Update News for May 2015
Here is a quick run-down on what you will find in this bulletin:
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Unfortunate Changes Coming To Software
To Help Us Stop Software Piracy -
It’s a Sad Waste of Time
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Touch Screen Devices
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Software Improvements For Pads/Tablets
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These topics will be dealt with in more detail throughout this bulletin.
Software piracy is serious business, you can read about it here:
Software Enforcement and the U.S. Law
which says:
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- What Are the Penalties for Pirating Software?
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Software theft is a serious matter. If you or your company get caught copying software, you may be held liable under both civil and criminal law.
If the copyright owner brings a civil action against you, the owner can seek to stop you from using its software immediately and can also request monetary damages. The copyright owner may then choose between actual damages, which include the amount it has lost because of your infringement as well as any profits attributable to the infringement, or statutory damages, which can be as much as $150,000 for each program copied.
In addition, the government can criminally prosecute you for copyright infringement. If convicted, you can be fined up to $250,000, sentenced to jail for up to five years, or both.
In the incident we uncovered, we had an “outfit” (looks like an individual; his DBA doesn’t appear to be incorporated) who hired a group of clever technicians (offshore), who set up an impressive web site/page that offered life insurance agents a prominently displayed life insurance quotation system for their web site, all for “free”. An agent or agency could visit this outfit’s site, type in their personal particulars and instantly a web quoting system was set up, personalized for that agent as that agent’s web site. The agents were encouraged to obtain unique domain names, point them to that site/page, and they had an impressive looking web site with a great term life insurance quoting system. The whole thing was, on the face of it, very impressive.
The problem with this whole scheme was that the software used to power those numerous web site quote systems was Compulife, and neither the entity enabling the piracy, or those agents/agencies who took advantage of the offer, and who unwitting became pirates themselves, were licensed to use Compulife’s software. That’s a nice way of saying they weren’t paying us a dime for it and didn’t have our authorization to use it.
Once Compulife learned of the outfit and its operation we investigated it thoroughly. I could hardly believe how brazen and widespread this was. It took a great deal of my time, over a short period of days, to investigate to my satisfaction. More about that as you read on. I would like to emphasize that I did not want to “drop the hammer” on this outfit and its customer until I was fully sure what I was dealing with. But once I was satisfied that I understood the nature of it, I determined that it needed to be stopped.
What really irritated me was that upon discover of this outfit’s enterprise on April 8th, I called and spoke to the individual behind the outfit. Lawyers are expensive and I would always prefer to settle a problem without having to employ lawyers and/or commence a lawsuit.
We spoke for about 1/2 an hour. This was clearly the guy in charge of it all. I would describe his conversation with me as evasive and not helpful.
During the conversation he initially tried to deny that it was the Compulife software program that he was using. That was remarkable given how obvious it was. He quickly gave up on that tact. He then said that he had hired some guys to build the site and he didn’t know what they did or how they were getting quotes from Compulife. I asked him who those folks were. He would not identify the technical people who built his software, saying he couldn’t remember. That was pretty stupid because they were all prominently listed in the “about” area on his web site, all with their biographies and photos. It’s always interesting when people lie to cover something up, and then lie about things they didn’t have to lie about.
Despite the obvious ill will on his part, I tried to be as nice as I could. Eventually I shared with him the terms under which we sell and allow the re-sale of a web quoting service using our internet engine. I think that our offering is eminently fair for the enterprising internet engine user/distributor and I will review it further as we move along. At all times I strove to be diplomatic and tried to look for a way to settle the problem to the advantage of both with the least amount of interruption to his business and with the least amount of embarrassment to his agent and agency customers who I’m sure had no clue of what he was doing. He, on the other hand, was obstinately telling me what he would or would not consider as an acceptable resolution. That’s not a good idea or strategy when you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar and the person who owns the cookies is trying to work it out with you.
