Coffee Trails

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Coffee Trails

Postby Raf » Thu Oct 02, 2003 8:23 am

BTW has anyone heard any news concerning the beta release of Coffee Trails? It's a roasting program. I was thinking that it would be ideal to feature on the "download" section. That is, if Phil has bandwidth to spare.
This week I am eagerly anticipating the first god shots from my La Spaziale machine....

La Spaziale S1, Vibiemme Domobar (retd), Mazzer Mini Electronic, Behmor 1600 230V
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Bandwidth

Postby phil » Thu Oct 02, 2003 11:10 am

Bandwidth? 10 GB a month enough for you? Last month we used around 25MB of that, although we're barely up and running yet I admit.

OK, interesting idea, I'll do some digging and see if the author is OK with that. If so I'll do as you suggest.
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Digging

Postby phil » Mon Oct 06, 2003 2:31 pm

Neku

Did a little digging on "Coffee Trails", found that the author hasn't been heard of in ages and the beta programme apparently collapsed under a wave of apathy.

There was something else (and similar) that came up on the Sweet Maria's list a while back, around about the time DrZeus, HughF & I had our original chats about the online roasting record (which should move forward this week). I'll look into that and see if it makes an interesting alternative.

Phil
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Postby Raf » Mon Oct 06, 2003 3:42 pm

Ok tough luck. It seemed interesting enough. I wonder if anyone knows of a decent wine stock programme? Not that I have a big cellar but it would be nice to be able to keep tasting notes.
This week I am eagerly anticipating the first god shots from my La Spaziale machine....

La Spaziale S1, Vibiemme Domobar (retd), Mazzer Mini Electronic, Behmor 1600 230V
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i got a copy

Postby Sunnyfield » Tue Oct 07, 2003 8:16 pm

I have a beta copy if you are really interested. It is rather buggy though.
La Marzocco GS/3, Elektra Nino, Feima 800N solid drum gas roaster
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Postby Steve » Tue Oct 07, 2003 8:35 pm

I'd like a look please :D

Sounds interesting
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Downloads section

Postby phil » Tue Oct 07, 2003 8:43 pm

I'll put it there for now.
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Re: CRDB

Postby HughF » Wed Oct 22, 2003 9:46 am

phil wrote:There was something else (and similar) that came up on the Sweet Maria's list a while back, around about the time DrZeus, HughF & I had our original chats about the online roasting record (which should move forward this week). I'll look into that and see if it makes an interesting alternative.

Phil



Phil asked me for comments on the "Coffee Roasting Database" but I have been a bit distracted. Brief comments only : it's way quicker than doing something from scratch e.g. in Excel and a lot prettier. I really like it and intend to keep using it.

However, the user interface can be a bit confusing (read the "Basic Workflow" section on the linked homepage first : http://improbablystructuredlayers.net/CoffeeRoastingDB/CRDBHome.htm). For example, qty left and remaining weight are used on different pages for the SAME quantity and you can only enter this from the Orders page so trying to enter it elsewhere means it just beeps at you etc. Once you get the hang of it, it is very good. To be fair, if you hit the Tab key to move through fields it will skip fields you can't change but colour-coding or a LOT better documentation would be more helpful.

The Roasting session page is meant for someone who has a PC right next to the roaster as you have to press a button to record a time (e.g. time of first crack) - if not you have to fake it by pressing that button after the roast when you get back to the PC and then adjust the time with up/down buttons, you can't just type in the time.

The real pity is that you need MS Access on your PC - you can distribute Access applications which don't need Access to run (I think) but it may need a more expensive licence to be bought by the developer to do this legally. I wouldn't buy Access just to run this (100 UKP or so) but since I have it anyway I'm really happy to ue this. It would be much better with more documentation though (unless I've missed finding this on his site).

HTH,

Hugh

P.S. The screenshots below cover my real store of green beans (and a faked roasting session just done to test that page). The initials after the coffee name are suppliers, SM = Sweet Marias, TL = Two Loons, MM = Monmouth. The JS 1234 entry is a dummy entry for the Jim Schulman 1234 blend. UPDATE : Smaller (single-window) images now used as asked.
Attachments
snapCRDBSessions.gif
snapCRDBSessions.gif (24.58 KiB) Viewed 11602 times
snapCRDBOrders.gif
snapCRDBOrders.gif (22.24 KiB) Viewed 11602 times
snapCRDBCoffees.gif
snapCRDBCoffees.gif (28.62 KiB) Viewed 11602 times
Last edited by HughF on Wed Oct 22, 2003 12:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Grinders : Macap MXK conical for espresso, Mahlkoenig Vario for Chemex, Macap MC6 (spare when our office was closed) for cafetiere, Zassenhaus Knee Mill for cafetiere when working away from home.
La Spaziale Vivaldi S1 espresso machine. HotTop KN8828P roaster. Chemex manual drip for most brewed coffee plus cafetieres and eSantos.
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Postby phil » Wed Oct 22, 2003 10:40 am

Excellent stuff Hugh - although this is the CRDB not Coffee Trails as mentioned in thread title.

