In this issue:

Training Courses

* * Don't Miss the Early-Bird Registration Deadlines to Save Up to $200 CAD * *

We have two Southern hemisphere locations for training courses this year: Australia and South Africa. You can save up to $200 CAD from the registration fee if you register on or before the early-bird deadline. Don't miss this deadline if you are planning to come! When registering for the Introductory course you can take all days of the course, or any 2 or 3 days, if you already have some proficiency in Generation II. Check out the course agenda to determine what would be most appropriate for you. More information about all courses can be found here.

Advanced Training Course in Bloemfontein, South Africa, August 24-28

We are pleased to announce an advanced training course to be held in the Department of Plant Sciences, the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa, August 24-28, 2009. Although this is an advanced course, the course will be open to those who are still fairly recent users of AGROBASE Generation II, or first need a major "refresher" in using the software. To that end, we have made this a 4-day course, with the first day being devoted exclusively to covering the basics of the software and ensuring a good start into the more advanced capabilities of the software. The course will run from 1 pm on the Monday to noon on the Friday. This course will allow for significant interaction with the instructor to learn how to adapt the software to one's particular needs, and also ensure the most optimal use of the software. We will even encourage course participants to e-mail their requests and questions before the course, for the best possible interaction and value from the course. Register by June 12 for the early-bird rate, or earlier to ensure a seat in the course.

Advanced and Introductory Training Courses, Adelaide, Australia, July 2009

Our training courses in Australia will be held in Adelaide this year, instead of Brisbane as in previous years. The introductory course will be held July 21-24, with an early-bird date of May 8. The advanced course will be held July 27-29, with an early bird date of May 12. We plan to announce the venue for the courses soon. If you are interested in these courses, we recommend that you take either the introductory or the advanced course, but not both. If you are not sure which course to take, please e-mail us so that we can help you decide.

New Installation and License Management Guide

We now have a new resource on our web site for users of AGROBASE Generation II. The "Installation and License Management: A Comprehensive Guide" is available as a downloadable PDF via the "Installation/ License Management Guide" line from the downloads option on the Services page. This document covers how to do electronic downloads from our web site, installation of the software for both the stand-alone PC and LAN environments, software registration and license file management issues, directly registering DLLs that failed to register properly and therefore cause runtime errors, and more. This document is intended for all our users, but especially for IT personnel that might be assisting our users. The goal is to prevent or minimize problems from installation, software registration, and upgrades. Please visit our web site and ensure that you have the latest version of this document which will be periodically revised and expanded.

Who's Using Version 18.4.1?

If you are not using the most current version, we would encourage you to upgrade to this most recent version as soon as possible. There are number of small enhancements and some bug fixes which you can review in the Notes section. The license renewal process has been streamlined in this version. If you are in version 17 or earlier, you will be missing out from the new graphics capability, among other new developments.

(To check the version you are using click Help → About)

MS-SQL Server Version of AGROBASE Generation II

The development of our next version of AGROBASE Generation II with Microsoft's SQL Server® as the back-end database is on schedule. Currently, we anticipate a June release date. We are excited about all the possibilities in this major new version, especially for users running AGROBASE Generation II on a LAN. The software will run on either Microsoft's SQL Server Express®, or the standard SQL Server, depending upon the user's needs and current operating environment. We are now completing the development of a data migration tool, to migrate data from the current research groups - the Generation II relational database -- to the new SQL-Server relational database. Data migration will ONLY be possible from a research group in version 18. The user interface will remain almost identical, thus users will not be required to "re-learn" how to use the software.

More details will follow as the actual release date approaches.