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Fairport Technologies News

December 2002

IN THIS ISSUE:

WELCOME

Closing for holidays

Nuffield Sponsorship

Fairport's New Office

PAM QA Plus News

Mapping Module News

www Site News

Roger's Ramblings

PocketPAM News

Maximise News

Dealer News

In Closing

 

Welcome Again we welcome all our new clients who have come aboard since our last newsletter. We hope that you are getting good service from your Fairport products. Be sure to get some training. Your dealer can help you in this regard.
Our condolences go out to all of you who have been effected by Australia's worst ever drought. While some areas have had good seasons they are very much in the minority. Let's hope the very recent rains in NSW are the start of the "big turnaround".
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Fairport Office Closing for Christmas Please note that our office will be closed from Friday 20th of December until Monday 6th of January 2003. Due to the mid week Christmas and New Year holidays, we decided to give ourselves a "serious" holiday this year. We trust you will also be trying to take it easy during this period. Should you have an urgent matter which can't wait until Monday 6th, please make contact through your Fairport distributor. Software registration forms can be faxed to our usual fax number.
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Nuffield Scholarship Sponsorship Earlier this year Roger was approached by the national chairman of The Australian Nuffield Farming Scholars' Association, Brendon Smart. Brendon is an avid PAM user and very good friend. He asked us to consider becoming a Nuffield Scholarship sponsor. It was with great pleasure and honour that we agreed and we look forward to many years of association with this excellent foundation. As it happens, many Nuffield scholars are PAM users including Philip Hatty, the WA Nuffield chairman Peter Nixon and WA's 2003 wheat grower Nuffield Scholar Brian McAlpine.
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Fairport Moves Office On November 15th we moved office. We are now at 17 Charles Street in South Perth. Thankfully there was very little disruption during the transition… except our ADSL broadband internet connection which was out of action for a week. It's amazing how quickly you take technology for granted and depend on it! …but that was our only hiccup. We now have a whole building to ourselves with our Fairport sign at the front, plenty of space for cars and room for more people.
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PAM QA Plus New Features The following long list of features has been added to PAM QA Plus since our September Newsletter… Cropping Section For Western Australian PAM QA Plus users, the CBH Loadnet import has been welcomed. Several "tweaks" have been needed to perfect it, so if you have not acquired the latest version, please do so. Annual Paddock and Annual Crop Summary Reports have had some often requested new options and features added and a general overhaul … try the new options to see their effect. Management Group Reporting: A new report option to enable those who use Management Groups, to report by them. Similar to the Annual Paddock Summary Report. Crop monitoring mixes: Like chemical tank mixes, you can now create saved mixes of crop monitoring items. Ideal for bug checking etc. Crop seed mixes: Like chemical tank mixes… Ideal for those who regularly under-sow crops with pasture seeds. Append mixes: If you want to insert a pre-saved mix and then want to add another pre-saved mix to it to form a combination of two mixes … you now can!! Thanks Tracey Jones for this excellent suggestion. Crop variety names shared between 2 or more crop types: You may now configure PAM with the same Variety name for multiple crops. This has been requested many times. The inventory system had another overhaul: Look for the new "Tools" option to tell PAM that an item has been totally consumed. This means that redundant batch numbers will no longer appear on your picklists. Also look out for the … "Only show items still on hand" button at the bottom of the inventory screen. Machinery setup: For machinery set up as "Chemical Application" items, you can now enter the date of last calibration. The chemical spray "Job Sheet" (See the Reports button in your Paddock Activities Diary) has had some new features added. Job notes: Job notes entered in the "Add Wizards" can now be seen in the following reports: Paddock Activities Diary / Reports button / Paddock Diary report by Date, and under the Reports Menu… Paddock Reports and Graphs / Paddock Activities Diary Reports. Hay production reporting: Two new reports were added to the Crop Yields and Areas Reports… Potential yield calculation on the Paddock Year screen now shows throughout the year… Previously this value was only showing after a harvest delivery had been recorded. The special EPA pesticide report (under QA Reports) now enables you to report on any chemical type … not just pesticides.
Livestock Section Job copy facility in Livestock Activities Diary… Veterinary treatments and supplementary feeding tasks can be easily re-done on another date… (Select a job and then look for the menu item under Tools/ "Repeat/Copy…") Job Notes: Notes entered in the "Add Wizard" can be seen in the Activities Diary reports.
Individual Animals Module You can now import text files ("CSV" files) of a generic nature into this section of PAM. Ideal for data from wool tests, Aginfolink data etc. A "Trait Browser" is now available to view, filter, rank your animals by one or more traits … and to create special formulae (eg. Indexes) from the trait values. Breedplan data exporting: This section was given a complete overhaul. General Areas List of inventory suppliers and manufacturers (for QA purposes) can now be printed. Use the "Browse" button in the set up screen under Configuration. Back up data files reminder as you leave the program: This can now be turned off under "Customise your PAM QA+ program" if you want to hide this reminder. Paddock Areas report: This report now shows an Irrigated area column. There is now a field on the paddock set up screen to enter irrigated area.
