If you're having any problems, or want to suggest some improvements, please post below!

Level2 changes
In the last few weeks we've needed to implement some code changes to make us compliant with the LSE's rules on the access of Level2 data.

The following requirement is now in place:
You can only use 1 program on 1 computer to access Level2 on MoneyAM using a single username.

This means that you are able to view as many Level2 windows using any one particular browser, or program, that you wish, however you will not be able to use both Firefox and Internet Explorer at the same time (the same goes for using Quote Tracker or TradeSeeker at the same time as viewing it using a web browser)

If you find you're being logged off of MoneyAM's Level2 with the message 'you've logged on from another location' then check the above and make sure you're not running any other programs at the same time before reporting this as a bug.

Morning Ian,

We are a small team and development time is at a premium

And you have my sincere sympathies for that. As a woefully under-resourced developer myself I know how utterly demoralising it can be to have too many legitimate customer requests and far too little time to address them. At least, I have to say that I hope it's demoralising because if it isn't it implies the developers don't care. This is a psychological aspect of software development that management hardly ever seem to understand... it's a wonder these companies keep their technical people sometimes, because they certainly don't deserve to given the circumstances!

I will take your notes from your postings and pass them onto Mike and the developers for future consideration

And this is the bit where I reply to remind you that we have exactly the same conversation on the boards every four months, and you reply to assure me that the feedback really does matter, and I throw my hands into the air in frustration and think to myself "God, I hope I don't end up have this conversation again in another four months", and then four months later...

\o/

Kyoto,

I have forwarded these ideas onto our boys, as I have done before and I will either get feedback on why we can't, or hopefully, get you some assurances of when we can - let me assure you that I will bully them into an answer and I will come back to you before the week is out.

Thank you for your patience,

Ian

let me assure you that I will bully them into an answer and I will come back to you before the week is out

Now you've got me sitting here laughing - I must be making progress because last time you said two weeks :-)

I didn't intend to add to your workload - please don't feel you have to bother - I'm long past innocence and fast approaching apathy on the subject of MoneyAM's development. And to be realistic, all other things being equal the answer is going to be "interesting idea, we'll schedule that in as a future development" which is exactly what I tell my customers when I have the best of intentions to develop something which I'm not sure is ever going to happen.

My last words on the subject, because I'd like to provide a little context for Mike or any of the other MoneyAM decision makers on the off-chance they read this:

Perhaps like a number of other MoneyAM customers, I sit in my office day after day getting on with my salaried work while trading as a sideline to keep myself sane and provide some entertainment/distraction from the daily grind. I tried trading full-time but I got bored with my own company and suffice to say that I found I wanted more out of life than watching numbers tick by second by second. So, I have a couple of shares in MoneyAM's Stockwatch ticking away at the bottom of the screen as anonymously as possible beneath Visual Studio. I am - for the moment - a confirmed non-professional trader - so multiple windows, Level 2 and a lot of the clever stuff is lost on me. In fact, even when I work from home with the luxury of dedicated trading screens next to my development system, I still don't tend to use such features because I'm working rather than constantly analysing market charts and numbers.

One of the few things that would really enhance my existence out in the lower leagues of the trading world is proper streaming news notification (i.e. with a time) because otherwise I tend to miss things - partly through lack of screens and partly through lack of time to keep scanning everything. I'm actually quiet infuriated - especially as a software developer myself - by the fact that I'm sure I've spent longer talking about this change to Stockwatch than I think it would take to actually do. I mean seriously, how difficult is it to change "N" to a time flag? I can't believe we're talking about a major project here even if it means changing the underlying field data type. Unless the back end system is a complete mess (which I can't believe with IST), or unless your data providers only give you a news data flag (but then, your system still knows when the news is received and can display its own time data).

From a development point of view, MoneyAM appears to be exclusively driven by the needs of full-time traders - or at least people who want more in the way of tools than a basic live price service, and I'm sure this is a subject close to managements' hearts. But it's a pity that one of its most basic services - probably the one which most new customers will experience first - is so limited. I guess I want to raise my hand and remind the management that there are people like me out here too - for whom the Stockwatch is likely to represent 90% of the experience on a day to day basis. A few scraps from the development table would be much appreciated and I believe provide a significant social, if not ultimately economic, return on investment.

I will now go away and shut up! :-)

Kyoto,

You have my word.

Ian

kyoto - thanks for the additional info.

I am not surprised that others yearn for a few features from the old NV stockwatch screen. It was always my preferred choice, until it expired.

After making a couple of requests here(including restoring the correct timestamps on the level2 screen to show actual trade times on delayed trades), I am also realising that fixes and improvements are lower priority than I initially assumed. No doubt there is a numbercruncher somewhere prioritising costs against perceived revenue enhancement and our suggestions don't make it....

