JerryS

My first experience with writing software was as a freshman in engineering at U. of Colorado. The language was MAD, for the IBM 704, and later. Had to write out or type the code then send it through university mail to a keypunch operator in another building. They would punch the cards and send those to the computer room, wherever that was, and I would get the results a day later. If there was an error, I would get a full-sheet printout of Alfred E. Newman's face with a few machine-generated notes at the bottom "explaining" possible causes. Modify code -- repeat till working. I hated computer programming. That was also the last year they taught MAD. The new language would be Fortran. My MAD experience was worthless. Years later, I decided computer programming would be a good thing to learn. After all, a lot of equations for various modulations in communications gear do not have closed-form solutions. Some feedback loops are up to fifth order and take a very long time to come up with error-free equations which are extremely difficult to interpret without simulation. What are you going to do with a fifth-order Nyquist plot if you can't wiggle the values around a little and see imediate results? So one must simulate on the computer. So I became addicted to programming. So my resume ended up saying that I was an RF engineer (considered black magic by all other engineers), and that I was proficient in a couple computer languages, and I also new digital hardware pretty well. Eventually that combination allowed me to get lucrative jobs as a consultant. A typical situation is that there are bugs in a product. The software guys know relatively little about digital hardware (and absolutely nothing about RF) so they blame the digital hardware guys for the problems. The digital hardware guys know relatively little about software (and absolutely nothing about RF) so they blame the software guys for the problems. Eventually, as neither of those groups can agree on the source of the problems, they blame the radio guys. When that didn't work, upper management would borrow me from my project for a couple days and ask me to go see what I could find out. Then they would plead with me to limit my time because they knew that I would get carried away and find perhaps a dozen problems while all that they wanted fixed was that particular one that nobody could fix. Normally when you see all that finger pointing, it's management that needs to get fixed first. You can't have an "A" grade company without "A" grade management. That's because a "B" grade manager can't recognise an "A" grade designer, so they never hire them except by pure accident which doesn't happen often because "A" grade designers are rare.

Downloads are transient events which often happen so fast with a wideband connection such that messages aren't around long enough to read. Therefore, message boxes which require confirmation are a good idea. I got the log on a second attempt, doing nothing different, and you have mail. The log was found here (*** = private info): C:\Users\********\AppData\Local\2GK\Medved Trader That location was picked by the computer along with the installation program doing whatever it chose -- not me. My only involvement in the installation was to move the bookmark down to the Taskbar where it belonged (IMO). ---- As another note ... I've written code for many years and have on a few occasions had problems with code working properly on one computer and not working so well on another, and those specific problems were always solved by adding artificial delay within the code at the points that somehow caused the problem. My biggest problem (many years ago) in that general area was the microsoft mouse driver and its interaction with the video driver. The final solution was that, while my program had control, I disabled mouse communication to everything but my program and all mouse communication was redirected to a driver that I wrote within my program. In other words, while my program was active, the MS mouse driver was castrated. But those were the days when there were a lot of incompatibility issues between hardware and software, mostly related to timing issues. The most famous I know of was when HP decided to branch out from lab equipment and enter the PC market. Their first PCs had a lot of software/hardware compatibility issues, mostly because they were so arrogant with their success in creating and selling lab instruments such that they decided they also always knew best when it came to computer cards. They soon learned otherwise as the problem reports started piling up. Eventually, HP redesigned their cards.

Received following error after downloading Log file exactly as described: Medved Trader encountered an Error Cross-thread operation not valid: Control " accessed from a thread other than the thread it was created on. I checked directory where MT exists: C:\Program Files\Medved Trader. Most recent file is dated 8/22/16 3:15 PM That date/time is definitely not today. If a log file was downloaded, it must be somewhere else. Searched entire computer for files of the type *.log and found nothing later than several hours earlier this morning.

No quotes for SWKS would fill the options table, and I tried everything I could think of. Had no problem filling the table when selecting any other symbol. I didn't want to reboot until I tried everything because if it did work after rebooting, It would be impossible to find the cause. Finally gave up. Rebooted. Requested options data for SWKS. Table immediately filled. Problem gone. Evanescent problems are the worst kind. Not having access to the source code, I would likely never be able to find its cause. If it happens again, perhaps there is a log file I could copy and send?

Tried everything and this doesn't make sense. Could not get quotes for SWKS options. Tried lots of symbols and all worked except SWKS. Tried two data sources: Yahoo and TDA. Still no quotes. Do not see anything unusual about any settings. Played with settings -- still no quotes for SWKS but every other symbol works. Finally decided to close MT and reboot. Now it works. ???????? Somehow it seems that something got corrupted, perhaps something in a temporary file that gets rewritten and therefore repaired when the program is reloaded. Otherwise, I don't have a clue.

I have barely over a dozen programs that handle all my common tasks. So, with an uncluttered screen as a goal, all tasks are initiated from the Task Bar because, after all, that's why it's called a Task Bar. All other, infrequently used, programs are easily available at the Start menu program list. If I wanted to glorify shortcuts I would make them large and I would leave them on the screen for everyone to see. As it is, the Recycle Bin is the only icon I leave on the Desktop -- for emphatic effect. Thankyou for your help.

