Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
The unauthorized USER (pre)MANUAL … V2
Minor updates have now been made to the manual, which can be found at
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=21781962
on the iFinix Trading Platform Technical Board
rjc
The unauthorized USER (pre)MANUAL … V2
In the current absence of a User Manual from iFinix, we are pleased to provide the unauthorized USER (pre) MANUAL for the iFinix RealTime Platform.
The manual (printed below), might not be the current release. To be sure that you are reading the current release, go to the iHub “iFinix Trading Platform Technical Board” at
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=9841
and use the link in the Board’s iBox for the current version of The unauthorized USER (pre)MANUAL.
The iBox also contains links for:
- Trouble with your subscription?
- Need iFinix RealTime problem support?
- Need a fresh copy of the program for crash recovery?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Version 2
=-=-=-=-=
Program Startup:
A fresh copy of the program can be downloaded at any time from http://www.ifinix.com/ifinixrealtime/ This would normally only be done for crash recovery, or as part of the setup for a new user. To start the program, you must supply a valid Username and Password. Occasionally a valid username/Password will fail. If this happens, just click on “OK” then click on “Login” again and the system should start.
The Login Failed message shows up for me whenever there’s a new version loading and my Virus Checker gets in the way wanting to know if the new program is ok. I tell it to accept it and it does. Typically I have to respond to one or more error acknowledgments a time or too then click on login and everything is fine.
On startup, the system automatically checks the iFinix website for an available newer version of the Platform. If it finds one, it will download the new version automatically, and will start up the new version with no further intervention.
The Menu Bar:
Each time you start the program, you will get a menu bar across the top of your screen. It’s a little intrusive, so let’s fix it first. Click on the “Menu” button (second from the left) and select properties (near the bottom). The menu’s Property window appears. Click the options tab and click on the 6 buttons as required to end up with only “Auto Hide” and “Show Text” selected (shown as “text” rather than as buttons). This will keep the menu bar out of the way until you jam your mouse cursor up against the top of the screen, then it will appear again. Select the Property window’s View tab, and change the text color to black … much easier to read. Click “Apply” at the bottom, then “OK”. Everything in the Menu Bar so far is optional. Feel free to make your own decisions.
Go get the menu bar at the top again with your cursor (doing the above will have hidden it). Click on the Menu icon on the Menu bar and click on “Save Settings”. This will save the changes that you made to the menu bar.
There are 5 icons on the menu that start up Platform windows that will likely first be of interest; “Quote”, “Offer Book”, “Time of Sales”, “Chart”, and “Ticker”. They all have a lot of common concepts and approaches to their setup and use. Some comments (on some of them) are presented below in the Platform windows section.
Note: The only approved method for closing the Platform is “Menu”/”Exit” to get out. Other rude approaches can confuse things. “Log Off” keeps the program loaded in memory, but removes the open Platform windows, and the Menu window icons. A subsequent Login (called from the Menu) brings you back to a newly started up condition without needing the time to reload the (already loaded) Platform. It’s not clear why this feature is in the system, but Log Off, then Log On, will not check for new Platform updates.
The Platform windows - general:
Each click on the Menu Bar window icons will bring up a copy of the selected window. Multiple copies of the same window are allowed (perhaps one Offer Book, or one Chart, for each stock of current interest).
Each window can be customized. There are “View” and “Settings” options that control what information is presented in a given window, and allow extensive control over colors, fonts, and display space sizing. Some sample usage follows for some of the windows.
There is limited ability to save your configuration of the Platform windows at this time. To save your current environment of the windows that you have created (from the Menu Bar), go to the Menu Bar, click on Menu, and save your current environment with “Save Workspace”. You get to name the environments that you save, under names that you assign. The next time that you restart the Platform, you can retrieve a saved environment with “Menu”/”Load Workspace”. Multiple environments can be saved for users that have different approaches to different groups of stocks.
Currently, all that is saved by Save Workspace are the windows in use, their size and position, and in some cases the stock ticker assigned to each window. Any changes made through View or Settings are lost, and must be reentered if the Platform is closed, then re-started. Customer Support has advised that Save Workspace will, in the future, also preserve the Properties that you set.
The Quote window
From the Menu Bar, select “Quote”. Start by selecting “Settings” at the top, then “Properties”, then the “Others” tab. This is where you should set the decimal width to 5, or 2, or whatever you want. The default is 4. Next press “Apply”, then “OK”. The decimal setting must be done individually with each of the Platform windows. Next on the Quote page, click on “Edit”, then “Symbols”. You get to create “Groups” (like Windows folders) to hold your stock tickers but this is optional. You can create a Group named “Current Ones” (or any other name you choose), then click on the small red + sign below it to register it. Once that is done, enter a symbol like “INXR” in the Symbol section, and click on the red + sign near the bottom to register it. Add more as desired. Once they are entered, click on “OK” at the bottom.
The Offer Book window
Sample Offer Book window … NOT current.
Go get the menu bar at the top again with your cursor, and this time select “Offer Book”. If desired, set the decimals (“Settings”/“Properties”/“Others”) and finish with “Apply” and “OK”. At the bottom left corner of the “Offer Book” screen enter the ticker of your choice, then hit <enter> to see it work. It appears that this control should be able to look after a list of symbols, but it isn’t yet clear to me as to how to make this happen.
Select “View” from the top, and click on TOS (Time of Sales). Poof! a TOS section is added to the Offer Book window. Cool.
We used to have to set the width of the Volume text box on our own, as the default width was too narrow to hold the hundreds of millions of shares that can go through INXR in a day. It has a more appropriate (wider) default now. Should you wish to change the width of any of the other text boxes, see the notes below under “Taking Control”.
The Ticker window
The “Ticker” windows interconnection between the controls is not totally clear to me, but some results can be generated
Try entering a stock’s ticker symbol in the text box, then clicking on the Start button. You should get a scrolling Ticker with a single stock symbol.
With the “Add to Symbol List” box checked, any ticker entered is added to a list. Enter two or three additional stock symbols (each replacing the previous one before hitting <enter> after each entry), then press the down arrow (triangle) to the right of the text box to see the list. To get the new entries to join the scrolling list at the top, fool around with pressing start, Pause, and Clear. To me, their actions are inconsistent, which probably means that there’s a rule that I don’t understand.