Two things :
  1. Have you got time to write a small review article for publication?
  2. Could you either re-size the gifs or zip them to avoid knackering the screen layout?


Cheers for the posting though, it's very interesting (as usual :D)
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Postby phil » Wed Oct 22, 2003 10:53 am

Oh and btw Sunnyfield - you were going to upload the original Coffee Trails to our downloads section.

What happened with that?
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Re CRDB post

Postby HughF » Wed Oct 22, 2003 11:56 am

phil wrote:Excellent stuff Hugh - although this is the CRDB not Coffee Trails as mentioned in thread title.

Two things :
  1. Have you got time to write a small review article for publication?
  2. Could you either re-size the gifs or zip them to avoid knackering the screen layout?


Thanks Phil.

The CRDB was mentioned in this thread as an alternative to Coffee Trails (the download - I checked that this was CRDB before I posted) so I thought that was OK. I changed the post title also but it doesn't seem to show anywhere.

(1) Write an article : probably yes but not for a little while. If I do, (2) I will use shrunken GIFs so long as they are still readable- remember I haven't posted attachments before! It was a struggle to fit everything onto my screen as it was so that the screen capture worked OK.

UPDATE : I didn't like the look of resized images so I changed them to inherently smaller single-window images instead (above). Unfortunately I forgot about the width of the "member detail" column so people with 1024-pixel wide screens may still need to scroll a bit - sorry!

Cheers,

Hugh
Grinders : Macap MXK conical for espresso, Mahlkoenig Vario for Chemex, Macap MC6 (spare when our office was closed) for cafetiere, Zassenhaus Knee Mill for cafetiere when working away from home.
La Spaziale Vivaldi S1 espresso machine. HotTop KN8828P roaster. Chemex manual drip for most brewed coffee plus cafetieres and eSantos.
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Postby phil » Wed Oct 22, 2003 4:29 pm

HughF wrote:Write an article : probably yes but not for a little while
Cheers Hugh - so does this mean you got the contract you were hoping for?
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Postby HughF » Wed Oct 22, 2003 6:46 pm

Quote PHIL : Did I get the contract work I wanted?

Not YET - client wants another meeting but gives no details of topics for discussion; my prospective employer is reluctant to send me up to the client in the Midlands again as (non-chargeable) pre-sales effort is now > 20% of job size. It'll be a real shame if this stalls and doesn't happen as it's a job well worth doing (in both senses!). At least I have been paid for my pre-sales work.

The main reason for the delay is that I've been appallingly slow putting my CV about on a serious number of agency Web sites so I really need to concentrate on that for a while before recruitment closes for Christmas.

Also, I promised http://www.llandar.co.uk/ I'd do an update for them and they've sent me 6 photos which need tweaking in PhotoShop (misty edges, re-sizing etc.) and some text updates.

I look after another Web site (details privately if wished) and I said I'd tweak all their email address hyperlinks to make it a lot more difficult for spammers programs to harvest addresses. I've done this on our own norcastle site already.

I'll probably get to an article on CRDB next week...

Cheers,

Hugh
Grinders : Macap MXK conical for espresso, Mahlkoenig Vario for Chemex, Macap MC6 (spare when our office was closed) for cafetiere, Zassenhaus Knee Mill for cafetiere when working away from home.
La Spaziale Vivaldi S1 espresso machine. HotTop KN8828P roaster. Chemex manual drip for most brewed coffee plus cafetieres and eSantos.
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Postby Raf » Wed Oct 22, 2003 6:46 pm

By the way and a bit OT, does anyone have a good wine stock program (freeware)?
This week I am eagerly anticipating the first god shots from my La Spaziale machine....

La Spaziale S1, Vibiemme Domobar (retd), Mazzer Mini Electronic, Behmor 1600 230V
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Postby Steve » Wed Oct 22, 2003 8:12 pm

It looks really interesting wish I had access :(
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