Here are some frequently asked questions about the CollabInvest(sm) service. If your question is not answered here please post to the Personal Stock Streamer Support Forum.
CollabInvest(sm)
Accounts
Security
Contacts
Sharing Tickers, Headline and Charts
Conferences
Screenshots and Sending Files
1. What is CollabInvest(sm)?
CollabInvest(sm) is an extension to Personal Stock Streamer 8. CollabInvest allows you to collaborate with your friends, associates and trainers in real time, directly within Personal Stock Streamer.
CollabInvest is a Service Mark of DTLink, LLC.
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2. How do I get an account?
Your CollabInvest account is free with your subscription to one of the supported market data services listed on our partners page.
To register for CollabInvest, follow these steps:
1. Download a copy of Personal Stock Streamer 8.
2. Sign up for a supported stock market data service.
3. Open Personal Stock Streamer, log into your market data account.
4. When you see the CollabInvest login screen, click on the Register link.
5. Select a username and a password, verify your age and accept the terms of services.
6. You will receive a confirmation email. Click on the link provided in the email to activate your CollabInvest account.
That's all there is to it. At this point you can log in with the username and password you selected and use the system.
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3. How much does it cost?
CollabInvest is a free service for customers who maintain their subscription to a supported stock market data service. As of this writing, the least expensive of those accounts is $14.95/month with 20 minute delayed data.
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4. I keep getting "No Such Account" when trying to register. Why?
There is a short delay between the time you sign up for your supported stock market data account and when we get the notification. Typically this takes less than 20 minutes.
If you have just signed up for your market data account and get the "No Such Account" error, it means we have not yet received confirmation of your account signup with the data provider. Wait a little while and try again. If the problem continues, let us know by submitting a customer support request form.
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5. How do I recover my password?
If you have forgotten your password, there is a convenient link from the CollabInvest login screen in Personal Stock Streamer to have it resent to you.
If you have forgotten your CollabInvest username please contact support.
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6. My market data subscription expired and now I can't log in anymore.
Your CollabInvest account is tied to your stock market data subscription account. If your stock market account expires, you will no longer be able to access your CollabInvest account.
For accounts that expire, we will keep them around for at least 30 days after expiration before deleting the account.
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7. How secure is CollabInvest?
While no internet connected system is completely safe, we have designed CollabInvest to be as secure as possible while maintaining the ease of use.
1. There are no in-bound connections. All connections that CollabInvest makes from your computer are under your control. If you do not want to be automatically logged into CollabInvest when you log into the data service, go to Options->Preferences->CollabInvest and uncheck the "Login automatically" option.
2. All communications traffic between you and the CollabInvest server is encrypted with industry-standard 128-bit SSL, making it much more difficult, if not nearly impossible, for someone to listen in on the conversation.
3. Your portfolio data, including your transactions, watch lists, and notes, are never sent. There is intentionally no facility in the system to send transactions or portfolio data.
If security vulnerabilities in the system are uncovered, we will address them in a timely fashion and make updates available through the Software Update Wizard built into Personal Stock Streamer.
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8. How do I add someone to my contact list?
To add someone to your contact list, right click in the contact list window and select Add Contact.
Enter the CollabInvest username of the contact you would like to add. CollabInvest will send a request to your contact to ask him if he wants to allow you to see his online status. If he is online, he can either accept or reject the request. If he accepts your request, then you will be able to see when your new contact is online. If he rejects the request, then the contact will still appear in your contact list but you will not be able to see when he is online.
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9. My friend does not have a CollabInvest account. How can I invite him in?
Select Invite from the CollabInvest menu, enter your friend's email address and a short note, and we will send him or her an invitation with instructions for downloading Personal Stock Streamer and registering for CollabInvest.
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10. How do I fill out my own profile?
Right click in the Contact List and select Edit My Profile.
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11. How do I find someone in the network?
Right click in the Contact List menu and select "Search for Contact".
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12. How do I start a chat with someone?
To start a chat with someone that is in your contact list, just double click the name in your contact list.
You cannot start a chat with someone who is not in your contact list, but you can send them a message if you know their username. To send a message, right click in the contact list window, select "Send Message", and enter their CollabInvest username.
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13. I had a long chat session and I want to save it. Can I?
Right click in the upper chat window (not where you type) and select "Save As". This will let you save out the chat to a text file.
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14. What is the difference between a chat and message?
A chat allows you to talk to send messages back and forth interactively as you would in a conversation. You can only chat with users who are online.
Conversely, a message is more like an email. It's delivered to the user whether he is online or not. If the user is offline, he will receive the message the next time he logs in.
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15. How do I prevent unknown users from contacting me?
On the lower right hand side of the contact list window is an icon of a shield, next to the lock icon. Click on the shield icon and the option to "block messages from users not in your contact list" will come up. Click on it to set it.
Click on it again to unset it.
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16. How do I change my status in my friends contact lists?
To indicate whether you are free to chat, available, away, or not to be disturbed, click on the green circle at the bottom of the contact list. From here you can select your online status, which will be sent to your contacts.
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| Sharing Tickers, Headline and Charts |
17. How do I send a ticker?
You can send a ticker to any open one-to-one chat or conference window. Right click on the ticker symbol in your Active Securities list and select Send Ticker To. Select where you want to send the ticker from the list of active chats and conferences that is shown. You can also drag the ticker into the desired chat or conference window.
