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Kitlog Ongoing Problems and no Support

P

plhamilton

Member
Hi There,

I have been trying to get assistance from kitlog since the 4th November with no reply and I have to say I am getting pretty sick of it. I stayed up late last week to call, but the voice mail that I received said that they respond faster to emails. Right....

When I originally installed under Win 7 64, I did not install as the Administrator so when I ran the program, everything worked, but I was unable to perform software updates which were notified to me every time that I ran the program. If I ran it as Administrator, it did not recognise my registration so it was trying to get me to register. So I contacted Kitlog and received instructions to fix this problem. I executed those instructions and lost everything... Great.

So I have re-keyed everything back in from my pdf backups and have continued to use it, however, when I try to update the mykitlog site, I seem to have multiple homes and there are duplicates in the menus. All I want to do is clear all my data from the mykitlog site so that I can put a clean version up there. How hard is that....

If anyone has any idea as to how I can get rid of what I have on mykitlog, I would appreciate your thoughts.

I am trying to use mykitlog to keep my Tech Consultant informed of where I am up to, in the build, but at this stage, I am considering throwing it in the bin and just doing a stand alone website...


cheers

Paul
 
Time Difference?

Sorry you've had a bad experience. Perhaps the problem is the time difference, with respect to them calling you back.. I had some early problems along the lines of what's posted in VAF threads, but I received quick responses to my emails for assistance. Even with that assistance, it took a little while for me to figure out how to get everything up and running. However, I still think Kitlog is a nice way to log one's efforts. It's stored locally on your computer (not the cloud), you can print hardcopies if desired and it only takes a short time to update. I think if you can get help with the glitches, you'll be happy with the product. Good luck.
 
KCBerner said:
Previous people's issues like this http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=83632
along with lack of Mac compatibility is what is driving me to just go with a Wordpress blog.
Click to expand...

I have been experimenting with Wordpress as a build log as well. I run several WP blogs (my own, EAA chapter, etc). What I want to do is have an automatically updating count of hours spent in total and on each section, using custom fields. I haven't been able to figure out yet how to pull custom fields only for posts in a specific category. If I can figure that out, I think it will work nicely.

I don't have a problem with the cost of Kitlog Pro... I just don't want to have to run it on a Windows machine. I do nearly all of my work on Linux systems, and that's what I'll have in the workshop when I start building.
 
KCBerner said:
I haven't figured out how to make it work yet but have you seen the plugins listed on this page? http://rv9a.pacificrimsound.com/?page_id=5

If you figure it out maybe you can post a few more hints...;)
Click to expand...

I'm using this plugin on my wordpress build page (link in sig).

As I recall, it did take a little bit of tweaking to get working just right, but now, I just enter in my time in a custom field and choose a post category.
 
Well, cool! That plugin does almost exactly what I want it to -- close enough that I may not feel the need to mess with it. I'm using Wordpress 3.4.2 and it installed cleanly and works fine with no changes needed. Thanks for the pointers, guys! I think I've pretty much decided to use WP.

The only thing I am not sure about is how much hassle either one will be for printing everything out, pictures and all, it in book or PDF form. Something to stick in the hangar for future reference. I may download the Kitlog Pro trial and see. I know it can be done with WP, I just don't know if it's a monumental task or not.
 
PDFs from wordpress

DaleB said:
The only thing I am not sure about is how much hassle either one will be for printing everything out, pictures and all, it in book or PDF form. Something to stick in the hangar for future reference. I may download the Kitlog Pro trial and see. I know it can be done with WP, I just don't know if it's a monumental task or not.
Click to expand...

I've also been happily using wordpress (self hosting) for my build log log.

For archival printing of the log, I've had some success using a WP plug in called Kalin's PDF Creation Station. It does an OK job of printing individual entries as PDFs. It has a mechanism for batch printing a selection of entries, but I've found that not to work very reliably. What I really want is to create a full PDF of the entire blog from oldest to newest. It seemed to have trouble doing that with a lot of entries and it's a real pain to reverse the order (by default it lists them in blog order- newest to oldest).
 
Printing

DaleB said:
The only thing I am not sure about is how much hassle either one will be for printing everything out, pictures and all, it in book or PDF form. Something to stick in the hangar for future reference. I may download the Kitlog Pro trial and see. I know it can be done with WP, I just don't know if it's a monumental task or not.
Click to expand...

There's also a plugin called Anthologize that may help. It's made for outputting an ebook but has PDF output option (I believe). Don't know about the pics.
 
Dear Paul,

I'm sorry to hear that you are having continued issues with your installation of Kitlog. To be fair, you emailed Kitlog Support on 11/1/12 and received a response on 11/2/12 asking for additional details. Looking back through the Support Email, I am not seeing any additional email from you since that request.

However, I just checked our Barracuda Spam Appliance, and found that it blocked one of your emails on 11/17 and two others on 11/20 due to "high calculated spam score" (the Spam Appliance appears to have mis-detected spam due to some text content within the body of the message). Because of the block, the email never made it to the Support Email.

I do try to keep up on the Kitlog Support email, but it is a big job some weeks. I prefer email over phone for Support, because handling software issues over the phone can become extremely time consuming, particularly on a $49 product.

I have forwarded your blocked email to the Kitlog Support Email account and will respond to your inquire next.

I am very close to releasing an update for Kitlog, that will include a much streamlined installation process including native installer support for Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8. The release will also include some new features including picture drag and drop and a number of other enhancements.

If people have trouble getting though on the Kitlog Support email, please feel free to contact me directly at [email protected].

