Dauntless Safelog - is there a way to export data to CSV format?

[Jim Carter[_1_]]

Could someone using the software address this issue? I posed the
question to "Dauntless", John T., and Bill Zaleski.and the thread went
silent. I'd really like to know because I haven't selected a package
yet.

[Dave Butler]

Jim Carter wrote:
> Could someone using the software address this issue? I posed the
> question to "Dauntless", John T., and Bill Zaleski.and the thread went
> silent. I'd really like to know because I haven't selected a package
> yet.

Not specifically addressing your question, and I'm not a user, but you
made me curious, so I poked around the website a little.

There's a helpdesk at http://www.dauntless-soft.com/helpdesk/

It says: "If you have any questions whatsoever regarding our products,
the status of your order, or need help, please don't hesitate to contact
us by clicking on 'Submit a Question'...".

Is this where you '...posed the question to "Dauntless"'?

In the FAQ there is a question: "How does the Import Functionality Work?"

http://www.dauntless-soft.com/helpdesk/issue_view.asp?ID=671&CATE=3

which discusses importing from a CSV file. It doesn't say anything about
exporting to CSV.

Then there is "Other, or personalized Safelog Data Import/Export Tech
support issues"

http://www.dauntless-soft.com/helpdesk/issue_view.asp?ID=2088&CATE=3

which says that support is not free, most problems with import/export
are user errors, and "...it takes us a very long time to investigate
such things... we simply can not be asked to spend many hours on wild
goose chases...", all of which leads me to believe that the user
interface must be complex (based on no experience, just reading the
FAQs). I neither want to go on wild goose chases nor pay someone else to
go. Maybe the instructions are really clear and the customers are just
stupid. If they published the instructions, I could decide whether
that's the case, but they don't.

The advertised price is $64.99 for "at least three year license". I
don't think it's for me, but I can't fault them for not disclosing the
terms. It's just that the terms don't seem very attractive. For that
price I'd want to own the software, not license it.

Just my opinion.

Dave

[Jim Carter[_1_]]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Zaleski ]
> Posted At: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 6:43 PM
> Posted To: rec.aviation.ifr
> Conversation: Dauntless Safelog - is there a way to export data to CSV
> format?
> Subject: Re: Dauntless Safelog - is there a way to export data to CSV
> format?
>
> On Tue, 4 Sep 2007 19:09:50 -0500, "Jim Carter"
> > wrote:
>
> >Could someone using the software address this issue? I posed the
> >question to "Dauntless", John T., and Bill Zaleski.and the thread
went
> >silent. I'd really like to know because I haven't selected a package
> >yet.
>
> I am not interested in a CSV format, as I am paying for the software
> and am happy with it's useability in the current form. If it ain't
> broke, why fix it?
> >

Bill,
I tend not to take a myopic view of software and always want to
leave myself an out for upgrading or converting to some other product I
might wish / need to use in the future.

This whole thread started because someone accused Dauntless of
holding their personal data hostage. I pointed out that there might be a
provision of dumping to a common format like CSV and asked Dauntless or
Safelog supporters / users to describe such a facility. Ever since I
posed that question the conversation has gotten strangely quiet leading
me to believe the original poster may have a valid point. Dauntless
Safelog does not want to address their portability issues. Why? And
don't tell me its to protect their market segment. When companies focus
on protecting segments rather than supporting customers, the protection
problem gets much simpler as their segment gets smaller and smaller.

I am finding it more and more difficult to find fault with the
original poster that was complaining about data captivity. Could someone
who knows for sure please address the portability of data issue for
extraction from Safelog format? Dauntless acknowledges the need, but
only to load data into their application, not the other way around.

[Jim Carter[_1_]]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Zaleski ]
> Posted At: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 7:32 PM
> Posted To: rec.aviation.ifr
> Conversation: Dauntless Safelog - is there a way to export data to CSV
> format?
> Subject: Re: Dauntless Safelog - is there a way to export data to CSV
> format?
>
....
> Dauntless software stands on it's own merits. They have no
> responsibility to make it exportable to some other format. If you
> don't like their current platform, that is your own personal problem,
> It's like asking Windows XP to make their product compatible with Mac.
> There is no legal or moral requirement to do so. Do you expect
> Microsoft to continue to make DOS 2.0 stuff workable with whatever you
> want it to operate with? Same flawed logic and expectation.

Bill, don't obfuscate the issue. The premise of the thread was that
Dauntless has designed an application that once you start using it you
must continue or risk losing your personal data.

There are no "compatibility" issues here, there are no cross application
issues here. The entire premise is that Dauntless has designed a tool
that apparently does not allow the use the right to change their mind,
dump their data into a format that Dauntless itself uses to import, and
take their business elsewhere.