By clicking on the SymList (Symbol List) button, you will see your stock list. The intent here is to offer you an easy way to customize your list by selecting active entries from the right side, then moving them to the inactive (left) side by clicking on the << arrow key. If selecting something on the left, the >> arrow key brings it back to the right. Additional stock symbols can be added here too by entering one in the box at the top, then pressing <enter>.
To give SymList control to the scrolling ticker, you have to click on the “radio button” beside the “SymList” button on the main Ticker screen, then play with the Start/Pause/Clear buttons. I have had some luck in customizing the group displayed through this means, but I don’t quite have the whole story yet. I suspect that the program logic needs a little refining, or at least the functionality clarified, but it could just be me.
Taking control
There is a lot of control available for you to set up your own preferred layout in the Platform windows. Some general approaches are described here.
Properties: Changes made in the “Settings/Properties” of any given Platform window type, like the Offer Book for example, will automatically be applied to all other windows of the same type. Want to change the items displayed in the Offer Book’s Quote Bar? … go ahead, and when you click on Apply or OK, all the open Offer Book windows will be updated at the same time. Future windows of the same type opened during the current session will also be implemented automatically with your changes. One word of caution … the decimal setting (one of the properties) also links across all of the same type of window. I have suggested to customer support that this property should tie only to the current window (for a given stock), whereas linking the general layout seems a reasonable thing across all of the same screen type.
Text box sizes: For the Offer Book, click on Settings / Properties, and then select “Quote Bar” from the control at the top. Click on the “General” tab. Click on Volume (or any other entry) in the control list, then in the “Set Control Size” area (top right) click on the bottom right corner of the rectangle, and while continuing to hold down the left mouse button, drag the corner to the right until the first (width) value in the box below has changed from it’s starting value. Try to keep the height (the 15 value) about the same for consistency. Just below, for “Assign this size to”, click on the scope you want … the selected item only, all the items, or all the “same type” controls. Experiment on your own, to figure out what the “types” are. “Apply”, “OK”, and you’re done.
Some errors to watch for
In general, if your system won’t start the program running, or something is clearly wrong; you might be a victim to an earlier "rude" exit from the program. Turning your machine off, and restarting it, will solve the problem if a (non-visible) piece of the old program is still in memory, and running. There is a less intrusive approach available though, through the Windows “Task Manager” …
While holding down the <Ctrl> and <Alt> keys, press the <Delete> key once. Within a few seconds the “Task Manager” window will show up. Select “Process” (if it hasn’t already been selected) then click on “Image Name” (just for convenience) to sort the Process Name column by Name. Select any Processes with a name starting with iFinix, and then click on the “End Process” button in the bottom right corner. This will fix this sort of problem.
Close the Task Manager window, and restart the iFinix RealTime Platform.
If this doesn’t solve your problem, then …
There might be an easier way, but both the “Montage application has encountered a problem” error and the “Debug Assertion Failed” errors will go away if you if you download a fresh version of the system to get rid of the problem (see Crash Recovery in the iBox).
It seems that these two are tied to attempting to save your settings. It turns out that saving the “properties” for individual windows, like the “Offer Book” window is not yet implemented. So setting up (and saving) colors, available fields, width of the Volume field, number of decimals, etc. does not work at this time. Similarly, accumulated transaction data is not saved. This should be implemented soon, but there are other priorities being worked on first. When the ability to save your properties is in place, the properties will be saved by individual windows, like the Offer Book window, by clicking on File / Save Settings at the top left corner of that window. DON’T do it now though … I think that that is what has been causing at least some of the error messages and a need to download a fresh version of the program.
Odds and ends
Unfortunately, the “Menu / About iFinix RealTime” still gives the original release version of 1.0.0.2 so there is no way to easily tell the support people which version you are running. One of the support people told me that she would elevate the version number problem. This is really important for identifying problems in a new system.
Another little quirk. When the Offer Book screen comes up, the stock symbol is already filled in now, but you still have to select it and hit enter.
There are other things, in addition to the above, that you might want to play with (I changed most of the foreground and background colors (under “Styles”) on the Properties window for the “Time of Sales” screen), but by now you will have a feel for how the interface works and can explore on your own.
One last item … although the install screen says that you require .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual C++ Runtime Libraries (x86), you don’t actually have to have them in advance. During the install, the required components are installed automatically for you if you don’t already have them.
I wasn’t too pleased with the lack of a “help” system; but once I got through the above discovery, things settled down nicely
Errors in this manual
Of course there are some … lots of missing stuff too. Get over it, and let me know what they are.
rjc
The iFinix Story (condensed).
iFinix had a setback a couple of years ago, when they were mishandled by earlier financiers who executed a dump of their shares, and iFinix never got the funds from the equity that was raised. The company subsequently diluted in 2006 to survive, but at least they claim they retained those funds for their business, and that they take very little in salary.
The vision remains, and confidence in the product remains. Management runs on starvation pay to get the product and supporting structures put together. It works, but there’s no cash left for a product launch. Once bitten, they won’t touch toxic financing again so the only way to make things work is through a private financing, and some promotion to keep the dilution to a minimum. They remain committed to keep costs down, so a low cost (but somewhat restrictive), 504 financing that limits them to raising $1 million is put in place.
Close to $900,000 is raised, but to raise more at the level that the share price dropped to gets beyond the cost in dilution that they are willing to incur. The 504 financing is stalled waiting for better share prices. The company commits to a date for the release of both product and Financials, and the share price goes up, bringing an opportunity to complete the 504.
It’s Financials time, and the accountant says “You can’t put out audited Financials without mentioning the 504 financing.” The accountant also says “The 504 rules prohibit you from soliciting buyers for the 504, and talking about it in the Financials while it is still open would be seen as a solicitation of buyers.” There are 4 choices:
1) Close the 504 right away without raising all the money, and publish the Financials.
2) Complete the 504 right away, selling at any price available, and publish the Financials.
3) Delay the Financials until the share price rises.
4) Delay the Financials for a while, until the remaining 504 cash can be raised by selling at the current levels, so as not to drive the share price down any lower.