To review what I told him, the internet engine is $1,260 per year. This is actually the total (all in) cost of two separate components: a standard license to Compulife ($300 per year) and a copy of the software (Linux or Windows) that will let you run Compulife from your own server ($960 per year). And I will hand it to the guy I am talking about, his web site people did do some very creative work. They just neglected to pay Compulife for the most important part of the operation. It would be like paying to buy a very expensive automobile and then trying to steal gasoline. What good is your car without the gasoline? And do you really want to pay the money it would take to set up an operation to refine gasoline, just so you can use your expensive car?
Why the need for the engine? Because Compulife does all the hard part on an ongoing basis. We updates rates, make changes/corrections to products, add companies and products, etc., etc., etc. Basically we have the challenging job of keeping the data current and accurate. How tough is that? Pretty darn tough if you had to start from scratch, build all the tools for doing the job, and then hire someone to actually use those tools and keep the quoting software up to date. Of course you would then need to resell it to offset your costs, and would have to compete with Compulife who has been doing it for decades and who sells that software dirt cheap. When you really think about it, $1,260 per year is a complete BARGAIN for what we do and for what you can do with it. What would possess anyone to pirate it?
Now of course the outfit wanted to re-market this service to their agent customers. The outfit saw an opportunity. The outfit realized that maybe, just maybe, agents would like to have quotes on their web sites. Do you think?
And what an offer the outfit made. If you went to the outfit, and promised to contract your insurance business through them, the outfit promised to pay the highest commissions on insurance business, and give the agent free service including a free web site page that the agent could display as their own web site complete with free term life insurance quotes. Selling that is easier than giving away cold drinks on a hot day.
Does Compulife allow an internet engine user to do that? Yes, BUT NOT unless the third party agent/agency that they are doing that for is a licensed (paying) subscriber to Compulife. If the third party agent is a subscriber, our internet engine users have permission to set up a webquote option for the third party’s web site, and we require no additional payment other than the payment that the third party agent must make for a Compulife subscription.
The payment to make the third party a subscriber can be made directly to Compulife by that agent or agency, or it can be made through the enterprise using the internet quote engine, or it can be made by the internet quote engine on behalf of that party. If the internet engine wants to bundle the price of that service into other services that they use, that’s OK. If they don’t want the third party user to even know Compulife is providing the quote software (like this guy did) that’s also fine. If they want to give the service to the user for free, in exchange for some other way to generate revenue from that user, that is also fine. But let me be crystal clear, each individual third party user of that quoting system, who displays that on a third party web site, must have a subscription to Compulife and Compulife must be paid for that subscription.
These rules have not changed from the beginning. The rules have always been the same.
Unfortunately this individual did not think that was reasonable. He refused to recognize just how difficult it would be for Compulife to make money, selling our products to the market, if someone else was giving the same stuff away for free and not paying Compulife anything for the privilege. And it was clear that he didn’t care a bit if we made money or we didn’t. There’s a technical term for that; greed. And of course if someone wants to be greedy, then that’s their choice. It’s a free country. But that doesn’t mean you have the freedom to steal my stuff, or you trample the freedom that I have to make money.
This has always been a weakness for some people in the life insurance industry. Agents always see a need for themselves to make money but some can never seem to grasp why it is important for the people that they do business with to also make money. Why do you want to make money? To feed and clothe your family. It’s important to remember that the people you do business with also have families to feed and clothe. If their business arrangement with you doesn’t address their needs, the business arrangement is going to die because that person is going to have to turn their attention to another way to feed their family. And if they are making too much, then we have a little thing called competition which will address that problem. If someone else perceives someone is getting rich by over-charging for a product or service, it is an incentive for them to jump in and compete. Capitalism is a beautiful thing, but it’s not a license to steal.
Now I would remind everyone that Compulife is not charging $1,260 “per month” for our internet engine, the $1,260 is the cost per year (that averages out to $105 per month). I pay more than that for satellite TV and the darn TV doesn’t make me a dime.
