TMG Demo

[Paul Blair]

It's been a while since I looked at TMG, so I downloaded the free demo.
The splash screen tells me I have "expired demo version 6.07.000"

Now to the crunch. There is a sample set of data attached, which I can
open. I can't add or subtract to/from it. I can't try my own data.

Nor can I do a lot else. "Add" and "Report" on the Menu Bar are greyed
out, so I have no idea of the reporting capabilities. I can't import, I
can't export. I really can't inspect what is on offer.

Do I have the right free demo?

Paul

[Ray]

Paul Blair wrote:

It's been a while since I looked at TMG, so I downloaded the free demo.
The splash screen tells me I have "expired demo version 6.07.000"

Now to the crunch. There is a sample set of data attached, which I can
open. I can't add or subtract to/from it. I can't try my own data.

Nor can I do a lot else. "Add" and "Report" on the Menu Bar are greyed
out, so I have no idea of the reporting capabilities. I can't import, I
can't export. I really can't inspect what is on offer.

Do I have the right free demo?

Paul

Yes Paul you do, there is only one. The demo is also the regular program
with a time limit, you must have had a TMG demo installed before on your
computer that's why it reports expired version.
I'm sute that if you e-mail support, or Bob V. may see your post and
they may let you have an extended tryout.

That was one of my beefs about this program, the time period is too
short for a proper trial, I had to resort to "other means"

Ray

[Paul Blair]

Ray wrote:

Paul Blair wrote:

It's been a while since I looked at TMG, so I downloaded the free
demo. The splash screen tells me I have "expired demo version 6.07.000"

Now to the crunch. There is a sample set of data attached, which I can
open. I can't add or subtract to/from it. I can't try my own data.

Nor can I do a lot else. "Add" and "Report" on the Menu Bar are greyed
out, so I have no idea of the reporting capabilities. I can't import,
I can't export. I really can't inspect what is on offer.

Do I have the right free demo?

Paul

Yes Paul you do, there is only one. The demo is also the regular program
with a time limit, you must have had a TMG demo installed before on your
computer that's why it reports expired version.
I'm sute that if you e-mail support, or Bob V. may see your post and
they may let you have an extended tryout.

That was one of my beefs about this program, the time period is too
short for a proper trial, I had to resort to "other means"

Ray

Thanks, Ray. A bit sad for a demo. No, there has never been a prior
version on this particular computer..odd!

Cheers

Paul

[Bob Velke]

Paul said:

It's been a while since I looked at TMG, so I downloaded the free demo.
The splash screen tells me I have "expired demo version 6.07.000"

The demo is fully-functioning for 30 days, after which it becomes
read-only. There is no capacity to extend it except to buy it and get a
refund if it doesn't do what you want.

As suggested elsewhere, you can review most of the features of the program
with the Guided Tour which you can download here:
http://www.whollygenes.com/tmgtour.htm

Bob Velke
Wholly Genes Software
http://www.WhollyGenes.com

[J. Hugh Sullivan]

On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 21:58:59 +0000 (UTC), [email protected] (Bob
Velke) wrote:

Paul said:

It's been a while since I looked at TMG, so I downloaded the free demo.
The splash screen tells me I have "expired demo version 6.07.000"

The demo is fully-functioning for 30 days, after which it becomes
read-only. There is no capacity to extend it except to buy it and get a
refund if it doesn't do what you want.

As suggested elsewhere, you can review most of the features of the program
with the Guided Tour which you can download here:
http://www.whollygenes.com/tmgtour.htm

Bob Velke
Wholly Genes Software
http://www.WhollyGenes.com

Having tried every genealogy program I've ever heard of I've finally
come to a conclusion as to how demos should be offered. Of course the
opinion is personal but it is not naive.

There should be two types of demo for a genealogy program.

The first demo should be a full-featured 30 day (or less) trial offer
except for printing reports and saving gedcoms and backups. Reports
could be limited by the number of generations, people or pages to
print.

The second demo should be a full-featured trial offer with no
expiration period but no more than 50 people could be loaded into the
program.

Perhaps each of those recommendations needs some fine-tuning. But,
between them, one has ample time to study the features but neither
would be satisfactory as a final product.

