Tag Archives: customer relations

About requests for support

Whenever you encounter a problem with Arca Noae software which you cannot resolve on your own, you should consider opening a trouble ticket. If you have a current ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription or a current OS/2 & eCS Drivers & Software subscription, we’re here to help in any way we can. You paid for professional support with your software license and/or subscription, and you are entitled to it. To provide that level of service, however, we need a little help from you.

Before opening your ticket, please consider whether the issue is really in Arca Noae software or perhaps in a third-party component bundled with ArcaOS. Third-party software is not produced or directly supported by Arca Noae. Look at the program’s documentation. Where does it say support requests should be directed? If it is third-party software, you should probably start there. On the other hand, if it is a third-party component but your problem seems to have stemmed from the manner in which it was installed during an ArcaOS installation or update, that would be a problem for us to at least review first, because it may involve our installation software (which is our component).

Please don’t take offense if we refer you to the program’s developer or distributor for support. Those entities are probably closer to the source code than we are, and thus in a better position to assist you with your problem. We’re not passing the buck, just trying to direct you to the best place for the help you need.

If your issue is with an Arca Noae component, please review that component’s wiki pages for information on supported configurations as well as debugging instructions. The more you do ahead of time, the more you will know and the more information you will have available when we request it in your ticket. Be sure you’re using the right driver for your hardware. Be sure your system is in a supported configuration.

As a general rule when opening tickets, you should familiarize yourself with our Reporting Problems – Best Practices and Ticket Guidelines wiki pages. While these pages don’t change often, they document the framework within which we process tickets, give you an overview of what to expect from us, and likewise, what we expect from you (see mention above of “a little help from you”).

When a technician or engineer has been assigned to your ticket, consider that person your concierge to a solution for the duration of your problem. He or she is there to help. If that technician or engineer requests logging information, that’s not a suggestion. He or she requests that information in order to resolve the problem.

Always bear in mind that not all problems are reproducible by the technician or engineer, or your problem could be a configuration or usage issue. Often the only objective information the technician or engineer has to work with is contained in the log file(s) requested. If the log file(s) contain what you consider to be sensitive information (usernames, IP addresses, etc.), simply ask the ticket assignee to set your ticket to private status. When private, only you, Arca Noae staff, and developers have access to the information. You also have the option of sanitizing your log info to your satisfaction, as long as such anonymizing does not obscure the underlying data (your ticket assignee can provide more guidance, here; just ask).

If you fail to provide requested information or log files, your ticket assignee may very well resolve the ticket as “reporter unresponsive.” You may reopen the ticket within 30 days of resolution if you provide the requested information.

When you attach files to a ticket, please also post a comment. File attachments do not trigger email notifications, and do not change ticket status from Feedback, so without a comment added, the technician or engineer will have no idea that you have provided the requested information, and this may delay the ticket resolution process.

Please do not provide extra, not-requested attachments, such as configuration files and screenshots. If your ticket assignee has need of this information, he or she will ask for it.

Our goal is to resolve your issue as quickly as possible. Some issues may require more time than others. Some issues require group input, and thus, there may be some delays in responding to your ticket. Please be patient.

Above all, our goal is to provide quality software and attentive, professional support. All we ask in return is that you follow the procedures we have put in place so that we may work as efficiently as possible, and you may get back to the business of enjoying your Arca Noae products.

Final Reminder: Reinstate your expired ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription now

This is your final reminder that the window of opportunity to reinstate an expired ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription at a special price is closing Monday May 18.

Previously, it was impossible to reinstate an expired ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription that had been expired for longer than 1 year. That restriction has now been removed. It is now possible to reinstate an expired subscription. Through Monday May 18 you can reinstate an expired ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription for the price of a regular one year renewal. After May 18, an additional reinstatement fee will apply. So take advantage of this limited amnesty period and get your subscription back on track before it’s too late.

Even if you’ve never updated ArcaOS 5.0 since your first install, as long as you have an active Support & Maintenance subscription, you may download the latest 5.0.x release and install it as an update to whatever 5.0 release you are using. There is no additional licensing fee for downloading and using these updates.

Somehow, this always seems like something of a mystery, even though this wiki page should help clarify what is a major version, a minor version, and a release. This product in our store outlines the renewal process and this table lays out just what is included in each subscription.

One of the many benefits of regularly renewing your ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription is access to the latest released code. There are many exciting things coming for our subscribers. Don’t miss out on a great opportunity to get those updates and the next ArcaOS release as part of your renewed subscription.

ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription renewal window is closing

If you’ve let your ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription lapse, now is the time to get back on track.

Until now, if you let your ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription expire, you would need to purchase a new ArcaOS license to reinstate support. We are making some changes to enable customers to reinstate an ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription without purchasing a new ArcaOS license.