But here’s what’s really outrageous, and I would invite you to think about it. Do you think that it is even plausible that we would agree to take only $1,260 per year and then cut you loose to give that service to anyone and everyone for use on their web sites and we make nothing more than $1,260 per year? Does that even pass the smell test? If you think that’s reasonable, I can only suggest you give your head a shake.
Now I should point out that if you set that engine up on your site, and the entire world visits your site (like they do at www.term4sale.com) and runs quotes from that site, you still only pay $1,260 per year. That’s one site and we don’t count visitors or care who they are. Also note that if you are an agent, and you don’t need anything fancier than the webquote option that most subscribers buy, which you can see by going to www.termsampler.com, then you can get that solution added to your subscription for only $120 per year (an average of $10 per month), and a lot cheaper than $960 per year.
Regardless of whether you understand the logic or the fairness of what we have or are offering, the rule(s) are still very simple. Remember, these are our rules, not your rules, because it’s our software, not your software. The software belongs to Compulife, NOT YOU!
So let’s review it again. If you are an internet engine user (remember, this outfit wasn’t even paying us for that) you can re-market the engine and set up web sites for third party agents providing that those agents become Compulife subscribers.
And yes, there are volume discounts for making a third party agent a subscriber.
For the enterprising re-marketer of services connected to internet engine, there are other ways to profit. The retail price for an agent to buy our software is $180 per year, but an internet engine user can obtain and offer that same subscription at a cost of $96 per year. Let’s see, $180 – $96 is $84 profit. If the internet engine user wanted to pocket the difference, that’s OK with us. If the internet engine user wants to pass along the cost savings to their customer, which some of our internet engine users do, that’s OK with us. Either way, does that strike anyone as unfair? Remember, the agent getting the subscription through the internet engine user gets all the same benefits and services that any other Compulife subscriber gets, our Windows software, 3 free zip code listings at www.term4sale.com, etc. etc.
What part of any of this sounds unfair or unreasonable?
And there’s even better news for that internet engine buyer. If they do sufficient business and volume (60 plus sub-users), then the annual cost of Compulife can go down to as low as $60 per year (that’s an average of $5 per month). Does that sound like a bargain? It sure feels to me like we are offering a bargain. Strangely enough there are those in the life insurance industry who think that’s too much. It’s mindful of the guy who makes a $1,000 commission on the sale of a policy through www.term4sale.com, and then wonders why zip code listings are $15 per year, and wants to know if he can get a better price. Put yourself in our position, and imagine what our reaction is when we hear that.
Now clearly what we do not want is someone buying an internet engine going to the market and offering our existing customers the same product that they pay $300 for, rather than $60, and flip all our retail business. Theoretically you could do that, but if became apparent that the relationship began to suck away Compulife’s retail business, and was not bringing new business to the table, then we would simply end the relationship. We expect those internet engine users to have other services and ways that they generate money from that agent, and that our software is part of a package of services that are going to cost the agent more than $60. Or put another way, we expect our internet engine user to make money, not simply pass along our product at a discount in order to take away our retail market.
But this outfit, which had literally hundreds of these agent sites set up, refused to work with me. I recommended that the outfit write an email to all their customers and advise them that they misunderstood the use of the Compulife program, which powered the outfit’s web site quotes, and that any customer who wanted to continue to use those web site quotes would need to become a Compulife subscriber. I said I would agree, during the transition, to the outfit continuing to provide service for 30 days FREE, regardless of their response. I said I would extend the opportunity for each agent to get 6 free months of service (not our typical 4 free months) if the agent installed our Windows program and did a tutorial. That would permit them to enjoy a legal subscription to Compulife and continue to receive 6 additional FREE months of quoting service. I then said the outfit could offer our software for $60 rather than $180, assuming that 60 or more had become subscribers to Compulife a year later.
The individual running the outfit rejected that idea as completely unacceptable.
I sent this individual two follow-up emails, neither of which he responded to. The first was on April 9th, the day after the conversation. The second email was sent on April 10th, when he did not respond to the first email. Following the second email we finally located the internet engine subscriber that he was using, and the provider shut him down, about 5pm EST on Friday, April 10th.
