TourMiles The USER MANUAL for the TourMiles mileage search software is in a file named TMDOCS.TXT You can print a copy of the instructions directly from this diskette. Just put this diskette in drive A: (or any drive), make A: the default drive by typing A: and press . Be sure your printer is on and ready - enter the command: PRINT TMDOCS.TXT (press ) there are 18 pages of docs and city list TourMiles is copyrighted 1990- Girard W. Landry. This copy of the TourMiles MILEAGE SEARCH SOFTWARE is SHAREWARE and you are free to use it fore a reasonable evaluation period. If you find the program to be useful and you continue to use it, you are expected to send a registration fee of $100.00 to TourTech for continued support and information. When you register, you will be sent a diskette without the shareware message, and complete serial number status and printed user manual. You will also be provided with our technical support phone number and will be automatically placed on our mailing list to receive update notices and special upgrading fee offers, as we are constantly improving TourMiles and expanding our product line. Your registrations, support our efforts to keep improving the software to better meet your needs. For your convenience in registering, there is an Order Form in a file on this diskette. You can print a copy of the Order Form by following the same instructions as for the User Manual except, use the following command: PRINT ORDER.FRM (press enter) Before you do anything, Read this !!!! The information provided in the user's manual is designed to help you to learn how to operate the TourMiles program. You need to read it once through, BEFORE you activate the program. When you enter city data and, at some point, have a "day off"(or another designation other than a city name), enter the name of the city the "day off" will be in. That way, the program will allow for the "day off" and put a "0" in the mileage column. Then, once you have exported the TourMiles .WKB chart and retrieved it in LOTUS or EXCEL, you can change that city name to any designation you desire. Regarding the section in the manual that addresses the movement of data from the TourMiles program to a LOTUS_ or EXCEL_ file, or visa versa, please take your time the first time, to get the feel for how this is done. Going from TourMiles to one of the other spreadsheet programs is fairly simple: You save the TourMiles mileage chart as a "TMEXPORT.WKB" file (as the manual instructs on page 8); open your spreadsheet program and retrieve the export file; and then you can change the name and data any way you wish. Moving data from a spreadsheet program to TourMiles is also simple, provided you follow the steps. You will find two LOTUS (spreadsheet) files entitled "TMIMPORT.WKB" and "TMCITY.WKB" included with the TourMiles program. These files are designed to take data from other spreadsheet or database programs and make a data transfer into the TourMiles program easier for you. You format your data in the database to conform with the format in the "TMCITY" file, which automatically formats the data for import into "TMIMPORT". After you have imported the data from the database to "TMCITY" and then to "TMIMPORT", you can open the TourMiles program; from the GET command, retrieve the "TMIMPORT" file; and then, by following the instructions in the user's manual, you can complete a mileage search. There are, at the time of this printing, 114, 582 combinations of mileages between the 340 cities in the TourMiles' charts; and because of the massive size of these charts, adding shed (new) cities to them is a time consuming task, i.e., looking up mileages from one shed (new) city to 340 cities. However, we did add some cities (70 cities) by calculating the new mileages from the originating city to the nearest major city "plus" the mileage to the new city. For example, New York, NY, to Laguna Hills, CA (Irvine Meadows): Laguna Hills, CA is 50 miles south of Los Angeles, CA. The mileage is calculated from New York, NY, to Los Angeles (2794 miles) plus 50 miles from Los Angeles to Laguna Hills, CA, for a total of 2844 miles. Now, If you were traveling from San Diego, CA, to Laguna Hills, CA (77 miles), TourMiles would calculate the mileage from San Diego to Los Angeles (127 miles) plus 50 miles to Laguna Hills, CA, (total 177 miles). You would then subtract the 100 untraveled miles (to/from Los Angeles), for the total of 77 miles. So, depending on which direction you are traveling, you would adjust the mileages accordingly. In the user's manual, there is a list of shed (new) cities that have been added. This list provides the mileages and direction from these shed (new) cities to the nearest major city that the TourMiles program uses in calculating mileages to/from these cities; so when you are preparing a mileage chart, you can adjust the mileages where needed. Now before you throw up your arms and say, 'What the hell," remember, this only applies to a limited number of distances. This slight inconvenience is temporary. We needed to do these calculations this way in order to get the program out to you; and we are now in the process of changing these mileages to direct mileages, but it will take a little time. If you have to manually look up a 2-month tour, say, 55 cities, you will spend anywhere from 2 hours or more performing this task. Now, even if TourMiles (in this case) only finds 45 cities of the 55 cities, and some are new (shed) cities and you have to look up the remaining 10 manually, you should be able to create a complete mileage chart, transfer the data to a spreadsheet file, make any changes and print a finished mileage chart in 30 minutes or less. TourMiles just saved you a minimum of 1.5 hours. The purpose of the TourMiles program is to assist you in preparing a national tour and to save you time in doing it. This is the first version of a brand new program and a new idea, so, like all new products, it will continue to be improved upon; and as we add these improvements to this version, we will send them on along to you at "no charge." Remember, that time saved is time in which you can do something else; and if you should decide that the TourMiles program does not fit your needs, there is a "Fifteen day money-back guarantee". You send the program with all installs intact back to us, and we will send your money back! When you are entering a list of tour cities and you have a few cities (like suburb cities or smaller cities) that are not in the "Master City List," and TourMiles prompts "City not found in master list. Accept? (Y/N)." We suggest that you do the following, which will include three (3) runs through the TourMiles process: 1. Enter city data as manual instructs, when a city that is either, not found in the "Master City List" or you know it's a city in an outlaying area, Enter the closest major city to that smaller city, Example: Framingham, MA = Boston, MA - Johnstown, PA = Pittsburgh, PA. So, let's say you are going from Chicago, IL to Framingham, MA to Johnstown, PA. You would enter Chicago, IL to Boston, MA to Pittsburgh, PA, for the first mileage search. Once you have entered the complete list of cities and have completed a mileage search, write down the mileages to and from the major city that you entered instead of the smaller city. Then look up the mileage from the smaller city to that closest major city and add it to the mileage that TourMiles provided. Example: TourMiles will find Chicago to Boston 965 miles you will find 22 miles to Framingham, TourMiles will find Boston to Pittsburgh 571 miles you will find 69 miles to Johnstown. You will want to write this mileages down for later input. 2. Use Edit command and move the cursor and change the city name from major city to the smaller city. Example: Boston to Framingham and Pittsburgh to Johnstown once you have changed the names and have completed all entries, begin the second mileage search and follow the prompts as they appear. This will put a zero (0) mileages in the column next to the changed cities, which you change in the next step. 3. Once you have completed the second search, return to the Edit command and move the cursor to the mileage column and the first zero (0) mileage that needs to be changed and enter the correct mileage (which you havw written down) and continue to the next one and so on until all zero (0) mileages have been changed. Example: Chicago to Framingham (Chicago to Boston to Framingham) 965 +22 = 987 miles. Enter 987 miles Framingham to Johnstown (Framingham to Boston to Pittsburgh to Johnstown) 22 + 571+69 = 662 miles, Enter 662 miles. As you enter the new mileages, TourMiles will automatically change the travel times, adjusted mileages and times and the all totals. We do how every recommend that you do a third mileage search. TourMiles will perform all three steps in minutes and save you hours. I am sure once you have performed these steps a few time you will find your own short cuts.