--------------------------------------------------------------------------- SMAPR103.EXE 953,856 SiteMapper v1.03, analyzes your web site, and reate a detailed map with an indexed listing of all resources by page. [Total bytes of announced files: 2,879,842] Announced files are available here at 1:2410/400 (any time except ZMH), and on other systems which carry the W32_FDN. To carry the W32_FDN areas on your BBS, contact your local fileecho provider, or ask the sysops in your area about obtaining a feed. W32_FDN is available via the FileGate, Filebone, Planet Connect, or FidoGate, paonline.com & other FTP services. Authors! Want the best distribution for -your- Windows95 programs? You get it when you use the W32_FDN! Contact Gary Gilmore via Fidonet at 1:2410/400 (or garyg@oeonline.com) for details, or visit the W32_FDN website at "http://oeonline.com/~garyg/w32_fdn/" for more information. --- * Origin: bloom county * W32_FDN Headquarters * 313-582-0888 (1:2410/400) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 134 SHAREWARE Ref: F3R00000 Date: 03/21/98 From: GARY CRAIN Time: 12:07am \/To: ALL (Read 4 times) Subj: New Files in the SDS-FDN [This announcement is posted with the permission of the moderator] The following file(s) have been received at Rendezvous!! BBS. Look for them at an SDS BBS system in your area! These files were received from 1:396/1 via the IHUB connection. ======================================================================= Area : SDSFRONT File : FDAMN100.RAR Size : 276,313 Desc : <1.00> FrontDoor (2.30) Activity Monitor for Windows; 20-Mar-98 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total of 276,313 in 1 file(s) Freq "FILES" for an allfiles listing. Freq's from listed and non listed systems accepted at 1:382/88 or 1:382/92. Freq's limited to 3 files, 3 megs, or 60 minutes/session. Files are also available for 1st time download via the BBS, 1-512-303-1324. No freq's, no BBS, from 3am to 5am CST. Thanks, Gary Crain --- * Origin: Rendezvous!!_28.8_VFC_Zoom_Bastrop,Tx [512] 303-1324 (1:382/92) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 134 SHAREWARE Ref: F3R00001 Date: 03/21/98 From: GARY CRAIN Time: 12:07am \/To: ALL (Read 4 times) Subj: Fernwood FDN, New Files [This announcement is posted with the permission of the moderator] The following file(s) have been received at Rendezvous!! BBS. These files were distributed in the Fernwood FDN. These files were received from 1:396/1 via the IHUB connection. ======================================================================= Area : FWLAN File : JUC100.ZIP Size : 55,414 Desc : juc100.exe Janua 0S/2 utility collection This RAR 2.02 self-extracting module contains the following OS/2 LAN server utilities: ALU audit log utility SHOWDEAD display inactive user accounts WHO display logged-on users info as well as Finger-like user info These programs are OS/2 3.x+ 32-bit TTY utilities. Author: Konstantin Boyandin (mbo@ccphys.nsu.ru) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total of 55,414 in 1 file(s) Freq "FILES" for an allfiles listing. Freq "OS/2" for an OS/2 only allfiles listing. Freq's from listed and nonlisted systems accepted at 1:382/88 or 1:382/92. Freq's limited to 3 files, 3 megs, or 60 minutes/session. Files are also available for 1st time download via the BBS, 1-512-303-1324. No freq's, no BBS, from 3am to 5am CST. Thanks, Gary Crain --- * Origin: Rendezvous!!_28.8_VFC_Zoom_Bastrop,Tx [512] 303-1324 (1:382/92) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 134 SHAREWARE Ref: F3R00002 Date: 03/21/98 From: GARY GILMORE Time: 12:13am \/To: ALL (Read 4 times) Subj: New in the Windows32 FDN New Windows95 releases, from the Windows32 File Distribution Network. (W32_FDN) (Announcement made with moderator permission) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Area : W32_INT - W32_FDN: Internet & Web Related --------------------------------------------------------------------------- RASTM109.ZIP 1,824,094 RasTimer 1.09, allows you to keep an eye on the ime spent by your Internet DUN connections. [Total bytes of announced files: 1,824,094] Announced files are available here at 1:2410/400 (any time except ZMH), and on other systems which carry the W32_FDN. To carry the W32_FDN areas on your BBS, contact your local fileecho provider, or ask the sysops in your area about obtaining a feed. W32_FDN is available via the FileGate, Filebone, Planet Connect, or FidoGate, paonline.com & other FTP services. Authors! Want the best distribution for -your- Windows95 programs? You get it when you use the W32_FDN! Contact Gary Gilmore via Fidonet at 1:2410/400 (or garyg@oeonline.com) for details, or visit the W32_FDN website at "http://oeonline.com/~garyg/w32_fdn/" for more information. --- * Origin: bloom county * W32_FDN Headquarters * 313-582-0888 (1:2410/400) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 134 SHAREWARE Ref: F3S00000 Date: 03/21/98 From: SIMON STONE Time: 12:10am \/To: CHRIS GUNN (Read 4 times) Subj: Dark Forces Hi, Chris! 