Our internet engine user had not give permission or authorization for the outfit to access our software. What had happened was that the outfit had accessed our engine through the account of another one of our subscribers, who was a customer of our internet provider. There had been a relationship between that agent and the outfit in the past. The agent had not given authorization for the outfit to use his account.
Once our internet provider found that account, he turned it off. For the pirates the end came suddenly and swiftly. Now these folks have the embarrassment of offering free life insurance comparisons which they can’t deliver.
The individual from the outfit then called me on the morning of April 13th. I immediately asked him if he had received my two previous emails. He said he had just gotten them that morning. I said, given that he had not responded to those, that I had no wish to speak with him and that any further discussions would need to be in writing. He sent me an email which said:
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- I really just want to help you guys move up the search engines a few places. I specialize in SEO. You guys are primed to moved up.
As well, if you guys team up with [name of outfit] .. which has thousands of agents … these are agents that would want to be in your lead system. If you are interested… Give me a hollar. …
on the other hand [name of outfit] has not actively recruited term4agents in the past …. I am sure you realize that this will change. In the meantime. My programmers are perfecting the technology for a great term life quote engine.
The implied threat in the third paragraph was immediately understood by me, and while I will not share my full and lengthy response (I was quite angry) this part of the response should be clear:
- To summarize, you are to immediately cease and desist using our software on your customer websites, and to strip from those websites the .html code which you have also pirated from Compulife, without authorization, permission and without payment. You have until the end of business on April 14th to accomplish this task. If the task has not been performed, you, your programmers and your customers can expect immediate and further action on my part. And given that you have “programmers” then you have adequate human resources to accomplish that task within the time period I have specified.
On April 15th this individual then proceeded to contact a different one of Compulife’s internet engine users, and signed up for an account. The outfit then began the process of attempting to integrate their agent’s web sites/pages to use Compulife from that source. Compulife found out about that, we contacted that internet engine user, and the internet engine user pulled that plug.
Following that incident, an email was then sent to each and every Compulife internet engine user, identifying the outfit and the individual, and warning our internet engine users to not provide access to our internet engine software to this outfit, individual or any other surrogates that they might use. We asked our internet providers to be vigilant and warned that a failure to comply with our demand would result in termination of our software license to that internet engine purchaser.
To Help Us Stop Software Piracy
We promise that the changes will not mean that we will be able to gain access to your servers, or to “tap” your engine use where the engine is forced to periodically “phone home”. We discussed such counter measures and I have rejected those at this point because it is my belief that those who wish to use the engine should be able to do so and keep it within a secure environment, that allows no one access including Compulife. That policy will remain intact for now. We promise that we will announce otherwise, if we change our minds.
If I discover, after employing the new measures, that we have additional software piracy, and our counter measures for detecting it have been defeated or circumvented, we may need to make changes that do allow the software to “periodically phone home” so that we know where and who is using it. Once again, no such changes are being made and we will not do so unless we advise you first. Of course you can help us avoid such things if you can also be pro-active in reporting suspicious activity and helping us catch pirates.
The following information is important for any internet engine user.
This only applies to those subscribers buying the internet engine, not the hundreds of subscribers who use the web quote option which runs from our server (the $120 web quoting service). Once again, this has nothing to do with those subscriber who pay $120 per year for web quoting through Compulife. The changes that we are making will actually be made to our own sites before we ship the internet engines to others. Therefore, those not using the $960 per year engine have absolutely nothing to do, we take care of it for you. The $120 per year web quote services will continue and work just as they do now and you are not impacted. We are sharing what we are sharing in this bulletin to ensure that no one misunderstands what is going to be happening and the reasons why.
The first Compulife midmonth update in July will include radical changes to our data files, making those new data files completely incompatible with our old internet engine. This means that you will not be able to run the new data files from that update, unless you replace the old engine on your site.
At the same time as you place that new engine on your site, you must have the new data files as the old data files will NOT run with the new engine.
