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Short Line Data Systems Inc. ROCSTM Update – December 2008 Website: www.sdsrocs.com Greetings – I’m sitting here writing this update at the tail end of the Thanksgiving weekend, and the holiday season is in full swing, and as I have said many times in the past it is hard to believe how quickly the year has past. We have had a very busy year, with the introduction of the TRACCURATETM AEI system, the release of Version 11 of ROCS, and the usual slate of committees, meetings, and conventions. The primary focus of this month’s update is going to be the classic ROCS system, as we have been doing a lot of tweaking with it over the last month, both as updates for the current release (Version 11), and in the development of the next release, which will be Version 12. Well, let’s get on with the update. ROCS Version 11B As of this writing, all active users have been upgraded to Version 11B of ROCS. The changes in V11B mostly concerned the need to change the EDI version to 5050 from 5030. The user really won’t notice anything, because all of the changes were in areas that do not show on the screen. The area that the user will see changes in is car hire, as we have completely rewritten the message generation code. If you are sitting there saying to yourself “there had to be a problem, so he rewrote it,” That is not in this case. As I was looking at doing some new things with ROCS, I stumbled on an even better way to do the car hire messages. It is important that you understand that this change was not a small improvement to the speed and efficiency of message creation, it is a HUGE improvement. We are seeing processing times that are one fifth to one seventh of the time it was taking previously. For those of you who are playing at home, that is a 500-700% improvement in processing speed! (I know some of you are sitting there saying “now if he could do that for BOLs, Consists, and Waybills he would have something,” keep reading) We have also taken the opportunity to add three checks to the car hire process: the first one will stop processing if the system detects that a car hire message will have a negative total (not allowed), the second will warn the user if the payment is going to be above a certain level (such as $1000), but doesn’t stop processing, and the final one will stop processing if the number of segments written to the file does not match the computed length of the message. These checks will help to improve the data that the user supplies to the data exchange, and will greatly reduce problems down the road. As past history has shown us with previous versions, we will probably have one or two more sub-versions in this release, and then we will move on to Version 12 in the early third quarter of 2009. Version 12 Now that we’ve got you excited with the car hire upgrade, we’re not stopping there. The same revised process we are using for car hire also works for Bills of Lading, Consists, and Waybills. So far, we are seeing the same impressive speed improvements with these messages as we have been seeing with the car hire messages. But we are not stopping there. We are going from top to bottom, and reviewing every part and process of the program. We are using this opportunity to reacquaint us with parts of the system that we haven’t played with since they were written, and if we can make it better, we will. It is always important to keep things fresh, and now that the skeleton of ROCS will be ten years (ten years!) old in 2009, we have a great opportunity to improve this already great product. We already have the first parts of Version 12 running on the system at the M&E, and this process will be ongoing until we decide to freeze the system for final release. If testing and development continue the way they have with past versions, we should start distributing Version 12 in its entirety at the start of the summer of 2009. Of course, if we feel that it is necessary to get some of the bits and pieces out to individual users earlier, we will. Closing out the Year We wish everyone the best during the holidays. It has been a tough year for most of us, and with the passage of the Rail Safety Act the future does not look much easier. There are many changes looming on the horizon from that act, and as soon as the final rules are issued, if we have to make changes to any of our products we will. We are looking at new products to help with the potential requirements that we all will have to meet as railroaders. On a slightly lighter note, 2009 will bring the tenth anniversary of the incorporation of SDS. I can’t believe that it has been that long and how far we have progressed since those early days. We will probably do something special at the ASLRRA Annual Meeting to celebrate this anniversary, and we might do a couple of other fun things throughout the year. Well, that is all for now. Have a safe holidays, and we will be back in the new year with the latest on all of the Short Line Data Systems family of products. Stay safe, Steven Friedland President
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