Unless someone can show how that premise is wrong, then I have to agree
with the original poster that Safelog is of limited value (due to
transportability) and once started extorts future payments from the
users by holding personal data hostage.

Quit defending the company based on your personal needs and look at the
bigger issue of use in the general population.

If you can show how Safelog dumps its data into a commonly accepted
format like CSV, or tab delimited, or pipe delimited, or whatever other
commonly accepted format they might wish to support, then I'll gladly
apologize for anything I've written here that is incorrect. Right now
however, no one wants to prove Safelog exports data and instead wants to
argue unrelated obscure topics.

[John Godwin[_2_]]

Bill Zaleski > wrote in
:

> Dauntless software stands on it's own merits. They have no
> responsibility to make it exportable to some other format. If you
> don't like their current platform, that is your own personal problem,
> It's like asking Windows XP to make their product compatible with Mac.
> There is no legal or moral requirement to do so. Do you expect
> Microsoft to continue to make DOS 2.0 stuff workable with whatever you
> want it to operate with? Same flawed logic and expectation.
>
I think you missed the point entirely. The jist of the thread has to do
with the exporting of DATA, not running the application on different
platforms.

You want to throw DOS 2.0 and Windows XP into the thread ... OK ... I
have DATA that was created on several Operating Systems (Unix, DOS, OS/2,
and even IBM Mainframe Operating Systems). The DATA can be ported to
Windows XP and Windows 2000, the applications that produced the DATA
will, obviously, not run on all systems but, at least, I have the
opportunity of porting the data.

My logbook is Jeppesen which allows both importation and exportation of
DATA which is one of the reasons that I chose their product. It simply
gives me the option of choosing another application should Jeppesen ever
decide to get out of the "Logbook Business".

[Blanche Cohen]

On the "Other Records & Tools" page, select "Data Import & Export".

choose whatever format you prefer for export:
comma, tab, whatever...

And yes, it works. I've used it frequently, and just verified it a
few minutes ago.

This gets back to the classic case of reading the documentation.

[John Godwin]

(Blanche Cohen) wrote in news:fbo09k$cm4o$1
@apollo.csd.net:

> This gets back to the classic case of reading the documentation.
>
I wonder why Jim wasn't given this answer on the original post (he
didn't have the documentation). Thanks for the input.


--

[Jim Carter[_1_]]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Blanche Cohen ]
> Posted At: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 9:39 PM
> Posted To: rec.aviation.ifr
> Conversation: Dauntless Safelog - is there a way to export data to CSV
> format?
> Subject: Re: Dauntless Safelog - is there a way to export data to CSV
> format?
>
> On the "Other Records & Tools" page, select "Data Import & Export".
>
> choose whatever format you prefer for export:
> comma, tab, whatever...
>
> And yes, it works. I've used it frequently, and just verified it a
> few minutes ago.
>
> This gets back to the classic case of reading the documentation.

Excellent response; completely answers the question and puts this thread
and the original to rest. Thanks Blanche.

There is no reason now for anyone to claim that Dauntless is holding
personal data hostage. The o/p in the original thread should have no
reason to complain now unless of course he really liked the Softlog
application but wants to complain that it is no longer free. That's a
much less supportable argument than the claims he was making about
Dauntless extorting money for access to his data.

Thanks again Blanche.

[[email protected]]

Hi Guys,.

I am the designer of the software.

To answer the question:

YES, absolutely. Safelog allows export of the pilot logbook data to
CSV format.
let me reapeat that,m since there appears to be some mudslinging about
our small company based on an unfounded assumption.

=== YES! Safelog allows export of the data to CSV format. ===

This has been in there from day 1. In fact, we were the first non-
trivial pilot logbook software to do this - our two competitors at the
time wer notorious for NOT doing this. There's a whole import/export
screen, and in fact a pretty sophsiticated wizard (at least as
sophisticated as the one in MS-Access, if any of you have seen that)
for import, and there is a reasonable set of options for export, too.

As far as technical support goes: there is a very good reason why we
charge for technical support for backup/restore and import/export
issues. Basically, 99.9% of people who use this functionality never
need to contact us and it works fine. However, without fail, those
who need significant technical support on these issues are either
people a) who have severeley messed up their logbook, failed to make
backups, and/or done something completely bizarre or b) expect us to
teach them from step 1 how to use excel, deal with CSV files, and so
forth. Because such items are far out of the norm and require
exceptional time by our staff, we charge for this (though actually
there have been maybe a handful of cases where we have actually
charged somebody) basically at cost. It is simply not fair to pass on
the cost of such higly specific and highly time-intensive items to the
bulk of our users. Our policy in this exists simply to provide value
for the bulk of our users. In practice, we gladly answer short
questions about these issues via our helpdesk. Additionally, should
an issue ever arise because of a bug in our software, of course there
would be no cost, but only sincere apologies for any difficulty
incurred.


