Each month in this Journal, our technical support staff addresses issues of interest to many CSI subscribers in a question-and-answer format. 

Notice:
  The views and information expressed in this document reflect the opinions and experience of the author Robert C. Pelletier.  Neither CSI nor the author undertake or intend to provide tax advice or trading advice in any market or endorse any outside individual or firm.  All recommendations are provided for their informational value only.  Readers should consult competent financial advisors or outside counsel before making any software purchase or investment decision.  CSI does not stand behind or endorse the products of any outside firms.

Copyright (c) 2000 Commodity Systems Inc. (CSI).  All rights are reserved.

    Our programming staff strives to identify and correct any error associated with our software, but we need enough information to reproduce a problem before we can fix it. Please gather the information below before contacting customer service about a possible software error:
 

• 1) Your User ID 
• 2) Your Windows Version 
• 3) Your UA version number
• 4) The exact wording of any error message 
• 5) The name of active window at the time of the problem 
• 6) The conditions when the error occurred 
• 7) A list of steps that led to the problem 
• 8) A detailed description of what has been tried so far

 Q.
    I am trying to write some new stock files with Unfair Advantage, but I keep getting error messages. The files won't create. What should I do?

A. 
    There are several reasons why a file might not be created on your hard drive, as explained below. If these common situations have been ruled out as the source of the problem, feel free to contact CSI Technical Support for further investigation.

1).  The directory does not exist. Right-click the "Start" button and explore your drive to confirm the existence of the specified directory. Create the new directory if necessary.

2.  The file is open in an application. If this is the case, shutting down all programs, including UA, and trying again will solve the problem.

3.  The hard drive is out of space. Right-click your "Start" button and click "Explore." See the "Free disk space" notation near the bottom of your screen.

4.  Norton Antivirus is running. This can interfere with the creation of new files. We recommend Uninstalling Norton Antivirus and trying again.

5.  IF you are running Windows NT, you may not be able to create files without administrator privileges. Check with your network administrator about this feature.

Q.
    How can I tell if the cash price I am viewing is current day or lag day?

A.
    You can find this information on our website (http://www.csidata.com/csi/exchangelist/index.html). Click on any of the files showing the "List of available Futures & Cash" and scroll to the end to find the Cash Factsheet. Look for the footnote "*" (asterisk) opposite any commodity number, which indicates that a lagged cash price is supplied for a given commodity. We anticipate adding this information to the UA factsheets in the near future.

Q.
    My Unfair Advantage has crashed several times during charting sessions, and I have noticed that it seems to happen after I cancel a request to build a chart. I'm using UA with Windows NT. What's going wrong?

A.
    This problem was probably caused by one of two recently discovered memory leaks that affected Windows NT users. Both of these have been corrected, so we strongly recommend that Windows NT users download the latest UA upgrade from the website as soon as possible. You'll be glad you did.

Q.
    [This is an uncommon request - but one worth mentioning.] I maintain a database on my computer that is derived from, but completely separate from the database UA updates each day. Please supply the format of UA's automatic database corrections so that I can apply them to my external database.

A.
    Each day of correction data received by Unfair Advantage is supplied in our standard and copyrighted comma separated variables (csv) file and format. This format is rigidly adhered to when an error is detected or reported in any historical series. The full details of the correction are supplied in comma-delimited form, giving a repeat of all of the unchanged details of the affected record, inclusive of all information that was modified. It should be understood that UA's license for personal and private use does not allow for maintaining a separate database for commercial applications. The typical user has no need to update and maintain an alternate database. Therefore, further details of the CSV format are supplied only to qualified CSI commercial (non-personal or non-private) customers.

Q.
    CSI's commodity data is virtually flawless; why is your mutual fund data so distorted?

A.
    In actuality, our mutual fund data is just about as perfect as the commodity data. We regularly review the mutual fund data deeply into the past, and errors are quite rare. Discontinuities and strong drops in price over time occur when you have not requested that UA apply supplied dividend and capital gains payments. You may choose between two forms of adjustment from the "Historic Adjustments" tab of UA's Data Options.