News | FWM Software

The Lien Writer™ Newsletter
Tuesday, September 25th, 2018

Timeout Using Lien Writer™ – Setting Up Properly
In our last newsletter article on Clearing the License Table we mentioned setting up the Timeout feature in Lien Writer™ to force an automatic logoff of the program when you have left your program in operation at the end of your workday. We received so many calls on this feature we decided to expand on it a bit.

Many of our customers are using their programs within a networked environment, i.e. a computer network setup whereas a number of users on separate computers are sharing a common database on a single office computer, usually a remote server. This offers a number of advantages to companies using Lien Writer™ as any single user can see and work on data entered on their compatriot’s stations from the common database.

While this multi-user system works very, very well there are risks to your network when a Lien Writer™ user fails to log off from his copy of Lien Writer™ on a daily basis, especially when the remote network administrator (your Tech Guys) have setup backup procedures for the remote server. Logically, everyone should log out of their Lien Writer™ on at least a nightly basis, before the remote server is “backed up” (that is, a copy of the server data is back up on DVD’s, Tape Backup, etc.). In fact, this should be done with any computer program you are running. If one of the users has not logged out of their copy of Lien Writer™, the daily backup of the database may fail, and may not come to the attention of the administrator. We have had network admins who have reported missed backups as long as a year in the making. That means our clients using our software lost a year’s worth of data when a network server finally failed and no backup had ever been made of their Lien Writer™ data!

While this danger exists for all programs where one fails to log off at the end of the day before the backups are started, Lien Writer™ does have a simple solution to prevent its data from not being backed up by using our Timeout function. And it is easy to setup.
1) Boot up Lien Writer™;
2) Go to the Main Menu, Setup – Defaults for Lien Writer. This will open the Setup Defaults screen;

3) Click on to Page 9. In the center column move to mid-age and the Timeout in – Minutes field;

4) In this field you can set a time for your Lien Writer™ program to close down without intervention from you, such as when you leave the program running and do not return to your computer again for the day, when the network admin has scheduled a backup. The default “0” setting means the Lien Writer™ program will not shut down without the user terminating the program the normal way. Entering here any time in minutes from 1 to 9999 (165.65 hours) schedules an automatic shutdown when the computer has had no entry in the Lien Writer™ within the specified time limit. The time limit resets to the beginning every time you do an action in Lien Writer™- press a key, move the mouse, etc;
5) The Timeout limit you set merely closes the program and shuts down the databases cleanly. When you reboot the program again it will restart with the last record you were working on, losing nothing;
6) Based on former survey of our clients using the Timeout feature, most users tend to prefer a setting of some 180 minutes (3 hours), but again this is of your choosing between 1 and 9999 minutes.
7) Using this feature absolutely prevents data damage to the remote server. Consider setting it up today.

Keeping Up To Date With Lien Writer™
The current version on the street is our 10.0.3.1 version. The new 10.1.0.0 version is to be released next week.

It is easy to update Lien Writer™:
1) If you are using a Lien Writer™ version 9.3.2.7 or before, first run Lien Writer™, then go to Help / About Lien Writer and write down your version number and expiration date for verification;
2) Open your Internet or Google Explorer;
3) Go to our website at http://www.fwmsoftware.com/fwm-software-downloads/;
4) Click on Lien_Program_Installer10.0.3.1;
5) The site will ask where you want the program to download. Put it in a directory location you want, or just download to the Desktop. Normally, it should take less than 5 minutes;
6) Once the program is downloaded, go to the directory site, or the Desktop, and double click on the Lien_Program_Installer10.0.3.1. The program will begin installing and updating your data files;
7) If the former program was of the 10.0.x.x series, it will simply update. If your version is of the 9.3.2.7 series or less, it will install but you will need to get a update code. Call (530) 622-1344, or write us at techsupp@fwmsoftware.com to receive your new code;
8) A WARNING ON USING LIEN WRITER™ VERSIONS PRIOR TO 10.0.3.1. THESE PROGRAMS ARE OUTMODED AND IN SOME CASES HAVE ILLEGAL AND OUTDATED FORMS. PLEASE UPDATE IMMEDIATELY;
9) Once you update, just use the program as you have always used it