When Your Email to Us Bounces Back

We have had a couple of customers report that email sent to us bounces back to them. Our Internet Service Provider may reject email from certain servers if those servers are listed on the rsslist. Servers so listed have had problems because they have been used by individuals or entities to propagate SPAM. If you try to send us email and your email bounces back, go to http://www.mail-abuse.org. Somewhere on that website you can check and see if your service provider is listed on the rsslist. Then you should contact your service provider and have them takes steps to become delisted. In the meantime, you can contact us at ktown@patownsend.com.

Back to the top

Thoughts from the Developer

Thank you to all of you who have written to me in support of WorkingArtist. We have tried to incorporate many enhancement requests from current users into WorkingAritst 3.0. Three major enhancements of WorkingArtist 3.0 are the Calendar function, the ability to an Add-In (frame, stand, etc) price in the Artwork record, and the Document Editor that mimics Word Processing in a Rich Text Memo field.

The Calendar function collects dates from Shows, Project and Reminders and inserts them into a visual calendar so that you can have a month-by-month print out. This was a function that was fun to program, because it is self-contained and required some intense creativity.

The Add-On function was a complicated function to program in terms of the entire program, because it entered into every nook and cranny in the application. It allows you to have a unique Add-on price for a frame, stand or other item for a specific edition of an artwork record. When you go to a "Select" screen now, such as the screen for selecting work for a Show, the Whl and Ret Price fields will include any Add-On that you have entered in the artwork edition record. If you double-click on either the Whl or Ret Price field, a dialog will display so that you can edit the prices: the Whl Price, Ret Price, AddOnWhl Price and AddOnRet Price. If you do not have editions, this will simply appear as an add-on to the artwork. What this function does is to allow you to add different framing costs to different editions of a particular artwork.

The Rich Text Memo field is a third party Active-X control that we purchased a run-time license for. The most interesting part of this function was programing for Form Letters and Mail List. You'll see that I settled on doing "Merge" fields that are similar to MSWord merge field using << >> to enclose patron address variable fields.

Besides these there are a myriad of small and medium enhancements, designed to make the program easier to use. One of these is the ability to double-click on a combo-box that lists values in a table to actually open that table and edit the values. Another one is the ability to use arrow keys to move up and down any particular field in a list screen such as the Artwork Datasheet. Yet another set of enhancements are the backup functions in the File menu of the Main Switchboard. For example, the Switch to Backup Data File function allows you to display a backup file from within the program, then switch back to your main file, without resorting to complicated renaming procedures in Windows Explorer.

Releasing a new version always produces anxiety, because even though we have tested for months, there are often bugs that only users will eventually find because of the variety of ways in which different people use the program. We always appreciate it when you bring any problems to our attention. Then we can correct the problems and issue an update.

Back to the top

Computer Care

Things to do to keep your computer in good working order:

1) Install good virus software and install the virus definition updates on a regular basis.

2) Regularly make backups of all your important files. The best place to store these backups is on a zip or jaz disk, rather than on your hard drive. You don't need to make backup's of application files, just your data files. For example, if you use Quicken, just make a back up of your Quicken data file.

2) Regularly clear out your temp files. These are often generated simply in the course of using the computer. They should go away after you close an application, but sometimes they do not. Close all open applications. Go to the temp directory, (often C:\Windows\Temp) and delete any .tmp files. Then empty your recycle bin.

3) If your computer shuts down unexpectly such as during a power outage, make sure it performs a ScanDisk when you turn it back on. If it does not, go to the MSDos prompt for your main directory (probably c:\) and type in ScanDisk.

4) If your computer seems to be performing poorly, do a Defrag. This cleans up fragmented files and makes bigger spaces on your hard drive. You need this for good performance. Close all open applications and go to the MSDos prompt. Type in Defrag.