Choice 4 is made, and the ceiling has now been removed. The company is about to become “legitimate” through the Financials.
I expect that the Financials will be published very soon now, and that it could even happen this week. With the Financials published, a lot of uncertainty disappears, company valuations are possible, and the share price can finally go up to reflect a current valuation. Further price growth (based on future expectations) can then follow.
We are moving along towards an OTC listing, and if that goes smoothly we could soon be holding shares in INXR.OB
All of the above is based on information available in the public domain. Some of the above thoughts are just my own derived conclusions (“speculation” if you wish). Ideas can change with additional acquired information, so I might not have the same opinion tomorrow.
rjc
To give a good answer, we probably have to know what makes them think that they “are eligible for the free subscription”. I don’t doubt that they are, but there were a number of ways to become eligible.
In my case, I subscribed for the free one month trial when first offered (months ago). I received my code by email shortly before the product was released, with a promise of a password in a later email. Release date was getting closer, so I decided not to wait any longer and called Craig at (212) 888-0044. He got me set up with a username and password during that phone call. He also seemed to know that I was a shareholder of record on June 18 and was eligible for an additional 3 months (at least he didn't challenge me on it when I said that I was).
I can’t speak to what to expect for anything other than the situation that I presented. Perhaps there is some (significant?) difference in your friends’ situation.
I would recommend that your friends contact Craig or Arun again, and ask for their assistance, or an explanation of what is causing the delay. Perhaps it's something that they can help with.
rjc
I have seen the same thing. You described it well. I seem to see the worst period during the first trading hour of the day, so it might be a factor of the data load that they are receiving. It does happen on and off throughout the day though, so my guess is probably too simplistic.
rjc
It is the 504. I just called Sterns, and Arun confirms that the Press Release yesterday was describing the successful completion of the $1 million Financing that was done through the (to this point) ongoing 504 Financing. It is now complete and closed.
rjc
The Skull and XBones (and the other symbols) have just started showing up on the Pinks. If a Pink listed company is not current in their Financials, then they get the Skull and XBones. iFinix will be publishing their Financials any day now, and when they do, the Skull and XBones will go away.
rjc
The iFinix Story (condensed).
iFinix had a setback a couple of years ago, when they were mishandled by earlier financiers who executed a dump of their shares, and iFinix never got the funds from the equity that was raised. The company subsequently diluted in 2006 to survive, but at least they claim they retained those funds for their business, and that they take very little in salary.
The vision remains, and confidence in the product remains. Management runs on starvation pay to get the product and supporting structures put together. It works, but there’s no cash left for a product launch. Once bitten, they won’t touch toxic financing again so the only way to make things work is through a private financing, and some promotion to keep the dilution to a minimum. They remain committed to keep costs down, so a low cost (but somewhat restrictive), 504 financing that limits them to raising $1 million is put in place.
Close to $900,000 is raised, but to raise more at the level that the share price dropped to gets beyond the cost in dilution that they are willing to incur. The 504 financing is stalled waiting for better share prices. The company commits to a date for the release of both product and Financials, and the share price goes up, bringing an opportunity to complete the 504.
It’s Financials time, and the accountant says “You can’t put out audited Financials without mentioning the 504 financing.” The accountant also says “The 504 rules prohibit you from soliciting buyers for the 504, and talking about it in the Financials while it is still open would be seen as a solicitation of buyers.” There are 4 choices:
1) Close the 504 right away without raising all the money, and publish the Financials.
2) Complete the 504 right away, selling at any price available, and publish the Financials.
3) Delay the Financials until the share price rises.
4) Delay the Financials for a while, until the remaining 504 cash can be raised by selling at the current levels, so as not to drive the share price down any lower.
Choice 4 is made, and the ceiling has now been removed. The company is about to become “legitimate” through the Financials.
I expect that the Financials will be published very soon now, and that it could happen this week. With the Financials published, a lot of uncertainty disappears, company valuations are possible, and the share price can finally go up to reflect a current valuation. Further price growth (based on future expectations) can then follow.
We are moving along towards an OTC listing, and if that goes smoothly we could soon be holding shares in INXR.OB
All of the above is based on information available in the public domain. Some of the above thoughts are just my own derived conclusions (“speculation” if you wish). Ideas can change with additional acquired information, so I might not have the same opinion tomorrow.
rjc
I just shut down and restarted. There was another new update.
Last TOS now shows .0006 13:29 500000
rjc
Sounds like some people have been able to see them, and some haven't. Maybe that's what has been fixed now. Thanks booger.
rjc
This is the first Platform update since Thursday morning. Problem support said that there was a problem in getting the updates out.
Platform program updates are separate from the Data feed problems (that are fixed behind the scenes, and do not require a program update). I don't know what changes have been made in this release.
rjc
Thanks jk. With data supply and data integrity at the center of everything, I’m sure glad to hear that rather than freeze in the headlights and hope for the best, they have taken direct and immediate action.
Perhaps the data demands of 2,000 or so subscribers, right off the mark, exceeded the capabilities of the equipment that they had in place. It could be that we’re seeing them respond with equipment capabilities that they didn’t think they would need for several more months.
I love to associate with people that can make a decision.
rjc
Server problems.
I asked problem support what the problem is with the loss of the data feed today, and they said that "it is due to Technical Issues in Quote server and that our engineers are currently working to fix it".
I asked if back-up servers being considered, and they replied that "we have already submitted this Issue to our management. It will be rectified soon."
rjc
From the iFinix RealTime Platform
My TOS on the Offer Book for INXR just started running again. Everything looks up to date, although the volume on the quote bar still shows exactly double the currently correct amount. If you're willing to divide by 2 on this one for a while, it looks like we've got a running system.
No new download copy of the program is required. They fixed this one in the data feed at their end.
rjc
My TOS on the Offer Book ran fine up to 9:33am for INXR trading then stopped with a total of 1,683,333 shares detailed. The quote bar currently shows 14,086,666 traded (exactly double the currently correct amount).
rjc
iFinix Website shows that the Platform only works with Windows OS. I did see one poster on the main INXR board say that he had the RealTime Platform running under the Windows emulator on his Mac though. I don't remember who mentioned it.
rjc
The unauthorized USER (pre)MANUAL
In the current absence of a User Manual from iFinix, we are pleased to provide the unauthorized USER (pre) MANUAL for the iFinix RealTime Platform.
