QUESTIONS FREQUENTLY ASKED ABOUT MONETA
FUNCTIONALITY
1) DOES MONETA ASSIGN RIC (Roman Imperial Coinage)
NUMBERS?
NO. RIC numbers
depend upon so many factors (and frankly many of them are
trivial differences –
in some cases
pure
subjective matters of
style) that assigning RIC numbers is best done by a
knowledgeable human.
Additionally,
since
Moneta was created
with the express permission and blessing of the RIC
copyright holders, we
do not intend to
“compete” with the RIC
series in any way. Both tools (Moneta and RIC) have their
complementary
place.
2) CAN I USE MONETA FOR
OTHER ANCIENT COINS (RATHER THAN
JUST
ROMAN)?
YES. We have many customers
who use Moneta to catalog Judaean, Greek, Byzantine,
Parthian, etc. coins. As
long
as the
coinage used either Latin or
Greek legends, the coins can
be fully documented via Moneta since Moneta
gives
complete
flexibility in adding
rulers, denominations, mints, etc.
Of course the Moneta font and built-in
database
is
targeted at Roman coins, so
you give up some power, but Moneta has plenty to
spare!
3) DOES
MONETA CONTAIN A MASSIVE PHOTO
DATABASE?
NO. Moneta contains slightly over 200 photos which
are used to illustrate
the ruler biographies and
denominational
information. Moneta is intended to document your
collection using photos
of your coins (photos or your
coins in bmp
or
jpg format are easily imported with just a few mouse
clicks).
4) HOW MANY MONETA INSTALLATIONS CAN
I MAKE WITH ONLY ONE
LICENSE?
THERE is no pre-set
limit. Our license agreement is
meant to encourage collecting as a family
activity, and
you can
install
Moneta
on any computers in
your home, those of your direct
family, and even an office computer. Just send
us a brief
note
explaining the
circumstances and requesting an additional authorization
code.
5) CAN I INSTALL MORE THAN ONE
MONETA PROGRAM ON MY
COMPUTER?
YES. We have many customers who have more than one
installation on one
computer (for example a husband/wife
who
simply wish to
keep their collection data entirely separate instead of
using, perhaps, the prefixes and/or suffixes to
coin
numbers which
can serve the same
purpose – you can filter on prefixes
and/or
suffixes).
On Windows XP and
earlier Windows operating systems things
are simple: Just
be sure to install
each time to a different
location on your computer. Moneta will keep the
databases straight The
only limitation is that you can
only have one copy
of
Moneta open on your computer at any one
time.
Sadly, Microsoft Vista
makes it a bit more
complicated. On Vista you can only have one
installation in the "Program
Files"
directory.
We suggest for all subsequent installation that you create a
new folder in the root directory (normally C:\ ) and
install into
that. For example, if you
are doing volunteer work
for the excellent organization "Ancient Coins For
Education"
(ACE), we
suggest you create an
"ACE" folder in C:\, and make
another installation into that. For your ACE
coins,
the
directory structure would then look
like C:\ACE\Numus\Moneta2\Monetadb. Your data for
installations in the
root directory
will be actually stored in
that folder (now there's a concept!) instead of the
Microsoft-mandated Users
directory
structure
for the original
installation in the "Program Files"
folder.
With all Windows
operating systems, if you have a problem
that you need to run a repair on a data
table, or wish to
do
a data restore you
should ensure the last Moneta program you ran was the one
you want to repair or
restore data to.
6) CAN
I INSTALL MONETA ON A REMOVABLE DRIVE AND
MOVE IT FROM ONE
COMPUTER TO ANOTHER?
YES. Starting with version 2.0.14 Moneta can run
from a removable drive
(such as a portable hard drive or a
memory
stick).
The
only requirement is
that Moneta has been previously
installed on the computer that you want the
removable
media to
run on.
This is because Microsoft installation standards dictate
the location of some
necessary files on media other than
the
removable
media. This can be accomplished in two
ways:
a) Moneta can be
installed as normal on the target
computer. When a valid authorization
code is entered
on
that computer
(using Moneta2.exe of v2.0.14 or higher), that computer is
set to receive Moneta
running from removable media -
of
course the local copy of Moneta can still be used
also (though not
simultaneously with the removable media
copy).
Once Moneta is set up on the a computer, the Numus
directory can be copied
to the removable media and run
from
there on any computer which has Moneta installed,
although the
removable media copy will ask
for the
authorization
code one time if the target computer was
installed using Moneta below
v2.0.14.
b)
You
can also install directly to the removable media
whether or not your computer
has Moneta previously
installed.
In summary,
there are two things to remember: 1) as always, only
one copy of Moneta
can run on any computer at one
time,
and 2)
the
removable media database and the "fixed" copy database (if any) are not
automatically synchronized in any
way.
The
easiest way to
synchronize the databases if you wish to do so is to
copy the entire Numus folder over the older
Numus
folder,
overwriting it.
7)
I WANT TO RUN MONETA ON A
MAC. WHAT ARE MY
OPTIONS?
Unfortunately
Moneta will not run
native on a Mac.
However, you can run Windows on OS X using the
BootCamp
functionality. That allows you
to boot into either
Windows or OS X. Of course the catch is that you have
to buy
and install
Windows on the
Mac.
