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Mizpah Video & Interactive CD-ROM
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At present the CD is sent as a promotional item to interested persons at no cost.
We reserve the right to charge a small fee to cover packaging and postage for future CD's.
The contents of the CD is being continually updated with many more features on the latest version of the Mizpah CD.
A request will be sent to you to complete an online feedback form once you have received your CD.
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Change List to the CD:
- March 2004: Scanned article of the first Boerboel Newsletter (1986)
- February 2004: S.A. Tourism videos added
- February 2004: Article on Boerboel aggression added
- January 2004: Layout changes to the CD
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Features of the CD
- 14 Minute video of Mizpah Boerboel
- 3 Minute video of Mizpah Jack Russelss
- Complete copy of the Mizpah Web-Site
- 3009 Photos of various Boerboel dogs & Jack Russells
- Mizpah Boerboel Photo Gallery
- Vrystaat Boerboel Photo Gallery
- Mizpah Jack Russell Photo Gallery
- Photos of the Mizpah Farm
- Photos of Kroonstad
- Feature articles
- Boerboel Aggression
- The time is running out for the Boerboel community to address aggressive tendencies in the Boerboel.
A feature of the Mizpah CD is how Lucas van der Merwe has consistently selected dogs for temperament.
Nowhere else can a number of Boerboels been seen where they co-exist peacefully in a group as can be seen on the video.
- With the exception of the HBSA, no other Boerboel organisation is placing a high premium on aggression.
This highly controversial article has been long overdue!
- The first Boerboel Newsletter circa 1986
- This is a very important document from 1986 when the forerunner of todays SABT only had 46 members.
All pages of this first newsletter has been scanned, with particular attention and enhancement applied to photos of dogs.
A section of the newsletter has been translated into English and should the interest be there, I might translate the rest.
Due to the 8Mb size of this article, it will not be available over the Internet, only on CD!
Of particular interest is that probably 35% of the early Boerboel photos were of Piebald dogs!
Anyone thinking that Piebald is not one of the traditional and original colouring schemes should view this publication.
- This booklet is a piece of Boerboel Africana of which single copies remain, and I have attempted to keep this as faithfull reproduction as possible.
- Videos of South Africa has been included since a considerable number of Boerboel enthusiasts from all over the world eventually visit South Africa.
I had the space on the CD, so why not use it to include absolute spectacular footage of South Africa's breathtaking scenery? Incidentally, permission for the the inclusion of the unaltered video material has been applied for.
- Tourism Videos
- Whale whatching
- Deep Sea Fishing
- The Big Five
- African Birdlife
- Desert flowers (Namaqualand)
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Hardware Requirements:
- A Windows PC with at least a Pentium 1 processor, 32Mb RAM and Windows 95 (second edition) or better.
- A Pentium II processor, 64Mb RAM and Windows 98(SE) or better recommended
- The Interactive menu is not compatible with the Apple Macintosh
- The video, photo galleries, articles and local web-site can be accessed on the Mac by loading the files manualy.
- All the content of the CD is accessible on the Mac excluding the interactive menu.
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Bug List and Workarounds
While the list of problems encountered is comprehensive they have affected four users that I am aware of.
All four of the users could still use and view the CD!
While the workarounds below are sound technical advice, there may be pre-existing problems on your PC.
Neither myself, nor Mizpah Boerboel can be held liable for problems or the consequences thereof that may result from the workarounds.
- HTML Photo Gallery Links not working
- When choosing the Photo Gallery and then selecting the photos for Vrystaat Boerboels the links for the Mizpah Boerboel dogs does not work when selected from the Vrystaat Boerboel HTML galleries.
- The bug will be fixed before the next CD's are dispatched (15/3/2004)!
- The temporary workaround is to close the Vrystaat Boerboel Photo Gallery and to select the Mizpah Boerboel Gallery from the interactive menu.
- All photos are accessible with the workaround.
- On Windows 2000 the video is split horizontally in the middle of the video.
- As far as I can determine it is a bug with the Media player that comes bundled with Windows 2000 and affects any MPEG played on Windows 2000.
- It also affects third party MPEG players other than Microsoft's Media player, but only affects Windows 2000.
- It is possible that downloading service packs, updated codecs etc. may (or may not) fix this problem.
- The Video has been tested on Windows 95 through to 98, ME, XP Home and XP Professional and the video has been produced on a Mac.
- On certain systems the CD does not autostart.
- In most cases it has to do with the Autostart feature that has been disabled in Explorer.
- In the case of Windows XP this problem seems to be more common though regardless of the autostart settings.
- On certain XP systems the CD autostarts sporadically.
- The video material is standard MPEG and should play on most systems.
- On most systems no additional .dll's, codecs or service packs are required.