For a limited time, we are allowing all who have allowed their ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscriptions to expire — no matter how long expired — to reinstate them at current prices…but this window is closing rapidly. Once ArcaOS 5.0.5 is released (and that release is imminent), current ArcaOS licensees who have let their subscriptions lapse for six months or more will have to pay more to have their subscriptions reinstated for another full year. While this will still be less than the cost of purchasing a new license, it will be substantially more than the regular renewal price. This policy applies to personal as well as commercial licenses.

Please take a moment to log into your account at Arca Noae, locate your original ArcaOS order, and check to see when support is scheduled to expire (or has already expired) for your product. It is currently only possible to purchase one year of support per renewal, and only for the same number and type of ArcaOS licenses as were in the original order.

To review:

The cost of renewing ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscriptions is not changing. You will continue to be able to renew your subscription for the same price, and you will still be able to take advantage of the 10% early renewal discount (this discount is reflected in the invoice total).
If you let your ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription expire, you will be able to reinstate it by paying the full renewal price any time withing six months of the expiration date. However, during this grace period, the subscription will only be reinstated for the original time period. You will not get “extra” time by reinstating your subscription late. In other words, if you renew on the last day of a six-month lapse would only extend coverage for six months!
If you let your ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription lapse for more than six months, the cost of a one-year personal edition Support & Maintenance subscription will retail for $128. For a commercial subscription, the price would be $228.

So if you have let your ArcaOS Support & Maintenance subscription lapse, now is the time to reinstate it. We urge all ArcaOS licensees to renew support early and take advantage of the 10% renewal discount for the best value in their subscriptions.

The online store should send renewal reminders 7 days before expiration, 3 days before, and finally on the expiration date; however, several factors may impact delivery or receipt of these reminders, including change of email address, spam filters, and other factors beyond our control. Check your account portal and make a note of your expiration date(s) so you don’t miss out!

Remember what your active Support & Maintenance subscription includes:

Access to professional support for your product (elevated priority for commercial licensees);
Access to the very latest drivers, fixes, features, and software included in ArcaOS or added later;
Access to the latest release of the same minor version of ArcaOS as originally purchased (so, a Support & Maintenance subscription for ArcaOS 5.0 provides access to all 5.0 releases, as they become available: 5.0, 5.0.1, 5.0.2, 5.0.3, 5.0.4, and the upcoming 5.0.5);
Future benefits when the next minor release of ArcaOS becomes available (5.1).

For more information on subscription services, check out our comparison page.

Driver and Software Preview Releases: Some General Guidelines

From time to time, we may make feature preview releases available. Driver and software preview releases differ from new GA releases and testcase packages in several ways. Consider testcase packages first:

Packages uploaded to the testcase files area are made available to specific customers to evaluate the effectiveness of various changes to our GA versions, usually to address one or more issues reported in specific trouble tickets. Feedback from the affected customer(s) is requested when we provide these packages, and these links are limited to only the custmer(s) involved in the related ticket(s), not for general use, and as always, not for sharing with other users.
Sometimes, we may go through several testcase revisions. Usually changes which have been vetted through this process will end up in the next GA of the package. Once the GA is released, all customers with related subscription access to the new package will be able to download and install it.
Testcase packages are almost always time-limited, and the remaining time will be prominently displayed in the banner during bootup or for other software, at program start. If a new GA of the package is not available when nearing the expiration, simply follow-up in the ticket to request a refresh.

In contrast, preview releases serve a different purpose and are subject to different terms of use:

Preview releases are made available to all customers with related subscription access.
Preview releases generally are not updated (one preview is provided before GA).
Preview releases may be time-limited. If a preview release is time-limited, that does not mean that another preview will be made available.
If a time-limited preview release has expired and a GA version has not yet been released, it may be necessary to uninstall it.
No trouble tickets are accepted for problems with preview releases. These are not beta tests. A preview may simply be feature-limited version of what would otherwise be considered finished software, or it may be a preview of as-yet-unfinished software that will be coming soon. Because these releases are previews – and may not be fully functional – reports of missing functionality, unexpected behavior, etc. are not relevant and will not be addressed. Please read the documentation that comes with the preview for a description of its particular limitations.
Preview releases may be completely broken or disabled by a subsequent update of another related GA package. As an example, if installing a preview release of a network driver, and later updating the network stack package, that preview release driver may cease to function. This is not unexpected behavior, and not a software fault. To continue to use the preview, simply return the system to its previous state, wait for the GA release of the driver, and then update the driver and the rest of the stack.
No feedback via email or tickets is requested for preview releases. They are for your benefit and use only, and intended to provide a sample of what is to come.

In the near future, we hope to bring preview releases for various works in later stages of development.

All previews will be available through the ArcaOS Support and Maintenance Subscription, However, some preview packages may not be available through the Arca Noae OS/2 & eCS Drivers and Software Subscription, so now may be a good time to consider moving up to ArcaOS.

Join Us at Warpstock 2019 in Orlando

Warpstock 2019 will be held November 8-10 at the Country Inn & Suites, Orlando Airport. Arca Noae staff and developers will be there with the latest ArcaOS news and how-to sessions, as well as a host of other OS/2 experts ready and willing to share their knowledge and expertise.

Register in the next 24 hours (before June 1) and receive a $30 Early Bird discount on a full conference registration or $20 on a daily conference registration! Spouses/family members/guests/office mates attending sessions also receive great discounts, and non-attending guests are FREE. Students with valid student ID are welcome to attend sessions at no charge, with full benefits! (This is a great opportunity for Computer Science majors and aspiring young developers and engineers to gain some exposure to a platform which is still in use in the manufacturing, finance, and insurance sectors around the globe today.)

Warpstock Europe 2019 is this weekend!

This weekend, May 18-19, Stichting VOICE International (the Dutch OS/2 VOICE foundation) will present Warpstock Europe 2019 at the Ibis Hotel in Utrecht, Netherlands. For program and travel details, visit http://www.warpstock.eu.

Ticket sales will close Wednesday afternoon, Dutch local time, so visit http://www.warpstock.eu now to purchase your ticket for this exciting event.

Unable to attend? Live audio and video streams will be made available. To ask questions remotely during the conference, use IRC. For details concerning both streams and IRC participation, see http://www.warpstock.eu/2019/58-videostream2019.

Members of the Arca Noae team will be presenting on the latest application, device driver, and ArcsOS development. Alex Taylor, Arca Noae’s Chief UI Architect, will be there live to present and to answer your questions. In addition, the developers at bww bitwiseworks will be on hand to discuss their latest projects for the OS/2 platform, including Qt5 progress.

Remember that the audio and video streams will be in real time, so be sure to account for any local time difference from Central European Summer Time (CEST), which is GMT +0200.

Videos will be available from the Warpstock Europe YouTube channel after the conference. See http://www.warpstock.eu/2019/58-videostream2019 for the link.

If you want to support the activities of VOICE, please consider making a donation:

http://www.os2voice.org/membership.html

Arca Noae at Warpstock 2018 in Calgary…and an ArcaOS Sale

This year’s Warpstock event is scheduled for September 14-16 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.There will be several sessions devoted to getting the most out of ArcaOS and OS/2, in general.

To celebrate this year’s event, Arca Noae will be running a sale on ArcaOS personal and commercial licenses for the duration of Warpstock, Friday through Sunday. This is a great time to get in on this fresh and exciting OS/2 release or to pick up additional licenses for more stations. ArcaOS 5.0.3 was recently released, and the first beta for 5.0.4 is already in testing. Version 5.1 is scheduled for release in 2019, with a host of new features planned, including NLVs for several popular languages.

More information about Warpstock, its history, past speakers and presentations, and this year’s event may be found on the Warpstock site.

If you can’t join us in Calgary, be sure to watch the live feed on the WarpEvents page on YouTube.

Once there, locate the WarpStock 2018 Live Stream URL.

Users with OS/2 can watch the stream in two ways:

Firefox with Flash pointing to the WarpEvents site; or
Grab the YouTube URL and play it in VLC (preferred; get the latest VLC, ported by KO Myung-Hun, from Hobbes).

To ask questions during the live event, use the #netlabs channel on IRC.

There will be up to date information on OS/2 World and the following social networks:

ArcaOS 5 included Support & Maintenance Subscription length

We have recently become aware of some possible confusion surrounding the amount of time (term) of included support for personal vs commercial edition licenses of ArcaOS 5. It therefor seemed appropriate to review our website content, and to our surprise, we find that we really have not done a good enough job of making this particular — though critical — issue very clear. Hopefully, this post will set the record straight.

In an earlier post, we discussed the process for renewing subscriptions, and mentioned that it was renewal season for early adopters of ArcaOS 5. That reference was to those who purchased personal edition licenses for ArcaOS 5 six (6) months ago.

ArcaOS 5.0 personal edition includes six (6) months of Support & Maintenance.

ArcaOS 5.0 commercial edition includes twelve (12) months (one full year) of Support & Maintenance.

Renewal reminders are normally sent one month prior to expiration, one week prior, and finally on the day of expiration.

Although the personal and commercial editions of ArcaOS 5 are code-equivalent (there is no difference in the operating system or kernel itself, e.g., both support up to 32 processor cores and an unlimited number of connections, with the same storage volume types and capacities and included device drivers and applications), there are other differences between the two, namely the level of support and the term (length of time) of the included subscription. The commercial edition includes prioritized support for twelve months (one year), whereas the personal edition includes standard support for six months.

Support renewals for both editions are for one year. For example, a personal edition license purchased June 1, 2017 will be due for a Support & Maintenance subscription renewal on or before November 30, 2017 and the renewal will extend the support a full year until November 30, 2018. A commercial edition license purchased the same day (June 1, 2017) will be due for a Support & Maintenance subscription renewal on or before May 31, 2018 and the renewal will extend the support for a full year until May 31, 2019.

If you miss the deadline for a timely renewal of your included Support & Maintenance subscription, you may still “renew” your subscription at the regular price. Missed the deadline because you didn’t receive your reminder emails for some reason? No problem. Just contact us or open a customer service ticket, and we will be glad to help make things right. That’s our commitment to you as an ArcaOS licensee.

Finally, for those of you with existing OS/2 & eCS Drivers & Software subscriptions, concerned about the differences between the two subscription “tracks,” we have a handy table which compares the two, available here.

We believe there are compelling reasons to move up to ArcaOS 5, and to keep in force a Support & Maintenance subscription, ensuring regular updates and the availability of technical assistance for the operating system as a whole. While there is no requirement to renew Support & Maintenance to continue using ArcaOS 5, doing so ensures uninterrupted access to updates, refreshed installation ISOs, and support.

Please review this post for the specifics on how to renew your existing subscription.

A Note about Third-Party Components in ArcaOS

You may be aware of the recent massive Equifax security breach and the Company’s explanation surrounding a vulnerability in Apache Struts (CVE-2017-5638) disclosed by US CERT in early March 2017. Some reports have implied that the company has somehow blamed Apache Software Foundation for the breach, specifically by not moving quickly enough to address the security flaw. Apache has responded to these allegations clearly and concisely. In light of this incident, we thought this a good opportunity to help provide some clarity concerning third-party work and open source components, in general, as they pertain to ArcaOS and Arca Noae’s position regarding their fitness for use, and who is ultimately responsible to maintain his or her or, in the case of enterprise use, its own systems.

Arca Noae includes several components in ArcaOS developed by reputable third parties, including IBM, Apple, and others. Some of these components are open source, as well, meaning that the code for compiling these components into machine-readable form is freely available to the public. Open source software is often more secure than proprietary software, by nature of the fact that many (sometimes thousands) of developers around the world contribute to the code. This (often massive) group effort allows such projects to react quickly when flaws are discovered, and to work to constantly monitor and maintain the software. However, whether proprietary or open source, Arca Noae may have no control whatsoever over these components, inherent flaws, or as-yet-undisclosed security issues.

It is Arca Noae’s position that each ArcaOS licensee (whether an individual or an enterprise) bears the sole responsibility to consider his or her or its own interests and security. While we do what is within the realm of reasonable possibility to stay abreast of current trends and vulnerability disclosures (CVEs), we cannot guarantee that all issues will be identified and/or reported to our users by us. Thus, best practices dictate that each user remain vigilant and aware of the connected ecosystem in which we live and to take steps to mitigate his or her or its own risks.

Arca Noae welcomes reports from our users of disclosed and non-disclosed vulnerabilities. While we normally encourage our users to avail themselves of our Mantis ticketing system to report issues, those of a sensitive nature (such as an as-yet-undisclosed or little-known security flaw in a bundled component) should be reported through our contact page.

We would also like to take this opportunity to remind all of our ArcaOS licensees that ArcaOS does not utilize telemetry of any kind to communicate with us. We firmly believe that when a user licenses a copy of ArcaOS, his or her or its data should remain on the system as directed by the user, shared only by the user, and with the user’s full knowledge and consent.

The next exciting update to ArcaOS 5.0 is in the making, too. Watch the Arca Noae blog for a release announcement in the coming weeks.

Want to learn more about using ArcaOS? Come to Warpstock 2017 in Toronto!

Warpstock as an event has been around since 1997. Since its inception, the goal of Warpstock has been to educate and expose users to OS/2, its available software, and how to get the most out of the environment. In addition, Warpstock has always been a great venue for meeting developers and engineers involved with OS/2 and its derivative operating systems, including eComStation and ArcaOS.

This year’s Warpstock event is scheduled for September 8-10 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Several key members of the ArcaOS development team will be on hand to present, answer questions, and take suggestions to improve the operating system as we continue to move toward the 5.1 release, planned for later next year.

More information about Warpstock, its history, past speakers and presentations, and this year’s event may be found on Warpstock’s site: http://www.warpstock.org.

Come join us in Toronto!