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At Lynx we believe that we have a group of really amazing products. The technology is cutting-edge, the ideas exciting, and it all relates to sport. What could be better? And we hope that you share in that enthusiasm. One way to do that is by maximizing the potential of this exciting technology.

While this may mean adding a plug-in or new piece of hardware to your current set-up, it can just as easily mean taking your Lynx skills to the next level. This can mean exploring the advanced features of the software, checking in on the Lynx web site for software version updates, joining in or just following Lynx Talkback and the list goes on and on. And never forget your ability to organize a training session with Lynx personnel.

Over the course of the fall, a number of the radio-collared lynx were caught and released in order to replace collars. The winter months were spent tracking the lynx population in the study area. The group continues to monitor the 19 radio-collared adult lynx in order to study their movement, habitat use, and home range.

In a second collaboration in as many years, we were happy to assist the RDC, San Juan with their Electronic Timing and Starts Seminar. The seminar fell into place much as described on the RDC web site at www.rdcsanjuan.org.

The consultants on hand were Kevin Holden, Frank Monsalve, and Diane Wright, a USATF certified Starter who has used false-start detection equipment at IAAF Grand Prix events over several years. The bilingual team worked with the forty-five participants who had a wide range of experience, to explain photofinish and false start detection technologies. Taking that disparity in experience into account, the seminar was devised to give all involved instruction and hands-on experience.

Each day was planned to incorporate classroom discussion of a series of objectives for the day plus hands-on experience. The three days consisted of an introduction to photofinish basics, advanced photofinish techniques and lastly, false-start detection. There were a dozen Starters attending the seminar for the express purpose of learning about and using the latest technologies.

The Starters were given the opportunity to learn about photo finish, data distribution and display during their time at the seminar; and for the photofinish operators there was the opportunity to learn both about integrating reaction time data, and the implications of the new IAAF rule governing false-starts.

Participants practice their new skills.

The final day of the seminar was a six-hour Relay competition that allowed all 45 attendees, broken into smaller groups and using multiple hardware set-ups, to time, evaluate, distribute data as well as use the wireless false-start detection system in place for the competition.

With the success of such training sessions like the one last month in Puerto Rico and the calls for advanced training from Lynx operators, Lynx is looking at organizing a series of sessions to be held across the US.

The first, and only, such series put on by Lynx was back in 1997 with sessions in Massachusetts, Florida and Texas. We would like to expand on the original idea by hosting sessions in the different geographic regions of the United States.

The first step is to gauge the interest level that exists for such a proposal. We want to hear from you, our customers and fellow Lynx operators. We will track all responses so that we can determine if a seminar series is a viable plan. If we then determine it to be so, we would explore locations, dates and all the subsequent details.

Lynx were happy to be part of the team presenting the inaugural Nike Sprint Summit at the Nike Indoor Track and Field Championships held in Landover MD in March. Other members of the team included Carl Lewis, holder of nine Olympic Gold medals, Cletus Clark, Garfield Ellenwood, and Tony Wells.

The Coordinators of the Clinic, Joy Kamani and Cedric Walker asked Lynx to showcase its ReacTime™ system at the Summit and also devoted the first hour of the Clinic to testing the reaction time of clinic participants. Cedric Walker said that the ReacTime™ system is one of the most critical pieces of technology available to coaches today.

"The sprint start makes or breaks the race," he said. "How often have you seen athletes lose because they were left in the blocks? It’s the first thing we look for when there is an unexpected result at the finish line. Over the shorter distances, especially indoors, getting out can mean the difference between first and second."

Giles Norton, Lynx Director of Corporate Communication, setup a two lane ReacTime training system complete with photoeyes at the ten-meter mark. A computer running ReacTime Training software was linked to projector and the roughly 200 athletes and coaches who attended the clinic saw the data and graphs of the athletes who participated displayed on the wall of the facility.

Lynx chose the USATF National Indoor Championships at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston, MA to utilize the new features of the latest version to their maximum potential.

Giles Norton of Lynx took the new features to the nth power when he put together the graphics for ResulTV this season. In Boston, he tried various new effects to create the graphics seen at the event.

Making the task easier was the liberal use of the behind-the-scenes functionality that is now part of the software. Functions that you may be well used to in other programs are new to ResulTV, such as copy, paste, and aligning text.

What was produced was a series of vibrant, layered backdrops for event information like start lists, running time and posting of instant results to the delight of the crowd.

If you had an eye on CyberScoreboard during any of the last four Short Track Speed Skating events of the 2002-2003 season, you would have caught the latest addition to this broadcast service. CyberScoreboard has always allowed for quick reporting of results. But Live CyberScoreboard was sending data to the site in real time.