My preference is for the latter demo. If you load too many people in a
try before you buy product you only confuse yourself. But, if you
can't try every feature that is important to you how can you make the
best decision?

Of course a third option would be to do as Legacy does - a free
program with reduced features. There is a real tease but I think they
lose some sales. I think Millennia should pick up $5 or so on each
download of the freebie. Lots of people won'y buy a program if a
freebie is available. You could use the $5 to buy a Powerball ticket.

SInce I am not a programmer it is very easy for me to say that the
programming of both options should be child's play.

It would be interesting to hear of any major problems with the
suggestions.

Hugh

[Dave Hinz]

On 20 Feb 2006 13:42:58 -0800, woodydeaux <[email protected]> wrote:

"First - no other programs were running on install - anti-virus was
turned off. The installation progressed normally until near the end
when there were errors reports regarding several 'Ordinals' not being
found in two of the dlls.

What you are describing is consistant with "DLL Hell". It's a result of
bad design my Microsoft, and may have nothing to do with the software
you're trying to run.

Put simply but accurately enough for this discussion, Windows lets any
user or program overwrite shared libraries. Problem is, I could modify,
for instance, a mathematics library, and change the definition of Pi to
be equal to, say, 8. Any other program referencing that library then
gets the wrong definition from it. MS allowing this sort of behavior,
by the way, is what makes their OS's uniquely susceptible to viruses and
similar malware. (in other systems, the users and their processes
aren't allowed to muck about with system files).

I would really like to try the program with my data, not just the
sample. My guess is that there is some corruption in the download
file.

I would think/hope/be amazed if they didn't/etc. that the download files
are validated on a clean system. If you had a specific error message,
it would be useful to post that.

Dave Hinz

[Paul Blair]

Dave Hinz wrote:

On 20 Feb 2006 13:42:58 -0800, woodydeaux <[email protected]> wrote:
"First - no other programs were running on install - anti-virus was
turned off. The installation progressed normally until near the end
when there were errors reports regarding several 'Ordinals' not being
found in two of the dlls.

What you are describing is consistant with "DLL Hell". It's a result of
bad design my Microsoft, and may have nothing to do with the software
you're trying to run.

Put simply but accurately enough for this discussion, Windows lets any
user or program overwrite shared libraries. Problem is, I could modify,
for instance, a mathematics library, and change the definition of Pi to
be equal to, say, 8. Any other program referencing that library then
gets the wrong definition from it. MS allowing this sort of behavior,
by the way, is what makes their OS's uniquely susceptible to viruses and
similar malware. (in other systems, the users and their processes
aren't allowed to muck about with system files).

I would really like to try the program with my data, not just the
sample. My guess is that there is some corruption in the download
file.

I would think/hope/be amazed if they didn't/etc. that the download files
are validated on a clean system. If you had a specific error message,
it would be useful to post that.

Dave Hinz

I've built the demo onto 2 drives in the past cuppla days. The first

drive had never has TMG anywhere near it, but TMG insisted it had. The
second drive, brand new out of a wrapper, was formatted, Windowed and
TMGed. Same result. I think you're right, Dave.

So I went back to the first drive and fiddled with the registry. That
got it going...

Paul

[Bob Velke]

C.Woodcock said:

There is definitely some problem with the current demo download.

In addition to testing it before uploading, we've just downloaded it again
and installed it on a clean system without any trouble with either DLLs or
the demo expiration date.

The current demo was uploaded on Nov 4th. Since then, hundreds of people
have downloaded it every day. I'm sure that if there were a systemic
problem, we would have encountered it before now.

I suggest that you double-check to make sure that the download was valid
and that it is intact (39406323 bytes). Failing that, I'd try to install
it in Safe Mode to rule out a conflict with other DLLs or memory-resident
programs on your system.

Bob Velke
Wholly Genes Software
http://www.WhollyGenes.com

[Steve Hayes]

On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 13:49:27 GMT, [email protected] (J. Hugh Sullivan)
wrote:

There should be two types of demo for a genealogy program.

The first demo should be a full-featured 30 day (or less) trial offer
except for printing reports and saving gedcoms and backups. Reports
could be limited by the number of generations, people or pages to
print.

