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FAQ
This
page contains answers to common questions handled by our support
staff, along with some tips and tricks that we have found useful and
presented here as questions.
Note:
In these answers we will follow a few shorthand conventions for
describing user-interface procedures. Key combinations will be
presented like this: Ctrl+Alt+Delete, which means that you
should press and hold down the Control key, the Alt key, and the
Delete key at the same time. Menu selections will be presented like
this: File->Open, which means that you should open the
File menu, and then make the Open selection.
- How
does PaqRat work?
- What
can I use PaqRat for?
- Won't
PaqRat hurt servers by overloading them?
- What
is a PaqRating?
- What
about my privacy with this PaqRating thing?
- Hey!
I didn't get my full 7 days on my trial!
- What is this weird error about ckserve not running on my machine?
- I'm
concerned about copyright issues...
- Why did my site code change?
- Why doesn't my site key work any
more?
- How do I transfer a license from one
machine to another?
- How do I get two licenses for two
machines?
- How do I reformat my hard disk and
reinstall everything without losing my site key?
How
does PaqRat work
PaqRat
is a new kind of browser--one we call a "Computer Assisted
Browsing" program. It is similar in some ways to a class of
programs called "spiders," which are programs that read the
HTML that they download not for the purposes of displaying content,
but for other purposes. Other examples of web spiders
include search engines, download managers and offline browsers. What
is different about PaqRat from other spiders is that the intent
of the program is for the user to sit there and watch the
program operate, assisting the program in determining the next
place to go and which files to save and delete.
PaqRat
looks for inline images, hyperlinks, javascript "open"
commands and frame tags in order to ensure that it can figure
out how to walk across almost any website.
Because
PaqRat can download so many items, two features become very
important. First, PaqRat has slideshow functionality which
allows you to go through some or all the images/sounds you have
downloaded without having to click on each one. Second,
PaqRat makes it very easy to delete the files that you
download. Actually, with this program, keeping free space
on your hard disk is one of the biggest challenges!
What
can I use PaqRat for?
The
author of PaqRat initially created the program just as a way to
learn Internet programming and web spidering. Soon though,
he realized that there are many, many people on the Internet all
over the world who are collectors of images, sounds, shareware,
videos, music files, Palm Pilot software or whatever.
There are millions of people out there who do this
frequently, and realized that with this little program he had
written he had an opportunity to make life easier on everyone.
PaqRat
in some ways turns the entire Internet into a database of images
and binaries which almost don't even need to be collected
anymore. As he gave the program to his friends to test,
they reported that in some ways they felt less need to
copy everything they found, because they knew they could
download 1000 pictures anytime they wanted.
PaqRat
being used by people with low bandwidth modem connections really
puts no more load on the web servers than any browser
would. This load is usually a fraction of the bandwidth
capacity of the server.
This
becomes more of an issue if a web server is being hit by a
PaqRat user who has some sort of high bandwidth connection, such
as a DSL modem or a cable modem. When users have
6Mbit connections to the Internet, it doesn't take many of them
hitting the same site with an automated tool to bring almost any
server to its knees.
Fortunately,
the author of PaqRat anticipated this problem and wanted a
solution to it. He wanted webmasters encouraging
people to use PaqRat, rather than trying to find ways to defeat
it. So he created a feature we call Live Throttling™.
Live Throttling™ allows a webmaster to set limits on how fast
PaqRat can download images from their site. This limit can
be no lower than 128 Kbps (roughly ISDN speed), but can keep you
from maxing out your DSL line speed. Trust us...
downloading at a constant rate of 128Kbps is still a whole lot
of downloading but keeps the webmasters whose work we love in
business! Click
here to find out more about Live Throttling™.
One
of the things we realized when we were almost done with the
program was that we had a unique opportunity with this
program. With very little additional effort on our parts
or on the users' parts, we could create a giant community of
collectors, all sharing information about the websites that the
collectors visit.
Most
web rating systems have failed. Why will this one succeed?
Simple.
PaqRat barely asks anyone to do anything other than use the
program as they normally would. PaqRat already has the URL
that is relevant. PaqRat can already read the HTML of that
page and get the title of the page automatically. The user
is already going through the site (watching PaqRat go), and has
a good idea of the quality of the contents of the site.
All
we ask is that the user click one button to give it a score of 1
to 10. If it is the first time this URL has been submitted
to paqrat.com, the user will have to pick a category for the URL
also.
The
benefit users get from everyone contributing to this big
database is that when you start to download a new URL, PaqRat
will warn you if the site has gotten low ratings from other
PaqRat users. Eventually, we plan to have the database
publicly accessible from the website, searchable and rankable,
so that lots of people will be able to find high quality
websites in their interest areas quickly.
We
think this idea is incredibly cool! Help us make it
happen! You can check out our progress at http://www.paqratings.com!
We
are very aware of people's privacy concerns. We are aware
of privacy fiascos and abuses like AOL Instant Messenger and
RealPlayer, where companies have misrepresented the truth about
what their software was sending back to their servers
secretly. We want to put everyone's fears to rest about
privacy with PaqRat.