The state of that setting selection was the default at program installation (I'm pretty sure). I changed the setting and that fixed the problem. But ... that doesn't matter because I think that the backlighting of the MT icon on that Quick_Launch side of the Taskbar should always be allowed when the program is active, as it is for every other icon over there (including Excel, where it can be minimized yet still in a state werein it can give notifications). For MT, there is always a Quick_Launch MT icon in the left portion of the Taskbar, whether the program is running or not. That is the one I'm interested in, not the one at right. Once the program is running, then there is an MT icon in the Notification area of the Taskbar at right. I rarely look over there except for programs that give indications or feedback there (such as a network monitor or battery indicator, etc.), but I won't look there as a habit to see if MT is running because I'll know it is running while I'm anticipating a notification and that notification may come any minute. I don't like bookmarks scattered all over my monitor screen. So I pinned one to the Taskbar for MT. All my programs are set up the same way. All their icons should act the same way. They all do except for MT. It should operate the same as all the rest. It should be backlit when MT is minimized. You wrote, " If you don't want it to hide entirely ..." That MT icon that I put in the Quick_Launch area is never hidden entirely. All that changes is whether or not its backlight is enabled. I can't think of a single reason why there should be an option to allow or disallow that backlight.

Taskbar icon not highlighted during Minimize All. In other words, the program's icon indicates the program is not running at all when in reality it is. The normal Windows response is that the program's taskbar icon's background should be highlighted. Or could it possibly be not highlighted because the program is loaded but not operational while totally minimized, which would mean alerts would not function? Got me confused.

Son of a gun. Cool! Would still like to see Minimize All brightened up a bit. That's an important button to me, and because of its smallish-grayish appearance I didn't even see it for a long time. Probably accidentally discovered it as I panned the mouse over it, causing its info window to pop up. While I'm here. I've read where others have sometimes had trouble getting data from TDA. I've had that problem a few times. Again this morning in fact, and it was really irritating me. Couldn't figure out how to goose TDA, change servers, whatever. Imagined them all asleep at their desks. I think I tried re-logging in, and that didn't help. Tried quitting program and reloading, and that didn't do anything the first time, but finally worked the third time -- not a charm to me. Thought there might be some mix up as this is supposedly the last day for QT.

Closing MT is cumbersome. Almost all software (inappropriately) allows the use of the X in the upper-right corner to close a program. QT did that, for instance. So it is a habit that everybody has formed -- and it's really hard to break. Unfortunately, MT doesn't consider a portfolio window to be the main program unit (because it considers the Dashboard to be the main program unit). And MT has gone a wee bit farther and doesn't allow closing the Dashboard, but you can hide it. As a result, for all of you who consider your portfolio window to be the main program, you have to go through the totally annoying steps of expanding the portfolio window to expose the drop-downs, then select File, then select Exit. I absolutely hate that, and so do most of you. But there is a potential solution. All portfolio windows have a Minimize All button at the top ribbon on the right side. The icon of that button is a wee bit too complex and should be simplified (eliminate one of the arrows and make the image a wee bit larger), but at least the button works and minimizes all windows with one click. Suggestion: Put another button right next to the Minimize All button, and make it function as Close All. A window could open and ask if you are sure, and that would give one last chance to backup files or change your mind. But if you click Yes, everything closes. Bingo! Problem solved.

Implied Vol is a reverse calculation of the options model. It answers the question: what would the underlying volatility have to be in order to obtain the prices that the options are actually trading at? Because of that, there is no closed-form equation to calculate IV. It is commonly calculated through an iterative process: Insert a volatility number into the options equation and calculate an option's price; if it doesn't equal traded price, adjust volatility number by a small amount and recalculate and test again. Continue adjusting volatility and re-calculating until calculated price is equal to traded price within an insignificant error, then you are done and you now have an estimate of IV. Why just an estimate? Because you have to do that for every strike. Good luck with that. It's easier to just purchase the number from an options clearing house. I doubt that TOS (through TDA) calculates that number. TDA would purchase that data from a data vendor.

When my main portfolio is being displayed and the ribbon is minimized (no File, Main, View heading showing) the Hide/Show icon has an orange background. If I click on that icon (to show those other headings) the orange background goes away. When a second portfolio is being displayed (containing indices) and its ribbon is minimized (just like the one mentioned above), its Hide/Show icon does not have an orange background. So it behaves just the opposite of the one above. If I click on that icon to show other headings, then the orange background appears. When showing an options chain, its Hide/Show icon behaves as the previous paragraph, so it also behaves in an opposite way.

Sorry for not being more specific ... You, and others, call it a Price Channel, but Donchian popularized that specific type of channel (that resets every n days to historical highs and lows, where n is any user choice, and the channel is horizontal except where it ramps to a new value on a following day per the value of n). So it is often named for him to give him some respect for what he did, plus to help differentiate it from other types of price channels which have other differentiating characteristics (which usually results in continuous straight lines that usually have a slope, as opposed to always being horizontal). All of those Donchian-like channels use previous Highs and Lows to set the boundaries, and not current day values. I checked the programs mentioned, and took votes of other traders, and it is unanimous that current prices are not used when drawing the type of channel that both QT and MT, and even StockCharts.com, calls "Price Channels". Here is another reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donchian_channel StockCharts.com: http://tinyurl.com/z69qxgx

The channel currently uses data from the current day in its construction. QT did the same. That is not standard in the industry. The standard is to use previous and earlier days, not the last day. I verified this with Think or Swim, StockCharts.com, E*Signal, and other charting programs.