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Introduction by Nigel Lorriman, McCarthy Taylor Systems Ltd.

We've got a lot to get through this month, so I'm sure you don't want to wade through a lengthy introduction from me. We kick off this e-bulletin with news of a survey datalogging solution we're interested in getting involved with and we'd like your comments and feedback. Then we have details of a remote access application for our helpdesk which allows us to see and control a PC in pursuit of better technical support. There's the usual roundup of training and exhibition news and a request for volunteers to become program 'guinea pigs' as we try out some new user-interface ideas in LSS.

Almost since we started in this game nearly 24 years ago, land surveyors have been asking if we had ever thought about writing survey datalogging software. The answer has always been yes, but we've never done anything about it. And in recent years, as survey instruments have become more sophisticated, there has been less of a need to get involved with logging software. We have contented ourselves with producing codelists and interfacing with other people's loggers.

Back in October when we followed Leica round the country on their roadshow tour, we met up with fellow exhibitors Microsurvey. They are based in Canada and have, for the past several years, produced a datalogging package called 'Field Genius'.

Running on a choice of two rugged hand-held loggers with colour screens, a complete logging package starts from about £1,500+VAT and it should work with most survey equipment dating as far back as the early '90s. There are add-on software modules for Robotic and GPS equipment and also Bluetooth connectivity. A fully-functional package on a top specification logger costs about £3,000+VAT which is very competitive.

Our survey specialist, Richard has taken a look at the way the system works and reckons that it is efficient and easy to use.

At this stage we're gauging interest from our existing client base to see if there would be sufficient interest should we become dealers. We have agreed with Microsurvey to provide a link to their website for you to peruse the various logger options. Then, if you'd like to let us know what you think, we'll be able to make a decision whether we will become a dealer. This may or may not be the best time to get involved in new ventures such as this, but we are convinced that there is a market out there for new and innovative datalogging solutions at the right price and we think this is it! Please ignore the pricing on this brochure. The UK prices should work out less.

Hit the image above to visit the Field Genius brochure. Once you've taken a look and are interested please complete our enquiry form (click below) and we'll come back to you.

Plans are progressing for the Institute of Civil Engineering Surveyors XCES exhibition at York Racecourse on 22nd & 23rd April 2009 at which we will have a stand. 38 exhibitors are confirmed and include all the usual suspects such as survey instrument manufacturers and dealers, plus a range of GIS and service companies. We'd love to see you at the show and hope that York is more convenient for those who have not been able to make it to the World of Geomatics / GEO shows in the Midlands in past years. Please be aware that we WILL NOT be attending GEO-9 in Coventry this year, so if you are going to attend one event this spring then please make sure it's XCES.

As you will be aware, in December we took on a new member of staff to assist with technical support and training. Since then, David Manley has been learning the ropes and, with the guidance of Duane Phillips, has spent much of his time updating training manuals and undertaking quite a lot of off-site training.

In fact it has been a busy couple of months for him and by the look of the diary it's going to get busier.

Nevertheless, Duane and David have asked me to mention the upcoming training courses in Chesterfield from 10th to 13th February and in Livingston from 10th to 13th March. We are running all the normal courses each week and there are places left on most of them. If you want to book for Chesterfield we would recommend you do so quickly as the room sizes and catering are being finalised.

Click HERE to view our training timetable and click HERE to book a place.

News from the development team is quite exciting. They've been working on a few ideas for improving the user interface and in a while we'll be approaching users to act as early adopters and testers of these new concepts. We've had 'Beta Testers' before, but these would be 'Alpha Testers' and the program will definitely not be for live work, but as the car companies do, we'll be looking for some consumer testing before we finalise our approach. If you think you'd be interested in taking part and will have the time to test and report back then we'd love to hear from you. If you email me on nigel@dtmsoftware.com I can add you to the list. Forgive the cloak and dagger approach, but we don't want to let the cat out of the bag quite yet. That's enough idioms and adjectives for one afternoon.

Thank you.

Meanwhile, as this e-bulletin goes to distribution the latest LSS program is version 9.70.04. If you haven't disabled automatic updates in 'Configure Hardware & System / General' and are still running a version older than 9.70.04 then please check that you can get updates by choosing 'Help / Check for LSS update'. If you have an Internet connection it should identify that there is a newer program to download. If it doesn't, then we'd like to hear from you. In the meantime you can still visit the website and download the latest version in the usual way.

Remote Access is a phrase which will be familiar to many of you who work for large corporates. It's the method by which technical support personnel can access your computer to help you out with tricky technical issues. However, for the rest of us, it's a way to connect to an office PC from anywhere in the world via any web browser. One solution, called 'Remote Desktop' is included with Windows XP Professional and Vista, but if you don't have either of these platforms then you can get similar functionality from a variety of third party software vendors.

One such system is 'Log Me In' (www.logmein.com) and the way it works is like this… Let's say you want to access your office PC when away from the office. This becomes your 'Host' PC. You log onto www.logmein.com and create yourself an account with an email address and password. You then download the Log Me In software and activate your account by responding to an automated email.

The Log Me In software will run in your system tray. Of course, you need to leave your office PC switched on for the next bit to work.

So, from any Internet-connected computer visit www.logmein.com and type in your office PC email and password. And voila you are connected! You will see in the browser window a picture of your office PC desktop and you can 'drive' it just as if you were sitting at the computer. You get 30 days or 2 hours of connection time (whichever comes first) for free and after that you can either pay for the 'Log Me In Pro' package (£41 a year) or use the 'Log Me In FREE' package for free forever.

Why are we telling you all this? Well, we believe that many support calls could be answered more efficiently if we could do this. Log Me In is the next best thing to being in front of the PC. It allows us to control the PC, view files, run applications and quite simply do all the checks we might want to do to solve the particular problem.

In the next few weeks, we'll be implementing procedures to be able to offer this service to our customers, but in the meantime, if you think you might be able to use this technology in your normal business then why not visit www.logmein.com and give it a try.

When I saw this product mentioned in AutoExpress car magazine I couldn't believe my eyes. Anyone who has had problems starting their vehicle will appreciate the frustrations that this product aims to overcome. What did the man say "It does exactly what it says on the tin."

If you don't believe that this product exists then click on the image to visit their website.