PaqRat.com
keeps a database of URLs which have been hit by users of
PaqRat. This database consists of a single table, with a
singe row for each URL entry. We do not have the server
power or disk space to keep details of every link that every
user has hit. We only keep one entry for each
address. This entry keeps a running average of all the
votes for the URL, and keeps a counter of how many votes have
been recorded for that URL.
We
can keep an average without keeping all the individual votes by
using the formula:
New
Avg = Old Avg + (Rating - Old Avg)/(Votes So Far + 1).
This
means that if there has been one vote for a URL so far, a 10,
the average is 10. If the next user who votes for that URL
gives it a 1, the formula is as follows:
New
Avg = 10 + (1 - 10)/(1 +1) = 10 + -9/2 = 10 - 4.5 = 5.5.
We
don't want to know where everyone surfs; we are not tracking it;
and frankly we don't really care. :-)
If
you have any other concerns about privacy, security or whatever,
email us and ask
about it.
There
are three things that the PaqRat security drivers will detect
and will see as an attempt to get around the security. If
you uninstall and reinstall the software, if you change
your system clock by more than 1 hour and 15 minutes, or if
you move PaqRat from one directory to another, then
PaqRat security will shut the program down and make you put in a
site key before you can move forward.
If
these things happen to you and you are not ready to buy the
program yet (and get a permanent site key), please email techsupport@paqrat.com
explaining what happened and we will send you a new 3-day trial
code.
Another
thing will falsely set off the security. Running certain
disk defragmentation tools (mostly varieties in Norton
Utilities) will also cause the security software to have a
problem. If this happens to you, you must go into your
defrag utility and set the software to not touch the files in
the PaqRat directory. After you have done that, email me
and I will send you a new 3-day trial code. If you have
not fixed the defrag problem, the new code will also be
invalidated the next time the defrag runs!
The security software used by PaqRat is called CrypKey. I
bought it--I didn't write it--so I cannot control everything about
it. One major problem is this "ckserve" error. This error
occurs when you run PaqRat on machines running the NT version family,
including Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Despite what
the error message says, it actually has nothing to do with your
network.
To fix it, run the Start menu command called "Windows
NT/2000/XP Drivers" (or something like that). A box will briefly
open and appear to do nothing, but when you run PaqRat again, that error
should be fixed.
If I had any control over the
software, I would fix it myself, but I don't. I apologize for the
inconvenience of this extra step.
p.s. It has come to my attention
that some people are not having the file CKS.EXE installed on their
machines along with the rest of PaqRat. The vast majority have no
problems, so I don't know why some people don't get this file. If
you try to run the drivers and you get an error about CKS.exe missing,
email me at keith@paqrat.com and
let me know. I will send you the file myself with instructions on
what to do with it.
As
well you should be. We didn't create Paqrat as a tool to
expedite the violation of copyright law. However we
recognize that we can't stop folks from using it in that
way. Our intention is for Paqrat to be used by folks who
are respectful of the legal rights of content providers to
enhance their collections for their personal use or for such
uses which might be protected under the law.
That
being said, we also believe that there is room in the Internet
community for some new standards on providing and protecting
content. We are believers in "the abundance
mentality" and that, in general, when you give things away
they tend to come back to you in increasing amounts.
To
that end, we have set up a page which documents our feelings on
copyright issues and describes a vision which we think is
applicable to all those "creative types" and content
providers out there. We encourage you to read, understand
and challenge our position.
The primary reasons site codes
change are because
-
You reinstalled or moved the software after you installed
it.
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You changed the system time
on your computer by more than an hour.
-
You have run Norton Speed Disk or Nuts & Bolts to
defragment your hard drive and they have messed up PaqRat's security
software. (The site code is partially dependent on where it is
physically stored on the hard drive, so a defrag utility which shifts
files around changes the code.)
In order to protect PaqRat from your defrag utility, go into the
defrag utility and mark the following files as being "Unmovable" (note,
some of these files may be hidden when you go look for them, so be sure
to show hidden files first):
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paqrat.ent
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paqrat.lic
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paqrat.41s
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paqrat.rst
-
paqrat.key
If this is too complicated or you cannot do it for some reason,
you can also mark the entire PaqRat program directory as being
Unmovable. The trick with Norton is to make sure you hit Save after you
mark things unmoveable. Hitting OK alone does NOT save your
settings.
See Why did my site code change? above.
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First you install PaqRat on the new machine.
-
Then you select "Transfer License from Floppy" on the
new machine. It will write some stuff to a floppy disk.
-
Then you take the floppy disk to the old computer, run
PaqRat, and select "Transfer License to Floppy". This will do some
sort of encoding on the disk.
-
Then you take the floppy disk back to the new
computer, run PaqRat again and select "Transfer License from Floppy"
again. This will read the code from the disk and set your site key
automatically.
You must buy two licenses
if you want to have PaqRat on both machines concurrently.
You can't unless you transfer the license
to a second computer before you reformat, then transfer back. If you mess up your license or lose it,
just reinstall PaqRat and email techsupport@paqrat.com
your new site code. No charge.
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