You can see laps as they are counted down, split-times posted and instant results. In fact, you can see a demonstration of Live SCB by visiting CyberScoreboard, navigating to Short Track Speed Skating, click on Live Results and click on Demo.

New CyberScoreboard fan Tracy Stewart sent us this note:

"I just wanted to drop you a line and let you know how much we short track fans appreciated the live scoreboard during this past weekend's competition in Chicoutimi, Quebec. It's tremendous fun to watch the lap times as they occur - we even set up our own chat room to coincide with watching the live board. Many thanks for creating it and making it available to the fans.

"Oh, and the humor was really appreciated during the delays in getting the men's relay final started. (Note: There was a two and half-hour delay before the last race while they built up the ice surface.) When the times kept changing and finally someone at Lynx posted the word "Really" after the final time announcement, we had a great collective laugh! Great job, folks!"

We recently heard from Torrie Hansen, editor of www.worldshorttrack.com, a comprehensive website promoting short track on a global level.

" I wanted to let you know how important your service is to the short track community. As we can't afford to go to all the events, CyberScoreboard is our way of "watching" what happens at these events. One short track enthusiast has even started a chat room to go along with the new Live CSB so results can be discussed WHILE the event is happening in another country!

"You will be getting tons of hits on that website over the next 2 weeks for the championships that are happening! Anyway thank you so much for this wonderful service. You make my job much easier, cheaper and you help hold a global community together. Keep up the good work!"

In the wake of the success of LiveCyberScoreboard on the ISU circuit, we implemented a link from the track events at the Penn Relay Carnival and almost instantly became victims of the wild popularity of the service.

The log files from the event showed that the number of people viewing the live scoreboard updates on their computers was DOUBLING every twenty minutes as word spread. We admit that this phenomenal response caught us by surprise and our servers simply could not handle the onslaught of users.

It seems that many people were unable to connect or were left watching scoreboards that updated only sporadically. Our engineers are working to bullet-proof the hardware before the next implementation of the service.

Regina Jacobs made history in front of a packed Reggie Lewis Center at the adidas Boston Indoor Games, running the first sub-4 minute indoor 1500m ever by a woman. Her impressive 3:59.98 was good for a World Indoor Record and a $25,000 bonus. Jacobs’ not only bettered the previous mark of 4:00.27 set by Romania’s Doina Melinte in 1990, she also improved on Mary Slaney’s 23-year-old American record of 4:00.80.

The Lynx timing team were aware of the importance of the achievement and took just a little extra time to show the image to the IAAF official on hand before declaring the time a World Record.

In a statement that clearly indicates the impact Lynx has had on the speed with which results are produced, Jacobs had this to say: "The hardest part was standing there for those couple of seconds waiting to hear whether or not I broke it, because I knew it was going to be close."

Lynx sent a timing team to Mexico for the Grand Prix Banamex meeting in the 1968 Olympic stadium at the beginning of May. In front of a near-capacity crowd of over 50,000 exuberant spectators Mexican athlete, Ana Guevara produced an emphatic victory in the women's 300 meters. Guevara’s time of 35.30 was an unofficial world best for the rarely run 300m distance.

FinishLynx and Windows XP

We have heard from a few of our customers that have encountered varied issues running their Lynx with XP. Lynx is certainly compatible with XP. However, there are a few Windows settings that you should verify if you have recently gone over to XP or plan to in the future.

1) Turn off the firewall: To remove it right click on My Network Places from the desktop and go to Properties. From within that screen, look for your local area connection. Right click on that card and go to Properties once again. Look for the Advanced Tab and make sure you have unchecked each of the selections. That will disable your firewall.

2) Network Bridge: If this is a new computer, you might have a network bridge enabled, which is causing problems. Right-click on My Network Places. Look for a bridge connection in this window, right-click on it and select disable.

The Lynx Elite, a club team sponsored by Lynx System Developers Inc., and coached by Mick Grant, ran well at the USA National Indoor Championships, March 1-2, 2003, at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston.

The men's and women's high school runners competed in the USATF Club Championship Distance Medley Relay against college and elite club teams. Lynx ran 2nd in the women's DMR and 7th in the men's DMR. The Lynx women's team included Chantelle Dron, Katy Dlesk, Mia Swenson, and Catherine Bryson. On the Lynx men's team were Phil Shaw, Will Seidel, Russell Brown, and Harry Norton

The first full indoor season of competition for the Lynx Elite athletes also saw a win at the Nike Indoor Championships for Russell Brown in the 800m, following his 1:19.41 600m at the New England Championships - 2nd fastest all time by a high schooler indoors; and a win for Chantelle Dron in the Mile at the National Scholastic Indoor Championships (4:51.35) with Mia Swenson 8th in 5:00.58.