The manual (printed below), might not be the current release. To be sure that you are reading the current release, go to the iHub “iFinix Trading Platform Technical Board” at
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=9841
and use the link in the Board’s iBox for The unauthorized USER (pre)MANUAL
The iBox also contains links for:
- Trouble with your subscription?
- Need iFinix RealTime problem support?
- Need a fresh copy of the program for crash recovery?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Program Startup:
A fresh copy of the program can be downloaded at any time from http://www.ifinix.com/ifinixrealtime/ This would normally only be done for crash recovery, or as part of the setup for a new user. To start the program, you must supply a valid Username and Password. Occasionally a valid username/Password will fail. If this happens, just click on “OK” then click on “Login” again and the system should start.
The Login Failed message shows up for me whenever there’s a new version loading and my Virus Checker gets in the way wanting to know if the new program is ok. I tell it to accept it and it does. Typically I have to respond to one or more error acknowledgments a time or too then click on login and everything is fine.
On startup, the system automatically checks the iFinix website for an available newer version of the Platform. If it finds one, it will ask if you wish to download the new version, and will do so seamlessly if you wish it to, starting up the new version with no further intervention.
The Menu Bar:
Each time you start the program, you will get a menu bar across the top of your screen. It’s a little intrusive, so let’s fix it first. Click on the “Menu” button (second from the left) and select properties (near the bottom). The menu’s Property window appears. Click the options tab and click on the 6 buttons as required to end up with only “Auto Hide” and “Show Text” selected (shown as “text” rather than as buttons). This will keep the menu bar out of the way until you jam your mouse cursor up against the top of the screen, then it will appear again. Select the Property window’s View tab, and change the text color to black … much easier to read. Click “Apply” at the bottom, then “OK”. Everything in the Menu Bar so far is optional. Feel free to make your own decisions.
Go get the menu bar at the top again with your cursor (doing the above will have hidden it). Click on the Menu icon on the Menu bar and click on “Save Settings”. This will save the changes that you made to the menu bar.
There are 5 icons on the menu that start up Platform windows that will likely first be of interest; “Quote”, “Offer Book”, “Time of Sales”, “Chart”, and “Ticker”. They all have a lot of common concepts and approaches to their setup and use. Some comments (on some of them) are presented below in the Platform windows section.
Note: The only approved method for closing the Platform is “Menu”/”Exit” to get out. Other rude approaches can confuse things. “Log Off” keeps the program loaded in memory, but removes the open Platform windows, and the Menu window icons. A subsequent Login (called from the Menu) brings you back to a newly started up condition without needing the time to reload the (already loaded) Platform. It’s not clear why this feature is in the system, but Log Off, then Log On, will not check for new Platform updates.
The Platform Windows - gerneral:
Each click on the Menu Bar window icons will bring up a copy of the selected window. Multiple copies of the same window are allowed (perhaps one Offer Book, or one Chart, for each stock of current interest).
Each window can be customized. There are “View” and “Settings” options that control what information is presented in a given window, and allow extensive control over colors, fonts, and display space sizing. Some sample usage follows for some of the windows.
There is limited ability to save your configuration of the Platform windows at this time. To save your current environment of the windows that you have created (from the Menu Bar), go to the Menu Bar, click on Menu, and save your current environment with “Save Workspace”. You get to name the environments that you save, under names that you assign. The next time that you restart the Platform, you can retrieve a saved environment with “Menu”/”Load Workspace”. Multiple environments can be saved for users that have different approaches to different groups of stocks.
Currently, all that is saved by Save Workspace are the windows in use, their size and position, and in some cases the stock ticker assigned to each window. Any changes made through View or Settings are lost, and must be reentered if the Platform is closed, then re-started.
The Quote window
From the Menu Bar, select “Quote”. Start by selecting “Settings” at the top, then “Properties”, then the “Others” tab. This is where you should set the decimal width to 5, or 2, or whatever you want. The default is 4. Next press “Apply”, then “OK”. The decimal setting must be done individually with each of the Platform windows. Next on the Quote page, click on “Edit”, then “Symbols”. You get to create “Groups” (like Windows folders) to hold your stock tickers but this is optional. You can create a Group named “Current Ones” (or any other name you choose), then click on the small red + sign below it to register it. Once that is done, enter a symbol like “INXR” in the Symbol section, and click on the red + sign near the bottom to register it. Add more as desired. Once they are entered, click on “OK” at the bottom.
The Offer Book window
Go get the menu bar at the top again with your cursor, and this time select “Offer Book”. If desired, set the decimals (“Settings”/“Properties”/“Others”) and finish with “Apply” and “OK”. At the bottom left corner of the “Offer Book” screen enter the ticker of your choice, then hit <enter> to see it work. It appears that this control should be able to look after a list of symbols, but it isn’t yet clear to me as to how to make this happen.
Select “View” from the top, and click on TOS (Time of Sales). Poof! a TOS section is added to the Offer Book window. Cool.
As a sample problem, let’s clean up the Quote bar. Click on Settings / Properties. Click on the top control (it starts off showing “Buy&Sell”) and select “Quote Bar”, then click on the Fields tab. We want the right side (the “Selected” group) to end up with a short but useful 7 item list of “Symbol / Last Trade Price / Bid Size / Bid Price / Ask Price / Ask Size / Volume“ (in that order). While holding down the <control> key, click on each entry in the “Selected” column that you don’t want there. Made a mistake and clicked a wrong one? … just click it again. All done? … take your finger off the <control> key and click on << in the middle. If there’s something out of order in the “Selected” list, click on it, and move it up or down by clicking on the “Up” or “Down” buttons. When everything looks right, click on “Apply” and then “OK”.
One more while we’re here. Click on Settings / Properties, then find “Quote Bar in the control at the top again. This time click on the “General” tab. Click on Volume in the control list, then in the “Set Control Size” area (top right) click on the bottom right corner of the rectangle, and while continuing to hold down the left mouse button, drag the corner to the right until the first (width) value in the box below says 90 or more. Try to keep the height (the 15 value) about the same. Just below, for “Assign this size to”, click on “The selected control only”. “Apply”, “OK”, and you’re done. The Volume box is now wide enough to hold those big INXR volumes.