- Problems will be encountered on the first edition of Windows 95 and possibly on the first edition of Windows 98.
- The problems may be fixed by one of the following measures:
- installing the updated media player,
- downloading and installing appropriate .dll's and codecs (if you can locate them)
- possibly by installing a later version of MS Internet Explorer (5.5 or 6.x)
- The sound / video is jaggy and pauses or does not play smoothly.
- This is prevalent on Pentium I class PC's and on PC's with less than 64Mb RAM
- This is also prevalent on PC's running Windows ME regardless of the processor, speed or the size of the RAM (there is a moral in there somewhere)
- There is little I can do about this problem from my side.
- The video plays well on the Pentium I systems with 32Mb RAM and Windows 95 and even on Linux systems that I tested.
- Try to reduce the size of the Window the Video plays in, and close down other programs that are open while viewing the PC.
- Defrag your hard disk drive.
- Check your PC for the presence of a Virus or some other program that consumes CPU cycles.
- Ultimately if this problem persists you may have to get a faster PC for your own sake, not just for playing the CD!
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User Comments:
- "We are enjoying the CD immensely" - Liezel and Marcel
- "I received your DVD (sic) and really enjoyed it" - Marcie
- "This is excellent!" - Fritz
(It is actually a CD Marcie, but I will take it as a sincere compliment that the quality is comparible to DVD! - Casper)
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Future Additions:
The planned additions below are dependent on the interest I receive.
I have not received any financial compensation whatsover for either authoring the CD or for the video filming or the post production of the video.
Furthermore I have not been re-imbursed for the CD production, postage or packaging which undeniably has impacted upon my 'beer money!'
All the same, I feel that this is a vital record for the Boerboel, though I neither own nor breed with Boerboels.
This CD is not for profitable gain, but for the love and admiration of a fantastic dog breed.
Today this breed is under greater threat by the narrow-minded self-interest of certain individuals than it was in 1994 when it was an unknown breed with less than 30 active breeders.
- I am investigation a form of a donation system whereby the costs of packaging and postage is covered.
The problem is that the amount of under $3 (USD) is too small for a bank transfer, direct deposit or credit card transaction.
I am investigating the shareware transaction route through an organisation such as Kagi.
Alternatively I could simply charge $10 and spend a lot of extra time improving the CD.
- Before the end of April:
- I have the original documentation and Boerboel Pedigrees up to 1992 as collected by Anneke van der Merwe, at that time the secretary of the SABT.
A hyperlinked article will detail the full pedigrees of the 1200 original Boerboels, which incidentally differs somewhat from today's database.
- Addition of extra photos
- I am considering keeping an open section on the CD whereby anyone can contribute photos of their dogs as a form of permanent record.
- Inclusion of the Breed Standard as defined by the major Breeders Associations
- I believe it may be of vital interest to have a number of breed standards in a format where they may be compared side by side.
- If interest is sufficient in this, a comparison of how the standards have evolved over time may be invaluable.
- Surprisingly the breed standards of various organisations are closer than what most people would realise.
What keeps those organisations apart are the self-interest of elected and appointed officials!
- Inclusion of Info on SABT, HBSA as well as EBBASA
- Again many Boerboel enthusiasts do not realise that there are several Boerboel organisations, each with their own strengths and weaknesses and each with their own clique of self-interests.
- Open registry of Boerboel pedigrees
- This will be a mammoth task and I hesitate to even mention it.
But for the future of the Boerboel this is of vital interest to have an open pedigree that anyone may have insight into.
- I can mention that a few weeks ago I had an in-depth discussion with Carel Koch, the chairman of the HBSA, and he was keen on the idea of an open registry.
- Commonality in genetic disorders.
- This is a project I have been working on for 18 months now.
- The theory is that if you identify a number of dogs with a genetic condition eg. Hypoplasia there will be common ancestors shared by those dogs.
- Those common ancestors may point to the origin of the genetic condition and if my theory holds, testing can be done on the progeny of those dogs to test for genetic conditions.
- The initial reports that I produced at the start of 2003 were spot on.
- In my view this is a far better methodology for identifying and controlling genetic conditions than the present shotgun approach.
- What I identified as a result of my research is that if a particular breeder has certified every dog in his stud for a condition, whether it be HD, Entropion, Ectropion, Hypoplasia or even uncontrolled aggression, then his stud is bound to be rife with that condition.
Those breeders are always the same studs where I am most likely to locate a common ancestor of the same genetic condition.
- Put in a different way, if a breeder did not have the problem of a genetic condition, he/she would not have spent money proving something that is not an isue!
- I should point out at this point that no-one in the entire history of dog breeding will ever have made as many enemies at such a fast rate as I am bound to make with this project!
Casper Labuschagne, Kroonstad, March 2004
casperl@act.co.za
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