[Ted Craven]

Hello Folks,

It has been a long time since I released an update to RDSS but I have one available now - for those who would like it. And I must explain that last qualifier "for those who would like it". I really can't consider this a formal update with the same status as previous updates. This new version (V0.98.5), while introducing the new toteboard module, wider screens and a font Zoom control (and other bug fixes) - none-the-less is actually somewhat less stable than the current version you are all using (V0.97.9) and I would normally not release such an update until I had stabilized it a lot further than what it is.

Perhaps some more explanation is in order, (but for those who don't care about my excuses, just go straight to the RDSS Download page and get the new update: www.PaceandCap.com/rdssdownload - remember, you need to be set up for RDSS to access this page).

OK - everybody knows that the biggest complaint about RDSS (aside from why does it not get ALL the winners ), is that it crashes from time to time, usually when moving from race to race, or from card to card. Most often, it is quite stable when doing a single race - if you closed the software after each race, before moving on to a new one, it would likely never crash, big pain though. This is because RDSS occupies a LOT (too much) of Windows memory to display all the pretty colours, various tabbed screen displays, etc. With the addition of the toteboard module, especially with the wiring required to route the live odds to EVERY screen (even if you don't see that right now) - RDSS kind of went to the brink of how much memory it was consuming, and you can push it over easily by running other memory intensive apps at the same time, like Microsoft Office apps, web browsers, whatever. Depending on how many horses are in a race, you may be able to successively load 3 or 4 races in a row before the software will simply die with no warning. No worries - just open it up again and continue on where you left off.

However, this is not what I consider 'stable' behaviour and I have been working at basically tearing the software down and rewiring it up again in a fairly major way in order for it to be SIGNIFICANTLY less memory intensive while still snappy and colourful. That will allow me to complete the software with all its subsequent bells and whistles (e.g. charts, models, bookkeeping, graphs, printouts). The version I am releasing here IS NOT that version! This new version today is an interim update which some few testers have been enjoying a lot, but which is still the old software with more stuff bolted on top of it. The NEW RDSS is still in my shop with its guts on the bench, and still a few months work away.

So - if the current version of RDSS you are using (i.e. V0.79.9) is working fine for you and you have no need of the additions being released here or do not suffer from the bugs I am addressing, or if you are concerned about how less stable it may be - PLEASE - do not download and install it just because it is new. And if you do install the new version (0.98.5) and you don't like it or if it crashes too much or doesn't fit well in your computer monitor display - just re-download and re-install the previous version (0.79.9).

That said, some of the additions are kind of neat and I will describe them a bit further below (toteboard connection, wider screens, Zoom larger fonts, relief from error messages for those who happen to have both PP and PP+Charts data accounts).

The latter half of 2008 has been a bit of a difficult time for me for a number of reasons and I've made a separate post about that. I would have liked to make a video tutorial about the stuff in this release, but I am also planning to take some time off (January 2009) to recupe and recharge, and it seems that it has been almost beyond my powers to actually get this version out and documented such as it is, so the video tutorial will have to wait for a month or so. I invite everyone to just play around with it and find out what's going on.

AGAIN - if this new version gives you any troubles at all, just abandon it and re-install the previous version overtop, and continue as you were. For this reason, the previous version (0.97.9) will continue to be available to download from the RDSS Download page.

Now, let's look at what's new or changed, in the next post!

Ted