Techy Blog

GO Loader Sprint 48 is now available as Early Access

2012-01-11T15:52:50Z

Happy New year!

The latest GO Loader Early Access sprint 48 release is now available.

Check it all out on the Customer Portal. Once you are logged in go to the Installers tab and select the GO Loader Early Access link.

View the GO Loader Release Note to see what fixes we have been working on.

If you don't know what the Early Access Programme is then read more on our wiki here!

Contact us!

If you experience any problems logging into or downloading from the Customer Portal or if you do not have a username to login, then please contact us by:

Phone: +44 2380 238232

Email: support@snowflakesoftware.com

Mon - Fri 09:00am - 05:00pm GMT

Early Access Programme - GO Publisher Sprint 48 now available

2012-01-06T15:08:48Z

Snowflake is pleased to announce the latest GO Publisher Early Access release is now available.

Check it all out on the Customer Portal!!

- once logged in, access the Installers tab and select the GO Publisher Early Access link.

View the GO Publisher Release Note

Don't know what the Early Access Programme is? Read more here!

Xmas GO Loader Sprint 47 is now available as Early Access

2011-12-20T17:20:41Z

In the run up to Christmas, we've been eating mince pies, decorating the tree (it sparkels!) but above all we have now released GO Loader Sprint 47 under our Early Access programme. Fear not! This doesn't mean our office is now deserted; we are still providing Christmas support during the holidays and wish you all the best for Christmas and New Year.

Developing!
We use Agile development to provide you with the latest releases of our products so that you get to try them out first hand - read more about the Snowflake development process.

Early Access?
This means new features and bug fixes are regularly released for our customers to try out and feed back on, through our Early Access Program. We include GO Loader Release Notes so that you know what was done each sprint and make downloading sprint versions easily accessible from the Snowflake Customer Portal.

Get it?
All you have to do is visit the Snowflake Download page and follow the links to the GO Loader Early Access Version Installers.

Contact us!

If you experience any problems logging into or downloading from the Customer Portal or if you do not have a username to login, then please contact us by:

Phone: +44 2380 238232

Email: support@snowflakesoftware.com

Mon - Fri 09:00am - 05:00pm GMT

Christmas Rudolph spotted by a Snowflaker!

2011-12-15T14:03:28Z

We still believe in Santa, and Rudolph has been snapped recently by Staff whilst out and about. So whilst people battle with last minute Christmas shopping, holiday travel and who's going to eat the last mince pie, you can rest assured that Snowflake will be here to offer technical support: 9am to 5pm every day expect for the UK Bank Holidays. These are Monday 26th Dec 2011, Tuesday 27th Dec 2011 and Monday 2nd Jan 2012.

We are back in the office Tuesday 3rd Jan 2012 operating as normal and making our New Years resolutions (eat more mince pies)! So until then, from all at Snowflake Software, we hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Should you need to contact us:

Phone: +44 2380 238232

Customer Portal: support.snowflakesoftware.com

Email: support@snowflakesoftware.com

Mon - Fri 09:00am - 05:00pm GMT

Get Early Access to GO Loader Sprint 44...

2011-11-18T17:45:39Z

Want to be the FIRST to get your hands on our latest release (Sprint 44)? Then it'll be Early Access for you!

We use Agile development to provide you with the latest releases of our products so that you get to try them out first hand - read more about the Snowflake development process.

Early Access?

This means new features and bug fixes are regularly released for our customers to try out and feed back on, through our Early Access Program. We include GO Loader Release Notes so that you know what was done each sprint and make it easily accessible to download from the Snowflake Customer Portal.

Get it?

All you have to do is visit the Snowflake Download page and follow the links to the GO Loader Early Access Version Installers.

Contact us!

If you experience any problems logging into or downloading from the Customer Portal or if you do not have a username to login, then please contact us by:

Phone: +44 2380 238232

Email: support@snowflakesoftware.com

Mon - Fri 09:00am - 05:00pm GMT

GO Publisher v 2.0 is OUT! Find out how to get your hands on it...

