Figure 1.  Spreadsheet Log Filter Bar

One of the great capabilities of using an electronic logbook is the ability to filter your data and find entries of choice.  As you have probably already discovered, Logbook Pro contains many ways to filter and find data.  Whether using the powerful Analyzer or the familiar interface of the Logbook Pro Explorer, Reports, etc., there are numerous ways of drilling down into your Logbook Pro data to find information.

In this month's Tip-of-the-Month topic, we'll take a look at yet another way of finding data, specifically in the Spreadsheet Style Logbook area.  A sub-level toolbar is available, as shown in Figure 1 above, to filter logbook data by characteristics such as Date, Aircraft Types, Simulator entries, etc.  To access the filter capabilities, click the filter icon  on the sub-toolbar which is displayed when the Spreadsheet Style log is opened.  If you are not familiar which icon this is, hover your mouse over the icon until the popup message appears telling you that the button is the Filter bar button.

Once the filter bar is displayed, you will see the option of selecting a preset date filter from the far left drop down, or, choose the Custom option from the list and two calendars will appear allowing the selection of a starting and ending date for the filter.  If all you elect to filter are the dates, click the flashing Update button on the far right of the sub-toolbar and the data in the log area will display only results matching your filter.

Aircraft types can also be filtered, either with or without a date filter setting.  Select the types you wish to have displayed when activating the filter setting, close the drop down list and click the Update link.  Lastly, an additional filter criteria can be set to show only Flight entries, Simulator Entries, or Both, from the option buttons to the right of the Aircraft Type selector. 

To clear the filter, set the Date option to display All Data, the Aircraft Types to display All Aircraft, the option setting to show both Flight and Sim data OR close the filter sub-toolbar by again clicking the filter icon.  When the filter bar is hidden, the log area is reset to display all logged data.

In closing of this months Tip-of-the-Month section, you can see there are many ways of doing things in Logbook Pro and some you probably didn't even know were available.  Filtering data will help identify information for forms you may be required to fill out, find erroneous entries you're trying to hunt down, or just capture data you want to print directly from the Spreadsheet Style system.  Many reasons, many ways, that's the flexibility of Logbook Pro!

FlightCentral Route Browser

A commonly requested feature of Logbook Pro is the ability to present a visual representation of flight data.  Some think this is not possible in the way Logbook Pro stores it's routes, i.e. one line entry for the days flights, oh contraire mon-frere!  Thanks to a wonderful and inexpensive Add-In developed by Jeff at FlightCentral, the Route Browser can display your data overlaying a map such as shown above.  Access the FlightCentral Route Browser from within Logbook Pro by clicking the Add-In menu item for the FlightCentral Route Browser. 

Learn more about the FlightCentral Route Browser by going to the Logbook Pro web site and clicking the Route Browser link on the left side menu.

Have questions about the Route Browser.  Post your questions to our e-Community so others can learn from your questions.

To understand how flights are ordered, Logbook Pro stamps the date and time every time you enter a flight, although this data is not visible.  Logbook Pro orders your data by the Date of the Flight, then behind the scenes, in the order of the date and time entry.  This helps Logbook Pro understand how to sort flights on the same day.  If you fly five legs in a day, all on 4 March for example, Logbook Pro will display them in the exact order they are entered into the PC.

On the PDA, the same time stamping occurs, however, the bug found was that this time stamping was *also* occurring when editing a flight.  So if you flew five legs on a single date, entered them in order then went back to edit leg two, for example, the order on the PC after Sync'ing would be out of order, flight two would now become flight five.

Have no fear, NC Software is here and we hate having those critters running around in our software!  We've supplied a hotfix for both the Palm and Pocket PC Companion to squash this critter!  Don't worry, applying this hotfix is easy, and your data on the PDA will not be touched, you can install this hotfix right over top your existing installation, assuming you are using 1.9.3 of course.

For the Palm, download the small update.  Unzip to a folder on your computer, double-click the .PRC file to queue up for the next HotSync.  After the hotsync, you will now be running the hotfix release version 1.2.2.

• Palm Update 1.2.2

For the Pocket PC.  Download from the URL below.  Place your Pocket PC in the cradle and ensure it is connected via ActiveSync.  Double-click the update downloaded and the installation will occur automatically.  Data will remain intact and the new build, 1.2.2 will now be available, once you click the authorization on the Pocket PC to overwrite the existing installation, assuming you are using 1.9.3 of course!

• Pocket PC Update 1.2.2

Did you know this hotfix has been available for some time?  Check the e-Community frequently as this is our priority support system where we keep the community up-to-date and respond to customer inquiries first here!

• Is my PDA supported? 
   
  • Please read the topic above
     
• After installing the software to my Pocket PC, I get a "database cannot be found error"
   
  • This is typically caused by not installing precisely per the instructions in the Installation topic of the help file.  Please reference the help documentation EXACTLY as shown in the Pocket PC Installation topic.  The typical error is failure to specify the database location, which is:
    
    \Program Files\Logbook Pro\Logbook.cdb
     
• After installing to my Palm device, I keep getting a message to HotSync as aircraft data is not available.
   
  • This error is typically caused by out of date or non-existent drivers on a obsolete operating system (aka Windows 98).  Click here to read information on how to resolve this by installing MDAC 2.6 and Microsoft JET4 drivers manually.  Uninstall AppForge Universal Conduit from the Windows Control Panel Add/Remove programs section, reboot, install the drivers, reinstall the Palm Companion software
     
• Data will not synchronize from the PDA to my PC.  The merge queue is never activated
   
  • This is either because the PDA has not been licensed as a key code must be purchased for the PDA companion from our Secure Online Store, or, the PDA key code has not been entered on BOTH the PDA and PC Companion menu area.
     
• My key code doesn't work on my PDA!
   
  • PDA Companions must be licensed separately for $29.95 per device.  Once the key code is purchased from the Secure Online Store, enter the code on both the PDA and PC (PDA Companion menu area) to release evaluation restrictions and allow synchronization
     
• I purchased a Palm key code and bought a Pocket PC device. Can I transfer my key code from the Palm to the Pocket PC?
   
  • No, I'm sorry but each device requires registration

The second issue I'd like to bring up is actually a correction to the documentation.  With the Palm Companion, a manual "purge" of the data is required to remove the data from the PDA to avoid sending the data to the PC on subsequent synchronizations.  The Pocket PC has a more advanced sync routine where it actually cleans itself up automatically.  Once the sync occurs and the data is confirmed within the Pocket PC to be transmitted and stored on the PC for merging, the Pocket PC purges the data automatically.  We will clear the documentation up in the next maintenance release of Logbook Pro.

Click the Refer-a-Friend menu link and print out the refer-a-friend form.  Print out many if you like and take to your local FBO, mail to your friends, whatever you choose.  When your friends mail in the refer-a-friend form and order via this form, YOU will receive $10.00 for every order.

Take advantage of technology!  Export your refer-a-friend form and e-mail it to all your fellow aviators.  They can scan their order and e-mail it to sales@nc-software.com and minimize the delay by taking the snail mail out of the loop and get their software as fast as ordering online and YOU get $10.00.

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