ExcelMate your new friend?

[Neil Orta]

I have tried running in compatibilty mode and it does have the *32 after the file name.

Question- Should the hour glass always be present when the mouse is moved over the window? Never goes away except when moved over the open file window next to the "Select Excel File" button.

Tried loading Virtual Machine but hardware does not support it.

[willy demis]

For what it's worth, I just took a look on my machine, and ExcelMate is running in 64 bit and the instance of Excel opened up is running in 32 bit. No issues for me thus far...

HP Pavilion DV7
AMD Turion X2 Ultra Dual-Core ZM-82 (2.20Ghz)
4.00 Gb RAM
98.3 Gb free HDD
64 bit Win 7 Enterprise Edition


I'll let Marcus comment on the wait cursor issue, but will say that if the app isn't running/responding properly from the OS, then you can probably disregard any oddities you see in the user interface until you figure out the compatibility issues...

[Marcus Seyffarth]

sorry about the link issue. Here is goes:

http://www.ettsexett.com/200/ExcelMateSetup.msi

Good to know that it works for you in a similar setup Willy.

[Rick Floyd]

Rick I know there is a way to ask Windows 7 to treat a program as 32 bit, could this be a fix and if so do you know how it is done?

Yup - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... of-Windows

-R

[Marcus Seyffarth]

I missed the hourglass question, sorry. No there should not be an hour glass (unless you have selected that as the default pointer of course). The hour glass showing all the time is just as Willy says a sign of some kind of problem with the setup.

[Neil Orta]

Further investigation had me looking at the integrity of my Excel being the culprit for the problems. I downloaded Excelmate onto each of three desktops all running Windows 7 and performed with no issues what so ever. Reboot the laptop and Excelmate still has problems. I have uninstalled Microsoft and will reload and see if the problem goes away.

[Neil Orta]

Reload of Excel and got message the "The application failed to start. Probably because you do not have Excel installed on the computer". I can start Excel and open the spreadsheets. After clicking "OK" in the above message box the program opens but the port drop down doesn't list the pport my cable is connected to even though I was able to check it's location and windows says it is working properly. Uninstalled the Excelmate program and re-installed it and still get the same message. Excel is running in compatability mode for XP service pack 2 and Excelmate is running in 32 bit.

I have gone from being able to open Excelmate and getting it to work sporatically to not at all.....frustrated and have no idea how to get it running on this machine.

[John Gilmour]

I moved to California....where slalom racing appears to be a bit...well....stalled... compared to say 2003.

I've always been good at getting slalom scenes going.

So I want to start a few race/practice areas.

I need a timer..
A spreadsheet program

and a display(s) that can run preferably off an ipad/iphone/ipodtouch

I've got a bunch of teenage kids 18-20 started..but they need a timer....errr YESTERDAY.



Any ideas?

[John Gilmour]

I probably should have said something sooner about this..

And it should be in another thread. But sudden death in dual racing...and the losers bracket... well it all works just fine if the racers are not close to each other in times.... and if the courses are indeed very identical. but because this is not often the case...

I don't think we can do this except in smaller local amateur races where there are typically large gaps in times. Gaps so large that the differences in the courses times between the faster and slower lanes would become negligible. As a pro- some of us take time to look at the two courses and try to decide which is the faster course. ..Why ??? Because if you win your first run in the faster course by a small margin...well you may have actually already lost - so for instance you win by .1 sec in the faster course..which really is a course that is faster by .4 sec on average...well you see......you lost by .3 because in the second run when the other guy gets the faster lane.. if he beats you by say... .3 sec...he wins.

So in a double elimination round.. the lanes you race in may really produce the wrong winner.. lets say you race in the left lane for BOTH races that you lose... and it is the slower lane... also... some racers don't even know which lane is faster sometimes it is not as pronounced as in one Morro Bay Super G....you don't need it to be a 1.5 second gap... even .2 can toss off the results.