I can understand that MoneyAM has to focus on daytraders who pay the most money but there are also full time investors with longer holding timescales(of which I am one) who pay for premium services and use stockwatch as their main primary information source(& pulling up L2 screens for the most interesting stocks).

Spicing up "stockwatch" with a few requested features would no doubt give a lot of users a greater degree of satisfaction and imply that MoneyAM cares.
Even if they only apply the simplest changes, it would show commitment.

Here's hoping....

Rgds
dell

Mike; Don't give up on us yet. Yes, we have list of requests which gets longer and longer each day. Sadly however our policy is that we will implement changes on a 'do we have spare minute' basis and recently we have had no time. However you will notice that we have started to make some small headway in that we had a large number of users wanting streaming charts so we have gone with the flow and done this (not yet finalised). Why was that a priority, well two fold:

1) It was a request made by a large number
2) Commercially it made sense to do it

That is not to say that every change we do is influenced solely by 1 & 2 but it does help us to balance wish aginst need against cost.

On your specific request we are taking a look but in fact we have been contemplating a better alerts service which would be linked to news, which might be a bigger and better solution. More on this at a later date

Mike

Thanks for the reply Mike. Anything that moves us forward is to be welcomed of course, though I do wonder whether we're going down the road of streaming news or pop-up boxes. So does it mean more windows?

What I was trying to give a little insight into is the fact that - necessarily - my trading screen real-estate versus work-screen real estate is small - I don't want to have too many streaming connections open otherwise my corporate IT people are going to complain. They locked me out of CMC for a couple of weeks earlier this year probably due to bandwidth monitoring. Welcome to the real world (sigh).

Also, if I was showing one of my colleagues or my boss something on my screen, and then I got a sudden pop-up window telling me "BARCLAYS BELOW 480!" or "AFX: Psion Shoot themselves in other foot" then this would be bad :-)

I believe my boss and I share a "don't ask don't tell" policy on trading but when it starts to attract attention everyone is ultimately going to lose, MoneyAM possibly included.

I doubt I'm the only member of the 'corporate trading underground' out here but I wonder if sometimes companies like MoneyAM forget the real world this part of its customer base live in and that what we need is a low-profile low-bandwidth solution which has the basics we require packed into a centimeter of space at the bottom of our screens - perhaps "bigger and better solutions" could at least be considered in this context...

[On edit: oops, didn't realise that I'd "hit the tit". Sorry, everybody.]

Hello Dell,

Yes, I miss NV. I didn't trade with them - I just subscribed for the streaming prices - and I really only used it to monitor news. I'd love to know what Fastrade were thinking when they took NV over and threw out all the technology which NV had built, in favour of their 'service'. Still, I suppose it was all about buying the customer base.

I remember how quickly a lot of us went from ESI/Etrade to ADVFN and then here. If a better streaming service were launched by someone else tomorrow then realistically I'd be off, because as I said in a previous post - this is 90% of my daily requirement. I wonder how many other customers would be in the same position? Honestly, perhaps its very few - but I usually take the view that if that's what I'd do, I'm probably not the only one. I'd rather give MoneyAM my business because I think I quite like the people - but that said I can only make allowances for so much if I think a poorer service is costing me money...

OK the DOW loss/ gains works, but in INDU quotes how do I get rid of the fact that the ` latest` news from the DOW is dated Feb.and the chart on the right is yesterdays?

Would it be possible to put the time +or- the date in a field on the Idex Screen Sometimes it is useful

Would, could or will it be possible to order the individual portfolios by Name or Epic as well as date columns. I find the lay out is a little confusing. (I am told I am easily confused.)

Best wishes

Sequestor,

I will get the guys to take a look into this.

Fred,

Thanks for the feedback - I will add it to the earlier comments from Kyoto.

Ian

Ian it also mentions it was updated by some Ashley James bloke, maybe thats the prob.

lol

Sequestor,

I have just taken a look and the chart on the right is a one year INDU chart. The chart on the left is the intraday.

With regard to the News, the news will be added to that page if an article is asigned with the appropriate epic code. As we do not receive any news for INDU from our feeds, the only news which would appear their would be anything that Kam (our journalist) adds to the site and marks it with INDU. It would seem that he has done this on one occassion hence the one story.

Ian

Ah I see,Ian, my mistake, perhaps your guy might like to add a few more tit bits from the DOW to the site , Feb.is a long time back

cheers

Sequestor,

I will see what I can do.

Ian

thanks,even removing the present news would improve my mind, seeing the latest
apparent news being "Wall ST. seen opening lower" is depressing

If I put the Epic code into the bb search e.g. MKS nothing comes up , I know there is a thread because I just opened one, not noticing there was one here, BAY etc. nothing comes up?

Sequestor,

Many apologies for this - we are aware of the problem and are working to reolve it - Jonathan is aware of this.

Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience.

Ian

Sequestor
It is case sensative did you put in mks bay or MKS BAY?