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Mapping Module - New Features Data Linking Map Points: for PAM Soil Tests and other data. You can now link soil, sap, leaf test sites and crop monitoring sites to a map point… Alt+Click on a point and you will be asked if you want to link PAM records to that point. A new file import/coordinates converter feature has been added. Reads a text file containing Lats & Longs or Eastings/Northings to create points on a layer. It can also be used to convert the points from one datum to another, and export to a text file. (e.g. WGS84 -> MGA94) Importing data from the Garmin Mapsource software has had an overhaul. The Flexicoil and Farmscan variable rate systems had an overhaul. gpMapper Live now exchanges waypoints with Magellan GPS units.
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www Site News Any time you have a support requirement at a time when our office is closed, please consult our web site. The site is regularly updated with the most current information on all Fairport products, frequently asked questions, pricing, your local distributors and more. For those technical and general support queries check the FAQ section on the Support page. We are currently updating our product information pages for people wanting more information on our product features. Look out for those changes. For those who are keen to keep abreast of product enhancements, you can always see an up to date list of new features on our Support / Product Changes and Additions page.
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Roger's Ramblings Apart from our office move it has been all "heads down" and hard work at the office. As you can see from the list of program enhancements in this newsletter, we have all been extremely busy programming. Jodie meanwhile has (among other things) been checking our on-line help and software manuals for discrepancies. With the national drought and with harvest underway (where it's possible) things have been quiet and therefore allowed us to be more productive than normal. Our excellent team of distributors working across Australia and internationally has been very active.
Senwes in South Africa have been very active selling plenty of FarmStar programs into the maize growers in the Free State and North West Province where Variable Rate planters are becoming very popular and effective. We look forward to seeing the Senwes crew here in February for some training.
Here in Australia many vignerons are taking on PAM Ultracrop thanks to the efforts of Serve-Ag and their distributors. Booth Technology in WA have found a niche market selling PAM to city park and golf course managers for turf management. It has been a bit surprising how many farmer groups that are still buying PAM in bulk in this very harsh year. Next year we have some long awaited new features for PAM coming your way. These include some integration with other software and interfacing with providers of remote sensed data. Farmstar enhancements of a significant nature are also in the pipeline. I look forward to our association with the Nuffield Scholarship people. I enjoyed meeting many of the old scholars at a function recently where the new WA scholarship winners presented their intended areas of study. We were also addressed by last years winners who talked about their discoveries while overseas on their scholarship tours. It is refreshing to see young people with so much enthusiasm at the cutting edge of the farming industry.
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PocketPAM News More great news for PocketPAM users… - We are very pleased to announce that Paul has finished the gpsScout version for PocketPAM on the PocketPC. - The unique Fairport data transfer system (not Active Sync) for Pocket PC has been even further refined to speed it up more. - The Inventory program on both Palm and PocketPC now enables you to add consumables (chemicals, Fertilisers etc) on the fly on the handheld! Stay tuned.
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Maximise News Work continues with our Maximise program. It will soon be ready for an official release. Many people have tested it and the feedback has been excellent. All your Max data can be migrated to the bigger and better Maximise… Thanks and welcome to all our new Max users in South Africa. Farmers there have a lot of machinery (due to the number of staff they employ) and recently many have bought Max to keep a handle on their repairs and maintenance. Max will continue to be sold and supported after the official release of Maximise. Max users can upgrade to Maximise at any time and keep their data in tact. Stay tuned for more Max announcements on the Fairport web site in the new year.
