I finally got around to loading the new version of OrchidWiz 4.0.
FINALLY! Someone put the index to the AOS Bulletin and Orchids magazines as well as the index to the Orchid Digest magazines on it!!!!!!! I'm in heaven. You seach by author. Or title string. When he gets it by subject I'll truly be happy, but Yippee!! An index!
And! The small little search box is gone. Its bigger now, so now you can read it. (Yes, I wear bifocals) And there's tabbed searches. No need to lose prior search results. Just stack up tabs.
Just so's you know, I have no affiliation with the company.
One of my many hats in my local society is librarian and we've talked about replacing our Wildcatt with this or eAOS. Who can compare the two from actual experience and what features distinguish them? Tennis
The eAOS costs less and will have all the award slides. So you'll have color pictures of the awards so you can compare to your flower. Remember, not all pictures are great. Many , many are really poor, but hey. Sometimes they are better than nothing.
Personally, I think the way the eAOS works is rather clunky, but you put up with a lot in order to get the pictures. They have gotten better at allowing side by side comparison of selected images but the back and forth from the images you selected to the list of award images is poor. You go back and start all over again finding different images. To find an award you just type a series of letters into the search field and a list of awards with that spelling will be returned (like Orchid Wiz and like how Wildcatt used to be) but! You still have to capitalize for hybrids. Orchid Wiz you don't have to capitalize.
So for example, you want to look up any awards on Phrag Jason Fischer. Select 'search for award, with synonyms '. You can search by genus, by abbrevation and by hybrid name. Most folks cut to the chase and plug in the hybrid name they are looking for (You must Capitalize Jason Fischer , just typing jason fischer won't return any results). You select the FCC awards (cntrl/click), hit 'enter' and the awards come up. at the lower edge are forward/back; top/bottom so you can page thru the list. YOu cannot compare these awards stats side by side. You have to page through them. For some reason I lost the ability to view images side by side...they used to come up all at once, now they don't go figure. I don't have time to try to figure out what happened there. BUT! The neater thing is that in teh hugely long list of awards your search turned up, over to the right side is a list of measurements. No flower count, but at least you can quickly compare petal widths etc.
If you really don't care about awards and only want it to check hybrids and paretnage then you select the 'Search for parents of hybrid'
This is where you ahve to tab through the search fields. You can't just enter teh hybrid name. If you are looking for teh parentage of Phrag Jason Fischer you HAVE to enter 'Phrag' in teh abbreviation field. Then 'tab' to the next field which eAOS fills with phragmipedium. Then you 'tab' to the hybrid name and remember to capitalize 'Jason Fischer'. Lord help you if you don't know how to spell Fischer. If like me you get your letters mixed up you can't just highlight and delete. You have to hit 'clear entry' to reset the form.
All this isn't necessary in Orchid wiz. if you want ot look up an orchid, any orchid, you type it name in the search fields. no need to capitalize jason fischer. If you don't know how 'fischer' is spelled you can just type 'jason f' and it will come up. There may be other orchids in that string too, but you select the name you want , hit enter , and the name, cross, hybridizer and date are there as well as any synonym. There are buttons to take you to the next query. Want award stats? Progeny? Wonder if its been crossed with another orchid? There are buttons or search fields all on that one first screen so you don't have to page around, wondering where you are and how to get back. Click on 'award' and all the awards come up in a table. You can rearrange the table by clicking on a column header. (large to small, small to large, date, alphabet, you name it) There are images (not the award images) in the search box often many differnt images as well as botanical drawings of the plants in question. And you can view them all at once. BUT! if you want the award image and also happen to own the eAOS you can click on a button that opens the eAOS program and you can then use the eAOS program to find the award image.
So Orchidwiz allows you to see any data in any format you want, almost gives you too much information. eAOS has the award pictures.
Orchid wiz also has the index to the Bulletin, Orchid Digest and Orchids, so you can go back through your magazine collection and find hidden articles on stuff you didn't realize you wanted to know. Like I said you can search on 'Green' and stuff about green cattlyas comes up or green roots or greenhouses. If you know an author wrote something but you can't recall what, you type it in. You do have to know how to spell 'Hetherington'.
Orchid Wiz also tells you the time of year the orchid flowers. It can find all cool growing orchids by continent or region.
I think eAOS still turns out a better hybridizer search. If you want to know all of Alan Koch's hybrids you can find that more easily in eAOS. Both can turn up a search by clonal name only equally as fast and easily.
Orchidwiz just gives you more information packed onto one screen than the eAOS does. And allows you to manipulate the data.
But it costs more. And doesn't have the award images.
The eAOS isn't updated as quickly/frequently as OrchidWiz is.
If you are just a hobbyist and have gotten along just fine with the FREE RHS hybrid registration database then save your money and don't buy either. If you want to find articles about orchids that you didn't know you wanted to know about, use the FREE London Orchid Society's photo search database, it will at least get you close to an article/publication on teh orchid you wanted to research.
I use these programs to research awards at the judging table. Having the phots will be a big plus. BUT! I'll use OrchidWiz to access the data. Granted, I got in way early when the price was cheaper than it is now, and only have to pay for updates. Those cost less (???) The same(???) as the yearly subscription to eAOS (Or Awards Plus or whatever the heck they are calling it thses days.) But I have to subscribe to the eAOS anyway, since I'm a judge and have to.
Speaking of which, I still have my mags becasue there are times I just don't want to boot up the computer. Sometimes I can find what I'm looking for in a book quicker than booting a computer, too.
AQPlus is supposed to be released this month, we saw a beta version of it earlier this month. I don't currently have any of the programs so I can't really compare the new version to the old version. Ron McHatton (AOS Director of Education & Regional somethingorother [he needs a shorter title], former Atlanta O.S. member) gave us the demo, he is the one that is doing the synonym tables for the AOS program and he is also the person that reviews all of the descriptions for the new awards. The program will have most of the award slides (40+k?) in the first release and should have all of them soon. One interesting thing is that Ron is starting to go back and clean up the names on some of the old awards. I think he has the Cycnoches chlorochilon/warscewiczii/etc group corrected in this first release.
You're not the only one. Other judges are unable to find it to purchase it either. At our last business meeting it was mentioned that the AOS web page would be going through a revision to make it more user friendly.
I think you have to go to the Bookstore and buy it there. Cost is $50 or there abouts. IMHO wait for the update with the 40K images to actually be released before you buy. (Bird in the hand is worht two in the bush)
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