Installation

Windows:

For Windows, download the BrianSetup.exe installer and double-click to install all files in your system's Program Files directory. Do not change the location of the folder contents. It is recommended that you uninstall previous versions of BRIAN before upgrading.

Macintosh:

For the Macintosh, the download will be a mountable disk image file or .dmg file named Brian Discography Software.dmg. Double-click Brian Discography Software.dmg; a new disk drive should appear called Brian Discography Software. Drag the Brian icon into the alias of the Applications folder or directly into your Applications folder.

Starting The Application

There are 2 methods of starting BRIAN.

• double click on the BRIAN database file icon and allow your computer to start BRIAN
• double click on the BRIAN program icon and then use the File->Open DB menu item to open your database.

If you are using BRIAN for the first time, chances are that double clicking on the database file icon will not cause BRIAN to start because your computer will not know what program to use. For most computers, the operating system will display a dialog to alert you that the associated program is unknown, but allow you to choose the program to use. Follow the instructions and choose BRIAN. In most cases, this will set the association of the BRIAN database to the BRIAN software and subsequent double clicks of the database icon will cause BRIAN to start.

It should be noted here that only one database can be accessed at any time. You cannot have multiple copies of your database open and accessible with BRIAN. That said, BRIAN is designed to store all your data in one database. If you think you need multiple databases, (aside from backups) you are probably not understanding how BRIAN works. Please feel free to contact me if you think that you need multiple databases. If there is something lacking in BRIAN I will fix it.

Important warning

It is recommended that backups of the BRIAN data files be taken regularly. There are two kinds of backups that should be used.

One is a backup to another device other than the primary hard drive such as a zip drive, external hard drive or CDr. If your primary hard drive crashes for some reason, you will be very glad you have another copy of your data.

Another backup that should be used is a simple copy of the database on the primary hard drive. This should be done before you sit down to do any extensive data entry. It is much simpler to do than an external backup so resistance to this should be low. Should BRIAN crash because of a bug (I've done extensive testing, but who knows what might be lurking out there!) or due to a power failure or some other type of hardware failure, the database could be irreparably corrupted. By making periodic backups on your local hard drive, you minimize the amount of work that is possible to lose.

NEVER BACK UP YOUR DATA WHILE BRIAN IS ACTIVE.