2011-11-16T11:25:17Z

Snowflake have been busy applying their technical know-how to create a new and improved GO Publisher version 2.0. In order to take advantage of this new release, follow the simple steps below:

Download GO Publisher Installer:

1. Go to Snowflake's Customer Portal.

2. Log on to the Customer Portal - enter your username and password then click 'Login'.

3. Click on the Installers tab (top of page).

4. Under 'GO Publisher Installers', click on 'GO Publisher Current Version Installers...'.

5. You can then choose the most suitable installer for your operating system from the selcection available.

GO Publisher Documentation:

Following our recent documentation blitz day you can easily access GO Publisher documentation through the wiki Documentation tab (top of page).

Contact us!

If you experience any problems logging into or downloading from the Customer Portal or if you do not have a username to login, then please contact us by:

Phone: +44 2380 238232

Email: support@snowflakesoftware.com

Mon - Fri 09:00am - 05:00pm GMT

GML Fundamentals Training now Online!

2011-11-14T15:27:35Z

Snowflake Software have extended their training to the e-community so now you can now take our GML Fundamentals course wherever you want - at your desk, in your home or on your laptop!

We don't rush you:
You can take this course at any time, go at your own pace and have a break whenever you want. The learning management system will bookmark your place, so that when you are ready to start up again, you can pick it up from where you left it off.

Have some interactive fun!
Courses are interactive and include audio so you can listen to in depth explanations and help understand key concepts with the use of interactive diagrams. You can check your learning progress with the end of module quizzes that are included.

Accreditation:
Continue your professional development - this is an AGI accredited course.

Get your hands on GML Training...
Take a look at our online training web page for more information about our online training course.

A Snowflake Training space has been created on our wiki to take you through the online training purchase process, detailing how easy it is to set up a user account and buy your online training course. All you need to do now is dust off that wallet ;)

Contact us!

If you experience any problems using our online training service please contact us by:

Phone: +44 2380 238232

Email: support@snowflakesoftware.com

Mon - Fri 09:00am - 05:00pm GMT

The Support Team are out on Thursday 17th November

2011-11-14T10:31:17Z

Snowflake Software is ten years old this year, and as part of the celebrations the whole company is out of the office on Thursday 17th November. Only a few people know where we are going and what we are doing to celebrate - the rest of us are very excited indeed! This includes the entire technical support team. Sorry! When we get back, we'll tell you all about it.

If you do have issues on Thursday, please create a new support case as normal, via the Customer Portal or by emailing support@snowflakesoftware.com, and we will treat it as a priority when we are back on Friday morning. In the meantime, we'd like to thank all our customers for your continued support of our products, and for making Snowflake Software such an interesting company to work for. I'm off to find my camera and pack my flask and sandwiches!

Snowflake exhibit at the 'Everything Happens Somewhere' conference 2011

2011-11-04T15:55:12Z

Conference Background:
The conference theme was ‘Working together across the public sector’ which signified the new working relationships across the public sector under the Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA) which was introduced in April this year.

The launch of the AddressBase product range, managed by GeoPlace (a public sector limited liability partnership between the Local Government Association and Ordnance Survey) gave Snowflake a chance to exhibit GO Loader, the only GML/XML loading product in the AddressBase market!

Go Loader:
Under the PSMA the following datasets are available, supplied in GML and can be loaded into your database (we support PostGreSQL, Oracle, SQL server 2008) using GO Loader:

OS MasterMap Topography Layer
OS MasterMap Integrated Transport Network (ITN) Layer
OS VectorMap Local
National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG)
OS MasterMap Address Layer 2

AddressBase
AddressBase Plus
AddressBase Premium

Product Resources:
We have extensive resources consisting of projects, plug-ins, tutorials, tools as well as GIS resources to get you up and running with Go Loader. They are readily available for download from our Customer Portal. Just go to the Resources tab (top of page) and select what you want for download.

Contact us!