I hope this answers any and all questions. Please, PLEASE people
don't go about making unfounded assumptions or just assuming (and
posting!) the negative just because some random person hasn't popped
up in the newsgroup to counter them!

I apologize again that I will not be able to respond to this thread
often, but if you have questions or want to make accusations, please
at least ask us first. I can be reached via our helpdesk at
www.dauntless-soft.com/helpdesk.

If you want to reach me directly, just make a note in your request
that it go to Adrian and I'll be sure to get back to you. I apologize
that i dont read r.a.ifr as often as i'd like to, so I ask you to
please not hold it against me that I can't respond here so often.

In general, please consider that we are the *good* guys We're a small
company composed of real people (I fly a mighty Cessna 150!) and work
very hard to try to be everything to everybody in logbook software.
Somebody mentioned Jeppesen's logbook - while I do encourage you guys
to go with whatever works best for you, in my view, last I saw their
product, that's one of the worst choices (my personal opinion) that a
person can make, as there were (at least, last I checked) significant
usability limitaitons there.

All the best,

Adrian
CFI/ATP
dauntless aviation

[Jim Carter[_1_]]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ]
> Posted At: Thursday, September 06, 2007 7:05 AM
> Posted To: rec.aviation.ifr
> Conversation: Dauntless Safelog - is there a way to export data to CSV
> format?
> Subject: Re: Dauntless Safelog - is there a way to export data to CSV
> format?
>
> Hi Guys,.
>
> I am the designer of the software.
>
> To answer the question:
>
> YES, absolutely. Safelog allows export of the pilot logbook data to
> CSV format.
> let me reapeat that,m since there appears to be some mudslinging about
> our small company based on an unfounded assumption.
>
> === YES! Safelog allows export of the data to CSV format. ===
>
> This has been in there from day 1. In fact, we were the first non-
> trivial pilot logbook software to do this - our two competitors at the
> time wer notorious for NOT doing this. There's a whole import/export
> screen, and in fact a pretty sophsiticated wizard (at least as
> sophisticated as the one in MS-Access, if any of you have seen that)
> for import, and there is a reasonable set of options for export, too.
>
> As far as technical support goes: there is a very good reason why we
> charge for technical support for backup/restore and import/export
> issues. Basically, 99.9% of people who use this functionality never
> need to contact us and it works fine. However, without fail, those
> who need significant technical support on these issues are either
> people a) who have severeley messed up their logbook, failed to make
> backups, and/or done something completely bizarre or b) expect us to
> teach them from step 1 how to use excel, deal with CSV files, and so
> forth. Because such items are far out of the norm and require
> exceptional time by our staff, we charge for this (though actually
> there have been maybe a handful of cases where we have actually
> charged somebody) basically at cost. It is simply not fair to pass on
> the cost of such higly specific and highly time-intensive items to the
> bulk of our users. Our policy in this exists simply to provide value
> for the bulk of our users. In practice, we gladly answer short
> questions about these issues via our helpdesk. Additionally, should
> an issue ever arise because of a bug in our software, of course there
> would be no cost, but only sincere apologies for any difficulty
> incurred.
>
>
> I hope this answers any and all questions. Please, PLEASE people
> don't go about making unfounded assumptions or just assuming (and
> posting!) the negative just because some random person hasn't popped
> up in the newsgroup to counter them!
>
> I apologize again that I will not be able to respond to this thread
> often, but if you have questions or want to make accusations, please
> at least ask us first. I can be reached via our helpdesk at
> www.dauntless-soft.com/helpdesk.
>
> If you want to reach me directly, just make a note in your request
> that it go to Adrian and I'll be sure to get back to you. I apologize
> that i dont read r.a.ifr as often as i'd like to, so I ask you to
> please not hold it against me that I can't respond here so often.
>
> In general, please consider that we are the *good* guys We're a small
> company composed of real people (I fly a mighty Cessna 150!) and work
> very hard to try to be everything to everybody in logbook software.
> Somebody mentioned Jeppesen's logbook - while I do encourage you guys
> to go with whatever works best for you, in my view, last I saw their
> product, that's one of the worst choices (my personal opinion) that a
> person can make, as there were (at least, last I checked) significant
> usability limitaitons there.
>
> All the best,
>
> Adrian
> CFI/ATP
> dauntless aviation
>

Good response Adrian, thanks. There should be no excuse now for anyone
to complain about Dauntless holding data hostage.