My Wheel Horse dot Com

[MikesRJ 558]

Many of you may have already discovered that a new website exists which contains a significant amount of Wheel Horse documentation available from the likes of Yahoo Groups and several other private on-line collections.

Many people do not have access to some of these collections and/or do not wish to (or cannot for whatever reason) join the Yahoo Groups to gain access to this invaluable information. So I have sought to remedy that problem.

I have created a website called "MY Wheel Horse" (or MWH for short), and it is located at the URL www.MyWheelHorse.com.

1. The purpose of this website is to promote a free and open to the public access to Wheel Horse Manuals and Documents and Wheel Horse related documentation in an easy to navigate and familiar format.

2. The secondary purpose is to allow the community at large to contribute to the archive by sending in their electronic, scanned, and/or paper copies of any manual they wish to donate to the archive effort.

I am also seeking volunteers to assist in this effort, so if you are interested in doing this please PM or email me via this website (hint, hint hint: Buzz, Jason and Garry......LOL). If you have a higher than average set of PC skills, you've been called a computer geek in the past, can edit a website, or you can admin a forum; then this would be right up your alley. A healthy dose of WH knowledge would be highly desirable as well, something I don't have enough of yet.

Please have a look at the site and feel free to make any suggestion you may have.

www.MyWheelHorse.com

[jusjeepn 59]

Cool sight! Thanks Mike!!

[pbradley68 1]

I've noticed that most of the manuals on various sites are scanned images and can not be searched. I've converted all the manuals I've downloaded to from full page images to text using the OCR Text Recognition option in Adobe Acrobat Professional so that I can search the manuals. It's very handy time saver to be able to search a .pdf especially for some of the hundred plus paged Kohler manuals and it doesn't change the overall appearance. I've also Optimized and Reduced the File Size by about 66% on average. I can assist with converting manuals to be searchable if you don't have Adobe Acrobat Pro if you like. It could also save your site some decent bandwidth in the long run.

[bitten 134]

Mike:

Very cool I dont know how I can help, not good with the pc, but will do what I can.

Thank you,

P.J.

[kajamo240 3]

Wow! You did a great deal of work on that! Looks great! *Bookmarked* :scratchead:

[lp johnny 0]

Nice :scratchead:

[bustedglass 1]

Mike, I previously bookmarked this site. It is GREAT. Good luck with it .

[dgoyette 12]

Bookmarked - great resource- I think I may have a couple of Manuals not on there that I will send in. Particularly the 1975 ARK Loader manual for the D series, as well as the repair manual for the Hydrostatic transmission. The hydro repair manual looks like it was made for dealers and takes you through diagnostics and step by step dis-assembly and rebuild of the entire transmission. Standard and separated systems like the D. Its pretty great!

[MikesRJ 558]

I've noticed that most of the manuals on various sites are scanned images and can not be searched. I've converted all the manuals I've downloaded to from full page images to text using the OCR Text Recognition option in Adobe Acrobat Professional so that I can search the manuals. It's very handy time saver to be able to search a .pdf especially for some of the hundred plus paged Kohler manuals and it doesn't change the overall appearance. I've also Optimized and Reduced the File Size by about 66% on average. I can assist with converting manuals to be searchable if you don't have Adobe Acrobat Pro if you like. It could also save your site some decent bandwidth in the long run.

I've attempted to name all the files with their original manual names so that they will show up in the search engines once they are cataloged. Also, the forums go a long way to help in getting things cataloged with the search engines much faster than not.

All of the manuals currently on the site, from where ever they were originally downloaded , have been distilled using Adobe Acrobat 9 for "Adobe Reader 7 and Newer". Almost every manual is now at least 30% smaller than the original download, and in a lot of cases as much as 85% smaller.

I do like the idea of making all the manuals search-able as it would be a major help with the search engine listings and positioning. If your willing, I can send you a link to the "All-Files" zip (all the manuals currently on0site) to do the same. So long as you maintain the original file structure and file names, over writing the archive with modified files is a simple enough task. In fact you could do them piece-meal and send me a zip of the parts you do when you get them done.

PM me if your interested in doing this.

[MikesRJ 558]

Mike:

Very cool I dont know how I can help, not good with the pc, but will do what I can.

Thank you,

P.J.

PJ,

If I can think of anything I will PM you.

Mike

[MikesRJ 558]

Bookmarked - great resource- I think I may have a couple of Manuals not on there that I will send in. Particularly the 1975 ARK Loader manual for the D series, as well as the repair manual for the Hydrostatic transmission. The hydro repair manual looks like it was made for dealers and takes you through diagnostics and step by step dis-assembly and rebuild of the entire transmission. Standard and separated systems like the D. Its pretty great!

Those manuals would be great additions. Thanks for sharing.

The site is currently very lean on complete tractor manuals and engine manuals. I know most of the Kohler engine manuals are located on the Kohler and Yahoo Kohler Engine sites, but would eventually like to have every engine manual (User/Owner, Service, and whatever else may exist) ever installed in a Wheel Horse at the factory, on the website.

That is our biggest need at the moment. If anyone has any of these in electronic format, send them in to the site. If you have a paper copy and access to a high quality copier, send them in as well. Anything new is much appreciated by the entire community.

If anyone really wants to help;

1. Go to MyWheelHorse.com and familiarize yourself with the site and how it's laid out.

2. See what isn't there based on the machines you know best.

3. Find the manuals you think should be there for those machines.

4. Send them in as a submission.

[Sarge 3,465]

Way cool , and much appreciated . It would be nice to have an end-all solution for a place to put all this information .

