Company
Can I order by mail?
Yes you can order by mail. You can order by mail with money orders or checks made out to Gary L. Cole Jr. and sent to:
Gary L. Cole Jr.
Beaver Valley Software
122 McBride Road
Beaver Falls, PA 15010
You cannot send credit card numbers by mail because we can only accept them through PayPal
I received an unsolicited email from Beaver Valley Software, why?
Please realize that they did not come from me. Spammers are able to spoof email accounts and they have become very aggressive over the years.
My email address has received emails from beavervalleysoftware.com email accounts that are not actually on my server system. They have also used my email address to send me emails.
If you received anything from us that is not concerning a product that you purchased, it is more than likely from a third party who has set up Outlook to make it look like they are sending it from a Beaver Valley Software email address. I do not send unsolicited email except for press releases to public email addresses of computer publications and websites that I collected manually.
I will send emails to our customers announcing new product versions of products that they bought and if they are eligible for a free upgrade. And we may in the future hire an opt in mail list provider as long as the list is truly opt in.
Does your products use any open source tools?
I have looked into some open source libraries that are not licensed under the restrictive GPL. For instance previous versions of my Comic Book Millennium used an open source library to create the pdfs for the reports. The current version has been changed though to one I wrote.
And many of my products use an open source library, ZipStorer, to compress the files that they save. It is under the MIT License and can be found here.
Also the color picker that is in a few of my products is an open source component by Sacha Barber at Code Project and enhanced by Mark Treadwell under the Code Project License however the author said in the comments to do whatever you want with it.
I also used the open source Inno Setup by Jordan Russell for years to create my installers. I now use the awesome WixSharp by Oleg Shilo and Wix toolset to make the installers.
I use the Protobuf-net library by Marc Gravell licensed under the Apache License and available here
I also have extended an open source Spellchecker for my programs that has disappeared from the internet so I don't know who to credit for the origins. It had no license restrictions attached.
I have also released an open source library in the past and worked on some open source mods for vBulletin and released it to the vbulletin.org forum. I also have suggested code changes to different open source owners. Some times they incorporate and other times I get told to get lost.
Why don't you like the GPL?
Because you cannot use it in software that you wish to sell. If you have to make the source available for anyone to take and recompile it, people aren't going to buy it.
The only ones that benefit are corporations who take the software for internal, or even external, use and save on software costs like all the sites that use Wordpress or universities that use Moodle.
One thing I've encountered from GPL authors is how much they want to charge someone if you want to use their library in a product. A few years ago I was going to change the library I use for creating Flash movies in the PayPal Button Creator since I bought the library back in the early 2000s and its based on net 1.1. When I asked about a license from the person behind SWFdotNet that would permit the libraries use, I was quoted the price of $10,000. I had $25 in my bank account.
Orders
How do I lookup a past order?
You can look up a past order by logging into your profile. You'll be able to see your active licenses and the expired ones as well. Your default password is your first order number unless you change your password.
However, if your order is before August 2016, you will need to use the old system because those products used a different registration system. You can look up your order here
I received a registration key for a PayPal order but it doesn't unlock the program. What's going on?
If you are experiencing this problem with PayPal, let us know immediately. Once you receive your code after paying with them, that means your order is completed and in our database. So your software should be activated.
Remember that PayPal orders can take up to four days to clear. Your code will not be active until then. But you also should not have received a code until your order has cleared.
I don't use PayPal or I won't provide my information to PayPal. Can I use some other means to pay online?
The only other option currently is to send a check or money order via the postal system.
You really should reconsider your stance on PayPal. Much of the hysteria regarding it is the propaganda of sites that want merchants to order merchants accounts to process credit cards instead of using PayPal.
Why didn't I receive my registration code yet?
You may have paid via e-check with PayPal. PayPal notifies our server once the order is completed. PayPal does not consider the transaction completed until 4-9 business days have passed when you pay via e-check.
When PayPal notifies us that your payment has cleared, you will receive the code automatically.
If you have not paid via e-check and it has been more than 4 days, then please check your spam folder for the email receipt of the transaction.
Product
Do your products contain any spyware or adware?
No.
We include no spyware or adware in our products and we will not in the future regardless of how much we are offered by third parties to do so. We did receive an offer before this was added to our website and we informed them of what we think of such trojan horses.
We are very opposed to either spyware or adware. We hate them when they end up on our computers so why would we inflict it on our customers?
Why doesn't the program install or launch?
Do you have the net framework installed? Our products require the .net framework to be installed in order to function. To determine which .net framework is required, please check the product description. Then you will need to download and install that framework from Microsoft's site.
For products that require 1.1 or 2.0, you can install 2.0 and both will function. For those requiring 3.5, 4.0 you can install 4.0 usually. For those requiring 4.5 or 4.6, you can install 4.6.
If you already have the required .net framework installed, then please send us a message through your profile contact form so that we can look into the issue
Can I redistribute your product
As long as it is the trial version without the registration code, you can redistribute our products as long as you follow these directions. YOU MUST REDISTRIBUTE the products unchanged including the installer that I created and with nothing added to it. It must be exactly how I released it. If it is not, you may not redistribute.
It also must be clear to those receiving it that they must pay me in order to continue using it after the trial period.
What does perpetual license mean?
It means the license does not expire for the version of the product at the time of purchase. And there may be updates made available that your license will unlock. But the license is guaranteed to always work with that version of the product.
That means if you buy Comic Book Millennium and the current version at the time of purchase is version 7, you will always be able to use Comic Book Millennium version 7 provided your current computer will run the program.
Note that I do not update old versions. Once I release a new version, development on the old version is over and it will no longer be available. So you should keep a backup of the installer.
Product: Comic Book Millennium
Can I move Comic Book Millennium to a new computer?
Yes. For versions prior to 5, install it on your new computer. Register the new version with the code that you received with your order. You can look that up in your profile. Find and copy the following files from your old computer comics.mdx, comics.dbf, want.dbf and want.mdx and then move them to your new computer's directory where Comic Book Millennium is installed.
For Comic Book Millennium 5 and later, you just install the program on the new computer and register it with the code you received in email. Then find your collection file and move it to your new computer. Then load it up as usual when you launch the program.