If you receive a ticker in a chat or conference, just click on it to get live data for that ticker, or right-click on it for additional options.
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18. My friend uses a different data provider and can't see the tickers I send him, why?
CollabInvest does not send any live data over the network; when you send or receive a ticker, CollabInvest only sends the ticker symbol, then your copy of Personal Stock Streamer gets data for that ticker using your market data account. If your contact uses a different market data account, then the ticker symbol must be the same on his data service in order for him to be able to get data.
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19. A friend sent me a ticker. How do I add it to my portfolio?
To add a ticker to your active securities, right-click on the ticker and select "Add to Active Securities".
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20. How do I send a headline or a URL?
To send a URL or news headline, copy and paste or drag the URL into the chat message window.
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21. How can I send a chart?
You can send a chart to any open one-to-one chat or conference window. Open the chart, set it up the way you want it with technical indicators, range settings, and period. You can also annotate the char! t with lines, arrows, and text boxes. Once it's set up the way you like it, right click on the chart and select Send Chart To. As is the case with sending a ticker, the list of currently active discussions will be displayed. Select the user or conference you would like to send the chart to.
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22. How can I send a shared chart?
When you send a chart, a popup dialog appears asking if you want the chart to be shared. There are two kinds of shared charts:
1. Charts that you can modify and others can only watch the changes, much like a presentation. This is excellent for doing online training.
2. Charts that everyone can modify simultaneously, much like a shared whiteboard. This is excellent for investment club discussions.
If you choose to send a shared chart, anything you draw on the chart will be seen by o! thers until you close the chart.
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23. C an I send my whole portfolio?
Not at this time.
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24. Can I send transactions?
Not at this time.
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25. How do I save a chart so I can post it to my blog?
Once you have the chart set up and annotated right click on it and select "Save As". The chart will be saved in .PNG format which can be resized and posted to your blog as you would any other image.
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26. How do I find and join conferences created by others?
Right click in the contact list and select Join Conference. A list of current public conferences is displayed in the dropdown list.
To join a private conference you must know the name of the conference, which you can enter into the Conference Name field.
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27. I click on a conference in my contact list, but it says it doesn't exist.
When you join a conference, a "bookmark" to that conference is created in your contacts list. Because conferences can be temporary or permanent, once the last person leaves a temporary conference, the conference room is automatically destroyed.
In the current implementation, the bookmark to a temporary conference is not deleted when the conference is destroyed, so you can have bookmarks that point to conferences that no longer exist. Right click on the conference bookmark and select "Delete" to get rid of the broken bookmark.
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28. How do I create my own conference?
Right click in the contacts list and select Create Conference. Decide on a name for your conference, which must not c onflict with the names of any other active conferences. When you press OK, a configuration screen will appear for the conference. For a quick temporary conference, you can just click OK to accept the default settings.
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29. How do I get people into my conference?
From your conference window, right click and select "Invite to Conference". Click "Add" to add contacts, and a window will appear with a list of your contacts. Click the contacts you would like to invite, then add a short invitation note in the "Reason" box and click OK.
Invitation messages will be sent to the contacts you selected.
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30. How do I create a private conference?
In the conference window right click and select Administration->Configure Conference. You can only do this if you created the conference or the conference owner gave you administrator rights.
You will see the same window that you saw when the conference was initially created. Select the "make room persistent" option.
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31. How do I kick someone out of a conference?
In the list of conference members in the right of the conference window, right click on the users name and select "Kick user out of this room". You can only kick someone out of a room if you have administrator rights in that conference.
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32. How can I control the conversation in my conference?
To control the conversation, for instance in a training scenario where you want to have questions at the end of a session, create a moderated conference. In a moderated conference, only users with administrator rights are allowed to spe ak or interact with any shared charts.
You can, at your discretion grant and revoke "voice", or the ability to speak, to other participants in the conference. To do this, right click on the user's name in the conference user list and select "Toggle Voice Privileges".
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| Screenshots and Sending Files |
33. How do I send a screenshot?
Right click on the contact in the contact list to whom you would like to send a screenshot. Decide whether you want to take a screenshot of a single window or your entire desktop, then click Take Screenshot. Click in the window or the screen.
You will see a Send File dialog that allows you to view and annotate the screenshot, or to add a short note to describe it. You can then send it to the contact by clicking Send, at which point! your contact will receive a file transfer request. Your contact will have the option to accept or decline the file transfer request, and if they accept then you will receive notification that the file is being sent.
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34. What are screenshots good for?
Screenshots are an excellent way of supporting new users especially if they are unfamiliar with some aspect of the software.
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35. How do I send a file?
Right click on the contact in the contact list you would like to send a file to. Browse your harddrive for the file you would like to send. Add a note and click Send File.
Your contact will receive a file transfer request dialog, and has the option to accept or decline the file trans! fer. If the contact accepts the file, you will see the file transfer progress.
WARNING: File transfers are limited to 1 MB. Do not accept files from people you do not know.
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36. Someone is trying to send me a file, should I accept it?
If you do not know the person sending you the file, do not accept the file.
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