Question- I don't pretend to know much about computers, or internet for that matter. On my own system I do have quite a lot of manuals downloaded not only for my own equipment but a lot of attachments, ect that I was interested in . Is it of help to upload, email or somehow otherwise send in what I already have in pdf and other formats ? Also, I have quite a few paper copies, some are valuable originals that are nearly impossible to find including brochures. Is any of that usable ?

Thanks,

Sarge

[MikesRJ 558]

Way cool , and much appreciated . It would be nice to have an end-all solution for a place to put all this information .

Question- I don't pretend to know much about computers, or internet for that matter. On my own system I do have quite a lot of manuals downloaded not only for my own equipment but a lot of attachments, ect that I was interested in . Is it of help to upload, email or somehow otherwise send in what I already have in pdf and other formats ? Also, I have quite a few paper copies, some are valuable originals that are nearly impossible to find including brochures. Is any of that usable ?

Thanks,

Sarge

My thought is that it is all useful. Anything which can be posted probably will be and nothing will be refused. The more of it that is already in PDF format the better, but all is accepted.

That said, it is best to ZIP a number of like files in a single zip file and send them to Manuals (.at.at.) MyWheelHorse (.dot.dot.) com {it's never good to put an email address on the internet, but you get the idea}.

I suppose a short explanation is in order concerning the website. The Document Archive is a "live" document and will be ever-changing. The software I use is relatively simple and works much the same way as this forum. In fact they use the same database type and programming language. To create a new section or page within the archive (as it exists right now) is literally a few mouse clicks and keystrokes and the page is there. Add a file name, click a button and navigate to the file, click another and it uploads to the server, save the page and a new page with a link to a file is created. Really! it's that simple. So adding anything new is a matter of minutes to put up on the site. More time will be spent condensing the file to its smallest size, than it would to create a new page or section and post it. Hell, it took me longer to type this than it would to just do it.

Send it all, we'll sort it out. If you have an idea for another section or where the files should go, blurt that out in the email in which you send the zipped manuals as well.

Also, the Forum on the site allows for the upload of documents for registered users (i.e. you must be an approved registered user in order to upload). They can be up to 5MB in size. They can be pdf, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, gif, jpg, png, zip, rar, gz, and tar extensions. No executable files will be allowed and everything is scanned with three virus scanners upon upload.

One word of caution though. Do check the manuals on the site before sending anything. The time spent looking through submissions, only to find it's information we already have and the sender didn't do their homework, isn't really very helpful. The time wasted equals more manuals not getting posted that day due to limited time.

[Sparky-(Admin) 23,136]

I'm thinking that your site needs some tweaking. I made a post with a pic this morning in the tractor pics section and it has dissapeared. I tried the "contact us" thingy to ask about it but it wont send out the question.

Probably should work out the many bugs before letting anyone in. Kinda frustrating.

And why must a security code be entered to do absolutely anything? Seems if a member is signed in he/she should be able to post or reply without going thu all that each time.

I'm not trying to be so negative as the idea of a site like this is a great idea, but its definitly not a user friendly site yet.

Mike.........

[HorseFixer 2,013]

Looks Good Mike! :scratchead:

[MikesRJ 558]

I'm thinking that your site needs some tweaking. I made a post with a pic this morning in the tractor pics section and it has dissapeared. I tried the "contact us" thingy to ask about it but it wont send out the question.

Probably should work out the many bugs before letting anyone in. Kinda frustrating.

And why must a security code be entered to do absolutely anything? Seems if a member is signed in he/she should be able to post or reply without going thu all that each time.

I'm not trying to be so negative as the idea of a site like this is a great idea, but its definitly not a user friendly site yet.

Mike.........

I'm thinking you're right. We are still cleaning up a few "bugs".

I let everyone know of the site's existence because people were finding it before we were actually "ready", and I was getting bombarded by questions via email.

The security code is only displayed when you are NOT logged in. My guess is you only thought you were logged in. The security code is absolutely necessary since the site is going to allow the uploading of files. Too many hackers out there, and we want to play it safe. The installed security system is quite effective. You'll have to deal with it while we finish. It''l be fine soon enough.

[MikesRJ 558]

BuckRancher, Duke and BustedGlass; your accounts have been activated directly.

[kajamo240 3]

Cant wait to get activated! I think that this will be a really good resource as I just had to search the web for the manual for my horse. Good to have a 1 stop shop!

:scratchead:

[MikesRJ 558]

Cant wait to get activated! I think that this will be a really good resource as I just had to search the web for the manual for my horse. Good to have a 1 stop shop!

Matt, yours is done too.

[HorseFixer 2,013]

BuckRancher, Duke and BustedGlass; your accounts have been activated directly.

Thanks Mike! :scratchead:

[d180man 5]

Hi very nice will see if i have some thing to give from my books that you dont have !! :hide:

[kajamo240 3]

Thanks Mike! :scratchead:

[Jim_M 179]

I don't know if I got signed up or not. The security code is a PITA. I typed what I saw, it kept saying I was wrong and there's no way to ask for a new security code so I just said the heck with it.

[Don1977 605]

I signed up on the 26 but when I try to log in it says no information found.

[MikesRJ 558]

I don't know if I got signed up or not. The security code is a PITA. I typed what I saw, it kept saying I was wrong and there's no way to ask for a new security code so I just said the heck with it.

When you attempted to sign-up, did 5 letters appear in the security code box?