Pianotech

  • 1.  Old Customer Data Base software

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-30-2023 12:41
    Greetings all,

    Many years ago, I bought a customer data base managing system called PowerTech from Troy Nolen. As incredible as it seems, I have been using this software for more than 20 years (maybe 30) with no problem until now. Do any of you guys out there remember this software and if so, does anyone know how to print a master list of clients and service history? Any help would be appreciated!

    Thanks,
    Joe Tom McDonald RPT
    Rowlett, TX
    214-213-5044


  • 2.  RE: Old Customer Data Base software

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-30-2023 12:52

           

                  Hi, 

                       I was looking for something else and just happened to run across your post. I also used this program for probably close to 30 years. About a year ago the computer that I ran it on crashed and it looked like I was in big trouble. Fortunately, I was able to contact Troy Nolen and he graciously helped us out. He sold the company and no longer has any legal obligation to support it, but he helped us recover our information out of the kindness of his heart! I have an email for him that was good less than a year ago. It is troyn5022@comcast.net. I hope this helps!

                         Russell Schmidt - RPT Bluegrass Chapter

     



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    H. Russell Schmidt RPT
    Lexington KY
    (859) 276-5015
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  • 3.  RE: Old Customer Data Base software

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-31-2023 11:49

    Hopefully you can get this resolved. I learned the hard way too. It's important to always have a backup. In this day and age, backup on a regular basis to protect from these types of issues. I have found a great company to do this automatically for all my devices (cell phone and computers) They have a family plan with 6TB (terabytes') of storage and backup for $9.97 a month. A lot less that the other "big corporations" like dropbox or OneDrive. USA based too. Here's a link to their website if you want to find out more: GOTBACKUPUSA



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    Gerry
    Gerald P. Cousins, RPT ~ Director of Piano Service and Resources
    West Chester University of PA
    gcousins@wcupa.edu
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  • 4.  RE: Old Customer Data Base software

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-31-2023 14:32

    Back in the old old days I was sitting at my desk looking at 500 or so 3x5 cards with customer data on them and realized if there were a house fire I'd be out of business. That Christmas vacation I had my daughter make copies of each of them and put it I. The trunk of my car.



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    Larry Messerly, RPT
    Bringing Harmony to Homes
    www.lacrossepianotuning.com
    ljmesserly@gmail.com
    928-899-7292
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  • 5.  RE: Old Customer Data Base software

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-31-2023 17:59
    Joe, maybe ask the good people at Gazelle ? I know that it's something they do, import clients from an old system. I can't say if this one will qualify...

    Best of luck.

    Allan Sutton, m.mus. RPT, TEC
    www.pianotechniquemontreal.com





  • 6.  RE: Old Customer Data Base software

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-31-2023 18:17


                 I concur. I did not mention that the guys at Gazelle worked with Troy Nolan to transfer my data to Gazelle as I could no longer rely on my old system. I thought PTMS was a really nice system but Gazelle is quite a leap forward technology wise. 

                     - Russell Schmidt RPT Bluegrass Chapter





  • 7.  RE: Old Customer Data Base software

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 08-31-2023 19:21
    Thank you so much to all who responded to try to help.  I was able to get in touch with Troy Nolen and he has graciously consented to try to help me sort all this out.  I could have gone on using PowerTech as it was, but I am getting ready to retire from tuning, and I need to present the young man taking over my tuning business with a client list complete with service history for each piano.  Hopefully Troy can come through............ otherwise we're back to 3X5 index cards!!!!!! JK....... 

    Thanks everyone!
    Joe Tom McDonald RPT
    Rowlett, TX





  • 8.  RE: Old Customer Data Base software

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 09-01-2023 09:02

    Joe,

    Is there any chance that you changed computers somewhere in the midst of this crisis? IOW did you happen to change from a 32 bit to a 64 bit machine? If so, that could be your entire problem. If not...well I'm no computer geek...

    Peter Grey Piano Doctor 



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    Peter Grey
    Stratham NH
    (603) 686-2395
    pianodoctor57@gmail.com
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  • 9.  RE: Old Customer Data Base software

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 09-02-2023 00:44

    If you are still running the program, or have the install media, you could also look into DosBox https://www.dosbox.com/ (Thank you Gamers!)

    I'm still running Dos programs I wrote in the 90's. The other question is what kind of print output Power Tech provided because a Dos Utility named prn2file (which I have) can capture print output directly to a txt file. Or maybe Power Tech includes a print to file option. It might even be possible to use Paste Special into an excel spreadsheet



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    Tremaine Parsons RPT
    Georgetown CA
    (530) 333-9299
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