El Gato First Steps

First Steps

El Gato is a “portable” program. By this, I mean that you do not have to “install” it. All you need to do is to copy the folder with the particular set of files you need over to your “C” drive (or any other drive, or even a Thumb Drive, and you are ready to run it.

When we ship out a CD…it will have a series of files on it. There will be several folders, and each of these will have a “runtime” version of El Gato, with cat records already there. Right now, we have Bengals, Savannahs, Chausies and then combinations of these. You can also get a “Blank” version of El Gato with no cats installed, so you can work on your own breed. As you enter cats, you can send these to us, and we will start a Master Database for your breed. Other users can specify that they want THAT breed, and then your cats will live on in El Gato forever.

These are the files on the CD. Each folder has a complete version of El Gato, with the cats of that breed already installed.

To install the version you want, simply copy the folder from the CD over to the hard drive you want to run it from.

Once you have done that, you can open the folder, and look for a file called El Gato.exe. If your computer hides the extension, it will be the second El Gato file…the first one has the databases and reports, etc.

You can look in the Quick Start Guide and the Manual to see how to create an Icon and shortcut to run El Gato from the Desktop.

Jim

Introducing El Gato

Ok...I'm going to confess something. this is the very first blog post I've ever posted...or blogged. But, I've been looking for a venue to discuss and support El Gato, and I've decided that this is it.

El Gato is a Cattery Management Program. A Cattery is a place that raises Cats. At the moment, El Gato concentrates on TICA (The International Cat Association) cats, but if members of other associations want to jump in, El Gato will work for them also, after a fashion, and if they are willing to work with me, I will generate a version of El Gato just for their association.

What does El Gato do?

It's primary and first purpose is to generate pedigrees. First, you have to enter the cats...but for several breeds, we have already entered many cats for you. El Gato automates the entry of cats, and makes it easy. There are several different pedigrees...they are professional looking, and you can customize them with your own cattery name and logos.

El Gato also has a contact management system, it tracks medical records and events on each cat, it allows you to enter litters, and from that, you can do Litter Registrations. You can generate all sort of specialized reports and lists, and you can track income and expenses. You can even print out a mileage report that the IRS will accept as a concurrent record that proves your miles.

I will be posting to this blog daily. I will address each of the functions of El Gato, and I'll also explain the features and how to use them efficiently.

My email is bengalsjim@gmail.com. I have several websites...my primary one is www.tejascats.com, and a secondary one is www.elgatosoftware.com.

I'll see you in subsequent posts.

Jim