U.S. Update News November 2004

COMPULIFE^® Software, Inc.We plan to post the December 2004 Internet monthly update to our six monthly update web sites on Monday, November 29th.

The December disk update will be processed Monday, November 29th and the disks will be shipped on that day. You should have the disk update by December 1st or 2nd.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Subscribers who are still receiving disks can save up to $100 per year by switching to updates by Internet. Please read the last section of this bulletin for complete details. Don’t wait for your next invoice to make the change. Compulife will bonus your subscription renewal deadline for switching from disks to internet.

Changes for December 1stThere are a couple of important changes being made effective December 1st. These will include:

• • Change to Midmonth Updates

 

• DOS Software – Updated by Internet Only

Change to Midmonth UpdatesBeginning December 1st Compulife plans to make a change to our midmonth update procedure. Instead of having multiple UPDATE?.CMP files we plan to reduce that to a single update file which will be called UPDATEU.CMP.

The reason that we had divided updates into multiple files was to keep the size of each file to what would fit onto a single floppy disk. Assuming that you only had a dial-up connection, this meant you could eliminate a slow manual download for each computer. Instead you could download once, then copy the file to each machine using the disks.

With the advent of high speed internet and with most people using automated updates, this process is no longer needed. For those doing automated updates, you won’t care if there is only one update file.

The change to one update file addresses a new problem which has emerged. Some agents run our system on computers that are connected to the internet through very restrictive corporate firewalls that they can’t control. The only option for those caught in those circumstances is to get the midmonth update by doing a manual download. This means with multiple update files that the individual must click on and download each file and save each file to the \COMPLIFE folder. The new procedure, where there will be a single UPDATEU.CMP file, will make that job easier.

This bulletin is your LAST WARNING that the UPDATEU.CMP file will be larger than what can fit onto a single floppy disk. If you have been manually moving midmonth update files using floppy disks you will need to find a new way to do so. If you were doing using floppy disks and need to learn to do that a different way, give Bob Barney a call at (800) 798-3488.

DOS Software – Updated by Internet OnlyAs part of our ongoing efforts to move customers from our DOS software to our Windows software, we will be removing DOS software from our DISK UPDATES effective December 1, 2004. The exception will be the install program which your computer uses to install from 3 1/2″ disks.

The GO.EXE file, which will be shipped on disks in December, will simply call and run the GOWIN.EXE file. That will no doubt generate a rash of calls from subscribers who do not read these bulletins, at which point we will need to explain that to run DOS software you need to get updates by Internet.

If You Still Want to Use DOS SoftwareYou will need to switch to getting updates by Internet. Monthly updates by internet will continue to receive the DOS and Windows program until the 3rd quarter of 2005. We expect the early part of 2006 to be a very busy time for us, and we intend to move everyone who still uses DOS software, to our Windows software, by the end of 2005.

Given that the DOS software program’s days are numbered, we strongly recommend that you learn to use the Windows software. There is no doubt that it is now more powerful than the DOS product. Those who prefer DOS to the Windows program are usually operating with the belief that there is something the DOS program does that the Windows won’t do. If you are one of those people, please give us a call. We can show you how to do the same thing in the Windows version of Compulife.

Windows Program – Structural ChangesThe structural changes we told you about last month have been integrated into our Windows software. There was only one reported bug found in the October midmonth update, and that was quickly fixed.

More Changes on The WayCompletion of this work has now allowed us to move forward with new changes. The first will be an improvement to our www.term4sale.com web site where the user will be able to select the minimum A.M. Best rating for comparison. Until recently we could not show A.M. Best ratings at the web site and so we had imposed a minimum of A- for a company to be included in Term4Sale results. Now that A.M. Best ratings are shown, we have decided to add the minimum rating selection with the view than consumers can decide for themselves how far down in the ratings they are prepared to go when they are doing a comparison.

Improved PrecisionA small but increasing number of companies are quoting product premium rate tables with fractional pennies. This is particularly true for U/L – no lapse policies. We intend to introduce a change to our database which will optionally allow us to increase the number of decimal places from two to six. Until now, for products that did have fractional pennies in their rates per thousand, we had been rounding up to the next whole cent making our quotes fractionally higher than they should have been.

Dueling Web SitesFor those who update by Internet, Compulife has gone to great lengths to provide you with redundancy in our web sites. Our main web site is:

www.compulife.comHowever, we keep two other completely separate web sites, on two completely different servers, at:

www.compulife.us     or     www.compulife.ccWhatever we update to compulife.com, we are also updating to compulife.us and to compulife.cc. If one web site goes down, for whatever reason, either of the other two are ready to serve you. That includes both monthly and mid-month updates.

For those doing monthly updates by Internet, we rely on three other web sites to supply monthly updates. These are automatically checked and used by our automatic Internet update software.

Returning Monthly Disk UpdatesFor those receiving updates by disks, you are responsible to return those disks each month. Not returning disks can lead to the termination of your update service. For those not wanting to return disks there are two ways to eliminate the problem.

1. Switch to obtaining monthly updates by Internet.

Not only will you eliminate the expense and hassle of returning disks, you will save $100 per year in subscription fees.

To switch to Internet monthly updates, go to our web page www.compulife.com and select the last menu choice “Forms, applications, instruction tutorials, etc.” Under the section “License Agreements” you will need to select and complete a new License Agreement for the type of license you have. After you have printed the new agreement, please read it, especially the part where you agree that you have successfully downloaded and processed our “mid-month updates”. If you haven’t done that before, call us and we’ll be happy to step you through the procedure. It’s easy.

2. Disk Purchase Program

The other way to avoid returning the disks and the disk box each month is to pre-purchase them for $21 per year ($1.75 per month). Once you do that you can keep them for future reference, throw them away or return them for a credit (once each year) when you are invoiced for the following year. $21 costs you less than mailing back disks each month.