ProAPOD® Real estate Investment Software has just added a mortgage payment calculator to its site that will enable visitors to make mortgage payment calculations with a full amortization schedule.

The mortgage payment calculator is easy to use. Simply enter a loan amount, interest rate, and loan term then click Calculate. ProAPOD instantly computes a monthly payment and total interest amount for the full loan as well as creating a monthly amortization table that shows the principal, interest, and remaining loan balance after each loan payment.

You can try our new mortgage payment calculator at http://www.proapod.com/calculator/mortgage_payment_calculator.php

If you would like to include this mortgage payment calculator on your own website, please contact James R Kobzeff. We are happy to let you put it on your site, but we do want our footer information to remain intact.

Microsoft Vista has implemented stricter security settings that change the way users access folders and files on their computers and in the process did make things more complicated for ProAPOD Real Estate Investment Software users.

Primarily, Vista’s default security setting prevents our real estate software users from saving their work, and in turn prompts an error message when attempting to Save As. This issue, of course, has been extremely frustrating, but not just for users of our software. Do a search for “Vista Read Only” and witness for yourself the countless inquiries and complaints made by Vista users on the web.

Why this problem with Vista? Microsoft attempted to make it more difficult for malware to access your folders and files but in this process (whether by design or oversight) also makes it more difficult for owners of those folders and files to access them.

After much research and some trial and error I discovered that the issue lies with the “permission” settings Vista applies to the folders by default, and the resolution is for the user to manually change those “permissions” in order to gain back the rightful control of those folders.

If you are currently using ProAPOD® Real Estate Investment Software on Windows Vista please read the following instructions to resolve the issue.

1. From your desktop right-click My Computer and then click Explore.
2. Click the plus (+) symbol on your C: drive to open the list of folders.
3. Scroll down to Program Files and click the plus (+) symbol to open the list of folders.
4. Locate and right-click the ProAPOD folder and then click Share…
5. Open the Security tab.
6. Under Group or user names click on Users. (Note in the Permssions for Users panel below that there are limited permissions; we want to achieve “Full control” for each group).
7. Double-click Edit.
8. Under Permissions for Users click Full control.
9. Click Apply and then click OK.

Result: ProAPOD will open normally (not as “Read Only”) and you can properly Save and Save As your files. If not, repeat these steps for each other group of names.

If you would like to read this article with screen shots please go to http://www.proapod.com/Articles/vista-perm.html

Customers of our real estate investment software sometimes get confused about how to download the software program and updates correctly.

The issue arises because browsers have security settings in place that requires users to install executable (.exe) files manually. That is, simply clicking our download link from your ProAPOD account page will not automatically install our real estate investment software, and will require you to do the following.

1. After clicking the download link, you will get a message box asking you where you want to Save the file on your computer. Designate where to Save and click Okay (or whatever appears to designate your acceptance; i.e., Run or Open). This will “download” the file to your computer.
2. Log out of your account and close the web.
3. Locate our real estate investment software executable (.exe) file on your computer and double-click to “install” the program or update. If you aren’t sure where the file was saved, do a search for “ProAPOD” or “.exe” to find it.

Note the differences between “download” and “install”. Whereas “download” signifies that the file is downloaded from the web to your computer it does not mean that the software has been installed. This is where most customers get confused. You MUST locate and double-click the .exe file from your computer to actually “install” the software program or update. (Again, this extra process is not due to ProAPOD directly, but the result of browser security settings for executable files like our software).

It’s easy to distinguish the difference between the download and install. With the install, you will see “Installing ProAPOD” in the upper left-hand corner of the screen along with verbiage that makes it clear that you are installing either our real estate investment software program or an update. It requires 3-4 button clicks to complete and will require you to accept our real estate investment software license.