Another
solution that
some customers are using is to run
Moneta on the Mac using Parallels:
http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/?from=homepage
Parallels
allows you to run Windows sessions from within the Mac OS,
so you just boot up
in OS X and
then
can just run Windows programs
as desired without closing your Mac environment or
programs.
Both solutions
unfortunately require
the purchase of a Windows operating
system, but fortunately Moneta
is
backwards compatible
through at least
Windows 2000, so an older OS may be
used.
TROUBLESHOOTING
1) I JUST APPLIED THE LATEST UPGRADE, BUT MY VERSION
NUMBER DIDN'T
CHANGE!
Nearly always this is the result of unzipping the
download to the wrong
location. The default location
is
C:\Program Files\Numus\Moneta2. If you customized
during installation, you
have to know where you installed
Moneta2.
2) I
JUST APPLIED THE LATEST UPGRADE, BUT WHEN I START MONETA
IT CRASHES SAYING IT
CAN'T FIND “EZTWAIN.DLL”
This is
always the result of unzipping to the wrong location, and then running
the Moneta2.exe file from the new wrong location!
3) I
GET A MESSAGE SAYING “INDEX” IS OUT OF DATE OR CORRUPTED,
OR A MESSAGE ABOUT
“BLOB
ERROR”.
These issues and
several others can often be solved by going to the
“Custom 10” screen and
clicking the “PACK DATA
TABLES”
button on the middle right hand side of the screen.
Moneta will rebuild
the most often affected tables, and
also do some data
integrity
checking. Although this
will most often be
successful, you should always make a backup of your data
before attempting any
repairs.
If
packing the data tables is not successful in correcting
the problem, you can
send an email to Numus requesting
tech
service
assistance
(currently
free), or you can try the data repair utility -
the instructions are here.
4) WHY
CAN'T I TYPE A 'j',
'u', OR 'w', AND WHY IS A
CAPITAL 'W' THE GREEK SIGMA INSTEAD OF
OMEGA?
The
legend fields use the
Numus Moneta font which is mapped to
Greek in upper case and Latin in lower
case. Since Latin
had
no
w's, they are simply ignored if you type it (similar to
Moneta changing lower
case j's to I's and u's to V's (this
matches Latin
usage).
So
Moneta is actually
interpreting your lower case entries as
someone typing Latin, and it is
automatically correcting
for common
errors.
The
Numus Moneta font in
upper case is mapped to the Greek
alphabet and uses the standard classical Greek
Polytonic
keyboard layout.
See
http://www.biblicalgreek.org/links/fonts/keyboard.html
or
http://www.jcu.edu/language/llc/keyboard-setup-greek.htm
Since
coinage used no diacritical marks, the Numus Moneta font
only maps the main
characters - those not using the
diacritical
marks.
There are two forms of
lower case s used in
classical Greek, one form at the end of a word and another
form used anywhere else.
In
the
Polytonic keyboard the w key is mapped to the form that
ends words. However,
coinage did not use that convention
either,
so
instead
of making the w
key a special form of s we simply
repeated a mapping to sigma (a repeat of
the mapping
of the S key).
Note
that omega is mapped to the V key, per the standard
Polytonic Greek
Keyboard.
If
you're confused, use
Shift+F12 while the cursor is in a
legend or mintmark field and the Numus Moneta
font
character map appears.
MISCELLANEOUS
1) HOW LONG HAS MONETA BEEN
AROUND?
Don't let
the low release number
fool you. Moneta was initally
released to the public in March, 1999 as
release
1.0
Release 1.1 was distributed
(free of charge to those who purchased 1.0) about six
months later, correcting
some
issues
and giving some
enhancements. 1.2 was released in 2000 (again free
to those who purchased
either 1.0 or 1.1) with
some
major
enhancements. Moneta 2.0, with support for
provincial coins (among many
other improvements), was
released in
early
2004 and numerous free improvements have since been made. Numus has
a policy of continuous product
improvement,
which
means, among other
things, that each program is "burned"
as an order is received so you always
receive the best
we
have to offer - not some
stale stock of past versions that we need to get rid
of! Moneta was
architected under Windows
95,
released
under
Windows 98 and has been updated and upgraded for each subsequent version
of Windows - Windows NT,
Windows ME, Windows
2000, Windows XP, Windows
Vista, and now Windows 7. There has never been a charge to
our
customers to upgrade simply to gain
compatibility with a new operating system.
2) WHY KEEP MY
COLLECTION
ON MY DESKTOP INSTEAD ON SOMEONE'S INTERNET
SITE?
First, in
today's uncertain
legislative environment, your desktop is
a much more secure place for your data
than some server
that could be compromised
and/or seized. Secondly, it's more economical - we
have customers who have
used Moneta
for
8 years now that have
only paid $20 above their purchase cost. That's a
lot more economical that
a monthly payment!
We
do have on
the
drawing board a Java applet that will let you view your collection
from anywhere in the world if you choose to
upload it to a
website under your
control in XHTML format (supported in
Moneta version 2.0.13 and
above). Moneta also
offers data export
(and import) utilities - so regardless of whether Numus is
in business or not
you can always get your data
out
in a usable
format -
the websites that we are aware do not have that ability - you live or
die with their business
health.