Swimmers,
this is a continuation of a topic from the 'Top Ten Link' thread I posted earlier. In that thread, there was a discussion about keeping track of ALL swim times, so that everyone could see how he/she was doing. This is an update on that project.
At the start of long-course season, I volunteered to round up as many sanctioned meets for Jim Matysek as I could, to be put into the USMS searchable database, found at:
www.usms.org/.../toptimes.shtml.
I know of 49 meets (as of last weekend) that have had results posted to LMSC or Zone web sites. Of that number 44 are in the database, for a yield of about 90%. I would encourage each of you to usethis tool to see how you like it. It is not completely error-free since I had to manually-convert HTML files and Word documents for about half of all meets. I even hand-entered a couple of PDF files, which are the worst to deal with. Please let me know if you find any errors in what you see.
I think this shows that we CAN archive all the meets with a bit of work. Certainly, it's managable for LCM and SCM courses -- maybe not yet for SCY.
If you find this a valuable service, you can help by encouraging meet directors to submit their meet results to the USMS.
Enjoy!
Mel Dyck
Parents
Former Member
croak, croak, croak...
No slams intended, Jim. The PS in The Toad's last post was just meant to remind swimmers that Mel & The Toad don't have the time to ferret out the SCY swims. It has taken somewhere between 100 and 200 hours of time to find, capture and hand- (er flipper-) convert (in the majority of cases) the meters course files to the correct format as it is. Adding the SCY files (while they may be of greater interest to most swimmers) pushes the time invested to much too high a level. That was the reason for the PS in The Toad's last post. I think all of us would like to have the database be complete for all courses. Mel & The Toad believe that it will happen eventually, but that it will take pressure from individual swimmers to make it an automatic response on the part of meet directors.
Mel & The Toad will, however, be more than happy to post ANY files sent to them in the correct format (HyTek zipped backup, SDIF or CommLink).
I would like to commend Michael Moore and the PAC Masters group as well for pretty routinely making available the required file formats. A few other LMSCs and/or clubs also do that. We have also had a bunch of help from a few other notable individuals such as Bob Seltzer and Ed Saltzman -- many, many thanks to them.
croakingly yours,
Swim Toad
croak, croak, croak...
No slams intended, Jim. The PS in The Toad's last post was just meant to remind swimmers that Mel & The Toad don't have the time to ferret out the SCY swims. It has taken somewhere between 100 and 200 hours of time to find, capture and hand- (er flipper-) convert (in the majority of cases) the meters course files to the correct format as it is. Adding the SCY files (while they may be of greater interest to most swimmers) pushes the time invested to much too high a level. That was the reason for the PS in The Toad's last post. I think all of us would like to have the database be complete for all courses. Mel & The Toad believe that it will happen eventually, but that it will take pressure from individual swimmers to make it an automatic response on the part of meet directors.
Mel & The Toad will, however, be more than happy to post ANY files sent to them in the correct format (HyTek zipped backup, SDIF or CommLink).
I would like to commend Michael Moore and the PAC Masters group as well for pretty routinely making available the required file formats. A few other LMSCs and/or clubs also do that. We have also had a bunch of help from a few other notable individuals such as Bob Seltzer and Ed Saltzman -- many, many thanks to them.
croakingly yours,
Swim Toad
