OrchidWiz - Orchid Board

Daethen · #1 09-18-2011, 10:34 AM

Just thought I would give everyone a heads up. There are 2 days left to get Orchid Wiz at 30% off. Go to the website and enter TALK2011 for the promo code.

Paul Mc · #2 09-18-2011, 11:21 AM

Daethen, how much does that make it total? With the economy being the way it is, I've only been able to secure a part-time job in the past 4 years, lol... Very very tight budget at the moment but would love to have it in my arsenal all the same.

camille1585 · #3 09-18-2011, 11:30 AM

I got the email about the super deal (though I never ever post on that forum!)

The deal includes 1 year of updates and the price is brought down from $295 to 206.50. Very well worth it if you consider that 1 year of updates costs another $80-90 on top of the $295 if I remember right.
Even with this deal it's a steep price if you're struggling with the economy. But well worth the money IMO (even though I got my copy for free!)

That being said, OB has a permanent 20% off deal if you decide to wait to get it at a later date.

JaneEyre · #4 11-21-2011, 12:34 PM

Never mind, I found the info

Thanks anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by camille1585

...

That being said, OB has a permanent 20% off deal if you decide to wait to get it at a later date.

Camille,
I understand the 30% promo expired (darn....) but you say 20% is still good? Any idea how do I get a promo code for that? I wonder if I should wait till another deal comes along...
Thanks

camille1585 · #5 11-21-2011, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JaneEyre

Never mind, I found the info

Thanks anyway.

Does that mean you found the code? The most recent one (from march) is OBOARD7. If it doesn't work, contact Alex at Orchidwiz, tell him you're from OB and ask if there is another code for us.

Curtis2010 · #6 11-21-2011, 12:45 PM

I've looked at the Orchid Wiz site and don't see any means of downloading an evaluation version -- is one available?

My primary interested would be for Orchid ID -- this is not promoted heavily in their sales pitch. How good is it for that use? For example, does it have a good search engine for ID purposes? Or, do you have to wade thorough volumes of individual orchid info on your own (I can do that on the Internet)?

Opinions?

camille1585 · #7 11-21-2011, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Curtis2010

I've looked at the Orchid Wiz site and don't see any means of downloading an evaluation version -- is one available?

My primary interested would be for Orchid ID -- this is not promoted heavily in their sales pitch. How good is it for that use? For example, does it have a good search engine for ID purposes? Or, do you have to wade thorough volumes of individual orchid info on your own (I can do that on the Internet)?

Opinions?

There used to be a trial version for the full program, but all I see is a 30 day free trial of the Express version. (go on the homepage of orchidwiz, and on the left of the page about 1/4 of the way down there's a link for it).

As to your question about it, Orchidwiz is an Encylopedia, and as such you have to know what you want to look up. Yes it has a search engine, you type in the name of the orchid you want and it pulls up the data. But if you want to check for orchids that you don't even have a name for,(by searching by color, size, genus...) then no. That's not the purpose of OW. Unless you have a species or a unique hybrid, there is no way to positively ID an orchid with 100% certainty, whether on internet or OW.

Curtis2010 · #8 11-21-2011, 01:16 PM

That's too bad -- a product like that could be of real benefit -- especially to us Orchid novices.

A search engine analogous to that of ReefNet's software for Fish ID would be great for Orchids. It will give you a list of possibilities based upon characteristics of the fish and the environment in which you saw it....and then copious information once identified. I've been a sailing charter captain for many years and this a great tool for guests to use.

camille1585 · #9 11-21-2011, 01:29 PM

Well if your main interest is to look up species, there is a map where you can click regions/countries to get the list of species growing there, and can even narrow it down to endemic species only. But nothing to sort by color, shape, size. You have to manually scroll through a list of hundreds and even thousands of orchids, and not all have photos.

Curtis2010 · #10 11-22-2011, 12:13 PM

That's too bad. Maybe I will post a suggestion to them. Accumulating and managing the extensive database is the hard part. Building a simple search capability is not difficult -- especially given all the fancy software development tools available today (...former software engineer....eons ago in technology time).

Just being able to narrow down the possible species by simple characteristics (ie: epiphytic?, pseudobulbs?, pseudobulb shape, sympodial?, leaf shape, flower spike point of origin, etc...) would radically narrow down the possibilities.