I’m not going to hold your hand for everything here, go ahead and play with the stuff. The colors are lots of fun.
The Ticker window
The “Ticker” windows interconnection between the controls is not totally clear to me, but some results can be generated
Try entering a stock’s ticker symbol in the text box, then clicking on the Start button. You should get a scrolling Ticker with a single stock symbol.
With the “Add to Symbol List” box checked, any ticker entered is added to a list. Enter two or three additional stock symbols (each replacing the previous one before hitting <enter> after each entry), then press the down arrow (triangle) to the right of the text box to see the list. To get the new entries to join the scrolling list at the top, fool around with pressing start, Pause, and Clear. To me, their actions are inconsistent, which probably means that there’s a rule that I don’t understand.
By clicking on the SymList (Symbol List) button, you will see your stock list. The intent here is to offer you an easy way to customize your list by selecting active entries from the right side, then moving them to the inactive (left) side by clicking on the << arrow key. If selecting something on the left, the >> arrow key brings it back to the right. Additional stock symbols can be added here too by entering one in the box at the top, then pressing <enter>.
To give SymList control to the scrolling ticker, you have to click on the “radio button” beside the “SymList” button on the main Ticker screen, then play with the Start/Pause/Clear buttons. I have had some luck in customizing the group displayed through this means, but I don’t quite have the whole story yet. I suspect that the program logic needs a little refining, or at least the functionality clarified, but it could just be me.
Some errors to watch for
In general, if your system won’t start the program running, or something is clearly wrong; you might be a victim to an earlier "rude" exit from the program. Turning your machine off, and restarting it, will solve the problem if a (non-visible) piece of the old program is still in memory, and running. There is a less intrusive approach available though, through the Windows “Task Manager” …
While holding down the <Ctrl> and <Alt> keys, press the <Delete> key once. Within a few seconds the “Task Manager” window will show up. Select “Process” (if it hasn’t already been selected) then click on “Image Name” (just for convenience) to sort the Process Name column by Name. Select any Processes with a name starting with IFinix, and then click on the End Process button in the bottom right corner. This will fix this sort of problem.
Close the Task Manager window, and restart the iFinix RealTime Platform.
If this doesn’t solve your problem, then …
There might be an easier way, but both the “Montage application has encountered a problem” error and the “Debug Assertion Failed” errors will go away if you if you download a fresh version of the system to get rid of the problem (see Crash Recovery in the iBox).
It seems that these two are tied to attempting to save your settings. It turns out that saving the “properties” for individual windows, like the “Offer Book” window is not yet implemented. So setting up (and saving) colors, available fields, width of the Volume field, number of decimals, etc. does not work at this time. Similarly, accumulated transaction data is not saved. This should be implemented soon, but there are other priorities being worked on first. When the ability to save your properties is in place, the properties will be saved by individual windows, like the Offer Book window, by clicking on File / Save Settings at the top left corner of that window. DON’T do it now though … I think that that is what has been causing at least some of the error messages and a need to download a fresh version of the program.
Odds and ends
Unfortunately, the “Menu / About iFinix RealTime” still gives the original release version of 1.0.0.2 so there is no way to easily tell the support people which version you are running. One of the support people told me that she would elevate the version number problem. This is really important for identifying problems in a new system.
Another little quirk. When the Offer Book screen comes up, the stock symbol is already filled in now, but you still have to select it and hit enter. In addition, the boxes in the quote bar (symbol, volume, etc) don’t get filled in.
There are other things that you might want to play with (I changed most of the foreground and background colors (under “Styles”) on the Properties window for the “Time of Sales” screen), but by now you will have a feel for how the interface works and can explore on your own.
One last item … although the install screen says that you require .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual C++ Runtime Libraries (x86), you don’t actually have to have them in advance. During the install, the required components are installed automatically for you if you don’t already have them.
I wasn’t too pleased with the lack of a “help” system; but once I got through the above discovery, things settled down nicely
Errors in this manual
Of course there are some … lots of missing stuff too. Get over it, and let me know what they are.
rjc
The unauthorized USER (pre)MANUAL
In the current absence of a User Manual from iFinix, we are pleased to provide the unauthorized USER (pre) MANUAL for the iFinix RealTime Platform.
The manual (printed below), might not be the current release. To be sure that you are reading the current release, go to the iHub “iFinix Trading Platform Technical Board” at
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=9841
and use the link in the Board’s iBox for The unauthorized USER (pre)MANUAL
The iBox also contains links for:
- Trouble with your subscription?
- Need iFinix RealTime problem support?
- Need a fresh copy of the program for crash recovery?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Program Startup:
A fresh copy of the program can be downloaded at any time from http://www.ifinix.com/ifinixrealtime/ This would normally only be done for crash recovery, or as part of the setup for a new user. To start the program, you must supply a valid Username and Password. Occasionally a valid username/Password will fail. If this happens, just click on “OK” then click on “Login” again and the system should start.
The Login Failed message shows up for me whenever there’s a new version loading and my Virus Checker gets in the way wanting to know if the new program is ok. I tell it to accept it and it does. Typically I have to respond to one or more error acknowledgments a time or too then click on login and everything is fine.
On startup, the system automatically checks the iFinix website for an available newer version of the Platform. If it finds one, it will ask if you wish to download the new version, and will do so seamlessly if you wish it to, starting up the new version with no further intervention.
The Menu Bar:
Each time you start the program, you will get a menu bar across the top of your screen. It’s a little intrusive, so let’s fix it first. Click on the “Menu” button (second from the left) and select properties (near the bottom). The menu’s Property window appears. Click the options tab and click on the 6 buttons as required to end up with only “Auto Hide” and “Show Text” selected (shown as “text” rather than as buttons). This will keep the menu bar out of the way until you jam your mouse cursor up against the top of the screen, then it will appear again. Select the Property window’s View tab, and change the text color to black … much easier to read. Click “Apply” at the bottom, then “OK”. Everything in the Menu Bar so far is optional. Feel free to make your own decisions.
