton), generation of a range of reports and the great back up from the Fairport team. When a company is full time on a Paddock recording program it gets full attention, it is not a sideline. Because of this I have had great support when I have got myself into trouble, which is very important.

With QA a possibility in the grain industry in the future PAM offers a recording system, which will help growers record relevant information quickly and generate valuable reports.

I know there are many growers on the Downs are looking for a computer Farm Spraying and Farm Operations Program. As an independent person I can suggest growers can use PAM knowing that it is one of the best if not the best farm recording program available at present, and has a great backup team always trying to improve it.

Glenn Milne
Horizon Rural Management
Dalby QLD
Glenn can be contacted at :
GD & CI Milne
PO Box 4
JIMBOUR QLD 4406

Phone : 07 4663 6282
Fax : 07 4663 6267
email : glenndm@bigpond.com

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Victoria and South Australia News

As of mid January, Farmtek Australia (Gavin and Christine Sargeant and staff) will be coordinating all dealership efforts in these two states. The interests of all current dealerships in these two states will be looked after by Farmtek.
We are very excited about this development. Gavin has rapidly risen to great heights as a Fairport dealer. His product knowledge and eagerness have helped him gain a lot of respect amongst his clients. Gavin has been operating as Fairport dealer for several years. Before that he was a shining light agronomist in the PIVOT fertiliser company. Gavin's parents run a farm near Bonnie Doon in Victoria and Gavin has a neat little 6 acres a short distance from Shepparton in Victoria. Gavin has a pilot's license and can get places very quickly if required.
Gavin recently did two training trips into South Australia and his efforts were very well received and highly regarded.
Farmtek is the distribution company for the PIVOT PAM version. The implications of this new arrangement is that the current dealerships will become a new channel to market for this PIVOT PAM version. Please contact your local dealer for a PIVOT PAM if you would like the extra features in this version.

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Farmtek News

Wow....the end of another year already. Time to reflect on the year past, and plan for the new year ahead. It has been a very busy year for Farmtek this year.

TRAINING
Training has been high on the agenda through Victoria, NSW & South Australia. A new training Program will be running over the 2002 period and is Farmbis funded. If you would like to find out more about the group sessions, please contact Farmtek on 03 5826 5081 or drop us an email on gavin@farmtek.com.au

NEW PRODUCTS
2001 has seen many new developments introduced into the Agricultural market, one of which has been Pocket PAM. Pocket PAM, (the in field record keeping system) has been a huge hit over here in the east. The uptake & feedback from users has been tremendous and we look forward to seeing many more existing & new PAM users utilise this exciting new facility.
Individual Animal recording facility within PAM has allowed the program to enter a whole new world of record keeping. In the past it was difficult to keep stud records, and records for dairy, but now, look out!!! PAM 2000+ can not only cope with Livestock, Cropping, Vines, Fruit, Sugar, Cotton, Grass Seed, Turf Farms, Park Lands and more, it can now handle complex stud records & dairy requirements right down to the finest QA details & reports. One of the major advantages is the program can be installed in such a way that you can be running a mixed Horticulture, Broadacre Cropping & Livestock Enterprise, and still use the one program to handle it all. In one word, the system is "Brilliant!!"
Pivot PAM is one of our biggest selling products and we are often asked what the difference is between it and standard PAM. Well, there are two important differences. The first is Pivot PAM is the only program on the Market approved by Great Grains QA as the electronic system for keeping records. Pivot PAM has an inbuilt QA system specifically designed to include QA records and reports for the grain industry.

The second difference, Pivot PAM can import Pivotest soil results. This feature allows users to receive their test results from Pivot electronically, and import them directly into their PAM system. The rest of the program is the same as standard PAM 2000+. Even if you are not a frequent Pivot Customer, it is well worth owing a copy of Pivot PAM. For new product purchases, the cost is the same as standard PAM, just with more features!!. If you currently own PAM 2000+ standard, you can upgrade to Pivot PAM for $250 plus GST.

SEASONS GREETINGS
We would like to thank all Farmtek Clients yet again for their support over 2001, and look forward to working with you again in the new year. There are some exciting new changes being made in the new year so keep your ears to the ground.....
Christine & I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas & a Safe New Year.

Gavin Sargeant
Farmtek Australia
www.farmtek.com.au

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AGBIS News

"Agricultural Business & Information Solutions"
Matt Meehan from Agbis has had a busy year travelling around NSW and Southern Queensland training PAM clients.
Training has been conducted at Roma, Miles, Goondiwindi, North Star, Croppa Creek, Moree, Mungindi, Warialda, Bellata, Narrabri, Wee Waa, Bourke, Warren, Gulargambone, Baradine, Narromine, Geurie, Cowra, Canowindra, Gundagai, Holbrook, Griffith, Hillston, Scone, Cassilis, Uralla & Tenterfield.
FarmBis funded PAM 2000+ training with Agbis: On-farm training is available for PAM 2000+ users in NSW and Southern Queensland. Eligible farmers will receive a FarmBis grant for the costs of on-farm training.
Training areas include (but not limited) to:
· Configuration (set up)
· Cropping
· Livestock (including Individual Animal Recording)
· Mapping
· PocketPAM - demonstration or training
· Reports
If you would like on-farm training simply contact Agbis by phone on 02 67729200 or email matt@agbis.com
For further information regarding Agbis visit our website - www.agbis.com
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

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Serve-Ag News

PAM UltraCrop
After several very successful group training days held in Devonport at the beginning of the year, Serve-Ag are once again offering the opportunity to train in a productive and comfortable environment.
PAM training days are held at the Devonport Online Centre, allowing the opportunity to work on an individual computer with your own relevant data.
The PAM training day is scheduled for Wednesday 9th January, for further information contact Anna Steinhauser on asteinhauser@serve-ag.com.au -(03) 62335522 - 0417 331801.
PAM UltraCrop is well on it's way to establishing itself as the industry standard in Intensive Horticultural Management Systems. The recent uptake in viticulture has been positive, with a number of specific viticultural enhancements due for inclusion in the next upgrade at the end of this year. These will include:
· The recording & reporting of Variety, Clone & Rootstock information.
· Specific crop monitoring & yield estimate reports.
· The development of 'Job Worksheets', which can be generated from PAM, given to employees to complete the work, then confirmed back in PAM UltraCrop.
· Specific Viticultural Chemical Spray Report.
Anna & Mick would like to thank all PAM UltraCrop clients for a successful year, eat well, drink well & be merry!

