NB replies

["Steve Semple" ssemple@xxxxxxxx (by way of Michael Norman mn2@xxxxxxxx)]

Since I offered a complaint here about NB technical support and responsiveness, I feel obligated to follow with their response this date from Steve Semple. Also please note that Anne Putnam contacted me as well. No doubt some of the information that follows will be useful to the list...

Michael Norman
----------------------

Dear Professor Norman:

Thank you for contacting Nota Bene. Your questions were forwarded to me by
Anne Putnam, Nota Bene's CEO. Before I respond to your technical questions,
however, I would like to address the issues you raised regarding not
receiving a response from our technical support department earlier.

We make every effort to respond to technical support inquiries as quickly as
possible. Our technical support staff tend to respond within 24 to 72 hours
of receiving e-mailed technical requests considered of average difficulty.
Note that e-mails requiring us to investigate a problem can take longer
depending on their degree of complexity, but even then, we do our best to
update you about the status of your problem. According to our records, you
sent technical support (technicalsupport@xxxxxxxx) an e-mail on December
6th and spoke with Matthew Klaassen on December 10th about the questions in
that e-mail. We, therefore, did not respond to the December 6th e-mail in
writing. Your next e-mail contact with us was on December 10th, when you
sent me an e-mail (ssemple@xxxxxxxx). I was about to respond to that
e-mail yesterday but Ms. Putnam brought your additional questions (posted to
the XyWrite List) to my attention. I then decided to send you this single
comprehensive response now. Based on these records, our response time more
or less fits into what we consider the normal time it takes to respond to
e-mailed questions -- given the complexity of the issues raised.

Calls to technical support tend to be responded to faster than e-mails to
technical support. It is normal for us to respond to calls within 24 hours
of receiving them. However, response times can be extended by as many as 24
hours depending on the complexity/number of technical support calls we
receive on a given day. Our records indicate that you spoke with Matthew
Klaassen on the 10th of December. We have no record of you calling prior to
the 10th, so I have to assume that you were able to speak with Mr. Klaassen
immediately or at least on the same day you contacted us. Once again, we
seem to be responding in the normal time.

If ever you have an emergency or urgent request and feel that our normal
response time would not be adequate, please feel free to write me directly
(ssemple@xxxxxxxx) and indicate so in the Subject field of your e-mail.
The same will work regarding calls; when you call for technical help,
indicate to the operator that your request is urgent. Our policy is to
respond to technical requests in the order they were received, but
exceptions are made for emergencies.


The following are our responses to your known outstanding questions:

QUESTION
1. When you boot up the program, how do you get a directory on the screen
instead of a blank, untitled document.
RESPONSE
Presently the untitled screen must be displayed on start up of NB for
Windows. We plan to change this in the future. You will only be able to
run any XPL programs for displaying the directory after the untitled screen
is
displayed.


QUESTION
2. Can't get the auto-spell to activate no matter what I check, uncheck.
RESPONSE
This is a bit mysterious as we are unaware of problems with the auto check
auto replace function. You may find responding to the following questions
frustrating because of their basic nature, but bear with us while we attempt
to get a clearer picture of the problem... Did you click Proof, Auto Check
& Replace, or Proof, Auto Replace only? What happens when you type a
misspelled word and press the spacebar after clicking Proof, Auto Check &
Replace? How about Proof, Auto Replace Only? Are you using our
default/installed personal.spl dictionary or one of your own? The
personal.spl dictionary is in the c:\nbwin\users\default folder and contains
a section at about the bottom third which determines which words are
replaced and by what words they are replaced. Does you personal.spl file
have such a section?

QUESTION
3. Get no indication when CAPS lock is on. Should be, if they followed Win
conventions, on the status line (those long boxes at the bottom of the
screen).
RESPONSE
Currently there is no indication within the program about the status of Caps
Lock (and some other "states"). We intend to correct this in a subsequent
release. For the present, please use your keyboard's Caps Lock indicator
light to tell the status.


QUESTION
4. Changed cursor using preferences to non-blinking, solid (0 setting). Now
every 60 seconds, the cursor simply disappears. Vanishes. Very strange.
RESPONSE
I agree... strange indeed. Although unexpected, this hopefully is not a
major inconvenience since with a tap of any key (say, the arrow keys) the
cursor reappears.


QUESTION
5. My control key does not work with several of the F-keys, particularly
F6-F8.
RESPONSE
Ctrl+F6 is reserved by Windows for switching between window panes in a
Windows program. Would you be willing to send us a copy of your .kbd file
so we can examine it here?


QUESTION
6. In graphics mode, the cursor is slow almost to a crawl. Any way to speed
it up.
RESPONSE
The cursor speed is controlled from Windows Control Panel. Double click
Keyboard and adjust the Repeat Delay and Repeat Rate settings. Repeat Delay
determines the time taken for the cursor to initiate movement, whereas
Repeat Rate determines how fast the cursor moves once movement begins. The
higher the settings, the faster the movement of the cursor.


QUESTION
7. The one time I did get to talk with tech support, they told me there was
no way to change the draft font. Anyone have a work around?
RESPONSE
Not that we are aware of. This too is expected to be addressed in the
future.

Steve Semple