The second demo should be a full-featured trial offer with no
expiration period but no more than 50 people could be loaded into the
program.

Perhaps each of those recommendations needs some fine-tuning. But,
between them, one has ample time to study the features but neither
would be satisfactory as a final product.

My preference is for the latter demo. If you load too many people in a
try before you buy product you only confuse yourself. But, if you
can't try every feature that is important to you how can you make the
best decision?

Of course a third option would be to do as Legacy does - a free
program with reduced features. There is a real tease but I think they
lose some sales. I think Millennia should pick up $5 or so on each
download of the freebie. Lots of people won'y buy a program if a
freebie is available. You could use the $5 to buy a Powerball ticket.

SInce I am not a programmer it is very easy for me to say that the
programming of both options should be child's play.

It would be interesting to hear of any major problems with the
suggestions.

My preference is for the present Legacy system: a free version of the program,
and a paid version with extra features.

There are only two programs I know of that have worked like this:

a) Family History System (FHS), by Philip E. Brown
b) Legacy, by Millennia

In both cases, after some years of use, I have paid for the extra features.
And also, I still use both programs regularly.

I find that 30 days is inadequate to try out a program. In many cases, I've
installed a program, and someone lays some work on me, and I forget about it,
and then when I get back to it, the trial period has expired. But with both
FHS and Legacy I used the free version for a couple fo years before buying the
full one. By then I knew their strengths and their weaknesses.

The suggestion of a small fee of $5.00 i think a very bad one. It would be a
minimum of $20.00 for me with bank charges and all.

The first genealogy program I used I bought outright. It was called Roots/M,
ran on CP/M, and it was the only one available at the time. It cost $45.00,
and I saved up for it for a couple of years, even though in those days a
dollar cost a lot less than it does now. It also ran entirely in memory, which
on a 64k machine was not very much, and so I had to split my family files into
several branches.

When i first used TMG I had to buy it outright too. It was being sold at a
Computer Faire, I'd heard good things about it, so i bought it, and found it
quite useless. Every time I tried to run it it crashed.

I paid for PAF 2.2 as well. I cheated, though -- I didn't quite pay up front.
I borrowed a friend's copy, and tried it out as an unofficial demo. Its best
feature was the auxiliary program that came with it -- the Research Data
Filer, and when I discovered how useful it was, I bought my own copy. Now PAF
is free, and the Research Data Filer no longer comes with it -- a pity,
because it was the best part of PAF, and has not been developed in a Windows
version.

Most of the other programs I used were ones where I was fiven free copies to
review for a magazine.

I used Family Origins and Family Edge for a while; the former for quick GEDCOM
imports, and the latter because it did nice reports, but Legacy can do
everything they did and more.

My only concern about Legacy is that it seems to be suffering from program
bloat, with lots of bells and whistles being added, at the expense of useful
featuress that would enhance its "core business". Once that process gains
momentum, a program tends to get less useful, in my experience.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

On Tue, 21 Feb 2006 10:54:42 +1100, Paul Blair <[email protected]>
declaimed the following in soc.genealogy.computing:

I've built the demo onto 2 drives in the past cuppla days. The first
drive had never has TMG anywhere near it, but TMG insisted it had. The
second drive, brand new out of a wrapper, was formatted, Windowed and
TMGed. Same result. I think you're right, Dave.

Drive wouldn't have mattered if the registry contained anything that

conflicted with new stuff. (I've got at least three programs that all
claim a certain file extension is "their" data).

Or do you mean you built a new OS install on a clean drive with NO
remnants of prior system?
--

==============================================================
[email protected] | Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber KD6MOG
[email protected] | Bestiaria Support Staff
==============================================================
Home Page: <http://www.dm.net/~wulfraed/
Overflow Page: <http://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/

[Paul Blair]

Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:

On Tue, 21 Feb 2006 10:54:42 +1100, Paul Blair <[email protected]
declaimed the following in soc.genealogy.computing:

I've built the demo onto 2 drives in the past cuppla days. The first
drive had never has TMG anywhere near it, but TMG insisted it had. The
second drive, brand new out of a wrapper, was formatted, Windowed and
TMGed. Same result. I think you're right, Dave.

