Smarts News

BACKUPS

Last night about 7 pm I took a call from an operator who had just discovered she could not initialize a log for December. After probing through some file sizes, we determined that it was likely that one of the orders had not been created correctly. I asked about a December backup, and heard the pause that I have come to know and fear. There were no December backups. While this operator had been diligent about doing her daily backups for the current month, she had neglected to backup December and future months. Maybe you, too, have done the same thing, and can profit from this experience. Backup all future months. It is your protection against hardware failure.

HAPPY MILLENNIUM

Each new year is a time for reflection, evaluation, and goal setting. As we enter the year 2000, I reflect on our professional history with SMARTS. As many of you know, we wrote software when we owned KEMB, for use on our station. We were contacted in 1981 by an Iowa broadcaster to see if we would sell to his Iowa station and two Illinois stations. Our role as a vendor of software was launched.

I have enjoyed meeting many of you in person, either by coming to your station for training, or through your attendance at our training classes here in Iowa.

We have made many changes in the software during the past 18 years. Many of them come from ideas and suggestions from you. We thank you for your continued input. It has made us gain the reputation of being user friendly, and radio oriented.

FEB 29 WORK AROUND

As far as we know, your SMARTS software will work fine in 2000, and beyond. Some of you may have computers that are not Y2K compatible. If you have not yet done the test on your office computer, do it immediately. There is one work-around in 2000 that you will have to do. If you have an order with a stop date of 2-29-99, you will need to put in a stop date of 3-1-99, and enter zero spots on 3-1-99. We're sorry for the inconvenience, but rather than trying to fix it and creating errors, we ask you to work around the problem.

SUPPORT ON THE EVES

Due to the holidays, Christmas Eve day and New Years' Eve day will be Emergency Support only. We will respond to emergencies; all other calls will be returned on the first business day after the holiday.