Borzoi Names and Computers and my pedigree program, WebPed
bdz
myself in a language called BASIC (the names of most computer
languages are abbreviations so all the letters are caps). However that
lasted for maybe 20 pedigrees when I discovered the world of pedigree
programs written and maintained by someone else. So for many years I
used a program called CompuPed and eventually I got to know its
author, Larry Ritter, and I even became a 'Beta tester' and got to
used unstable versions of the program. I also suggested some
additional features. Larry sometimes discussed things about the
program with me.
Sadly Larry died in December of 1999 and the program - which was about
to make the transition from DOS to Windows was sold to another
developer who has refused to honor Larry's agreement to alllow
upgrades to previous program owners at a discount. So I never made the
transition to the "Millenium" version of CompuPed.
This left me with a database of over 40,000 Borzoi and no way to
access it other than through an aging DOS program that was becoming
increasingly difficult to run under the newer versions of Windows. In
addition DOS was becoming increaslingly difficult to install on newer
computers (at least for me). Also I was really getting tired of
Windows with its virus and spy ware problems.
So I started working on a program that could open my database and do
things with it. Most of the things involve preparing pedigrees for
display on the internet. This is the source of WebPed, my program. At
this time it works, it makes pedigrees from a CompuPed 4 database and
can create a complete pedigree dump from the database in one pass (it
takes around 8 hours on my faster computer to do this).
I still have to write the section that adds new records. At this time
I have been able to get CompuPed 4 running on the fast computer
because of a opensource operating system called FreeDos (http://
www.freedos.org/) which can be installed on modern computers and does
a very good job of emulating MSDOS.
For those of you who are not infected with computer addiction, it is
possible to set your computer up to run several different operating
systems - that is called having a 'multiboot' system. This one
currently can be booted into three different OS's (Linux. Freedos and
Amiga-emulation). I also have a slide out drawer with Windows XP on it
but I rarely use it.
So now I can add new dogs to the database with CompuPed 4 and use
Webped to create many different types of reports. I am happy to help
any of you who are CompuPed 4 owners to get your CompuPed running
again if you have lost the ability to run it on your current machine.
This brings up the problem of character (letter) representations. In
addition to the problems we have with Borzoi names often being
transliterations into various different alphabets from Cyrillic, there
is also the problem that computer character sets for the most widely
used operating systems were originally set up by people who spoke
English.
This means the english letters A-Z and a-z are represented pretty much
universally but that there are a variety of incompatible ways of
representing what English speakes think of as "foreign" letters,
umlaut vowels, circumflex vowels, tilde N's, etc.
ComuPed 4, as a dos program, used the PC DOS character set while
Windows used a different one and modern OS's use UTF-8 which attempts
to solve the problem by using more bytes (the basic way a computer
stores a minimal bit of information) per character so that all
characters in all languages can be represented.
This means that a CompuPed 4 record with an umlaut vowel in the dog's
name will not display correctly on some computer systems.
So I just finished working on part of WebPed so that the web based
pedigrees have the Euro letters correctly spelled on the pages
displayed on the web. However the file names of the dogs with Euro
letters still use the nearest english equivalent because operating
systems often have problems reading file names made up of anything
other than the English based letters and numbers.
This is why, sometimes, you have problems saving a file from your web
browser to your local computer.
Those of you interested further in this can visit pages of this sort:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_ASCII
At least one European who has made the upgrade from CompuPed V to
CompuPed Millenium has told me he could not import his dog database
into Millenium (it had characters from his language in it) while his
horse database which had all English characters, came in fine.
As a test a small file with the dog names done only in English
characters might work.
ren...@peoplepc.com
over, they tried to charge me twice for their up grade which I never got.
Unfortunately I transferred all my data to another program and lost all the
raw dada I had on Compuped.
Paul-Leo
PL Paquin
ren...@peoplepc.com
Peri Neill
really fascinating. :-)
In researching the pedigree on my foreign girl, I often found different
spellings for the same dog. I was pretty sure that it was because of the
foreign to english translations. Luckily I found a really nice lady 'across
the pond' that had access to some of the stud books and could verify the
actual spellings.
Bonnie's database has a wealth of information in it. I used it extensively
in my research. It filled in many a gap that I came across.
One of the things I was looking for in my research was dob and dod. You
can't always find what health issues a dog has, but I figured if the dog
lived past 10 yrs, it was fairly safe to say that it was a healthy dog. So
this was another piece if info that I included in my pedigrees.
Peri Neill
Courage is being scared to death---but saddling up anyway. ---John Wayne
We must be the change we wish to see---Gandhi
----- Original Message -----
From: "bdz" <bdal...@qis.net>
To: "Borzoi Pedigrees and Litters" <ZoiPe...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 8:30 AM
Subject: [Borzoi Pedigree] Borzoi Names and Computers and my pedigree
program, WebPed
>
Bonnie Dalzell
PN >
PN >Wow Bonnie, that is totally fascinating. Completely over my head, but
PN >really fascinating. :-)
PN >
PN >In researching the pedigree on my foreign girl, I often found different
PN >spellings for the same dog. I was pretty sure that it was because of the
PN >foreign to english translations. Luckily I found a really nice lady 'across
PN >the pond' that had access to some of the stud books and could verify the
PN >actual spellings.
PN >
PN >Bonnie's database has a wealth of information in it. I used it extensively
PN >in my research. It filled in many a gap that I came across.
PN >
PN >One of the things I was looking for in my research was dob and dod. You
PN >can't always find what health issues a dog has, but I figured if the dog
PN >lived past 10 yrs, it was fairly safe to say that it was a healthy dog. So
PN >this was another piece if info that I included in my pedigrees.
PN >
PN >Peri Neill
DOB is generally available if you have access to the
Studbooks. However the AKC stopped publishing its stud books a few
years ago so we are going to be dependent on catalogues for DOB for US
Borzoi. The AKC Awards publishes parents, breeders, owners, reg number,
titles and date of title being finished.
Noone publishers DOD on a regular basis although reading the e-mail lists
can glean date of death sometimes.
I am happy to add DOB/DOD to any records in the database. I would welcome
help with the database. One job is to scan old magazines and posts for DOD
memorials.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bonnie Dalzell, MA
mail:5100 Hydes Rd ---- Hydes MD USA 21082-----EMAIL:bdal...@qis.net
freelance anatomist, vertebrate paleontologist, writer, illustrator, dog
breeder, computer nerd & iconoclast... Borzoi info at www.borzois.com.
Editor Net.Pet Online Animal Magazine - http://www.netpetmagazine.com
HOME http://www.qis.net/~borzoi/ BUSINESS http://www.batw.com