Drive wouldn't have mattered if the registry contained anything that
conflicted with new stuff. (I've got at least three programs that all
claim a certain file extension is "their" data).

Or do you mean you built a new OS install on a clean drive with NO
remnants of prior system?

The latter. New unused drive. Format. Windows. TMG. That's all. Checked
download demo size, that was correct.

Paul

[J. Hugh Sullivan]

On Tue, 21 Feb 2006 06:21:11 +0200, Steve Hayes
<[email protected]> wrote:

On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 13:49:27 GMT, [email protected] (J. Hugh Sullivan)
wrote:

There should be two types of demo for a genealogy program.

The first demo should be a full-featured 30 day (or less) trial offer
except for printing reports and saving gedcoms and backups. Reports
could be limited by the number of generations, people or pages to
print.

The second demo should be a full-featured trial offer with no
expiration period but no more than 50 people could be loaded into the
program.

Perhaps each of those recommendations needs some fine-tuning. But,
between them, one has ample time to study the features but neither
would be satisfactory as a final product.

My preference is for the latter demo. If you load too many people in a
try before you buy product you only confuse yourself. But, if you
can't try every feature that is important to you how can you make the
best decision?

Of course a third option would be to do as Legacy does - a free
program with reduced features. There is a real tease but I think they
lose some sales. I think Millennia should pick up $5 or so on each
download of the freebie. Lots of people won'y buy a program if a
freebie is available. You could use the $5 to buy a Powerball ticket.

SInce I am not a programmer it is very easy for me to say that the
programming of both options should be child's play.

It would be interesting to hear of any major problems with the
suggestions.

My preference is for the present Legacy system: a free version of the program,
and a paid version with extra features.

I don't disagree with anything you said. It gives the program owners
another opinion and most are here - or represented here.

There are only two programs I know of that have worked like this:

a) Family History System (FHS), by Philip E. Brown
b) Legacy, by Millennia

In both cases, after some years of use, I have paid for the extra features.
And also, I still use both programs regularly.

I think that's the norm. I use 2 programs but one is winning.

I find that 30 days is inadequate to try out a program. In many cases, I've
installed a program, and someone lays some work on me, and I forget about it,
and then when I get back to it, the trial period has expired. But with both
FHS and Legacy I used the free version for a couple fo years before buying the
full one. By then I knew their strengths and their weaknesses.

I'm retired so I can devote my waking hours to trials if I wish. Your
routine may not be the norm. But mine may not be either.

The suggestion of a small fee of $5.00 i think a very bad one. It would be a
minimum of $20.00 for me with bank charges and all.

I was thinking of a downloadable version. Would it be more than $5 if
charged on a credit card?

When i first used TMG I had to buy it outright too. It was being sold at a
Computer Faire, I'd heard good things about it, so i bought it, and found it
quite useless. Every time I tried to run it it crashed.

I've paid for a number of programs in the past, TMG included, - but I
charged the expense to my need to satisfy myself that I was using the
best program for me.

I paid for PAF 2.2 as well. I cheated, though -- I didn't quite pay up front.
I borrowed a friend's copy, and tried it out as an unofficial demo.

Moi aussi.

I would have no hesitation to try a program by any available means,
HOWEVER, if I decided to use it I would pay for it. If the authors
can't make a living we don't get the programs.

My only concern about Legacy is that it seems to be suffering from program
bloat, with lots of bells and whistles being added, at the expense of useful
featuress that would enhance its "core business". Once that process gains
momentum, a program tends to get less useful, in my experience.

That's not a problem for me. I use the parts I need. And, it has
always been my recommendation that programs offer options to do almost
anything. There should be defaults but satisfying everyone requires
options. I note that MS is coming out with 6 or 7 versions of Vista
soon.

I'm 5 generations further along (in theory) than anyone else
researching my line so I'm not likely to be adding anything. My
purpose now is being consistent and eliminating errors. I wonder how
people with 25,000-130,000 entries accomplish that.

When I started I thought gedcoms were as accurate and I included
several to lengthen my lines backward. Now I'm in the process of
deleting people if I can't prove them. It's amazing how many lines are
nothing more than wishful thinking. It's a quantity to quality thing.
The guy with the most people doesn't get a trophy.

