Technical Difficulties

By, Doug Carruthers

We are experiencing technical difficulties with our primary webserver for Geo-Connections Inc. In the recent months we have seen an huge increase in site traffic and it appears we have hit a point in our life that we need to upgrade our back end.

LoopLink has had only one reported interruption but even one is too many for our liking. We are currently working on moving our website to new digs and should have the process completed by early next week.

To Access LoopLink without connecting to the Geo-Connections site please go to: looplinkrlc.com.

Thank you for your patience and understanding during this transition. We will have things operating like normal again soon. We will keep you posted.

Bose Endorses LoopLink

By, Doug Carruthers

Our For Educators program is slowly gaining traction. Instructors are beginning to see the value of being able to offer hands-on design experience in the classroom with software that is easy to learn and even easier to use. LoopLink is portable and capable enough to make that possible. Teachers all across the country are calling to find out how to use LoopLink during their classes.

Just the other day, Dr. Jim Bose, Executive Director of the International Ground Source Heat Pump Association (IGSHPA), called us because he was interested in using LoopLink as a teaching tool during his trainings. We set him up with an account and he was off and running in no time.

About 30 minutes after he started using his account, he called us back just to let us know about his experience. Here is what he had to say:

“You guys did a great job on the program. It looks great and is very easy to use. LoopLink is a necessary companion for any contractor or designer using the new manual.”

For those who don’t already know, the new manual that Dr. Bose was referring to is the GSHP Residential & Light Commercial Design & Installation Guide that we wrote for IGSHPA.

He even went so far as to explain that even though he had a copy of our Getting Started guide, the program was so easy to use, he really didn’t need it. In less than 30 minutes, he had finished a complete system design, energy model and economic analysis and even had time to call and give us some feedback.

Thanks to you Dr. Bose. We appreciate the endorsement!

Three Most Common Mistakes Made by Geothermal Designers | HeatSpring Magazine

By, Doug Carruthers

Ryan has written up a brief series on the three most common mistakes made by geothermal designers for HeatSpring.

1. Underestimating the Importance of Accurate Peak Heating and Cooling Load Calculations
2. Not Giving Proper Consideration to Alternatives
3. Over Complicating Things

Another great place to check out some tips is our own Dos and Donts section for designers.

Browsers and LoopLink

By, Doug Carruthers

Internally we argue about which is the best browser. For us, we argue between two: Firefox vs. Chrome but we understand a good portion of our users are still in IE as well.
According to our Google Analytics our users' preferences break down like this:

Browser	% of Users
Firefox	47%
Internet Explorer	39%
Chrome	11%
Safari	3%

We could write volumes about IE and why it drives us nuts to work with but nobody wants to read through that much geek speak. Suffice it to say that we do our best to deal with IE and all of its... "quirks" but if we had our way, everyone would be using Firefox or Chrome.

For us, IE is highly unpredictable in how it interprets our page layouts and is just not as quick at running JavaScript as the other two. This is why we advocate for users to run LoopLink in Firefox or Chrome.

Both are excellent browsers that have proven to be highly predictable in how they display LoopLink but recently we have had some issues with the Google Chrome PDF viewer. It seems saving PDFs (i.e. project summaries) doesn't want to work in the native viewer.

So for the 11% that side with Doug on this argument (GO CHROME!) here is a quick run through on how to get Google Chrome to go back to using the Acrobat Plug-In we all know and love.

Step-By-Step

1. Type about:plugins in the address bar.
2. Find the Chrome PDF Viewer plug-in and disable it.
3. Find the Adobe Acrobat plug-in and enable it.

Disabling the Chrome PDF viewer is supposed to automatically enable the Adobe Acrobat Reader but we haven't had great luck with that. Either way its a pretty quick and easy thing to do.

We will keep an eye out for an update to the Chrome PDF viewer and let everyone know as soon as they get the save function working better.

Article Update (4/25/2012)

So, we weren't very flattering to IE in this original post but we have to say, Internet Explorer 9 has really come a long, long way towards predictability. Hats off to Microsoft for bringing things this far forward. There are still some bugs, one that kind of gets in the way of LoopLink but it is no worse than the Chrome/Acrobat PlugIn issue described in the original post. Overall the newest IE is light years from the previous versions and we are looking forward to seeing what comes next.

The save option from the Chrome PDF Viewer is still buggy for us. You can either maintain the solution listed above or, you can use the print function and print the file to a pdf.