WT, please copy/paste this in the appropriate thread. No offense to anyone who voted for this rule...I do want to see racing sped up...but I think we need a better way than this. It's a great thing to speed up the results, but not if it could be at the cost of not determining the fastest racer.

Marcus,

IF Colin is using the newly-authorized ISSA double elimination format, here's what it needs to do: fastest adjusted time advances after one run. There is no second run in each heat needing to be combined and averaged with the first run.

If you can do this, the loser is put into another bracket immediately and the winner advances. The racing in the losing bracket is treated just like the winners except the loser is eliminated.

Another matter to consider with double-elimination is in each heat the higher seeded racer has lane choice. That would involve possibly having to "flip" names when racing. If racer "A" is automatically advanced to the white lane but chooses to run in the red then those name have to be rearranged. I know that adds an element of manual manipulation but that's the rules: high seed offers the advantage of always getting lane choice.

I will tell you this, also: Jack Smith found off-the-shelf software to run his double elimination event in California last year. Whether or not it ports directly to the computer I do not know. Perhaps contacting him and getting that software and adapting it may be easier than adapting Excelmate to DE?

[John Gilmour]

It also occurred to me... that with so many different operating systems and hardware systems.. perhaps we need fully enabled web based model. MAC/PC/Linux/Unix/S30/iPhone 4.01 etc. it just would not matter.

That way there is only one software set to upgrade.

So cool would be that even with a rudimentary dual lane timer and a laptop and/or web based cell phone... you could enter times and get the brackets and penalties done properly.

To stay on topic......... so not just to post results on the web...but perhaps to have a computer /server to access that we know works properly all of the time.

Each race would have us "register" as a new user using the Date and location as a user name IE.. TrocaderoHybrid28July2010 and Password (so only the race organizer can post or edit times)

Then it generates a template that can be used for single dual, whatever.

So no work here is lost- it just needs to be ported onto a server. And you can still do it offline as well.

[Jonathan Harms]

John, your suggestions all sound helpful, in theory--but I've got nothin'. I haven't the slightest idea how to accomplish any of it. I realize that's probably not a very helpful reply. But perhaps someone else has some expertise or available time/energy to take some steps toward making it happen. Meantime, what would you suggest as a first practical step?

[Neil Orta]

Marcus I have had some interesting developments in getting ExcelMate to work on my machine.....

(1) Installed a new wireless router in my office and since I didn't have security dialed in yet someone logged in and as a result of their surfing I ended up with a worm on my office network.
(2) On a trip I trie to log on to my laptop and got a "black screen of death"

I called in a geek to get both systems up and running with the thought of having him look at my Excelmate issue as well. Seems as though my Windows 7 update registration didn't go the way it should have and I had been receiving the "ping of death" from Microsoft as it detected an unregistered copy of Windows 7. Also since I had had a hard drive failure on my desktop previously (reason I went to 7 in the first place) and reloaded Microsoft Office I had swapped disks from previous load so the Office loaded on my laptop was done with the disks previously loaded on my desktop machine.

In short the mismatching of software disks was causing the problem. I replaced a bad hard drive in the laptop with two faster drives and reloaded the OS and all software correctly and matching, registered everything and wellah ExcelMate now work flawlessly.

[Jonathan Harms]

Glad to hear that, Neil. I was bummed to hear you had never been able to get it to work on your laptop, because I would love to see ExcelMate get used at more races to speed things up and reduce/eliminate timing data entry errors. So this is good news.

replaced a bad hard drive...with two faster drives

SSDs or faster spinner drives? Just curious.

[Wesley Tucker]

WT, please copy/paste this in the appropriate thread. No offense to anyone who voted for this rule...I do want to see racing sped up...but I think we need a better way than this. It's a great thing to speed up the results, but not if it could be at the cost of not determining the fastest racer.

Marcus,

IF Colin is using the newly-authorized ISSA double elimination format, here's what it needs to do: fastest adjusted time advances after one run. There is no second run in each heat needing to be combined and averaged with the first run.

