A Little Perspective

This is for anyone who has ever, or will in the future, accidentally cut me off on the telephone.

Believe me, I don't take it personally.  When I was about 10 years old I was speaking to my father on the telephone while he was at work.  He was talking away to me and then all of a sudden the line went dead.  A while later he called back to tell me that he had spilled coffee on his desk and couldn't find a good spot to put down the receiver while he cleaned it up -- so he just hung up!

Trust me, getting accidentally cut off now doesn't phase me and I'll definitely call you back.

It's time to get serious

Good Job! to everyone who has their students upgraded in BUSTOPS and your routes planned for the 2011-2012 school year.

If you haven't contacted BUSTOPS Support to reserve your GoToMeeting appointment to upgrade your students, you need to get going.  See my earlier post for steps to be done to prepare for the 2011-2012 school year, and Ken's comments about using student downloads to upgrade your students.

When  you get ready to print, don't forget to review your routes in the BUSTOPS Report Preview screen  before  you start printing, and compare the information to what you have in your students and stops database.  The way your reports have been setup may require update commands to be run within BUSTOPS before you print.

Happy planning!

Good Friday

In observance of Good Friday our office will be closed on Friday, April 22, 2011.

We will reopen at 8:00 am on Monday, April 25, 2011.

Hint for Vista Users

We have recently had a challenge sending an executable program update for BUSTOPS to a customer running Windows Vista.

First, we made sure that the User Account Control was turned off.  We then found that the Security in their Windows Mail needed to have the "Block Files that potentially contain a virus" turned off.

So, if you ever have problems receiving executable files by e-mail, these are some settings that can be checked.

Windows Vista and Windows 7

Throughout 2010, users have been installing BUSTOPS on Windows7 and Windows Vista operating systems. Usually, these installations have gone fine with no need to involve BUSTOPS Support.

However, in a few situations, there have been some challenges due to certain features of Windows7 and Windows Vista. If you run into any problems installing BUSTOPS, contact the office for notes about resolving these issues.

Recent Support "Call"

The other morning I had my first Support "Call" at about 8 am.  I was getting my computer turned on, etc., and my 5 year old daughter (who has been "helping" me do support since she was 4 months old) asked how to get into BUSTOPS.

I explained she needed to find the BUSTOPS icon on the desktop and then double click it.  Then she would see the main BUSTOPS screen.

It must have worked for her because she then came and "paid" me.

Hope you enjoyed my little story.

Steps for updating for 2011-2012

Today I thought I'd list the steps to be done once your students' grades are rolled up:

• reassign students who will move to a new building to stops for that school
• import or enter new kindergarteners
• adjust routes for new students and remove stops without students
• notify parents - through newspaper postings, letters or post cards
• print new route packages for drivers - routes with riders, driving directions, route maps

Call for help with any of the steps as you need it.  Also, BUSTOPS can be used to create and customize all of the reports/posting information noted above.

If you have many students who change schools each year, you should make sure Eligibility Coding/Placement Lines are setup for your SD to cut down on the work needing to be done each spring.

Happy planning.