Getting Started

What is ProBanker?
My credit-card payment failed. What's up with that?
How do I sign up?
ProBanker demands a password, but I don?t know what mine is! What can I do?

Browser Issues

Why does Netscape refuse to print reports?
What browsers are recommended for ProBanker?
How do I enable cookies for my browser?
Why is Netscape so slow?

Getting Started

What is ProBanker?
ProBanker is a computer simulation game. It allows players to manage a modern depository institution -- without risking any money! For more details, please take the tour.

My credit-card payment failed. What's up with that?
Certain aspects of the game (including access to the user manual) are unavailable until you pay. Online credit-card payments can fail for a number of reasons, some obvious and some subtle. Please check the following:

• Double-check your card number, expiration, etc. for typos.
• ProBanker (and our bank) use browser cookies to guarantee secure communications. Please be sure that cookies are enabled for your browser.
• Be sure that the card you're using is still valid.
• If all else fails, e-mail support@probanker.com.

How do I sign up?
Typically, players are students in a class, and ProBanker access is arranged by their professor. Your professor should provide you with an account and preliminary user id and password. After you pay, you can edit your id and password, along with other details of your profile.

However, we can also accommodate individuals who are not involved in a course. Just send us an e-mail with your needs and expectations.

ProBanker demands a password, but I don?t know what mine is! What can I do?
You should have received a temporary password from your instructor; it was probably long, and involved obscure currency names. You may then have changed the username and password to something more likable. In either case, to find the missing information, either

• Ask your instructor. Tell him/her to log in as the administrator, click "View Players" and then click on your name.
• Send an email to us at support@probanker.com. It may take a day or two, but we'll get back to you, using the email address you entered when you signed up. (You did enter an email address, didn't you?)

Browser Issues

Why does Netscape refuse to print reports?
To prevent users from accidentally viewing stale reports from the browser cache, ProBanker enforces a "no-cache" policy. Certain 4.x versions of the Netscape browser have a bug that refuses to print a report the second (and subsequent) time it is loaded. You can view the report in the browser, but an attempt to print will produce the cryptic message: "Data Missing. This document resulted from a POST operation and has expired from the cache."

This is a Netscape bug, and there is no way to configure the browser to avoid it. For those who can, the best solution is to upgrade your browser, such as Netscape 7 or Mozilla, that does not have the bug. If this is not an option, try the following workaround:

1. In Netscape, click File -> Save As..., and save the report page to a local disk (you may want to give it an *.html filename extension)
2. In Netscape, click File -> Open Page..., and open (from your local disk) the HTML page you just saved
3. Now print the reloaded page

What browsers are recommended for ProBanker?
ProBanker has been tested successfully under Linux and Windows on the following browsers:

• Internet Explorer (available for Windows)
• Mozilla (Linux, MacOS, and Windows)
• Netscape (Linux, MacOS, and Windows)
• Opera (Linux, MacOS, Symbian, OS/2, QNX, and Windows)

All are freely available (although Opera makes you look at ads if you want the free version). Personal favorites are Mozilla and Opera, for their speed.

How do I enable cookies for my browser?
Browser cookies are typically enabled by default, so this shouldn't be an issue for most users. If it is a problem, read on. Different browsers handle this differently, but here are the basic steps for four common browsers:

• Internet Explorer -- Click on Tools > Internet Options. Then click on the [Security] tab. At the bottom, click on [Default Level] or, for fine-tuning, click on [Custom Level] and scroll down to the section called "Cookies" and select [Enabled] for per-session cookies. For more detailed help on Internet Explorer, refer to Internet Explorer
• Mozilla -- Click on Edit > Preferences. Select Privacy & Security > Cookies. Select either [Enable cookies for the originating web site only] or [Enable all cookies]. For more detailed help on Mozilla, refer to Mozilla
• Netscape -- Click on Edit > Preferences. Select Advanced. Select either [Accept only cookies that get sent back to the originating server] or [Accept all cookies]. For more detailed help on Netscape, refer to Netscape
• Opera -- Click on File > Preferences. Select the [Privacy] option. In the "Cookies" section, ensure that [Enable cookies] is selected. In the first drop-down box, select the option for [Automatically accept all cookies]. Alternatively, you can select [Accept only cookies from selected servers] and then click the [Edit server filters...] button to allow cookies specifically from www.probanker.com. For more detailed help on Opera, refer to Opera

Why is Netscape so slow?
ProBanker uses nested tables to arrange elements on its web pages. Netscape versions 3.x and (to a lesser extent) 4.x use an inefficient algorithm for rendering nested tables. This can be painfully slow, especially for large tables. For better or for worse, the only realistic solution is to upgrade your browser, for example to Netscape 7 or Mozilla.