Had a lovely day out on the moors today but ...

got a little burnt (silly me). There was a really pleasant breeze but as you all know that means you don't realise your arms are heating up so much.

I managed to put out a WOM walk and new box, but only managed to pick up three boxes (that I stumbled over). I gave up looking for other boxes as it was probably a little too hot to be out there really. I was out for five hours but must admit it was a struggle at times.

So happy to be back out on the moors though - the letterboxing bug is once more upon me.

My favourite way of boxing is to "stumble over them" and I amassed a grand total of 7 boxes over the past week. However, since microsoft no longer give a database program with their office program, I am now struggling to find a way to create a database (to my own satisfaction) to aid me with my boxing,which leaves me with the stumble method.
As for this past week, I was out, without clues, maps or compass and I thoroughly enjoyed it! The boxing was secondary to the huge gulps of fresh air that I needed.

With the huge reduction in boxes on the moor, I think I am going to need a database again.... any suggestions? Btw, I have not got on well with any of the available letterbox programs that are available.

Best program out there is tailor made for Letterboxing. One of our members Colin Masters has written the program especially for us all. It is free at the moment to download from his site. If you pay for the official catalogue updates, you can upload them to the program at the click of a button - work all done for you. if you want to walk in a particular area, just go and pick the squares off the density grid and lists all the boxes in that square - even prints out a map for you with them on and a printed list of the actual clues as well. majic!!!

www.colin-masters.com

I agree with SS, downloaded Colin's programme last week and although I'm still getting to grips with all it has to offer, it is great.

Nik - KOTM wrote:My favourite way of boxing is to "stumble over them" and I amassed a grand total of 7 boxes over the past week. However, since microsoft no longer give a database program with their office program, I am now struggling to find a way to create a database (to my own satisfaction) to aid me with my boxing,which leaves me with the stumble method.
As for this past week, I was out, without clues, maps or compass and I thoroughly enjoyed it! The boxing was secondary to the huge gulps of fresh air that I needed.

With the huge reduction in boxes on the moor, I think I am going to need a database again.... any suggestions? Btw, I have not got on well with any of the available letterbox programs that are available.

To be fair to Microsoft the have only ever shipped access with office pro or above, which is still the case. If you already have an MS access DB then you can download the MS Access runtime engine which will let you carry on using your DB without even needing office.

Of course there are many free alternatives to office which do include database development tools such as Open Office, LibreOffice and OxygenOffice to name but a few.

Personally I have never been a big fan of MS access as it can be quite slow when trying to manipulate large amounts of Data. An alternative maybe to use something like lazarus + SQLite however this would require some programming. Or of course nothing wrong with the good old trusty spreadsheet.

ok... food for thought there