• Inventory check
• Yamaha - support either client certificate or hardware VPN access methods
• Eurotread - allow longer user names on login.
• Fixed triumph fiche importer.  Stopped working because of a number of changes triumph made on their site
• Export Honda Warranty
• export format was incorrect. Now fixed.
• Added two new fields requested by Honda:  Gender and DOB
• Bugfix : under some rare circumstances adding cost onto a unit will erroneously record cost onto cash till report.  Depends on what terminal was doing just prior to the add cost, e.g. reprinting an invoice will trigger this bug.  Now fixed.
• Bugfix : sometimes downloading new version of c9 to terminal can fail (local network error) and leave temporary files in \c9 folder. Under some rare conditions attempts to restart c9 will not succeed until these temporary files are deleted.  Now fixed.

Anthony West and Data Racing have released a new mobile app for track day telemetry.

Web page is here: http://antwest13.com.au/App.html

More and more, IT technology is becoming cheaper, more pervasive, and more powerful.

My keen interest as a programmer is how more and more technology segments are becoming 'commoditised' over time.  Previous specialist technology solutions that were once incredibly expensive are becoming cheaper and more accessible.  Desktop computers are so cheap now that they are throw away, the cost to replace is usually cheaper than the cost to repair.

Update: It is not obvious on website how you get the app.  The site seems to suggest this is still a work in progress and not ready yet.  Still a cool tech idea, if it is indeed a real piece of software under development and near completion, and not just vapourware.

• New F12 check availability: now supports Eurotread and Link International
• BMW Fiche import : was importing low resolution images for certain diagrams and wasn't getting hotspots right on those diagrams, typically photographed items.  Now fixed.
• Miner query results : display row count.
• Browse account. Could not filter on name bits : i.e. last name/first name, etc.
• View Account Transactions  : would allow you to jump to corresponding spares/workshop/unit sale but because anyone can keyin a reference number this could cause jumping to non-existant/invalid sale or a sale performed by a completely different customer. Modified and put some rudimentary checks in place.
• Print Statements : as per above. Only print invoices for which rudimentary validity and ownership tests satisfy.
• Quick Books Integration - allow user to select from either Cost of Goods Sold or Expenses chart of accounts. (Previously would only display Expenses)
• Purchase unit : Recent changes made have confused alot of users.   Made some tweaks to help with this : when adding a new unit to purchase automatically pop select unit browse window. From here user can either a) select unit, b) key in it's vin, c) Click add unit to add a new one or d) press Escape and key in new unit details

Trying to get your website to appear near the top of a Google or Bing search is both a black art and to a small extent a zero-sum game, because only 10 websites can occupy the top 10 search results.  You are competing with all other relevant websites who are also trying to lift their search profile.

C9 powered websites now include a number of features to help SEO savvy web designers optimize your site.  The following describes these and how to access them.

Read more...

Inventory checking for Yamaha is now possible. The process of configuring it although is slightly complex.

The complexity arises because Yamaha require something known as a 'client side certificate' in order to access their site.  C9 can handle this no worries, the only additional complexity from c9's point of view is you need to give c9 a Certificate file and the password for that file.

The real complexity although is getting the certificate file in the first place.

If Yamaha have provided it in an email, you can try and just add it into c9 as is and you might get lucky.

Otherwise you need to extract the certificate out of Internet Explorer. This process is complex. Read on for more details.

Read more...

• Suzuki online fiche import
• Bugfix : was not importing diagram part quantities. Now fixed.
• New framelisting included, which includes 2013  GW250
• F12 check supplier
• Fixed unusual bug where it was not automatically logging in sometimes (I could fix it via remote access, but change fixes it for good)
• Include support for Yamaha,  requires some heroic hacking skillz to get setup, more on this in a separate post.

Includes database changes.  You will need to log all terminals out during upgrade

• Website SEO tools - web side of things not yet built.  Will include a post that explains these new functions once corresponding webpage changes have been made.
• Select account by query. Some filters, like last name were not working in the query result screen. Now fixed
• F2 lookup part : now has a wildcard search option. Runs really slow, but allows you to do fine tune searching when existing description search is not up to the task.
• Workshop staff report : was incorrectly including quoted/estimate labour. Now fixed
• Receive spares : print invoice date on receive sheet
• Import price file bug fixes
• Deleted stocked item. Was not properly checking 12 month sale history and would delete parts where qtyonhand=maxqty=minqty=0 but had some recent history. Now fixed.
• New supercession checker gave up on chains longer than 20 parts.  Yamaha have heaps of parts longer than this.  Modified new supercession checker to give up after 100 parts; i.e. the limit of the prior supercession chain tracker.

We just released first component of a SEO overhaul of C9 powered websites.

The changes are automatic and require no action or maintenance.  We are hoping that  these modifications will lift search visibility of c9 powered websites over coming weeks.

Similar changes for aussiebikefinder.com.au have also been implemented.

A second set of changes will be delivered shortly, which will also incorporate modifications in c9 itself to help sophisticated web site managers squeeze more out of their website.

Note that if you are using an iframe to host c9 content, then it is unlikely you will get any advantage from recent changes.  Broadly, SEO is the responsibility of your 'main' website. so many of the key changes only apply if c9 host your entire website.

Includes database changes. c9 will force you to log all terminals out during upgrade

• Fixes to selling units on finance
• When using cash customer deposit, system would not consume deposit on cash account. Now fixed
• Transaction record written against finance company was GST exempt. Now fixed.  Also, GST on account sales was incorrect and not including ORC GST component. Note that this does not represent a bug on business reports.  Only 'GST' on account transaction; which is non-functional, deprecated, and only used in one part of c9, and only for visual on-screen display.  (View Account Transactions)
• Fiche Diagrams : you can now print and email them in c9
• Clocking : Couple of tweaks to make failure to clock off overnight easier to deal with
• If tech is currently flagged as idle or on break do not pop the warning message and do not record any timesheet information for last task of the day they failed to clock off. Just assume that they intended to clock off for the day but clicked on the wrong button
• For overnight warning message, if tech's current job occurs after 6 pm,  then present default clockoff time to start of the following hour.

Over the weekend we are performing a number of maintenance activities.

• Upgrade central database for c9 powered websites
• Setup a second streaming replication backup server

Saturday Night/Sunday morning, service was down for about two hours. From 3 am to 5 am for live server upgrade.

I was hoping to also upgrade the first replication backup server during this time; but the upgrade path requires me to recopy the entire database. Which is going to take 16 hours; so I abandoned trying to do this while websites were down.

Luckily most of copying can occur while websites are still running.  Once copy is completed, I will need to take websites down again for about 15 minutes to establish and test the replication link.  This will happen Sunday night/monday Morning.

Monday I will commission the second replicate server and finalize the migration.  After another planned 15 minute outage late Sunday night, there should be no further planned downtime of c9 services.