Welcome to your to-do list for January.

There are 3 major portions of any Christmas light display. Design, Build and Install. We at Synchronized Christmas would argue the most important part is the actual design of your display. For January your to-do list consists of the design of your display.

When designing your display there are several things you need to consider.

  • What is your vision of your display? What do you think it will look like?
  • Review your canvas (property) to see what options you have available.
  • Budget: Determine what financial resources you have available to you.

Let’s look at this in a little more detail.

Starting out, you need to figure out what you want the display to look like. Surely you’ve seen other displays you like, or remember one from your childhood that you want to recreate. Now is the time to figure that out. Making changes to any display after the design process results in many wasted hours. Do you want a display synchronized to music or a traditional static display. Maybe you want to have a display that changes colors throughout the evening or display period. These are important decisions that shouldn’t be rushed through. Take your time and devide what you want to do.

Next you need to review your canvas, which is your home or business, to see what options you have available to you. As you look at your property think about where extension cords are going to go, and where extra outlets will be added, if needed. Think carefully about what obstacles you may encounter during the install phase, and how you might overcome them.

Finally, take a realistic look at your financial resources, and decide what you can afford to you. The overwhelming majority of the displays that you see out there had humble beginnings. You simply may not be able to do everything you want to do the first year. Don’t worry, you’ll have many years of fun ahead of you planning your display each year.

Next month: Design phase is ending, and the building begins.

More documentation has been added to LORFaq.com.

We’re slowly working to get the data linked here on the site. Remember that you can find more information at lightorama.com.

LORFaq.com has been given a new look.

There may be more changes to the look and feel of the site over the next few months. Stay tuned.

Recently, Light-O-Rama released version 3.9.0 of the software. This version includes a bug fix for a memory leak, and the introduction of SuperSpeed (or as it is know known, 500K.) The 500K option is an increase in the network speed related to data transmission. One early report had up to 12 CCR’s on a single network with 500K.

The big fix for the memory leak is also included in 3.9.0. However, if your license does not support 3.9.0, then please note that LOR has released the following versions: 3.5.2, 3.6.2, 3.7.2 and 3.8.2. Since the memory leak first occured in 3.5.0, LOR released these version so everyone would have the fix. It is important to note that you do not have to pay for this bug fix. If your license only covers 3.5.0, then you would be able to run 3.5.2.

Sorry about the lack of updates, things have been busy over at Synchronized Christmas.

Version 3.7.0 of the Light-O-Rama software is now out. You can download it from the Software Download page.

LORFaq.com has turned on commenting on most articles. Have a question about something in the article? Think it needs more clarification? Leave a comment in the article.

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May, 2012

Version 3.4.0 of the Light-O-Rama Software Suite has been released.  Details on the changes can be found on the help file’s What’s New page.

Want Light-O-Rama news sent straight to your inbox? Sign up for the Light-O-Rama newsletter by clicking the graphic below. (Newsletters are sent by Synchronized Christmas, Inc., the owner/operator of LORFaq.com.)

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Need to download Light-O-Rama firmware, software or help files? We now have them available for download. Links are (currently) on the left side of the page.