VERY IMPORTANT: Both updates (data and engine) MUST occur at the EXACT same time or the software will not work properly. If you do not update the internet engine, at the same time that you use the first midmonth update in July, and attempt to use the new data files with your old engine, you will have a catastrophic mess in your quote results.
We apologize for the pain of a sudden change like this but please remember that Compulife has uncovered the worst software piracy scheme, employing and distributing our software to unlicensed parties, that we have ever faced or encountered before.
The worst case scenario will occur if you ignore this email and further emails and bulletins to come, and are not ready with the new engine when you place the new data on your server. You will likely call in a panic to find out why your web site software has gone off the rails. We will tell you to get the July monthly update again, and NOT get the midmonth update. Once you update the old data files from the July 1st monthly update, you will be back to running.
But you will not be able to use ANY update thereafter, until you place the new engine on your site.
This scenario ensures that you, and the software pirates, have software that ceases to be updated and which will steadily and quickly become out-of-date. At that point, we will rely upon the life insurance companies, who won’t appreciate people quoting wrong or old premiums, to bring further pressure and possible legal action to bear on the perpetrators of the software piracy.
The new engine is not ready for shipment, and probably will not be ready until the end of June. We will test and incorporate it on our own quoting sites and services before it is shipped to you.
When it is shipped to you, the new engine will have the word “NEW” added to the name of the engine. You will place that file “as is” on your server. You will not rename the file, and remove the word “NEW”, until you have been advised that you have been given the new data. You will be advised of that in the midmonth update bulletin which pops up when you install the update to your Windows version of Compulife. That new data will require the “NEW” engine. We are targeting the first midmonth update AFTER the July 4th holiday.
After putting the new data on your server (we recommend doing so early in the morning or late in the evening) you will need to rename the old engine by adding the word “OLD” to that file name, and then rename the new engine by removing the word “NEW” from the file name. You will then need to immediately test the resulting changes. If there are problems (like attributes not set properly), and you cannot resolve those problems quickly, then you will need to undo the changes that you have made, get the July monthly update with your Windows program, and upload those files to your site. You will be up and running, but will need to act as soon as possible to resolve your issues with the new engine.
We apologize for this situation, but we must defeat the software pirates who are undermining our ability to profit from the hard work and investment that we have made, and continue to make, in our software. Lawsuits take a long time, and we are prepared to take the time necessary to ensure that we receive the damages we are entitled to under the law. In the meantime, we need to add measures that will let us shut down the activity. We trust you understand the dilemma created by the people behind this activity, and that we have no other means to deal with the problem.
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to email us with your questions:
Once again, internet engine users will need the new internet engine to run the new data files that will be introduced with that software just after July 4th. If you try to run new data with an old engine, IT WILL NOT WORK. If you try to run old data with the new engine, IT WILL NOT WORK. This will force everyone to use the new internet engine.
Those who may still be bootlegging our internet engine software, who want to avoid the new counter measures, could elect to use the old engine with the old data and that would work. However, the information in that software will become quickly stale. That will be subverted the first time a major life company, who deals with brokers and has competitive rates, changes those rates. That will leave any pirate having to use an old engine with old rates, and if they persist in quoting those, I suspect the life company might want to step in and correct that. Life companies have bigger budgets for lawyers than we do and tend to be rightly temperamental when someone is quoting their premiums incorrectly.
In that regard another change will be made to the new engine. The new engine will no longer run if the monthly update being used by the engine is too stale.
The way it works now, if you have the windows software on your computer, and you get to the next month without doing the monthly update, the windows software begins to complain, every time you run it. Most never see the message because Compulife has always delivered our monthly updates on time (that’s 33 year of delivering monthly updates on time).
We have not put that same logic into the internet engine, but something like that logic will be put into the new engine.
