Our office will be closed from Monday May 12, 2014 to Sunday May 24, 2014 (inclusive) as we take a short break to regroup for a massive development effort on a major new release: PhonePad 5.

Before you ask, we have not set a release date for PhonePad 5 but it should be sometime this year. 🙂

During this period, you will be unable to contact Sales or Technical Support via telephone, or online chat.  Remote Support will be unavailable too.

BUT, you will still be able to contact Sales and Technical Support via email.  The response time will be longer than usual – within 48 to 72 hours rather than the usual 24 hours – but you will be able to email us, and we will respond.

All services will be back to normal on Monday May 25, 2014.

The automated ordering system will continue to work so orders can still be processed.

If you have any urgent issues, please check the PhonePad FAQs and Knowledge Base.  The answer you are looking for may be there.

So, in summary, you won’t be able to phone us during this period, or online chat, but you will still be able to email us.  We will just take a little longer than normal to respond, but we will respond.  If you do decide to phone us anyway, phone calls will not be returned until Monday May 25, 2014.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.  We promise it will be worth it.

PhonePad Support
Cybercom Software

The Internet problems have been resolved in our area and support is back online.  We will respond to all support requests in chronological order.  Sorry for any inconvenience but this was something beyond our control.

Unfortunately there has been a major disruption to Internet services in our area. Internet connectivity has been unavailable for the last 7 hours and, at this stage, the telecommunications provider doesn’t know when it will be back online.

As a result of this, we are unable to provide support until the services have been restored. If we have not responded to your support request please know that we will respond as soon as the Internet is available again.

We often get asked if it’s possible to access PhonePad remotely over the Internet.  The answer is “Yes, but….”.

PhonePad has remote access built in.  It provides both ends of the solution: PhonePad running on the remote PC and PhonePad Server running on your network server or Host PC.  It’s the bit in the middle where things get a bit complicated.  You know, that Internet thing.

PhonePad will work quite happily remotely as long as you get the middle bit sorted out.

Before we get started, now would be a good time to point out some alternatives.  Services like GoToMyPC, LogMeIn, and TeamViewer can be an easier way of doing this, and some even have a free version for private use.

Here are the bits in between, represented by the Internet cloud in the above diagram.

The tricky part is connecting the remote PC to the PhonePad Server application running on your server or Host PC.  It has to go through your ISP’s server, your router and your firewall.

Your server or Host PC’s IP Address is local to your network.  There’s no point configuring PhonePad with this IP Address as it’s not accessible outside of your network.

An IP Address will be automatically assigned to your router by your ISP (Internet Service Provider).  PhonePad can use that IP Address to connect to your router.

But that’s not all.

Your router needs to be configured to forward the connection to your Server or Host PC’s IP Address, using Port Forwarding via ports 12005 and 12006.  These ports may also need to be opened on any firewalls that you have on your network, and also in any security software you use.

The method for configuring Port Forwarding on your router will vary between manufacturers, and even between models for the same manufacturer.  You can find out information on port forwarding in your router manual.  There is also extensive information available here: www.portforward.com.

But there’s a trap for young players.  The external IP Address assigned by your ISP can change.  When this changes then PhonePad in the remote location will no longer be able to access the PhonePad Server over the Internet.

You can get around this by using a Dynamic DNS service like DynDNS (www.dyndns.com).  With DynDNS you will need to open an account, which currently costs around $30 per year.  Once you have an account you can create a DNS alias, which you will use instead of an IP Address.

You also need to download a small program (available from DynDNS) to your Server or Host PC.  This app continually updates the DNS service with the IP Address assigned by your ISP, so if it changes the DNS service will know what it is.

Instead of connecting to an IP Address, PhonePad on your remote system will connect via the DNS alias you created, enabling it to connect to your PhonePad Server no matter what the IP Address changes to.

Please note that all of these elements have to be in place.  You can’t skip anything and expect it to work.

To sum it up, here is what needs to be done:

• In the remote location, PhonePad has to be configured for Remote Mode using DBConnect.  The alias you created under your DynDNS account (or similar) has to be entered in Server Host Name under the Server tab.  For example, if your alias was myalias.dynalias.com, you would enter myalias.dynalias.com under Server Host Name.
• In the remote location, your security software and/or firewall may need to be configured to allow PhonePad to connect over the Internet.  You may also need to specify ports 12005 and 12006.
• In the office, Port Forwarding needs to be set on the router/modem.  It needs to port forward ports 12005 and 12006 to the server’s IP Address.  We can’t tell you how to configure this because all routers are different.  You will need to consult your router’s manual for more information.
• In the office, you may have security software and/or firewalls either on the router and/or server that need to be configured to allow the connection between PhonePad Server and the Internet.
• The PhonePad Server must be running on the server.
• The DynDNS update application (or similar) must be running on the server.

As you can probably guess, this is not something we can set up automatically for you.  We can help you with configuring PhonePad in the remote location, and with configuring the PhonePad Server on your network, but you will need to get the bits in between sorted out.

We can provide some guidance but we can’t do this directly for you as that part doesn’t really have anything to do with PhonePad specifically.  You will need someone with some IT expertise to help with this.  We are happy to liaise with them to help you get up and running.

We are pleased to announce that the problem with the online ordering system have been resolved and the system is back online.

We are experiencing some issues with our online ordering system.  This has been reported to the web hosting service we use and they are working on it.  This has never happened before in the several years we have used this service – hopefully it will be back up soon.
If you are trying to order PhonePad and are experiencing problems, or if you have placed an order and have not received an email acknowledgement from us, please contact support@cybercom-software.com and we will get it sorted out.

Thanks.

PhonePad Support

We have replaced the old Knowledge Base with a new one.  There aren’t many articles there yet but we will be adding quite a few over the coming weeks.  We will also be fine tuning the Knowledge Base interface so its appearance and functionality may change over this period as well.

You can access the new Knowledge Base here:  http://www.cybercom-software.com/knowledgebase

Oh, in case you’re not sure what this Knowledge Base stuff is all about, it’s a central repository that includes, or will include, common problems and how to resolve them, articles on how to use PhonePad and our other software, hints and tips, and anything else we can think of to make things easier for you.  It’s searchable so you can find things easier.

We hope you find it useful.

There will be limited support available from Thursday Feb 6 to Friday Feb 7, 2014 (US time).  Email support will still be available and we will respond within 24 hours as usual.  Remote support will not be available on these two days, and phone calls will be returned the following Monday.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

PhonePad Support

We are pleased to announce the release of PhonePad Version 4.24 Build 2 (4.24.0.2).  This is a maintenance release that addresses one important issue:

• Some astute users spotted a problem with the last release.  In our enthusiasm to fix some fairly important issues in 4.24 we accidentally broke AutoLogin.  Sorry about that.  This has been fixed in this build.

This release can be downloaded from the PhonePad download page or from My PhonePad Account.  As the only change in this build is restricted to the PhonePad executable, to save yourself time you can download just the executable.

This is a free minor update for licensed PhonePad users.

You do not need to run DBUpdate after installing this specific upgrade (there have been no database changes), unless you are upgrading from a version prior to 4.22.