Re:

[Neon]

Funny, I got a similar letter the other day, but I just ignored it. Does that mean I'm going to jail? Here it is:



The BOFA is an association representing the leading office furniture companies: Sludgee, Apparatuses R Us, AutoTable, Benchtop Systems, CNC Softseat/Masterchair, Filecaser, MacroMailCart, Microseat, Symandesk and UOFS. Together with our members, we work to educate the public about Office furniture compliance and protect intellectual property rights.



This letter is to inform you that our compliance agents and will be in your area soon. If you allow them into your business and they find that your business is using unlicensed office furniture, including homemade ("bootlegged") furniture, the penalties can be very severe. Even if you have a business that does not own office furniture, but only occasionally uses a chair or desk, including rental shelves, for reception seating, small filing tasks, or lunchroom use, you may be liable for any violations.



If you have never taken a deduction on the Schedule C for office furniture depreciation, our agents may still suspect that you are using unregistered office supplies. Microseat's swivel design is patented on all chairs, and requires your business to purchase a swivel license for each accountable chair, regardless of use. Need help determining whether your office furniture is accountable? Simply ask our stormtroopers can make the determination for you. They are located at Microseat offices everywhere and near you, for your convenience.



Resist the temptation to use unregistered furniture, or to make your own. Purchase of authentic licensed furniture with Microseat swivel design ensures you will get full access to Microseat online lumbar support.



I couldn't find them in the phone book, but they keep sending me notices. What should I do?



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[n/a]

Boy, I'm glad I work out of a cave. This stump may be uncomfortable, but it's all mine.



"Educating the public" is probably tax deductible. Threatening the public with secret police tactics in finding out what's on their computers is only sound business practice. Forcing small businesses into bankruptcy because they're using the same software on more than one computer is good for the economy.



For the consumer, it's only common sense to take such tactics into consideration before buying a product from one of these companies. This obsession with "compliance" does affect all of us.



I've been going through a rigamarole with Symantec. I upgraded from NAV 5.0 to 2002 before reformatting and re-installing Windows. Their downloaded upgrade didn't recognize the fresh install of my old retail version of Norton Anti-virus, since the new install gave me a new registration number. They do this so I can't upgrade the same software on more than one computer without paying for individual upgrades. Their solution to my problem was to provide me a super-secret login to a complete version download of the software, complete with a Java download bot that doesn't work for me.



The complete 30+ megabyte download via regular HTTP takes anywhere from four to six hours with my connection, and over five days and more than 20 hours of trying I've managed TWO 'complete' downloads, neither of which will get past the Welcome screen. The bot that I can't use to download anyway hangs up my OS and will have to be manually removed. I've already had to do a repair of IE because after downloading the bot it crashed every time I opened it.



Their customer service phone line has been busy every time I try it. I wonder why.



And this is to BUY software designed to protect me from hassles.



It would have been easier to deal with a freakin' virus.





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[n/a]

An update: I finally got through to Semantic, and after only ten minutes on hold, they offered to send me the full version of NAV 2002 on disk for only an additional shipping charge via FedEx of $15.95.



$15.95. For a disk. They should talk to AOL. The customer service rep was sincerely embarrassed.



I cancelled the order.



I think I can live with NAV 5.0 and a little common sense. At least until I can take query's advice and try PCcillin.



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[pat]

?Quote?

The BSA is an association representing the leading software companies: Adobe, Apple, AutoDesk, Bently Systems, CNC Software/Mastercam, Filemaker, Macromedia, Microsoft, Symantec and UGS. Together with our members, we work to educate the public about software compliance and protect intellectual property rights.



I got a letter from those guys the other day informing me that they will be in our area. They got my name right, but not my business name. Sounds pretty scary, if they find that your business is using unlicensed software the penalties can be very severe. According to the letter.

I do have a business and I do have a computer, however my business does not own a computer. I do use my computer to do some billing and record keeping but it such a small percentage of the total use that this computer gets I have never been able to justify taking a deduction on my Schedule C for it. Same way with a home office deduction, I just don?t meet the requirements.

I have resisted the temptation to copy software and have always tried to get real software with a license. I did one time buy a name brand office suite on ebay. As far as I can tell it?s real, it came with a license and registration numbers.

I guess the thing that irks me about this is a company like, Microsoft who by all accounts, can find a way to justify its unfair business practices, seems to be the main push behind this. Almost like don?t do as I do, do as I say. If they didn?t charge such outlandish prices for they software they probably wouldn?t have these problems anyway.

Oh well, I guess I just needed to rant a little about this.

Pat