Big changes around the nest in the coming year…

WOW week 1 of 2015.  OK that is a technicality since it is still 2014 but all the references the penguins here can find are that since 2015 starts this week that makes it 2015.

The site has been quiet.  I think the FSD Web Penguin took a vacation while the rest of the penguins around the office have been running around like mad.  Literally running.   What has FSD been doing you may ask.  Well for 2.5 months FSD was on the road providing support to offices from California to Oregon to Idaho / Montana.  The Support Penguin learned a lot of things as any good support penguin should while assisting people.

Some of the things we have learned…

• Software is temperamental
• Diversification
• Everyone needs support
• Sometimes you just have to walk away

What are we doing about it… (ok this is very New Years Resolution-ish)

• More Documentation!!
  • Publishing
    • I’ve Got FPS Now What – A dirt foresters guide to using, understanding, localizing and calibrating the Forest Projection and Planning System
    • Pocket Guides
    • National Site Grid release (Natural Biometrician)
  • New FSD Forums
  • More remote support to be able to see exactly what the user sees.
  • More alerts to changes
• More Tools
  • Did you know that MS Access 2013 can’t link DBF files
  • Did you know that MS Access 2010+ doesn’t keep data types when you link a DBF
  • Did you know that a better tool bar can make work faster
• Branching out

  • Partnering

    • Chaos and Corsets - Hand sewn costuming and corsets
    • Natural Biometrican - An effort to develop a free and open natural resources resource for forestry professionals. Including models, data, structures and more.
    • Pen-Guins - Fine hand crafted pens and other turnings.
• Expanding support offerings both at FSD and Pen-Guins
• All work and no play makes the FSD Penguins very dull.  So we will be expanding the crafting side of FSD @ Pen-Guins.  Developing some non-profits to fill in important needs of society that should be free and open.  More on this after the paperwork is done.  Some is forestry but much is not.

Take home message?  FSD is here to stay and will continue supporting the forest industry.  But 2015 will be the year of getting ahead of the curve.  There is no need to be cleaning up messes that could have been prevented.

Got any ideas for FSD?  Contact us on the contact form!!