Go get the menu bar at the top again with your cursor (doing the above will have hidden it). Click on the Menu icon on the Menu bar and click on “Save Settings”. This will save the changes that you made to the menu bar.
There are 5 icons on the menu that start up Platform windows that will likely first be of interest; “Quote”, “Offer Book”, “Time of Sales”, “Chart”, and “Ticker”. They all have a lot of common concepts and approaches to their setup and use. Some comments (on some of them) are presented below in the Platform windows section.
Note: The only approved method for closing the Platform is “Menu”/”Exit” to get out. Other rude approaches can confuse things. “Log Off” keeps the program loaded in memory, but removes the open Platform windows, and the Menu window icons. A subsequent Login (called from the Menu) brings you back to a newly started up condition without needing the time to reload the (already loaded) Platform. It’s not clear why this feature is in the system, but Log Off, then Log On, will not check for new Platform updates.
The Platform Windows - gerneral:
Each click on the Menu Bar window icons will bring up a copy of the selected window. Multiple copies of the same window are allowed (perhaps one Offer Book, or one Chart, for each stock of current interest).
Each window can be customized. There are “View” and “Settings” options that control what information is presented in a given window, and allow extensive control over colors, fonts, and display space sizing. Some sample usage follows for some of the windows.
There is limited ability to save your configuration of the Platform windows at this time. To save your current environment of the windows that you have created (from the Menu Bar), go to the Menu Bar, click on Menu, and save your current environment with “Save Workspace”. You get to name the environments that you save, under names that you assign. The next time that you restart the Platform, you can retrieve a saved environment with “Menu”/”Load Workspace”. Multiple environments can be saved for users that have different approaches to different groups of stocks.
Currently, all that is saved by Save Workspace are the windows in use, their size and position, and in some cases the stock ticker assigned to each window. Any changes made through View or Settings are lost, and must be reentered if the Platform is closed, then re-started.
The Quote window
From the Menu Bar, select “Quote”. Start by selecting “Settings” at the top, then “Properties”, then the “Others” tab. This is where you should set the decimal width to 5, or 2, or whatever you want. The default is 4. Next press “Apply”, then “OK”. The decimal setting must be done individually with each of the Platform windows. Next on the Quote page, click on “Edit”, then “Symbols”. You get to create “Groups” (like Windows folders) to hold your stock tickers but this is optional. You can create a Group named “Current Ones” (or any other name you choose), then click on the small red + sign below it to register it. Once that is done, enter a symbol like “INXR” in the Symbol section, and click on the red + sign near the bottom to register it. Add more as desired. Once they are entered, click on “OK” at the bottom.
The Offer Book window
Go get the menu bar at the top again with your cursor, and this time select “Offer Book”. If desired, set the decimals (“Settings”/“Properties”/“Others”) and finish with “Apply” and “OK”. At the bottom left corner of the “Offer Book” screen enter the ticker of your choice, then hit <enter> to see it work. It appears that this control should be able to look after a list of symbols, but it isn’t yet clear to me as to how to make this happen.
Select “View” from the top, and click on TOS (Time of Sales). Poof! a TOS section is added to the Offer Book window. Cool.
As a sample problem, let’s clean up the Quote bar. Click on Settings / Properties. Click on the top control (it starts off showing “Buy&Sell”) and select “Quote Bar”, then click on the Fields tab. We want the right side (the “Selected” group) to end up with a short but useful 7 item list of “Symbol / Last Trade Price / Bid Size / Bid Price / Ask Price / Ask Size / Volume“ (in that order). While holding down the <control> key, click on each entry in the “Selected” column that you don’t want there. Made a mistake and clicked a wrong one? … just click it again. All done? … take your finger off the <control> key and click on << in the middle. If there’s something out of order in the “Selected” list, click on it, and move it up or down by clicking on the “Up” or “Down” buttons. When everything looks right, click on “Apply” and then “OK”.
One more while we’re here. Click on Settings / Properties, then find “Quote Bar in the control at the top again. This time click on the “General” tab. Click on Volume in the control list, then in the “Set Control Size” area (top right) click on the bottom right corner of the rectangle, and while continuing to hold down the left mouse button, drag the corner to the right until the first (width) value in the box below says 90 or more. Try to keep the height (the 15 value) about the same. Just below, for “Assign this size to”, click on “The selected control only”. “Apply”, “OK”, and you’re done. The Volume box is now wide enough to hold those big INXR volumes.
I’m not going to hold your hand for everything here, go ahead and play with the stuff. The colors are lots of fun.
The Ticker window
The “Ticker” windows interconnection between the controls is not totally clear to me, but some results can be generated
Try entering a stock’s ticker symbol in the text box, then clicking on the Start button. You should get a scrolling Ticker with a single stock symbol.
With the “Add to Symbol List” box checked, any ticker entered is added to a list. Enter two or three additional stock symbols (each replacing the previous one before hitting <enter> after each entry), then press the down arrow (triangle) to the right of the text box to see the list. To get the new entries to join the scrolling list at the top, fool around with pressing start, Pause, and Clear. To me, their actions are inconsistent, which probably means that there’s a rule that I don’t understand.
By clicking on the SymList (Symbol List) button, you will see your stock list. The intent here is to offer you an easy way to customize your list by selecting active entries from the right side, then moving them to the inactive (left) side by clicking on the << arrow key. If selecting something on the left, the >> arrow key brings it back to the right. Additional stock symbols can be added here too by entering one in the box at the top, then pressing <enter>.
To give SymList control to the scrolling ticker, you have to click on the “radio button” beside the “SymList” button on the main Ticker screen, then play with the Start/Pause/Clear buttons. I have had some luck in customizing the group displayed through this means, but I don’t quite have the whole story yet. I suspect that the program logic needs a little refining, or at least the functionality clarified, but it could just be me.
Some errors to watch for
In general, if your system won’t start the program running, or something is clearly wrong; you might be a victim to an earlier "rude" exit from the program. Turning your machine off, and restarting it, will solve the problem if a (non-visible) piece of the old program is still in memory, and running. There is a less intrusive approach available though, through the Windows “Task Manager” …
While holding down the <Ctrl> and <Alt> keys, press the <Delete> key once. Within a few seconds the “Task Manager” window will show up. Select “Process” (if it hasn’t already been selected) then click on “Image Name” (just for convenience) to sort the Process Name column by Name. Select any Processes with a name starting with IFinix, and then click on the End Process button in the bottom right corner. This will fix this sort of problem.
