For those of you who have joined us since our Summer Newsletter, we thank you for choosing Retain Pro 2005 - or for upgrading from an earlier version. We hope it's continuing to make your retaining wall designs much easier, and with the reliability you expect. On our side, we'll continue to improve by listening to your suggestions, and fix any problems called to our attention.

If you're a new user, or missed out Summer Newsletter, you can read it on our Home page - it discussed some important technical issues. We'll also post this issue on our Home page.

CalcTrac is re-activated!

As we mentioned in our Summer Newsletter, we took out CalcTrac in version 2005. Our reasoning was that it was somewhat difficult to follow, and to check any calculation it was faster and easier to just do a quick hand calculation. However, in response to our survey question about its value to you, nearly half asked that it be re-instated. So it's back in, and improvements to it are planned. If the CalcTrac tab doesn't appear, just click YES on the next Auto Update message that pops up.

Survey Results

• 44% of those who responded are one- or two-person offices!
  26% have 3 to 9 technical employees, and 30% more than 10.
• 54% classify as primarily structural" firms, 32% primarily civil, and 10% governmental or architectural.
• 33% are also ENERCALC users.
• Only 22% accessed our online users forum (a surprise to us!).
• 50% have asked for technical support.
• Overall rating given Retain Pro 2005:
  37% "Excellent"
  53% "Very good"
  10% "Good"

Requests for new features:

We asked for a "wish list" of new features. We're starting to work on the two most requested new features and will announce their availability early next year.

Six reasons Retaining Walls Fail; And Six Cost Effective Fixes

This Special Report was promised in our last Newsletter and is now available on our Home page. It should be interesting and informative, and there will shortly to a "reader response" where you can add comments and your ideas and experiences for others to read.

Automatic Update System

This valuable feature, new in Retain Pro 2005, assures that you will never miss any patches or enhancements to the program. Every time you start Retain Pro 2005 there will be a pop-up asking if you want to check for updates. If you click YES it will either tell you none are available (you are current), or it will search your version install date and automatically enable downloading of any needed files. A description of the changes will be posted on the support page for your reference.

Check the technical FAQs on our Support page

Many of your technical support questions are already answered on our Support page. Before contacting us, please first click on Frequently Asked Technical Questions. We update it as we receive recurring questions.

Reminder about your Product Activation Code (PAC)

With our PAC system, you don't need a CD to install Retain Pro 2005 on any computer. Just download a demo version from www.retainpro.com/downloads, and insert your PAC. If you lost your PAC, you can retrieve it from www.retainpro.com/support.

Use the online Message Board & Tech Forum

This is intended to be a good place for us to post announcements and for you to post questions or comments that would be of interest to all. But we were surprised from the survey that less than one-quarter of you have accessed the Message board, and far fewer have posted. If you have any suggestions on how this feature can be more helpful - or more easily accessed -- we'd like to hear. It may be that you don't remember your password for access (you can always retrieve this from our Support page).

Reminder: Let us know if you move or change email address

Many of you will not receive this Newsletter since you did not update your profile for our database. Whenever you move or change your email address, it's easy to update your profile at www.retainpro.com/support.

Watch for our next Retain Pro Newsletter, Winter Issue, coming in February, 2006. Availability of new features will be announced.

Best wishes for the holidays, and have a great year ahead!

PS: A note to Version 6.1 users: Many of you have not graded to version 2005 and are missing important new features, and may be missing some or all of the patches issued during the life of version 6.1. We're including you with this emailing and urging you to upgrade and stay with us. To see improvements we've added in version 2005 click on List of Features at www.retainrpo.com. Until December 31st. you can upgrade for just $149. (small office license).