Problems launching and registering K3

[Carole]

As I haven't done any imaging for a while I had completely forgotten I had downloaded K3 V3 and the 35 free days before registration have long expired.  I only realised this when I went to use my laptop a couple of days ago which I only really use for imaging.  I decided to pay up this evening so it is ready for when I want to use it again and but just cannot get K3 V3 to launch.  I get the K3CCDtools launch picture come up and then it just disappears again. 

I was also having problems with background as I must have left K3 in "night light" when I last used it and all boxes were coming up in dark brown and I could not read what I was typing. 

I seem to have overcome that (thus this posting) by doing a system restore, but I still cannot open K3. 

The last time I had a similar issue to this was launching Starry Night and this would not work because Quick time had been updated and it would not work on a later version.

Any ideas on this?
I am not sure whether this is happening because free K3 has expired, but I don't want to uninstall it and then download it again in case it messes up the system, or he thinks I'm trying to get a further free 35 days out of it.

I have sent a message and explanation to Peter Katrienek and apologised for not paying up before now (and also reassuring him that I have not actually used it) but wonder whether any-one had any ideas in the meantime.

Carole

[Ian]

Have you contacted Peter Katreniak?

I believe this has been reported before though, and the fix is to do a complete uninstall, including the application directory and the ini file and reinstall. You might be able to just delete the k3ccdtools.ini file and restart the app. The key that Peter sent you is valid for your PC not the installation so you can reinstall without having to worry about re-registering.

Note, if you choose to install K3 on another PC the key you have will not work. However Peter is pretty relaxed about issuing a registered user additional keys. His licence allows for two keys concurrently anyway so you can install it on your capture machine and a processing machine without paying more money anyway (assuming you have another machine, I suppose).

[Carole]

Thanks Ian for replying.  I have in fact had a reply from Peter Katrienek as well (I was not sure how quickly he would reply, so thought I'd post this as a back up). 

Yes he has told me to uninstall it and download it again.

Yes I have two computers - my desk top which I use for everything else, and my laptop which I use for imaging which was why I hadn't got my laptop out for some time.  Being a typist I cannot get on with a laptop for everyday use as the keys are too close and too far away. 

It's a bit of a palaver to swap my broadband accross to my laptop and back, so need a bit of time (and patience) to do it. 

Carole

[Mike]

It's a bit of a palaver to swap my broadband accross to my laptop and back, so need a bit of time (and patience) to do it.

Why? Do you have WiFi? If so it is easy. If you have wired broadband it is just a case of plugging your laptop into the router.

[Carole]

I have cable broadband and telephone.  I got rid of anything connected to a wire telephone line last year after lots of problems which I am convinced is due to a very old and corroded telephone line which they did not want to replace.  I have had absolutely no trouble at all since I went over to cable,

To change over to my laptop it's not just a question of unplugging the ethernet cable and plugging it into the laptop as I have to unplug the modem at the mains, leave it out for 30 seconds. Then plug the Ethernet cable into the laptop but not switch on the Laptop for at least another 30 seconds. 

It won't connect to the internet unless I do this and all the leads and plugs are under the table and awkward to get at.  Then I have to reverse the process to go back to my desktop.

Don't know anything about a Wifi, but if it relies on a wired telephone line then I can't use it as I only have cable telephone. 

I suppose it's not as bad as I am making out, and probably a lot of the inconvenience is due to the amount of clutter I have in my Computer/sewing/Astronomy room and how much I have to move around and no-where to put things when I am changing these things over.

Carole

[Mac]

I am convinced is due to a very old and corroded telephone line

proably not, unless your telephone calls were always noisy.
The speed of your broadband is restricted to the length of the cable from your exchange to your house.
The further away you are the slower it is.

If you are using a NTL dialup modem pluged in to your socket then the problem was not your phone cables
NTL Phone is supplied via your old bt exhange anyway! so it arives over your existing copper cables.

Broadband via NTL tabletop box.
NTL have fibre optic cables run to their kiosks, which are normally in each road, and your broadband is piped in via this.
Their cable lenghts are no more then 200-300 meters from the kiosks to customers houses, so you will be able to get speeds
upto 36meg over copper, any faster and you will probably have to go over to fibre optic.

If you plug your NTL cable in to a router you will be able to share your internet connection with all your computers, without having to reset anything.
As for WIFI its a wireless radio signal that is used between routers and laptops normally. so there are no wires.

If you set your NTL up like this then you will be able to use both the desktop and the laptop.
without having up unplg anything.




INTERNET CONNECTION -------- ROUTER ---------- DESKTOP
                                                ¦
                                                ¦
                                                ¦
                                                ¦
                                           LAPTOP

Depending on you internet connection.
It will either be the cable modem, or the wire from your set top box.

Where your internet connection

[Carole]

Old system

proably not, unless your telephone calls were always noisy.

Latterly the phone calls were noisy when the broadband was plugged in and I would have to unplug the broadband to hear what any-one was saying (including the Technical support people)!!!  Towards the end the broadband would only work if the telephone was off the hook, so I could only use telephone or broadband, but not both at the same time, which defeats the object of having broadband.
Finally the broadband would not work at all. 

It was a very frustrating time when I seemed to be continually going round in circles, everything had been checked umpteen times, they acknowledged there was a fault on the line and said they would fix it and said if it was no better to ring back.  When it had not improved I'd ring back and  I'd get some-one else and would have to go through the whole thing all over again.  Then the next person would say there was no fault on the line, I'd refer them to the previous call, and eventually they would agree that there was a fault. 

I had tried 2 different modems, 5 or 6 different filters, (had also tried the filters in another house and they worked fine there), 2 different computers, 2 different extension leads, plugging directly into the master socket and nothing helped.  This was not the first time this has happened,  I had had a similar problem 3 times before and each time it was the telephone line, but this time it did not rectify itself, and after 6 weeks without broadband and getting no-where I gave up and went onto fibre optic.

The present system
I now only have fibre optic Mac, I wanted to do away with any cables coming from my old system.
I don't have to dial up, it is always on once powered. 

Thanks every-one for your help but I don't plug in my laptop often enough to warrant making any changes.  Only to download software and once I have that I am unlikely to need to put it on-line again.

Carole

[Ian]

the trick with this is to complain about the quality of voice calls. BT have no service level agreement with you regarding broadband, but they do with voice.

When I lived in Orpington, I persuaded the BT engineer to restring my phone line from the Distribution Pole because the broadband was very slow, but it coincided with poor voice performance. It was a marvel to watch as the DP was on the other side of Poverest Road and he had to run the wire across without any traffic hitting or running over the cable That engineer deserved his tea and biccies that day.

Oh, and that's another tip. The more tea and biccies you supply the engineer, the better your chances of getting a little extra help...

[Carole]

Hi Ian,

Might have worked if I had been with BT, but I was with Talktalk (including the line). 

After 6 weeks of messing around I could not put up with it all any longer, and took my business elsewhere. 

I enjoyed your rendition of your BT man re-stringing your phone line, sounds like a good story for a TV sketch.

Regarding K3
I have got down to it this evening and uninstalled and then reinstalled K3 V3 onto my laptop.  Decided not to go for the free 35 days this time in case I ended up with the same scenario and forget to register it, so have done it all in one go.  The £ is not doing so well as I ended up paying £35 for it when converted from $49.99 back to £s @ today's prices. 
Just waiting for the Key by E mail now, and then hopefully I can get back to some imaging (once the weather warms up a bit). 
I'm afraid I am not as hardy as all you guys who go out imaging even in freezing weather.

Carole

[Mike]

Get a router then you can share the connection with as many PC's as the router can handle.