16 Mar 98 21:42, Chris Gunn wrote to Simon Stone: SS>> I still can't get past level 3, i've tried the LASKIP cheat and SS>> that just returns me to the breifing for level 3 if not DOS, also SS>> the individual level codes (LATESTBASE, level 4) and that returns SS>> me to the mission breifing for level three as well... CG> Have you looked at the documentation to see if that's as far as the CG> game will go until you pay for it? I borrowed the game of a m8t he had 2 DF cd's one was a 3 level demo and the other was the full game.... :) Seeya Who Dares....Wins ! Internet == simon.stone@pacific.trak-one.co.uk ... 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the population. --- GEcho 1.00 * Origin: Death Gate BBS, 10pm to 8am, 01622-891475 (2:440/624) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 134 SHAREWARE Ref: F3S00001 Date: 03/22/98 From: ANDY ROBERTS Time: 01:51pm \/To: KIM FORWOOD (Read 4 times) Subj: Re: Registration Kim Forwood, 12-Mar-98 12:55:08, Kim Forwood wrote to Steve Stacher SS> On 11-Mar-98, Kim Forwood was avidly discussing Re: SS> Registration with Steve Stacher KF> To be honest, I've recently become a little suspicious of KF> credit card handlers. I signed a contract with a company in KF> the US called Albert's Ambry (http://www.alberts.com), who KF> handle credit card orders and supposedly propagate software KF> for authors, for 20-25% of all sales through them. That is a very low percentage. They have to be doing a large volume to cover their overhead expenses at that rate. Consider that many retail store fronts have 125% mark up. And many businesses spend 40% of their gross in marketing. KF> In the last year that I've been signed up with them I've had a KF> total of four sales... three of which were made immediately KF> after my software was first released, and the last just a KF> month ago. Unfortunately, I have only seen one of those KF> registrations to date. I'm supposed to be paid my registration KF> fees once every three months, but by the time I get them (or a KF> report on sales), there has been what they call a KF> chargeback... where the purchaser has supposedly purchased my KF> software with a bad credit card and so my fees aren't KF> forthcoming yet my software was still delivered. Now this may KF> sound plausible, but how do I know that I'm not being duped by KF> Albert's Ambry and they're keeping my registrations? Have Albert's Ambry send you a copies of the official chargeback statements they received from their credit card processor. KF> So you see, it's just as hard on the authors in this business. KF> We are for the most part people without a lot of money or KF> means to do business with people in other parts of the world, KF> other than to put our trust in someone else's honesty in order KF> to make this work for everybody. But when experiences like my KF> own show that using a third party to handle money transactions KF> may be a bad idea, there is little more we can do as KF> individual authors. IMO you have not shown trust in Albert's Ambry. Authors can help or hurt their Reg-Sites in many ways. You could have asked them that question I answered above, instead of risk ruining their reputation by mentioning their name in this public echo in what seems to be part of your learning curve about normal business practices. What business do you think will make any effort to sell your product when so few have sold previously and you act against them? How much is their or your reputation worth? From what you've said they are not exactly getting rich off of you. If they hear of this they will probably dump you. KF> P.S. If anybody else out there has ever dealt with Albert's KF> Ambry, please contact me. I have not had any experience with Albert's Ambry nor even heard of them. But after 3 years of being a US Reg-Site for a couple of different ShareWare and offering to accept 4 different credit cards, I know from experience that there is IMO an extremely high percentage of chargebacks. Not usually 75% as in your case, but easily 10-25% on the average with a much higher percentage around Christmas time. It seems to come and go in spurts that last a few months. The vast majority of all stolen credit cards were used by their real owner on AOL, before the thief tried to use it with me. Some credit card service providers such as Novis, Discover Card, have refused to do anything to catch stolen credit cards and will give approval to a card that they already know was stolen and have a policy that the merchant is always wrong no matter how much proof the merchant provides that the sale was made by the valid credit card owner. Thus it is totally useless to attempt to refute a chargeback. I once spent the better part of a day organizing documents and logs and sending dozens of Fax to Novis in a futile attempt to refute a chargeback when it was obvious that it was not stolen and the real credit card holder was wise to the fact that he could rip off any merchant by simply denying he made the purchase. I lost my money, I lost my time and I lost paying LD phone bill to send Faxes and verify real names, addresses and phone numbers. Most merchants will not go to that much effort. In fact most merchants won't even bother to verify the purchaser beyond the minimum required approval. The best way to avoid chargebacks is by the merchant going to great lengths to verify the name address and phone number of the purchaser (TeleCo "Caller ID" helps) compared to the credit card holder. That can be very time consuming and expensive making LD phone calls to obtain verification that is not required by the credit card processing company. I use a 7-CD set by DeLorme "Phone Search USA" and I paid to get updates of those every year. I also used DeLorme's "Street Atlas USA" to help verify real addresses. I always called the credit card provider and often the issuing bank to verify the name and address of the real credit card owner. Sometimes that was a free call but often it was not free and I would get put on Hold for a long time while they checked their data base and ran up my phone bill. If it did not all match, then I would make even more LD calls to be sure the customer did not make a typo, before I would contact the security department of the issuing credit card to investigate the stolen credit card. I figure my average expense was about $15 per $50 sales and 30 minutes per sale, just to do the verifying to avoid chargebacks. That does not include the normal required processing fees and approval. Although I may have only gotten hit by 10-25% chargebacks that somehow slipped through all of my verification efforts, the ratio of attempted frauds by credit card customers was much closer to 90%. That meant for every 10 potential registrations only 1 was valid while I had to spend time and money to avoid chargebacks from the other 9. And worse yet many chargebacks were not within a few months of the sale, some were 9 months later. Often that meant I had already paid the author and even more paper work was required to straighten out the mess. Add to all that the normal percentage fees per sale and in my case lease expenses for the credit card processing terminal and printer, and even during times of a high number of sales, it cost me about $20 per sale to handle credit cards more than it does US Postal Money Orders. During times of few sales I was literally taking money out of my pocket to pay the credit card processing company. Hence as of the 1st of this year I stopped accepting credit cards. It gets worse, for several years my local county politicians have been planning to change the local laws to require a business license fee of several hundred dollars and take 5-10% of gross sales on top of that. I just received a letter that they not only have passed those laws but added to that fees for zoning and administration expenses. All that is in addition to State retail sales tax and State and Federal income tax. Such substantial taxes and fees make it especially hard for small businesses. At this point I have to re-evaluate several issues. Are the authors of the ShareWare I have been acting as a Reg-Site for, going to produce new versions or new programs to generate new sales enough to cover operating expenses? What retail price will the market bear? If both of those numbers are low, then it quickly gets to a point of no financial returns. From the author's perspective there may be alternatives. Look for a Reg-Site that handles hundreds of different ShareWare registrations, such as BMT-Micro, Thomas Bradford. Although he may be catering toward OS/2 software. Perhaps there is some other very large US Reg-Site for DOS/Win95 prgms. Another alternative is to setup an electronic Reg-Site that handles almost all foreign credit cards. Steve Stacher can probably tell you more about processing US credit cards from the UK. Another thing a US based Reg-Site has to deal with in paying a foreign author is the foreign currency exchange rates and bank service charges in addition to the amount of money owed the author. Those fees vary widely depending on the Reg-Sites local bank and method of payment. A check in foreign currency may cost as much as $50 regardless of the amount of the check. A Bank Wire Transfer may only be $25 in addition to the amount in British Pounds Sterling. And using an international currency exchange company not directly associated with the local back may provide considerable savings in the foreign exchange rates. In some cases that might involve 3 countries, such as the USA, Canada (where the exchange service is located) and the UK. In any event it is much more economical for me to pay a large amount, rather than pay a smaller amount more often, since the service fees are not based on the amount exchanged. Another thing the author should be concerned about is how much effort is the Reg-Site putting into marketing and support. That may involve such things as establishing special file echoes in the IFDC. Or providing free technical support and having the expertise and attitude to provide accurate quick help to customers and potential customers. Or writing additional T/S documentation and/or prgms for free to support the author's prgm. How well is the Web site laid out and updated. Customer feedback. Perhaps this does not effect you, but it does me as a Reg-Site, I busted my butt establishing effective distribution chains and providing free T/S only to find that I was in competition with the author selling to my customers through his Ele-Reg-Site easily accessed within the software, and a Reg-Site in Canada accepting US dollars and selling for much less than I can, but who never provides any T/S. In fact he would refer his customers to me to get T/S. More than once I had customers "demand" a refund from me, when they had not paid me, but paid my competition for the prgm I offered. Sometimes they wanted all their money back, sometimes they wanted a refund for the difference they paid when they found out the additional foreign exchange and service charges for using the author's Ele-Reg-Site. I had another author insist I could only sell a commercial version of his software that included an out of date printed manual for $49.95, while he sold that software without the printed manual, which was included in a text file in the software, for $30. Basically too much competition from authors and other Reg-Sites can cause rather low sales. I know of 1 author who had a tendency to "burn his bridges". By that I mean he would say 1 thing and do another or go back on his word or contracts with his Reg-Sites. For instance he told a Reg-Site that he would release a bug fix version that included info about registering at the new Reg-Site within a month, but 6 months later that Reg-Site was still unheard of beyond their own efforts, and the former Reg-Site in the same country was still accepting registrations. Another time he suddenly raised his price to the Reg-Site when a large contract was about to be signed based on the word of the author and previous written Reg-Site prices. He had already had a very high turn-over rate of Reg-Sites in that country and some of the former Reg-Sites said they would never do business with that author again, although they were very successful with other authors. Although you might suspect the Reg-Site of fraud, they can provide proof as I mentioned above. And in any event I suggest you not accuse them of any wrong doing unless you are very sure. From my discussions with Reg-Sites in other countries, I am led to accept that the US has what must be close to the highest rate of frauds and stolen credit cards. In summary, I am not trying to stick up for Albert's Ambry, which I never heard of, but I can certainly understand potential problems such as chargebacks and low sales they may have. My suggestion to you is to try to find a super sized Reg-Site. And above all deal with all of your Reg-Sites honestly and fairly. Thanks and Good Luck, Andy Roberts andy@shentel.net --- Terminate 5.00/Pro*at * Origin: "The Dept of Justice will not tolerate that..." [MS] (1:109/921.1)