Close the Task Manager window, and restart the iFinix RealTime Platform.
If this doesn’t solve your problem, then …
There might be an easier way, but both the “Montage application has encountered a problem” error and the “Debug Assertion Failed” errors will go away if you if you download a fresh version of the system to get rid of the problem (see Crash Recovery in the iBox).
It seems that these two are tied to attempting to save your settings. It turns out that saving the “properties” for individual windows, like the “Offer Book” window is not yet implemented. So setting up (and saving) colors, available fields, width of the Volume field, number of decimals, etc. does not work at this time. Similarly, accumulated transaction data is not saved. This should be implemented soon, but there are other priorities being worked on first. When the ability to save your properties is in place, the properties will be saved by individual windows, like the Offer Book window, by clicking on File / Save Settings at the top left corner of that window. DON’T do it now though … I think that that is what has been causing at least some of the error messages and a need to download a fresh version of the program.
Odds and ends
Unfortunately, the “Menu / About iFinix RealTime” still gives the original release version of 1.0.0.2 so there is no way to easily tell the support people which version you are running. One of the support people told me that she would elevate the version number problem. This is really important for identifying problems in a new system.
Another little quirk. When the Offer Book screen comes up, the stock symbol is already filled in now, but you still have to select it and hit enter. In addition, the boxes in the quote bar (symbol, volume, etc) don’t get filled in.
There are other things that you might want to play with (I changed most of the foreground and background colors (under “Styles”) on the Properties window for the “Time of Sales” screen), but by now you will have a feel for how the interface works and can explore on your own.
One last item … although the install screen says that you require .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual C++ Runtime Libraries (x86), you don’t actually have to have them in advance. During the install, the required components are installed automatically for you if you don’t already have them.
I wasn’t too pleased with the lack of a “help” system; but once I got through the above discovery, things settled down nicely
Errors in this manual
Of course there are some … lots of missing stuff too. Get over it, and let me know what they are.
rjc
Exit from your installed, running, iFinix RealTime Platform, then start it again. If there is an update since you last started the program, you will be asked if you want to install the update. I don't know if there has been an update since the last time you started your platform running.
rjc
Xeller8: From the Offer Book, select View (from File View Settings Format), then TOS.
rjc
There are still issues with the Volume on the quote bar, and missing entries in the TOS section of the Offer Book.
The Offer Book’s Quote Bar Volume for Pinks seems to be reporting the total of pre-market volume plus double the market volume. Up to 50% (at times) of the prints to the TOS section in the Offer Book seem to be missing.
This seems only to be a problem with the Pinks (the data feed from the Pinks?).
rjc
jagram, I was not discussing the Quote page in my post. I was discussing the Offer Book. The stock ticker that I was referring to is at the bottom left corner of the Offer Book.
For some thoughts on how to use the Quote page, see post number 2 on this board
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=21288931
which says, in part:
“… on the Quote page, click on “Edit”, then “Symbols”. You get to create “Groups” (like Windows folders) to hold your stock tickers but this is optional. You can create a Group named “Current Ones” (or any other name you choose), then click on the small red + sign below it to register it. Once that is done, enter a symbol like “INXR” in the Symbol section, and click on the red + sign near the bottom to register it. Add more as desired. Once they are entered, click on “OK” at the bottom.”
Back to the Offer Book. The control at the bottom left corner sure does look like it’s supposed to support a list, but I haven’t figured out how to populate it yet, other than have it hold a single entry.
rjc
Mine is working, but not with a lot of enthusiasm.
Late start for me this morning, but I have just now started up the RealTime platform (no update appeared this morning), selected a saved Workspace, and the two Offer Books that I had saved came up, pre-populated with the stock names shat had been there when I saved them last, and in the position where I had left them on the screen.
The data feed starts when I select the stock ticker and hit <enter>.
There are still issues with the Volume on the quote bar, and missing entries in the TOS section of the Offer Book, but the MM list and associated data seems to be working.
When you save the Workplace, only the position and stock ticker are saved. None of the customizing settings get saved yet. I assume that these issues will be addressed once the data feed issues are resoled.
For those experiencing problems, I recommend that you remove then reload the RealTime Platform as described in the crash recovery section of the iBox above, then contact problem support through the Chat Box (link in the iBox above too) if your problems continue.
If you do get back to “normal” by doing this (or anything else), please let us know.
rjc
Sounds like a good idea. I don't have a connection to Doug so I've been sending my notes to the problem support group through the Live Chat system. I have some social obligations that are going to restrict my computer time for a while, but I'll see what I can put together.
If the rest of you would add some obversations of your own in a post to this board that would be great. jk21 can package up what we come up with, and pass them along to Doug.
rjc
I’m not getting the “INXR: invalid symbol” problem. You should contact problem support with this one. Alternately, you can try the “crash recovery” approach given in the iBox.
This morning’s update is working fine for me with the NASDAQ feed, but has had problems with the Pink feed (TOS display on Offer Book, and volume in the Quote Bar ). This now seems to be resolved at their end with the feed, and doesn’t require another update to fix it.
The problem with the doubling of the reported volume is still there though for the Pinks, and the volume box is still defaulted to the original smaller size.
rjc
The Volume display in the Quote Bar of the Offer Book is displaying the pre-market volume, plus twice the volume traded after the market opens.
I have passed this on this morning to the technical team through the "Live Chat" system. A link to the technical support Live Chat is given in the iBox above.
To those that try to reach me through the iHub Mailbox system ... as I am not a paying member on iHub, I cannot respond through that system except in the hour following market close on Fridays. Also, I am limited to 15 iHub posts per day, so if late day questions go unanswered, it might be because I have run out of available posts.
rjc
I saw multiple problems with the data feed this morning too, but as of about 5-10 minutes ago, they seem to be fixed (no new program download required to see the recent improvement).
rjc
Just start your current installed version, and the update is automatic. You will be notified of the option of installing the available update.
If the update is not working for you as expected, contact the iFinix help team.
