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Non-Tech : Quote.com QCharts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jebj who wrote (4345)	11/13/1999 12:58:00 PM
From: Matthew L. Jones	Respond to of 17977

I realize that my system is not what the average investor or trader may be able to justify. I've had my own businesses for over 30 years of my life and have come to understand that doing something for a livelihood carries with it a different commitment to capital than doing something on the side may justify. Since I began trading for a living about three years ago, I made the commitment to step up to the plate and make the capital investment required. I probably have less money in my system than many do with a lot less, because I never buy the latest. Next year I will probably update my motherboards and processors (I currently have AMD K6-300 systems). I spend the money where it will provide me with the greatest return. My three ISP accounts and phone lines cost me less each month (actually about the same) as one ISDN line, but I get the added benefit of multiple paths to my data source and a combined bandwidth of half again as much data. My cell phone is just here in case I need it. The UPS's are not that expensive. If my family is dependent upon the reliability of my system, it is essential that I plan for it. I know you are frustrated. I would be too. Maybe the erroneous quotes are because you are trading less well known issues. Less people watching (and thus reporting problems). There does seem to be a lot better level of reliability with the larger cap better known stocks. More people watching them. I think that the real issue is that the first level quote providers are few-- very little competition. Also, they are managing a HUGE amount of data. In the three years I've been doing this full time, I've noticed a big improvement in reliability of systems in general. It's never fast enough for me. At one point, I had to change my trading style to compensate for the lack of reliability (so I didn't get caught by the difference between the theoretical and the realistic). I've also noticed that real time quotes sometimes lag by as much as twenty seconds from provider to provider. The reseller has nothing to do with that, but if it gets reported enough, they will change their provider. They are all marginal IMO. A final thought. I got to the end of my rope with one of my quote providers about a year and a half ago. I could never get through or get a call back. Finally, I took the time to work my way up the tech food chain until I got to one of the developers. We worked out the bugs (incidentally, that is how I found out how the whole quote business works) and I got to build a relationship with him. I even started working with him on development issues. After that, if I ever have a problem, I just email him and I get immediate response. If I have to talk to him, I call in and get the usual screeners. I tell them to go ask Greg if he will take my call. He always does. I truly believe that you could do a similar thing with Q-Charts if you still have it in you to try it. I can tell you are at the end of your rope and maybe you do need a fresh start somewhere. In which case I could make a recommendation for you. But really, I think you could get through this issue if you took the time. In the end you would have a very valuable resource when it comes to your quotes (and after all, data is the heart of this business). I hope you understand that I am trying to help and not trying to argue with you. Let me know if I can help you further. Matt

To: jebj who wrote (4345)	11/13/1999 3:13:00 PM
From: E. Davies	Respond to of 17977

I personally dont have any issues with the data itself. I couldnt care less what the last trade of the day is and anyone who does is fooling themselves thinking it matters. They have built into the software to where I can ask questions of them - right in the software. It completely mystifies me why qcharts doesnt add this capability, I hope for their own sake they do. At the very least they should be able to send us messages concerning the status of their servers when problems arise. The problems I have been having have been periods of time with not data received and then burst of data to catch up This is exactly my issue as well. I cannot trade under these circumstances, and I have made some very bad trades while qcharts stutters. I'd hate to give up the qcharts software, but I'm ready to switch. What would be most cool is if quote.com would license their data format to other providers so we could keep using the qcharts software. I'm throwing the floor open for suggestions. I dont have access to a high speed connection (even if I'm willing to pay big $$), and found that RT3 used too much bandwidth to be reliable. What can I use thats stable? I might be able to try the multi phone line approach/multi isp approach. When DSL arrives here (~6 mo) it apparently wont fix the current issues with qcharts. What would be best to use then? Eric