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Dealer News PAM UltraCrop Serve- Ag Pty Ltd PAM UltraCrop is well on it's way to establishing itself as the Industry standard in Horticultural Management Systems. Fresh market vegetable and potato producers are utilising PAM UltraCrop to assist them in meeting their quality assurance requirements. The second batch of enhancements for PAM UltraCrop - Viticultural Specific, have been released. These include: - Extra functionality in the area of recording and reporting Yield Estimates - Additions to Spray Machinery setup for recording of calibration information and sprayer ID. - Chemical records data entry system and reporting altered to cater for Units/100L and Concentration Factor - Modifications to the Spray Job Worksheet. The 'NEW' PAM UltraCrop web site will be launched this month, ready for Christmas. The web site will contain extensive information on new products, training & workshops in your area, support and software upgrades. The Farmbis program which provides a source of funds to encourage learning and skills development, is assisting Horticultural producers with PAM UltraCrop training around Australia. For further information on these training opportunities, please contact Tim Woolley on 0417 331 801. www.serve-ag.com.au Farmtek Australia News WOW!! Another year over already. It is amazing how time flies and still so much that has to be done. There is not much news to report this time around, except to say we are very pleased with the PAM product this year. I think everyone would agree, Fairport Technologies have done a tremendous job in making PAM the top product in Australia. We would just like to thank you all for your continued support over the 2002 season. Wishing you and your families a Merry Christmas Season and a healthy and happy new year. …from Christine & Gavin Sargeant www.farmtek.com.au Booth Technology News Another year has come to a close. It has been quite a mixed year for most in the Wheatbelt of Western Australia. For most, unless farming near the coast line, rain became quite a scarce commodity during the seeding/growing season, many people still took the opportunity to get their production records into order. The Horticulture and Viticulture Industries, they have gone from strength to strength. Good weather for growing of crops and the vines of the South West have the season looking promising. Once again we attended all the major field days across the state. The response and feed back that we have been receiving from the end user, has been positive towards the enhancements that have gone into PAM QA+ and especially with regard to PocketPAM. At the moment, the ability to enter the data in the field has been the driving force behind the initial sale and the re-use of PAM. We have seen a steady trend of clients who were not using the program as much as they wanted now, using the program more fully and gaining the benefits. With the Quality Assurance band wagon rolling around the industry, PAM has slotted in just nicely with the updates earlier in the year. Recording of QA data has never been simpler. And with the ability to pull up reports on demand and the ability to show auditors the information they need quickly and simply. Early in the new year we are opening up an office in Geraldton. This we see as a positive move into the area, to give a more personalised and local feeling while still providing a very high quality of service and support. The official opening date is still to be confirmed. Late January is the plan for now and we will be informing everyone in the area closer to the date. Management and Staff at Booth Technology would like to wish everyone all the best for the coming season and a merry Christmas for all. www.boothtech.com.au Agbis News Despite the drought, the Agbis team have been busy promoting, installing and supporting PAM and other Fairport products throughout New South Wales and Queensland. We continue to receive a constant flow of enquiry from people looking for a production recording and/or mapping system. Over the past couple of months, Stanbroke Pastoral Company, have started using PAM on a couple of stations in Queensland. All going well, the remaining stations will start using PAM during next year. Matt Meehan has been providing training and support whilst Fairport have been kept busy responding to Stanbroke's requests for enhancements. We'd like to make special mention of the efforts made by Greg Baker (Agbis, Dubbo). During the past year, Greg has travelled many kilometres, spent hours on the phone and delivered numerous training sessions throughout NSW. Greg has provided a valuable service to many clients. Sarah Hall (Agbis, Moree) did an excellent job training PAM clients in North Western NSW over the past six months. At this very moment, Sarah is expecting the birth of her first child and we wish her well. Sarah will be returning to her PAM duties in between nappy changes in the New Year! Jacqui Cork (Agbis, St George) will soon be re-locating to Bollon Qld "where the bushmen drink" as she is getting married in February. Hopefully, Jacqui will be able to find her way out of the Mulga to continue her great work with our PAM clients in South Western Qld. Christine Gavin (Agbis, Griffith) has been providing PAM support and training amongst the dust storms of Southern NSW and we thank her for her efforts. For their continued support, we'd like to thank all our other agents and resellers, including Robert McLeish (Agbis, Manilla), Lorraine Robinson (Toowoomba), Anthony Wallis (Horizon, Dalby), Glenn Milne (Horizon, Dalby), Rowena King (Qld Cotton, Dalby), Fleur Walton (Qld Cotton, Theodore), Ed Windley (Graham Spackman & Associates, Emerald), Roger Timm (WS Group, Ayr), Jon Cobden (MIA Rural Services, Griffith), Nevis Muir (Leading Edge, Griffith) and Andrew Rice (Ivey ATP, Parkes). The Agbis Armidale office will be closed from 23rd December to 29th December and re-open on 30th December. Last, but not least, we'd like to thank all our clients for their support over the past year and wish you all a Muddy Christmas and a Wet New Year. From … Matt & Rose Meehan, Agbis Armidale www.agbis.com
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In Closing

The Fairport Team wishes you all a safe and happy festive season and we all hope the new year brings a lot of luck and prosperity to you all….

Until March …
All the best from the
Fairport Team !

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