5) Make sure your main hard drive has at least 100 mb of free space on it. In Windows Explorer, right click on your c:\ drive. From the drop down menu click on Properties. This will display the amount of space on this drive. If it is less than 100 mb, you will start encountering memory problems. Free up space by clearing out your tmp files, emptying your recycle bin, moving files that you want to keep but do not use to a zip drive, deleting files that you know you do not want to keep. Do NOT delete application files directly from Windows Explorer. To delete an application you should use that application's "Uninstaller" or go to the Windows Add/Remove utility. Do NOT delete any Windows or Windows/System files. If you don't know what you are doing, don't delete anything until you can get some help from someone who does know.

6) If you think your computer has a hardware problem or a virus, make backup's of all your important files to a zip or jaz drive. Take you computer immediately to your local computer repair shop and have them run diagnostics on it. They can most likely tell you what is wrong with it.

Back to the top

Protecting against Viruses

Is your machine protected with anti-virus software? McAfee and Norton are two good choices, but you must do more than load the software onto your machine--you must also update your anti-virus files from McAffee or Norton on a regular basis. Norton has a "live update" feature which connects to Symantec and automatically checks to see if you have the most recent files. If you do not, it downloads them and installs them onto your machine.

When you download files from the web it is a good practice to scan them with your anti-virus software and it is wise never to open an executable (a file with an exe extention) that is sent to you from a newsgroup or from someone you don't know. When downloading files from the web you should always select the "Save to Disk" option (which puts the file in a folder on your hard drive) rather than the "Run from this Location" option (which immediately executes an executable file once it is downloaded.) When you save the file to disk, then you have the opportunity to scan it with your anti-virus software before executing it.

Both the Norton and McAfee website have lots of information about viruses.

Back to the top

Macs

You can run WorkingArtist on your Mac in Windows without rebooting using Parallels Desktop for Mac.

Back to the top

Images

The preferred image type in WorkingArtist 3.0 is the jpg image. You can still use your bmp images, but they may not look very good if you use the "zoom" feature in the image frame. There is a Windows option when loading images in the frame that produces a "progress meter." If you page rapidly through your artwork, invoking the progress meter, it can cause an illegal function error. To learn how to resolve this problem, go to the Known Bugs article in the Knowledge Base.

Back to the top

What numbering system should I use?

WorkingArtist 3.0 supports both numeric and alphanumeric numbers for the WorkNum field in the Artwork form.

When you are devising a numbering scheme for your artwork, there are a couple of things to remember about how these numbers are sorted in the database. In a numeric system, you can number 1, 2, 3...98, 99, 100 and the numbers will sort appropriately. If you use the same type of numbering in an alphanumeric system, the numbers will sort differently, ie., 1, 12, 13...2, 21, 23, etc. Thus, if you want to use this particular numbering scheme in an alphanumeric system, it would be better to number this way: 0001, 0002, 0003....0098, 0098, etc.

Some people like to incorporate dates into their numbering schemes. For example, you might use year and month, i.e., 980101, 980102...981245, 981246. However, if you use this sort of scheme, when you get to the year 2000, the numbers that begin with '00' will display before the numbers with the year 98. Therefore, if you want to do it this way, then add a century identifier at the beginning of the number, i.e., 1980101, 1980102...2001245, 2001246, etc.

If you are sure you will not record more than 999 works in any year, then you could use a slightly shorter number, i.e., 198001, 198002, 198003...200001, 200002, etc.

Back to the top

Enhancements

There are some enhancements that we will probably never make. These include accounting and image editing. For these things you need a solid accounting system such as Quick Books Pro and an image editing program such as Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. These are huge areas of expertise that we have no intention of developing and there are already such good programs out there that it would be silly to try.

However, if you requested an enhancement other than one of these and you do not find it in WorkingArtist 3.0, then let us know. Possibly we did not do it because the enhancement idea wasn't clear enough or just seemed too complicated without being a more universal need. But possibly the idea just got put on a list somewhere and buried in a stack of recycling. So let us know.
Back to the top