Best regards,

Matt Dralle
Matronics / Kitlog Pro



plhamilton said:
Hi There,

I have been trying to get assistance from kitlog since the 4th November with no reply and I have to say I am getting pretty sick of it. I stayed up late last week to call, but the voice mail that I received said that they respond faster to emails. Right....

Paul
Click to expand...
 
Ktilog Support

I have had good support from Matt on the Kitlog. He was very helpful when my computer crashed fatally and I have gotten my information back in my new PC that was lost on the old computer hard drive. It may take a few hours or a day but he always responds. Thanks Matt!!!
 
I use kitlog and its ok, but I have to say, now that I know Matt is behind it, I'm surprised its as clunky as it is. It does the job, but I am certain Matt can improve upon it.
 
I'm part of the silent majority....

Kit log does just fine. On the two occasions I had issues, Matt handled both of them within a couple days and fixed issues I had caused. Not bad for 3 years of using the program every day. :D
 
Kit log

I use KitLog like many of you. It sure beats writing my own Access Database. During initial installation of the software back in March I had a few errors. Matt was quick to respond with the solutions. The fixes work and I have not experienced any problems since. Thanks Matt!

Chuck
 
I personally have had no problems with my kit log, moved it to a new computer a while back without any problems. I am looking fwd to the software update I heard about. Picture drag and drop would be sweet.

Bird
 
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I am running kitlog on a Win 7 64 machine with no problems at all. I have even upgraded machines from XP to Win7 with no issues.

At one point I thought I had lost my entire build log. I had to reinstall windows and realized that I had been backing up the wrong file for my Log! I thougt all was lost, when I reinstalled kitlog after putting windows back on it "found" the old database file on its own and all was right with the world.

As far as I am concerned, kitlog is great. I really like that bit of software. I also like that I can direct-link images from kitlog to this site so I don't have to use imageshack ect to post pictures.

The only updates I would like are larger images on the log and website, no character limitation on the image captions, and the ability to have more than three pictures per entry.

Kitlog was by far the best $49 I have spent on the project.
 
Not a judgement.....just pure curiosity.

Why do builders document their build using a computer and software? There are a lot of fast/simple alternatives.
 
Can't lose it
Can't spill iced tea on it
Digital camera means digital photo and no printing
My hand writing sucks
Photo albums are so 60's
I can share my brilliance with friends
 
ColoRv said:
Can't lose it
Can't spill iced tea on it
Digital camera means digital photo and no printing
My hand writing sucks
Photo albums are so 60's
I can share my brilliance with friends
Click to expand...

Plus the ability to share the status of your project with friends and family that aren't local.

Like Bill, I can't read my own handwriting and am more comfortable with a computer.

I also prefer the digital photos as to just signing off the tasks in the plans.

Bob
 
ColoRv said:
I use kitlog and its ok, but I have to say, now that I know Matt is behind it, I'm surprised its as clunky as it is. It does the job, but I am certain Matt can improve upon it.
Click to expand...

This is partly why I'm a bit disappointed with it also. I posted before in VAF about other logging possibilities, but keep using Kitlog because it's running for me and does 90% of what I want. What I'd really like is something more server- (cloud-) based so I can update it from any Internet capable device. But I do keep the Access database file in a Dropbox file so I can install the Kitlog software on my several Windows machines and everything is in sync.
 
Same as Ralph.
I wanted to be able to update from the house or at work. I tried many different ways of getting it to work like that even Dropbox but didn't have any luck.
It would be nice if that was one of the upgrades.
 
I don't understand why you're having such a tough time..

Update... Don't see the post I was responding to. I must be dreaming. I'm going to bed.

One time in 3 years did I have to ask Matt Dralle to remove a duplicate page in my online database. What happened was I created a page, posted it, and then later completely changed that page, deleting it and replacing it. I guess I overwhelmed the system with all my changes. I gave Matt the date and description of the online page to remove and he did it. There's like 1000 users plugging away using Kitlog and it has been working fine, even though there are some shortcomings to it. So I would first look to your practices. My guess is you are making lots of changes AFTER you have posted. If what you change is simply the information or pictures for your previous posted page, that should work fine. If you are deleting posted pages and re publishing another to replace it, that may be a source of your troubles. I was given two links for repair programs by Matt once. You are welcome to run them at your own risk....

http://www.kitlog.com/dls/klsetup.exe
http://www.kitlog.com/dls/KitlogDatabaseRepairUtility.exe

Hopefully you are saving a backup of your database so you never lose it locally on your own computer.
Significant update is coming soon according to Matt.
 
Last edited:
No tough time...

I just noticed that the recent builer activity is stuck on January 24th.

Is it me, or does anyone else see that? As an example, if you look at my log after searching me, you'll see an entry for the 25th. However, the last update on the recent builder activity is the 23rd, same goes for Steve.

I'm not having issues with the program and I do keep a backup. Yesterday, there seemed to be a freeze and then there was no builder activty section showing.

Just curious if anyone else saw that, that's all I was asking.

Cheers,

Don
 
www.MyKitlog.com "Recent Builder Activity" Fixed...

The MyKitlog Database was having some corruption issues last week and I was doing some performance enhancements. I inadvertently caused the Recent Builder Activity data to become static instead of dynamic! The issue has been remedied and I've also increased the depth from 20 to 30 recent builders. Have a look: http://www.mykitlog.com

In the future, if anyone notices that there is a problem with the MyKitlog.com web site, please email me directly at [email protected] so that I can look into the issue as soon as possible.

In other news, the new Kitlog 2.1 release is coming along very nicely. Still a few tweaks to be done, but I think users are going to be pleased with some of the new improvements!

Best regards,

Matt Dralle
Matronics / Kitlog Pro
RV-8/RV-6/RV-4 Builder/Flyer/Fixer
 
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