We plan to post the September 2004 Internet monthly update to our six monthly update web sites on September 30th.

The September disk update will be processed Thursday, September 30th and the disks will be shipped on that day. You should have the disk update by October 4th.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Subscribers who are still receiving disks can save up to $100 per year by switching to updates by Internet. Please read the last section of this bulletin for complete details. Don't wait for your next invoice to make the change. Compulife will bonus your subscription renewal deadline for switching from disks to internet.

As we discussed last month, those receiving disk updates can expect those updates to be shipped a little later in the preceding month which means you may find the update is routinely coming in after the first of the month. We are no longer targeting the 1st of the month as the date for the shipment to arrive in your office. The target is to have the update on our websites a day or two before the 1st of the month.

The downside for our disk update customers is that the system will squawk after the first of the month, complaining that it needs the new monthly update. Click OK and move forward to do quotes.

This change is important because a number of companies typically introduce first of the month changes at the end of the preceding month. Frequently we are put in a squeeze at the end of the month. It happened again at the end of July. Just after we had prepared our August monthly update, one company called to tell us that they were sending us new rates for the first of the month. Those new rates were in the first midmonth update meaning that disk updates did not get the change unless they obtained a midmonth update.

And here's the irony. If you get midmonth updates by Internet, but you still get disk updates each month, SWITCH OVER! Monthly updates by Internet work the same way midmonth updates do.

Alternately, if all you get is the disk update, then you can expect not to miss end of the month changes such as the one we have just discussed.

We have had an annoying problems trying to resolve a problem our windows program had talking to the Outlook e-mail system. Those who subscribe to the full version of Compulife (NOT the less expensive Term4Sale - Agent Edition), know that Compulife has a feature which allows quotes to be e-mailed as attached PDF files. If you use the e- mail option, the system automatically pops up a new e-mail in a standard form. Incidentally, the content of the standard e-mail can be changed by going to "Options" on the Red Master Menu. The choice is "PDF / Email Options".

The only problem was that some systems that used Outlook (NOT Outlook Express gave an error. The problem with that is that NOT all systems using Outlook did that and none of the systems in our office were doing that. However, a tip from one of our subscribers got one of our machines to replicate the bug, and so after much fussing with it, our programmer was able to get to the bottom of the problem and get it working. Those who took midmonth updates in August have confirmed that the fix works.

If you are one of those unfortunate soles who was using Outlook and could not use Compulife's e-mail option, you can now do so. The only thing you need to do is go to "Options" on the Red Master Menu and select "PDF / Email Options". On the right hand side of the window there is a menu of e-mail systems which now includes a third option for "Outlook". Please select that option and you should be all set.

As part of our ongoing efforts to move customers from our DOS software to our Windows software, we will be removing DOS software from our DISK UPDATES effective December 1, 2004. The exception will be the install program which your computer uses to update from disks.

Currently disk updates contain BOTH Windows and DOS software. This means that the disk updates contain more files than we would need to ship if we were only providing Windows software. Further, because the majority of our customers now update by Internet, and because disk capacity is not an issue for monthly updates by internet, and because we prefer you to get updates by Internet, we will be removing the DOS program from our disk updates effective December 1, 2004.

What does that mean and what do you need to do if you are getting disk updates? You have two options:

First, switch to getting updates by Internet. Monthly updates by internet will continue to receive the DOS and Windows program until the 3rd quarter of 2005. We expect the early part of 2006 to be a very busy time for us, and we intend to move everyone who still uses DOS software, to our Windows software, by the end of 2005.

Second, learn to use the Windows software.

Actually, we recommend both because as we noted, we will not be supporting DOS software after the 3rd quarter of 2005. By that point all Compulife subscribers will need to be using the Windows program.

Warning: The December 1, 2004 monthly disk update (NOT INTERNET UPDATE) will have a GO.EXE file that will not run the DOS software, it will simply start the Windows software. Effectively the DOS software will be removed from your computer on December 1, 2004. Once again, this only applies to those who get monthly updates by disk.

During September you should not expect any new improvement in our Windows software. We are making some changes to the Canadian options in the software to address joint life products that are quoted in Canada and not in the U.S. During August we discontinued our DOS joint life software in Canada, and now require Canadian customers to use the Windows program for those quotes. Now that we do not have to include those options in both DOS and Windows, the Windows program can be changed to make joint life maintenance easier. Further, we have some improvements to introduce to that joint life software, which we will begin adding at the same time. Until that work is completed, you can expect we will only make changes to solve bugs during the month of September.

For those who update by Internet, Compulife has gone to great lengths to provide you with redundancy in our web sites. Our main web site is:

However, we keep two completely separate websites, on two completely different servers, at:

Whatever we update to compulife.com, we are also updating to compulife.us and to compulife.cc. If one web site goes down, for whatever reason, either of the other two are ready to serve you. That includes both monthly and mid-month updates.

For those doing monthly updates by Internet, we rely on three other web sites to supply monthly updates. These are automatically checked and used by our automatic Internet update software.

For those receiving updates by disks, you are responsible to return those disks each month. Not returning disks can lead to the termination of your update service. For those not wanting to return disks there are two ways to eliminate the problem.

1. Switch to obtaining monthly updates by Internet.

Not only will you eliminate the expense and hassle of returning disks, you will save $100 per year in subscription fees.

To switch to Internet monthly updates, go to our web page www.compulife.com and select the last menu choice "Forms, applications, instruction tutorials, etc." Under the section "License Agreements" you will need to select and complete a new License Agreement for the type of license you have. After you have printed the new agreement, please read it, especially the part where you agree that you have successfully downloaded and processed our "mid-month updates". If you haven't done that before, call us and we'll be happy to step you through the procedure. It's easy.

2. Disk Purchase Program

The other way to avoid returning the disks and the disk box each month is to pre-purchase them for $21 per year ($1.75 per month). Once you do that you can keep them for future reference, throw them away or return them for a credit (once each year) when you are invoiced for the following year. $21 costs you less than mailing back disks each month.