Contact information is in this board's iBox (above) and is also in the iBox at the INXR Technical board at
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=9841
rjc
Info on today’s new update is available at
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=9841
“Today's new software release is showing both premarket sales and bid/ask updates. This wasn't available before. No more need to force an update either, and volume box is back to the full size.”
rjc
Today's new software release is showing both premarket sales and bid/ask updates. This wasn't available before. No more need to force an update either, and volume box is back to the full size.
rjc
The real meaning of the financials:
Marshall McLuhan (1911 - 1980) was, among other things, a “communications theorist”. He coined the expressions “the global village” and "the medium is the message".
The idea of the global village is clear to us. Despite the vast distances between us, we are a functional village here on this board. It’s the second phrase though that applies to the upcoming INXR financials.
“The medium is the message" talks of the media … radio, TV, and today the internet. The normal interpretation is that the real story is the range and speed of the communication itself, rather than the stories or other content that is carried.
The content of Monday’s financials is going to be a little boring. We will learn things that we already know … there’s a big pile of Authorized shares, and a good chunk of them are Outstanding. We already have our guesses, and they are all good enough that nothing we see here will make much difference to our investing decision. We’ll also see that the company almost went broke, and that it’s only still here because it raised about a million in cash recently through the dilution of selling shares through a 504 placement, and that it did not enter into a toxic financing to do so. But we knew all that.
What we haven’t seen yet is the transparency; that is, the full documentation, the “proof” that this is not all a scam. We don’t think it’s a scam (or at least we hope it isn’t), or else we wouldn’t be investing here. The way that this story will be made real, is by the company using an acceptible medium that we understand, through the publishing of the financials that the accountants have now drawn up, that we hope and expect to actually see on Monday.
The discussion on Monday will be on the content of the financials, I don’t really expect otherwise. But when we look at the chart 6 months or a year from now, we will point at July 23 and say ‘there’s the day that the company became legitimate’, and no one will care much what numbers were in the documents. In our case it’s the publishing of the financials that’s the message.
If INXR weren’t listed as a Pink, then what I’m proposing here wouldn’t be appropriate; but Pinks don’t have to publish their financials. Most don’t, but this one is doing it. That’s what makes this so important. They are doing it in preparation for a listing move to a higher exchange, to give their shareholders the kind of information that they need, because they said that they were going to do it, and maybe … because they understand that it can drive the share price upward, and because it is just the right thing to do.
“The medium is the message” is flexible anough to allow me to say that the publishing of the financials is the message. That’s why this coming Monday is so important for us.
rjc
Audited financials?
It’s difficult to get out audited financials in the month and a half or so allowed after a financial quarter for an established company with a simple structure.
iFinix is a multi-national concern, busy as hell getting their product out, and with complicated business inter-relationships. On top of that, they haven’t filed financials for a very long time.
We don’t need audited to be amazed at this point. Just getting the financials up to date and published 23 days after the end of the quarter is impressive enough.
rjc
Thinkpad found a new update.
I just downloaded it, and it looks like everything is working.
Cool.
rjc
<edit> ... but the volume box has gone back to its previous (too narrow) width. A weekend of fine tuning might just do the trick for us.
It looks like it's just the Pinks that have a problem with the Offer Book display. Things seem to be clicking along nicely on the Bulletin Board and NASDAQ stocks.
I think that the platform is working, but the data feed from the Pinks is the current problem here.
Actually it might not be a Pink problem. The activity level seems to be a factor.
rjc
Problems re-starting jagram?
Mine is up and running again (although still with some problems), but if your system won’t start the program running you might be a victim to an earlier "rude" exit from the program.
Turning your machine off, and restarting it will solve the problem if a (non-visible) piece of the old program is still in memory, and running. There is a less intrusive approach available though, through the Windows “Task Manager” …
While holding down the <Ctrl> and <Alt> keys, press the <Delete> key once. Within a few seconds the Task Manager window will show up. Select “Process” (if it hasn’t already been selected) then click on “Image Name” (just for convenience) to sort the Process Name column by Name. Select any Processes with a name starting with Ifinix, and then click on the End Process button in the bottom right corner. This will fix this sort of problem.
Close the Task Manager window, and restart the iFinix RealTime Platform. If it doesn’t start up correctly now, leave the problem on the screen and call customer support at (805) 347-6964.
rjc
Same here. When the server goes down, everything goes down. It's not a program (platform) issue this time.
rjc
Where do you see that transaction cashflo? What feed? What system?
rjc
fly helos ... The Login Failed message shows up for me whenever there’s a new version loading and my Virus Checker gets in the way wanting to know if the new program is ok. I tell it to accept it and it does. Typically I have to respond to one or more error acknowledgments a time or too then click on login and everything is fine.
If your problem is other than this; call the support team at (805) 347-6964.
rjc
PS this is fresh in my memory as I loaded the new version this morning and just went through this dance with my Virus Checker.
Today’s version seems to be updating automatically now, and restoring my environment (Load Workspace) got today’s numbers with a click on the saved “INXR”. Perhaps Joe’s observation of requiring INXR.PK is required for a fresh start. I’ll be checking out the new system a little later.
rjc
This morning’s program update
The MM/bid/ask/sizes still don’t update properly in the body of the Offer Book window. The Bid size seems to be working, but the ask size does not.
The display showed bid ask of .0006/.0014 for about 45 minutes this morning, then UBSS was added at an ask of .0007 (and ETRD and others has since been added). Something IS triggering an update (the UBSS data was added), but it’s not clear to me what it is. It looks like the program is looking at an inappropriate change in value in order to force an update. For example, perhaps it updates a given MM’s position only when that MM executes a trade. I have passed this new information on to them, and the help desk people have now passed it on to the programmers.
The “Quote Bar” at the top DOES update with correct information, but not automatically. It can be updated manually by clicking in the grey area directly to the right of “File View Settings Format”.
The default width of the volume display in the top portion has been widened to handle volumes on the 100s of millions better. We do have the ability to change the width of the fields ourselves, but we still can’t yet save these “Property” changes between restarts of the program (although we can save the windows and their positions between starts).
This update was added earlier to the INXR Technical board at
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=9841
rjc