By, Doug Carruthers 
First things first, we missed a change to the login script on the software page of our site. Sorry to those of you that tried unsuccessfully to log-in through that page over the weekend. We corrected the problem early Monday morning however, you may need to refresh your browser to get the fix to work.
Now that we have that issue sorted out lets talk about some of the updates we introduced this week...
Improved Graphs
One of the most obvious changes you'll notice as you go through the software is that the graphs have changed considerably. We made all of them easier to read and more presentable for the reports. The operating cost and carbon emission graphs now more clearly indicate the values and labels for each bar.
Enhanced Support Tools
Less noticeable changes we made are the backend improvements to help facilitate faster and easier customer support. We have built in access for the LoopLink support team to view your projects with you. The biggest thing you should know about this function is that we will be in a read-only mode while we work with you through your questions and can never alter the specifications that you enter into your design.
We have also expanded our sort and find functions for the user list and simplified the updating for equipment profiles and other system parameters. These are changes that will make keeping LoopLink up-to-date even easier which will help to ensure that you are always working with the most current GSHP design software available.
Read-Only Mode
Besides being a necessary and very cool tool for us, the new Read-Only mode of the software will enable any expired users to view their projects and print out their reports. Of course being read-only, expired users won't be able to change their projects parameters without resubscribing but you will always have access to your information.
System Profiles and Bin Data Values
We have been periodically adding equipment profiles and bin-data locations for the past couple of months. Most of these have been by user request so if you come across an equipment profile you need or a bin-data location we haven't added yet, let us know and we will try to take care of it as soon as possible.
Program Modifications and Bug Fixes
We have made a few key changes to the software that you may or may not have realized needed tweaking.
For those that have tried to make a design with very large loads, you may have run into the cap that we originally placed on LoopLink loads. The reason for the cap was originally to avoid people designing projects that were beyond the bounds of what we intended LoopLink to be used for— residential and light commercial design. We found that for large spaces without complex gains like small warehouses, this was too stringent a restriction. Long story short, we removed the cap and have added in a warning message when loads are beyond typical for residential and light commercial applications.
The NNAGL (Normalized Net Annual Ground Load) calculation has been changed to increase accuracy. The method formerly used was a conservative one so there was no danger of underestimation. The new calculation just brings things a little closer to the true equation for the data curve.
Finally, the carbon emissions graph caused an error when generating reports for systems that had no heating loads. Being from South Dakota, we didn't think of that eventuality when we went through our original testing but some of our southern friends turned us on to this issue.