*** G e n S m a r t s N e w s l e t t e r ***

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Thursday, February 5, 2004 Contents

• New Version News

• Online Research Tip

• GenSmarts Usage Tip

• PC Utility Tip

• PC Trivia

*** N e w V e r s i o n N e w s ***

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Version 1.0.4 is out!!!!!

Current "Production" Versions: 1.0.4.03

Current "Beta" Version: No beta versions available at the moment

Lots of new things in 1.0.4:

1) Added geography recognition for Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales

2) Added quite a few records and several record sources for England and Canada

3) Only a few records/record sources for the other countries, but more are coming...

4) Added a new tab, QUERY, so you can get "free form" suggestions

5) Added a new display option, KIOSK MODE, which will be useful for library use, or for people that don't have a file to load

6) Added support for Heritage Quest Online's online census records

7) Brand new place name recognition algorithm - more accurate and faster

8) The usual assortment of bug fixes and small improvements

It's a free upgrade for registered users. We'll be "queing" it for automatic upgrade over the next week or so... that means you'll receive a notice when you run GenSmarts and be able to download "just the changes" and the software will install them for you. Or you can download the entire install now, if you'd like.

When you install a new version of GenSmarts, you don't have to uninstall the old one - though the install will ask you to confirm that you're installing into an existing directory (that's ok). You research results and settings are always preserved.

Our next focus will be to significantly increase the number of records/record sources we have defined... so look for more frequent updates over the next couple of months. We'll also be adding some significant "instructional" content, perhaps even a video CD/DVD. We'd love to hear suggestions from our users on what you'd like to see us cover - drop us a note at support@gensmarts.com and let us know.

GenSmarts creator, Aaron Underwood, will be a guest on the Tuesday, 24 February 2004 DearMYRTLE's Family History Hour (http://www.dearmyrtle.com/live.htm). The show is a live internet broadcast every Tuesday from 9-11 pm Eastern (US). If you miss a show live, you can always listen after the fact for a week or so at www.DearMYRTLE.com/again.htm.

There have been several reviews done of GenSmarts over the past month - the links are up on www.gensmarts.com Take a look if you're curious to see what others are saying.

It was nice visiting with some of you at the NGS GENTECH conference in St. Louis a couple of weeks ago. We look forward to seeing more of you in Sacremento at the NGS conference there (May 19-24), where we'll have a booth in the vendor hall. If you think you'll be in Sacremento and would like to spend an hour or two talking GenSmarts with us and other users... let us know. If we get enough takers, we'll organize something.

Lastly... we're growing! We're excited about two new products we hope to get to market this year. Both genealogy related, and like GenSmarts... something quite different than what's available in the genealogy software marketplace. Watch for info later in the year when we can reveal a bit more about what we're up to... And we've started planning for Version 2 of GenSmarts... which also should be out by year's end.

*** O n l i n e R e s e a r c h T i p ***

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Heritage Quest Online is available through many library websites in the U.S. for a modest fee ($10-$35 per year). This service provides an economical alternative to getting at US census records online. One such library that we get much positive feedback on is the Godfrey Library, which allows anyone to become a member without ever setting foot in the library (it's all done over the phone or through the mail). If you're interested see http://www.godfrey.org/Godfrey_Scholar.pdf for more information.

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Ever wonder if a subscription to one of these online services is worth the cost? If it's a service we've integrated with GenSmarts, you can use GenSmarts to get a quick "preview" of at least some of the records you might be interested in. Here's how:

1) Load your file as normal, and make sure you're on the TO DO tab

2) In the upper right hand portion of this tab, you'll see an option called AVAILABLE AT RESEARCH LOCATIONS SELECTED BELOW - check that (e.g. turn it on). Your TO DO list will go blank, as the RESEARCH LOCATION hasn't been specified yet - that's the next step.

3) Right below that AVAILABLE AT... check box there's a "drop down" list of RESEARCH LOCATIONS. You can pull this down by clicking on the little down arrow on the right side of the box. Scroll through the list until you find the site you're interested in and select it.

4) Now your TO DO list will contain research suggestions that we know are available through this site. It won't be all the records that might be available, as we don't usually have 100% of the contents inventoried... but it will give you a sense for at least some of what is available.

*** P C U t i l i t y T i p ***

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Maybe it's just our PC's but it seems that those "spyware" ads have really multiplied lately - the kind that evade the pop up blockers by rooting themselves into your PC and then watching your internet browsing and launching ads when they see fit. After going through a couple of tools, we've settled on SpyBot Search And Destroy as the most effective. You'll find it at http://www.safer-networking.org/

No connection or affiliation to GenSmarts - just a product we find very helpful.

*** P C T r i v i a ***

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How big is big? What's average? According to a recent survey of some of our users... The most people in a single genealogy file was 260,000. The average size was 6700 people, though 80% were below that number, and half of the files were below 2500. So it seems there's a noticable minority (say 20%) that have big files - 10,000+ people, though most folks only have a couple thousand.

*** S u b s c r i p t i o n I n f o ***

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Tags:  Family Tree Maker  

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