Hugh

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

On Tue, 21 Feb 2006 17:13:11 +1100, Paul Blair <[email protected]>
declaimed the following in soc.genealogy.computing:

The latter. New unused drive. Format. Windows. TMG. That's all. Checked
download demo size, that was correct.

Shouldn't have been anything to conflict on that then... Sorry --

stumped.
--

==============================================================
[email protected] | Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber KD6MOG
[email protected] | Bestiaria Support Staff
==============================================================
Home Page: <http://www.dm.net/~wulfraed/
Overflow Page: <http://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/

[Steve Hayes]

On Tue, 21 Feb 2006 00:18:19 +0000 (UTC), [email protected] (Bob Velke)
wrote:

C.Woodcock said:

There is definitely some problem with the current demo download.

In addition to testing it before uploading, we've just downloaded it again
and installed it on a clean system without any trouble with either DLLs or
the demo expiration date.

I had no problems with the download, but i have had problems with installing
and using it.

The biggest problem is that there is too little working space on the screen on
my (admittedly small) monitor.

I compared it with other programs, and TMG had two rows of big icons at the
top of the screen. Legacy and Genbox have one, which makes them easier to work
with, but in TMG many of the buttons (Next, Finish etc) are hidden below the
bottom of the screen.

I looked at the Preferences, but couldn't see a way for shrinking those icons
to fit on one row.

MS Word had THEE rows of icons, but because they are small, they still leave
enough working space.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[john]

Steve Hayes wrote:

On Tue, 21 Feb 2006 00:18:19 +0000 (UTC), [email protected] (Bob Velke)
wrote:

C.Woodcock said:

There is definitely some problem with the current demo download.
In addition to testing it before uploading, we've just downloaded it again
and installed it on a clean system without any trouble with either DLLs or
the demo expiration date.

I had no problems with the download, but i have had problems with installing
and using it.

The biggest problem is that there is too little working space on the screen on
my (admittedly small) monitor.

I compared it with other programs, and TMG had two rows of big icons at the
top of the screen. Legacy and Genbox have one, which makes them easier to work
with, but in TMG many of the buttons (Next, Finish etc) are hidden below the
bottom of the screen.

I looked at the Preferences, but couldn't see a way for shrinking those icons
to fit on one row.

MS Word had THEE rows of icons, but because they are small, they still leave
enough working space.

You can change the TMG to small icons with View | Toolbars. You can also
decide which toolbars to display. If you change them to small you can
the drag bars on the second row to the first row.

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 20:00:30 +0200, Steve Hayes <[email protected]>
declaimed the following in soc.genealogy.computing:

I compared it with other programs, and TMG had two rows of big icons at the

I've only got one row of buttons on top, and one column on the left.

I looked at the Preferences, but couldn't see a way for shrinking those icons
to fit on one row.

Right click /between/ a pair of buttons. You have a choice of small,

large, large&text. You also have a choice of what group of buttons are
shown.

After setting to your preferences, save the layout.

(And Word works the same way, you can select which button bars are
to be shown, and customize what is on them)
--

==============================================================
[email protected] | Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber KD6MOG
[email protected] | Bestiaria Support Staff
==============================================================
Home Page: <http://www.dm.net/~wulfraed/
Overflow Page: <http://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/

[Steve Hayes]

On Fri, 24 Feb 2006 06:39:25 GMT, Dennis Lee Bieber <[email protected]>
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 20:00:30 +0200, Steve Hayes <[email protected]
declaimed the following in soc.genealogy.computing:


I compared it with other programs, and TMG had two rows of big icons at the

I've only got one row of buttons on top, and one column on the left.

I looked at the Preferences, but couldn't see a way for shrinking those icons
to fit on one row.

Right click /between/ a pair of buttons. You have a choice of small,
large, large&text. You also have a choice of what group of buttons are
shown.

After setting to your preferences, save the layout.

Thanks very much!

(And Word works the same way, you can select which button bars are
to be shown, and customize what is on them)

Yes, but I did that so long ago I'd forgotten how I did it.

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Steve Hayes]

Ok, the next problem with the demo of TMG

R&R Report Viewer, Xbase Edition has encountered a problem and needs to close.
We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Produced a report on screen, tried to get hard copy, and that's what happened.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk