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cmputers at convention

OK Folks.....let's get reasonably serious here.  My last post was really meant 
to be in jest of an oversimplefication of a very complex issue.  Registration 
of killies and etc. at the AKA conventions.
First of all....the person at the computer will not get to see the convention.  
There will be a lot of peple come by and say hi to you but that is the extent 
of the convention........that's OK, I knew it going into the whole idea.....but 
you cannot imagine just how many things can go wrong on the most planed out 
registration.

There is already out there an AKA software package that does our AKA convention 
if everything goes as it should.  1) everyone should know what their fish are 
2) what catagory they are in   3) the computer list of species should be up to 
date.

1) You would not believe how many peple simply don't know the name of their 
fish......20% simply put "gardneri"....or "biv".....or some generic name that 
envolves looking up or asking someone   2)  even some of the best kille men I 
could find at the Tampa 2000 convention did not and could not help with the 
positioning into the right class for the fish......"well, I think they changed 
that class 8 months ago, but I don't recall what it was!"   2) some people put 
gardneri in the Florida native class.....those had to be undone...and sometimes 
weren't caught until already benched  3)  The computer database of fishes was 
years behind.

I could go on and on and on.....but it would only make people angry and make it 
seem as though I was looking for sympathy.....which I'm not.  But I was as 
guilty as the next about my next suggestion........every person who has been a 
computer guy at an AKA conention should be called and talked to and quizzed by 
someone to better improve the next one....I spoke to no one and suffered the 
consequences...."how hard can a data base be"...........without my "compter 
buddy" from the regular aquarium society in Tampa the whole registration would 
have been a disaster..............I was willing but you beter know Access 
backward and forward......and some!..........there will be probems you will 
never have thought of........and you better be able to get into the code.  Just 
to gve you one bit of insite........I forget what the problem was but it was 
about 12:45AM Sunday morning and the registration program wouldn't do 
something.... had spent 2-3 hours trying to get some fish into the auction and 
it wouldn't hapen and Jim, my "computer buddy" worked of an hour and couldn't 
get it done.........finally Mr. Macafee (spelling) who wrote the original 
program came to the rescue and after about 45 min - to an hour finally made it 
work..........if he hadn't been there we were "cooked".....those fish would 
never have been on the roster of fish being sold......it is amazing wat can g 
wrong when you can least afford it................next time in the future pat 
the compuer guy on the head and pray for him and his sanity..........learn your 
fish folks......and please know what catagory they belong to.......;-)

Mike




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