If you experience any problems logging into or downloading from the Customer Portal or if you do not have a username to login, then please contact us by:

Phone: +44 2380 238232

Email: support@snowflakesoftware.com

Mon - Fri 09:00am - 05:00pm GMT

WIKI Document Camp

2011-10-18T07:17:25Z

As we rapidly approach the release of GO Publisher 2.0 we will be taking two days off-site to polish up the WIKI documentation. We will concentrate on the documents for GO Publisher 2.0 first - more on this release later. We have moved all the product documentation to here, but still have some work to do after this for the other products. So look out for improvements in the next couple of months too!

Why off-site? Well, firstly we wanted some dedicated time away from distractions so we can make the best use of the team's time. Secondly, we have hired a room in Ocean Village (Southampton) that just so happens to be a good spot for lunch, and I have promised the team I will be buying if they work hard enough. So we will be off early armed with laptops and also plenty of chocolate and caffeine. Wish us luck!

Early Access Programme - GO Loader Sprint 42 now available

2011-10-07T16:40:55Z

Snowflake is pleased to announce the latest GO Loader Early Access release is now available.

View the GO Loader Release Notes.

Check it all out on the new and improved Customer Portal!!
Visit the Snowflake Download page and follow the links to the GO Loader Early Access Version Installers.

Don't know what the Early Access Programme is? Read more here!

If you've got any questions, just get in touch with one of the team at support@snowflakesoftware.com

Load, manage and visualise OS VectorMap Local

2011-08-31T12:47:30Z

You might have recently read our Press Release (PSMA PR_31.08.2011.pdf) announcing our support for the Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA). We'd like you to join us for our first webinar in the series which takes place next week.

Webinar details

PSMA – load, manage and visualise OS VectorMap Local in esri ArcGIS
Thursday 8 September
14:00 – 14:30 (UK time)
Presented by Richard Rombouts (Snowflake Software)
Guest presenter Owain Hale-Heighway (Ordnance Survey)
Register your interest

Throughout the autumn, we’ll be hosting several free webinars to cover additional PSMA data products including:

OS MasterMap Topography and Address Layer 2
OS MasterMap ITN/RRI
National Address Gazetteer
OS Open Data

Take a look on our PSMA events page for more information and details on how to register.
If you’d like more information about how Snowflake Software supports customers with the PSMA take a look on our website.

Melissa Burns | Head of Marketing | melissa.burns@snowflakesoftware.com

Bank Holiday message from the Snowflake Support team

2011-08-24T11:05:50Z

We will be enjoying the Summer Bank Holiday here in the UK on Monday 29th August. The Snowflake Support team will be on hand to handle all of your support queries as usual outside of this date.

Phone: +44 2380 238232
Customer Portal: support.snowflakesoftware.com
Email: support@snowflakesoftware.com
Mon - Fri 09:00am - 05:00pm GMT

How can I over-ride the GO Loader project database connections when using Agent?

2011-08-19T07:59:10Z

A customer recently asked if they could over-ride the project database connection settings when using GO Loader Agent . There are some additional command line parameters introduced in GO Loader v1.6.1 allowing for over-riding the database connection information in the GO Loader project.

This is useful for moving your GO Loader Agent implementation between environments, without having to have several copies of the project. For example when moving from development then to test and through to the live environment. You can be sure your GO Loader project is exactly the same, whilst only changing the database you connect to at run-time.

If you are implementing GO Loader Agent, read up on the notes in the on the public WIKI here;

Snowflake Software Product Documentation available via Public WIKI

2011-08-17T13:52:53Z

Currently our product documentation is available as PDF files downloadable via the Customer Portal. We are aiming to move away from documents formally released in this way, to a more light-weight process via a public WIKI.

To start this move, the current documentation is now available via our WIKI here; http://wiki.snowflakesoftware.com

You can see that as well as the current documentation, there are documentation updates in progress which we are working on at the same time as the Early Access product changes. This means you get to see document changes much earlier than their formal release. If you are part of the Early Access programme, do look for document changes in the WIKI. For the moment, the current documents can be found both in the Customer Portal and this WIKI.

As we move towards this being the primary access point for documentation, we will work on improvements such as guides for using the WIKI to best effect. When we are a bit less shy, we will also update the WIKI to allow you to see our photos and profiles too!