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PocketPAM News

PocketPAM Now available for Windows CE machines
Recently we released the version of PocketPAM for the Windows CE handheld devices. These devices include the Compaq Ipaq, Hewlett Packard Jornada and Casio Casiopeia.

At this stage only the Crop Diary and the Rainfall programs are available. Livestock will be coming soon.

Meanwhile many people have been buying our Palm OS version of PocketPAM and loving it.
I found an Australian website recently (http://www.wizware.com.au) where you can buy many accessories for your Palm and Windows CE handheld computers. For example you can add Voice Recording, a Modem and MP3 music playing devices to your Palms.

To my knowledge there are 2 brands of GPS that can simply "snap" onto Palm computers as well. Magellan and Rand McNally both make such devices.
If you still haven't seen PocketPAM, please contact your dealer and get yours up and running before the next heavy data entry period arises. You will not be disappointed.

If you want to get a feel for how PocketPAM works, log onto the Fairport website and download the PocketPAM (Palm) emulator. On your PC screen you will see how we have laid out the PocketPAM screens and you can operate the emulator as if it were the "real thing".

The world of handheld computing is really heating up. Many new products are coming onto the market. But… Remember this. PocketPAM will still run on the most basic Palm or Windows CE Pocket PC devices.

Many people call us for advice on the hardware issue. The decision depends upon how much you are prepared to spend. Obviously the more you spend the more features you get. For a good robust machine that stores a lot more information than you'll ever need for PocketPAM, one that has rechargeable batteries and a good sunlight readable (Mono) screen, we recommend the Palm Vx. But a Palm M100 will do the job (Less than $300).

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The 1800 Help Line

We would encourage any Fairport Club member who has any problems (big or small) to not hesitate to call the 1800 number if they should need help with it.
Luke reports from the Eastern Australian Office that it appears from most calls now that most users are starting to get to know the software as questions are becoming more to do with advanced aspects of PAM. This has been our experience in the Perth office also.
Please note the 1800 support line is now permanently routed to the Perth. All after hours calls are sent to "Voicemail" … don't hesitate to leave messages. We will endeavour to return your calls as soon as possible.

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New Software Features

The following features have been added since September.

· PAM: When entering Machinery and Manual Tasks you can now enter contractor cost details (The same as you enter Labour details).
· PAM: All Screens with data entry grids Pressing Enter Key now moves to next available cell.
· Mapping : Rinex .Log file import facility now imports Boundaries and Waypoints data.
· Mapping :Importing DXF files now many times faster.
· Farmstar : Drawing of lines and circles now many times faster.
· Mapping : Geolocating Images now has more flexibility. Longitude and Latitude values can be entered in various formats.
· PAM: More reports (6) have been added in the Crop Monitoring area. The layouts are similar to the Soil Test reports.
· MAX : Various minor report problems have been rectified.

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Lynx Mapper

A new variation of our gpMapper program has been put together for the KEE company to be installed into their new Lynx system. This means therefore that people with this system can have their farm map with them in their tractors. To find out more about this new system, visit the KEE website …
http://www.kee.com.au

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AirTracker

Yes!! Another variation on our gpMapper program has been developed and is due for release very soon. AirTracker has been specifically designed to manage AgNav data and TraxNav data. AgNav (based near Toronto in Canada and represented in Australia by Landtech Consulting - http://www.landtech.com.au) is well known as one of the major guidance systems for aerial agricultural contractors.

AirTracker can replay these spraying jobs and display the data in many ways. It also has a client database to assist aerial operators in the management of their clients data.

TraxNav is the system developed by AgNav for use in aerial baiting jobs. AirTracker replays these jobs and displays the positions of the drop points of the baits. Typical uses of this system are : Wild dog, fox and wild cat baiting.
AirTracker is perfect for filling the QA recording needs for these industries.

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FarmStar News

We are often thanked for the flexibility of our FarmStar program. It is used to read and visualise a host of different data types. Again this year FarmStar was used in many Variable Rate Application exercises both here in Australia and in South Africa.

Electromagnetic ground surveys have proven to be very useful for soil typing paddocks in Eastern Australia. FarmStar is playing a role in visualising and analysing this data. Some are saying that EM survey data is better than crop yield data as a basis for preparing variable rate application maps.

Data generated from surveying laser leveled irrigation paddocks is also being visualised using FarmStar.

Sparse soil test and other (eg. Tiller counts, weed counts) data can be "imaged" in FarmStar . All these different data types are playing roles in formulating strategies for site specific farm management.

FarmStar has been growing in capabilities over the past years as more and more data types come into existence. New yield data types, new variable rate application data types, new application map data types are added as requested. Anyone requiring more information on any of these issues should contact us for more information or to be put in touch with those with their fingers on the pulses.

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In Closing

From all of us in the Fairport Team… SEASON'S GREETINGS

Have a well earned rest over the festive season and may the year ahead be beyond your expectations in every way.