If there was a pay for service to get the LDIR updates I would also be willing to pay for the subscription.

Joe

We could certainly consider that as a service to players, but ...

... We get the game results from a subscription service.

... We get them every day, for more than 200 games.

... It is very expensive for us.

... Then we format the game results for the Lottery Director software.

... That takes some time for us, but it makes it easy and fast for players to update the games.

... We were able to cover the cost when taking new software registrations. With the retirement, that has stopped now.

- - -

We couldn't cover the cost, unless there were some players who are willing to pay for the service for updating their games.

That would seem doubtful, but it's worth discussing. What do players think about it?

- - -

An alternative would be for players to simply contact each other. Players could swap the game files for their games. This message board could be a place for doing that.

Ideas are certainly welcome.


Lottery Director Support


.

I wouldn't want it on a daily basis. I would want the 200 game update on a once a week basis. What are you talking about when you say "very expensive"? Could it be broken down to how many players would subscribe and equally share the cost? Say there are 20 people who would initially participate. What would be the cost of that on a for instance basis?

In the subscription, the results come on a daily basis. There is one daily report, with that day's result for each game.

Someone still has to run that daily report in software, to update the games for each day.

In other words, the main work still has to be done on a daily basis, even though the 'public' release of the updated game files could be on a weekly basis.

All of the games would have to be maintained. There's no way to "pick and choose" which games to update and which ones to skip. Someday a new player might come along who needs all of the back results for a game that was skipped. Therefore, every game has to be maintained by whoever is doing the work.

If there were maybe 15 players who joined a "pool" for maintaining automatic updates, it could be done at a reasonable cost, maybe $10 for each player per month.

It would be good to see more players join in this discussion, to see who would be interested.

The suggestion would be that it should be a players' club or pool handling it.


Lottery Director Support


.

I have most of the USA game histories. If Joe could convert a text file of results in the format:

DD MM YYYY B1 B2 B3 B4 etc

into LDIR game history format, I could supply him with such to help out if anyone got really stuck. It would not be a regular service though. Maybe once a month and game requests made here. Once a file is produced you would be expected to then keep it up to date yourself. This would depend on Joe agreeing and be able to do this conversion. As for cost I'll leave that to Joe and maybe Joe and I split any payment 50/50. This is something neither Joe or I want to take on as a regular service but more as an emergency service to help LDIR players continue to use their programs effectively.

(Snip for brevity, please see John's full message.)

We can consider releasing a utility program which players can use. It would take a plain text file in the above format, and would update the player's Lottery Director history file. It would be a free program.

Players who are interested in having such a program ... please give your views here.


Lottery Director Support


.

I read this a few days ago and have been thinking about it and to me, it just looks like way too much -- too complicated, too much work. I guess that for now, I'll have to accept being only able to update my local games as that just doesn't look like it's going to work for me. And, of course, it makes me appreciate and miss LD more than ever.

- - - - - -

We will do whatever is helpful.

We can supply a utility program that will update LD game files from a plain text file.

It would be a free program -- a courtesy to LD players.

But the player would still need to download the 'official' game results from the game's web site, and then put them into a plain text file.

Then the player could run the utility program which would update the LD game file.

When you consider it, that doesn't really save a lot of time. It's simply easier for a player to punch in the local game's numbers by keyboard and mouse.

A week's set of numbers -- two draws, seven draws, depending on the game -- can be easily entered at the keyboard in less than a minute.

Also it's a good idea to stay 'close' to your game, by seeing what each set of numbers does in your tracking.

- - -

If the 'update' utility program would be helpful, we'll be happy to put it up online. It would be a free download.

Considering it for the player, it wouldn't save any time.

It's just a question of how you want to spend a couple of minutes:

... Copying the results from a game's "official" web site, and formatting them into a plain text file, then running a program to update your software;

(Or)

... Punching in the latest numbers yourself, at your keyboard.

- - -

The first option means, you'll go to a game's web site, and copy their numbers into a 'text' file, then run a utility program that updates your game. Still, takes a couple of minutes to do it.

Right now the way to do it is the second option -- get the game's numbers and put them into the software yourself. Takes only a couple of minutes to do it.

- - -

One favors Ace's post -- it's simpler, and more direct, to just keep track of your game yourself.

There aren't any more automatic updates. That terminated with the software retirement.

Still, players could share game files freely, if they like to do so.

If you need game files for another State or country, feel free to ask other players to share them.

- - -

We'll do whatever players like.

Players are encouraged to post messages here.


Lottery Director Support


.

Either one of the options in this thread would probably work for most players. If there were a pay service for, say, monthly updates that would work. I routinely visit other states which I do not keep up regularly. The ability to get an recent up to date data file would be a significant benefit. The last updates for data files are January 2012. If I were to go to Jersey for a few days and wished to try my luck there it would require entry of 3 months of data. If the data were done monthly that effort would be less not to think of the need later in the year. Whatever facility that you would provide would be appreciated by Lottery Director users.

Joe Collins

- - - - - -

Look for a utility program to be announced here. It will be a freeware program.

It can be used to update LD game files from a plain text file. It should be ready at the end of April.


Lottery Director Support


.

Further to my post above. If Joe is providing such a utility this website can be used to get your results easily. http://www.lottery.com/results/past_draws.cfm/stateID

You will need to do a bit of editing to get it into the right format and obtain the results in chunks, but I have managed to get several complete histories using it.

To create, I usually copy to notepad, then edit the notpade file using excel (or similar - openoffice.org do a free excel type program which works as well) to strip out unwanted text and add preceding zeros etc.

This could then be run through Joe's program. It may seem time-consuming at first but it is still much quicker than entering them manually.

Also first check at the official websites of the games you are interested in. Many of them have complete downloadable histories that you could edit and use very quickly.