By way of explanation, it is the internet engine user which is responsible for transferring monthly updates to their servers. We don’t do it because that would undermine the assurance that we give that we will not touch the user’s server. And we don’t want software that we created, on their server, doing updates. That would open us up to blame for just about anything that went wrong on that server, regardless of whether we had anything to do with it. Goodness knows that we are occasionally blamed for problems on some computers regardless of whether our software was the problem or not. Under no circumstances can anyone blame us for something that went wrong on someone else’s server because we never touch other people’s servers, unless we have been asked to do so.
The new version of the engine will be changed to cease functioning if the monthly update on the server becomes more than 60 days old. If you are an internet engine customer, you will need to keep your data files current and up-to-date. While we realize that some may be tardy about getting those updates transferred to their servers, or may not feel they need an update because none of the companies they quote have changed, we have decided to utilize a 60 day period following the introduction of a new monthly update, as the time to turn off the internet engine quotes. That should not be considered a hardship and it is just good practice to keep the data files on the server up to date, at least monthly. And we would think that an internet engine user, who is trying to provide up-to-date and accurate information for their users, would want to know if the data that they were relying upon had become out-of-date.
To reiterate, if you are an internet engine user (paying the $960 per year) and get 60 days past the current month’s update period, the internet engine software will cease quoting and instead put up a message saying that the software needs to be updated with the current rates from Compulife.
And finally, those using the $120 web quote option have nothing to worry about, Compulife takes care of all that for you.
And let me say to those who think our terms and conditions are unreasonable, or our prices unfair, DON’T BUY OUR SOFTWARE. We are fortunate enough to have thousands of customer who do think our prices are reasonable and fair. Our existing, paying subscribers would like it if there were fewer agents and agencies using a software tool that has proved to be very profitable for themselves. There is a sense that when someone has something that gives them an edge, they want to keep the edge to themselves.
And of course the work that we will be doing means it is going to take just that much longer to deliver the changes that we have been talking about in our previous bulletins. This is yet one more delay and I find that frustrating. But these important changes must be completed first, before we can introduce some of the new features and improvements that are stacked up in our to-do box. And we don’t like talking about those too far in advance because all that does is gets our subscriber’s expectations elevated and unhappy realizing that something they want is coming, but we don’t have it yet.
Improvements For Pads/Tablets
We have previously explained why we have not created “aps” for some of the more popular phones. The problem is that if we stop to re-develop and re-compile our software for those devices, it takes time away from the backlog of improvements that we are trying to make to the software. And having been burned on Palm OS devices and the first Windows Mobile devices, which are now obsolete (no one is using them) we don’t want to get trapped into creating software versions that will quickly be made obsolete by new hardware offerings. The mobile version of Compulife, providing that you have a device that will connect to the web, is a “one size fits all solution” has been a temporary patch to hold us until we get where we are heading. And in the end, that mobile edition is still pretty good, and still pretty useful.
Of course all of that was true until some recent changes in the hardware that is now available in the market.
During March we became aware of this little device:
But here’s the best news. The full and current windows version of Compulife runs on that tiny tablet. The additional good news is that while this is a tablet that falls in size between a smart phone and a full size tablet, the screen is big enough, and the resolution good enough, that you can run Compulife on it just the same as you run Compulife on your regular Windows computer.
Did I mention you can get this brand new “HP” tablet for only $149. $149!
Do I think everyone should buy one. Not necessarily, but there are two things I like about what I am seeing.
First, for those who want a compact solution, this is about as compact as you can get, and still use Compulife as you normally do, and still read the screen. One of the problems with smart phones is that you trade compact size for ease of being able to read, or the volume of information that you can see at one time. This tablet is certainly a much bigger display than the biggest phone out there. We purchased one for Jeremiah to use and to make an initial evaluation. It is worth noting that we have purchased earlier tablet offerings that we don’t talk about because they didn’t work to our satisfaction. After Jeremiah loaded Compulife and began working with it, he liked what he saw. I asked him to bring it to my birthday dinner on April 2nd and I got to play with it for the first time. It does/did everything you would expect it to. We like it.
