OLC - Action Needed

wrote:
Check my original comment, it says "If you get really frustrated you
can ask for a refund". I was making no direct comment about whether the
OLC folks are in it for the money; I was attempting to suggest that one
shouldn't complain carelessly about what one gets for free, or else you
run the risk of chasing it away, and you end up with zilch, zip, zero,
nada.

True. Or constructive comments may improve it.


I viewed Ian's original complaint as a little borderline -- valid,
potentially, but lacking in technical detail and approaching the "wah,
wah, wah!" tone a little too closely for my comfort.

Long live OLC!

~ted/2NO

OLC was discussed at the SSA Governors and Record Keepers luncheon and
at the Colorado Governor's seminar with SSA input.

It is not free, cost of hosting and bandwidth is approximately $4US per
participant. It is hoped that those costs will be borne through
advertising.

Development is understood to be contributed. Perhaps paid staff could
be more responsive when there are issues of concern. Although there
appear to be some issues, there also appear to be work arounds and, but
even here the occassional glitch (maybe some testing of solutions?).
I've been dismayed at the number of unscored flights also, but I think
word is still getting out about the work arounds and patches and some
pilots are just finding this out. Maybe OLC should be like Google and
put Beta here and there.

Frank Whiteley

Greg, that was the intent of the "be polite" suggestion in my original
reply. I saw more demanding in Ian's original post than I did
constructive criticism, which would have included something specific or
detailed about why USA flights are being rejected where others are not.

As a total package, OLC is fantastic. They will respond better to
polite requests than they will to demands through the bureaucracy. Been
that, done there.

2NO

The OLC computers are infested by an alien life force. It now rejects
my Volkslogger files, downloaded with Connectme and uploaded with
SeeYou. No weird or outdated equipment here.

I can understand people getting frustrated as the system changes faster
than we can adapt to it.

Mike

So how come OLC is rejecting my Volkslogger files? No Cambridges in my
cockpit.

Mike

Interestingly, my older EW downlaoded with ewuploader
then optimized with SeeYou then uploaded and flight
claimed to the OLC is accepted. However when, as happened
last Sat, I use ewuploader then edit by adding my name
and ship ect. under the HTDTE line, so that Winscore
can accept it, and did, the file is corrupt according
to OLC and was not scored. I loaded it through the
web this time not SeeYou. It just seems like it is
a lot more work this year than it was last and its
very frustrating!


At 13:12 04 April 2006, Mike The Strike wrote:
So how come OLC is rejecting my Volkslogger files?
No Cambridges in my
cockpit.

Mike

I finally managed to upload a file from my Cambridge Model 25 today,
after a 3 hour hassle. While I understand Tim Newport-Peace's comment
about the "real problem lying with Cambridge", the problems I was
having appear to be due solely to the very poor OLC interface design.

I made my initial cai file by downloading from the flight recorder
using data-cam under DOS, which also created the initial igc file. This
igc file isn't acceptable to OLC, so I then used their cai2igc routine
under DOS to create an acceptable igc file. I then opened this igc file
with SeeYou (which has the 04/03/2006 patch), and after many tries got
OLC to accept the flight.

My suspicion is that what finally worked was, just before claiming the
flight, I clicked the button at the very bottom of the OLC Flight Claim
page labeled "read old OLC-claim into form". Before clicking this
button there was absolutely no indication that there was a problem with
the potential claim, and after clicking the button there was no
indication that anything had changed. However, when the claim was made
after this button was pushed, the flight had all green symbols, whereas
when it hadn't been pushed the flights always had a red validation
symbol.

In my opinion, the OLC people need to hire some professionals to
completely re-write their user interface. I might also suggest that
they simply accept valid cai files (checked with vali-cam), and process
these cai files themselves in any way they desire to get "valid" igc
files.

-John

jcarlyle wrote:
I finally managed to upload a file from my Cambridge Model 25 today,
after a 3 hour hassle. While I understand Tim Newport-Peace's comment
about the "real problem lying with Cambridge", the problems I was
having appear to be due solely to the very poor OLC interface design.

I made my initial cai file by downloading from the flight recorder
using data-cam under DOS, which also created the initial igc file. This
igc file isn't acceptable to OLC, so I then used their cai2igc routine
under DOS to create an acceptable igc file. I then opened this igc file
with SeeYou (which has the 04/03/2006 patch), and after many tries got
OLC to accept the flight.

My suspicion is that what finally worked was, just before claiming the
flight, I clicked the button at the very bottom of the OLC Flight Claim
page labeled "read old OLC-claim into form". Before clicking this
button there was absolutely no indication that there was a problem with
the potential claim, and after clicking the button there was no
indication that anything had changed. However, when the claim was made
after this button was pushed, the flight had all green symbols, whereas
when it hadn't been pushed the flights always had a red validation
symbol.

Yes, I believe the OLC site continues to use the file you uploaded the
first time (without any further security check) unless you upload the
file again as you describe.


In my opinion, the OLC people need to hire some professionals to
completely re-write their user interface. I might also suggest that
they simply accept valid cai files (checked with vali-cam), and process
these cai files themselves in any way they desire to get "valid" igc
files.

-John

Well, take one red mark off Sunday's OLC list! I now have two green
circles! What a pain in the butt this was!

What finally worked for me was to delete my original claim from the
OLC, then I installed all of the latest SeeYou patches, I opened my
..CAI file in SeeYou and saved it but with the new filename ending with
a "2" rather than a "1." Finally, I submitted the new flight to the
OLC, and it accepted it. Maybe my GPS-NAV will work for another
season!

Hopefully it works again tomorrow ;P
Chris "CF"

Mike the Strike wrote:
So how come OLC is rejecting my Volkslogger files? No Cambridges in my
cockpit.

Mike

Because your file doesn't pass the validity check. I downloaded and ran
vali-gcs on it, and it gives the same message you see on the OLC. Either
one of your computers hiccupped, or your Volkslogger is homesick and
wants a trip back to Germany.

-Dave
ZL