If you can do this, the loser is put into another bracket immediately and the winner advances. The racing in the losing bracket is treated just like the winners except the loser is eliminated.

Another matter to consider with double-elimination is in each heat the higher seeded racer has lane choice. That would involve possibly having to "flip" names when racing. If racer "A" is automatically advanced to the white lane but chooses to run in the red then those name have to be rearranged. I know that adds an element of manual manipulation but that's the rules: high seed offers the advantage of always getting lane choice.

I will tell you this, also: Jack Smith found off-the-shelf software to run his double elimination event in California last year. Whether or not it ports directly to the computer I do not know. Perhaps contacting him and getting that software and adapting it may be easier than adapting Excelmate to DE?

This is the appropriate thread.

It concerns Excelmate handling double elimination racing.

[Neil Orta]

Glad to hear that, Neil. I was bummed to hear you had never been able to get it to work on your laptop, because I would love to see ExcelMate get used at more races to speed things up and reduce/eliminate timing data entry errors. So this is good news.

replaced a bad hard drive...with two faster drives

SSDs or faster spinner drives? Just curious.

Not a geek have no clue what you are asking as far as SSDs

installed dual 250 GIG 7200rpm drives in Raid 1 configuration- I was told this mirrors one drive to the other to alleviate complete loss in event of hard drive failure.

[willy demis]

Unless you paid major dollars, you do not have SSD drives.

Edit- duh- there's no RPM speed in SSD's. ha!

[Neil Orta]

OK looked it up and I wish I could afford dual SSDs

[willy demis]

yes- 250Gb SSDs would be pretty costly. I have a 60Gb SSD in one of my laptops. It's very speedy, but nearly unusably small.

[Neil Orta]

Would have ONLY cost me $1300.00 for the new drives......LOL

[Miguel Marco]

I would love to see ExcelMate get used at more races to speed things up and reduce/eliminate timing data entry errors.

We used it again at the Can/Am Championships in Antrim this year and it worked flawlessly.

Thanks again Marcus!!!

[Neil Orta]

OK, timer set up in the basement with laptop running ExcelMate and have begun new round of testing, more of my abilities than of the program

Once I have had it run through the paces it will be time to take it the practice sessions.

DC crew is almost set up for any upcoming races with a new set of ramps, timing systems ( 3 of them actually...) with one set up with back up cables and redundant wiring (good thing I know an electrician and automated scoring set up.

They say build it and they will come....you guys ready to head to DC for some racing?

[Erik Basil]

John, If you're interested in a timing system to borrow, give Chris Chaput a call. He's got a turn-key setup with LED boards and more. Works great. If you get him motivated, maybe we'll sponsor a series in SoCal or something. Never know.

[Sj Kalliokoski]

sorry about the link issue. Here is goes:

http://www.ettsexett.com/200/ExcelMateSetup.msi

Good to know that it works for you in a similar setup Willy.

I assume that this is last version published?
How hard would be make this also support that free package of Microsoft Office which comes with WIN 7 containing also Excel Starter 2010?
I can open templates with it but ExcelMate does not regognize that as Excel

[Anton Sundling]

Hi everyone!

Since ettsexett.com aint up and running anymore, does anyone have the latest version of Marcus wonderful software?
Would it maybe be possible to post it somewhere else to make it available again?

// Anton

[Lynn Kramer]

Anton,
The program is located on the Resources page.

However, I'm on windows 7 and I cannot get it to run. I have a clean install of Excel 2010. I had Excel2007 and it was not auto-loading when I clicked an .xls file, so I reloaded it as 2010. Actually hired my IT guy to do it. Then I uninstalled the old ExcelMate, and re-installed it, and when I click the icon, I get: Excelmate has stopped working.

This is really frustrating. Can anyone help? We have a race coming up, and this used to work.

[Jani Soderhall]

Lynn, it was developed in .Net so it may require a specific version of .net to run. Usually .net is supplied with your Windows installation, but as there are different versions you may have to install the right one yourself.

Try installing v4.0 in the "Out of support versions" section
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/down ... -framework