Second, did I mention the price of only $149? That’s the total cost for a compact device that runs the full version of Windows 8.1, not a subset like Windows RT, which does not allow Compulife to run. I had been waiting for something that broke the $200 price barrie, and this shatters it. And this tablet, at this price, is a harbinger of more things to come. It is only a matter of months before we see some of the larger tablet variations, breaking the $200 price barrier. Those offerings, at those prices, may be a better time to jump in. Either way, we are now talking about prices that make buying one of these devices a no brainer, and not a huge mistake if you decided you like a later model better. Can you imagine the number of phones that have been bought and thrown away, and the money spent on all that?
On a tablet or on a touch screen monitor, such as a laptop with a touch screen, the single touch is a left click and that’s pretty intuitive. It took us a while to figure out how you do a “right click”, which we discovered was a “touch and hold”. After about 1/2 a second a little box surrounds the spot you are touching, and when you lift you finger off the screen, it does a right click. That allowed us to file products into Pick 12 but it was a painful process.
So we turned our attention to how to program specifically for touch screens, and our programmer discovered a bunch of goodies in the programming language that we have. So we bought him one of these:
Did I mention you could buy this table for $150.36! As a Canadian I would say, “that’s friggin cheap!”
Once our programmer got the tablet he was in a position to start to play with the software and as a result we have introduced 2 significant improvements for touch screen users.
First, you can now use a “touch and swipe” motion to activate and file products into pick 12. Simply touch a product and swipe your finger to the right. This will do what a right click does with the mouse when filing products to Pick 12. Of course you must actually have a touch pad to benefit from that, but the software now “auto-detects” the present of a touch screen. If you have one, you can swipe. If you don’t have a touch pad or touch screen, you can’t swipe. If you don’t have a touch pad or touch screen, please don’t call to ask why it doesn’t work.
Second, there are certain fields on the client entry screen that require numeric or alpha/numeric input and that requires a touch keyboard if you don’t have a regular keyboard. Of course those with pad know that there is a generic way to pop a keyboard on the device at any time, but it requires touching the keyboard icon. Unfortunately, if you are entering numbers, such as the face amount, you have to choose the keyboard and then choose the numeric pad, which is two steps/choices. Not as nice as we would like, but some folks are practiced at that and can do it in their sleep.
To address this there is a new option in the “Options” menu which appears at the top of the Red Menu. When you click on “Options”, the new option is the fourth on the list and it is called:
NOTE: We can and will will enable these keyboards on additional fields throughout the program, as we get feedback from subscribers who actually use the option and who want the option added elsewhere.
Two things in regard to the new option, where you might not want this option even though you have a touch screen device.
First, if your device already has a mouse pad and keyboard, that’s the way to go. You won’t want to have a second keyboard popping up automatically when you touch choices on the client screen. The touch keyboards that pop up always cover up otehr things that you want to read on the screen, and to see those you have to close the keyboard, something of a pain.
Second, you may prefer to use the device’s default keyboard. If you are already using that, and it works to your satisfaction, our view is to not fix something that is not broken.
To summarize, if you are using Compulife on a touch screen device, you can now click and swipe products into Pick 12. Second, there is an optional keyboard system that will pop when you touch certain field on the client entry screen, but that does not work unless you click on, and enable that option under “Options” on the red menu.
And one final thought on the new:
With that in mind we suggest obtaining a stylus. Now you can’t simply take any old stylus, such as the one you are no longer using on your old Palm Pilot, and use that with this device. Like many of the newest devices, the HP has a hard “capacitive” touch screen, which means you are not actually pressing and slightly indenting the screen. Instead the screen detects the electrical energy in your finger. The stylus you choose must be compatible with the capacitive nature of your finger and such a stylus can be obtained for very little money. That stylus will make using the smaller 8″ device much easier if you are running Compulife. It will no doubt make many things much easier on that smaller pad.
NOTE: Compulife may be able to buy those stylus in bulk, and provide them at VERY, VERY low cost. Let us know if you are interested in that by emailing us here:
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