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DanceMaster Technical Support
I would like nothing better than to have everyone happily using DanceMaster, and their computers
with no problems. I've worked hard to come as close to that goal as I
can, but with many hundreds of users, with widly varying levels of
computer expertise, on many different combinations of hardware and
Operating Systems, there are bound to be some problems from time to
time.
One of the things I've done to help prevent problems is to write a
pretty extensive (and highly complimented, by the way) User Manual.
If you neeed help understanding how something is supposed to work, that
is the first place to look. (Click any "Help" button.) There are also
Tutorials to help you get started with the Player
and with recording music. There is a FAQ page with
some of the more common questions (and answers) listed. And if none of
those help, there is the DanceMaster
Users Group (DMUG) - a bunch of people who use this program
and are more than willing to try to help you. Some of them know how to
use DM better than I do.
Really.
As a last resort, you can email me, and I will do my best to help. But
for reasons listed below (and also to help make sure it IS the last
resort), I may charge you $75/hour for the time I spend working on your
problem. Of course, if your problem is my problem - in other
words, if it is due to a bug in DanceMaster - I won't charge you for
the time we spend on it. And even if it isn't due to a DanceMaster bug,
I'll spend the first half hour working on it for free. But once we've
used up that half-hour (even it it takes several separate problems to
do so) the meter will start running, and I'll bill you for the time we
use.
I have found that the quickest way to solve problems is to "look over
your shoulder" at your computer. If you have (or can get to) a high
speed Internet connection, we can connect our computers over the "Net",
and I can see what is happening on your computer. To enable that, you
will have to download and install a small program from
www.TeamViewer.com, let me connect to your computer, and we will talk
on the phone while we work on your problem.
Over the last several years, DanceMaster
has grown form an interesting experiment (Would it be possible to write
a program that would let me stop carrying big boxes of records to
dances?) into a more-than full time job. There are (always) lots of
nifty features I want to add to the program and (always) a few more
bugs to hammer out. Most people use it for years at a time without
having a problem, but as DanceMaster
becomes more popular, the number of people who do run into an issue of
some sort, or need help rebuilding their system after a computer crash,
or have forgotten their password, or ...(etc.) continues to grow. And I
find myself spending most of my time helping them. I don't begrudge any
individual that help - I enjoy solving problems, and as I said earlier,
I would really like everybody to continue to be delighted with DanceMaster and their computers.
But since this is now my full-time job, I have to be able to get paid
for some of the time I spend at it.
The DanceMaster Users
Group is a group of people who use DanceMaster. It is a forum for
asking and answering questions and sharing information about the DanceMaster programs, and is
frequented by some very knowledgeable people who are more than willing
to help. It is also where announcements of updates to the program are
made.
This section contains answers to commonly asked questions. It is a good
place to start when looking for information about DanceMaster. Go to FAQ.
Here you will find tools that may be useful such as
the remote control template and an empty replacement database. Go to Downloadable Tools.
These will take you step-by-step through the process
of setting up and operating either the Player
or Audacity.
"The Bible". Just about everything there is to know about DanceMaster, organized into "How
To" and "Reference" sections, to make it easy to get the information
you need. Go to the Player On-line Manual, the Player User
Manual, the Librarian On-line Manual or the Librarian
Printable Manual.
If you need help with DanceMaster and have tried the other avenues open
to you listed above, you can contact Clark via email or phone.
Warning: depending on the nature of the problem and time spent, it
could cost you some money - see Technical Support Policy (above) for
details.
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