Choice of Interface

You can choose from among interfaces to set preferences, get information, and handle transactions. The User Interface menu gives you three choices.

• The Wizard walks you through the steps for setting up your Merkato agent to obtain bandwidth. The settings are automatically transferred to your agent and can be viewed and altered from either the Desktop or Express interfaces.
• The Desktop interface allows you to purchase bandwidth through a series of user-selectable windows. Your agent is brought to your PC and bids on your behalf from there.
• The Express interface lets you obtain status information from, and send configuration information to, an agent in the Garage. The Express interface is displayed on the Portal page upon successful login. The Express interface is considered advanced because the fields are less interactive than the Java-based Merkato Desktop interface.

When you first log in, the Express interface appears.

We recommended using the Wizard the first time you use Merkato. The Wizard walks you through the basic buying choices. When you become more advanced in your use of Merkato you can make further changes to the Desktop interface. The Desktop interface also gives you the most detailed status information. As you become more proficient with Merkato you may want to use the Express interface to make quick configuration changes and status checks without downloading your agent to your PC.