There are two components to netChimes, one runs on your computer, the other runs on your server. To use netChimes on your computer you must simply have Windows 95 or better.

To use netChimes on the server you must have PHP 4.1 or higher on your server. To configure your server correctly you must be able to modify the file permissions (on Linux based servers, this is called chmod).

You don't have to! netChimes is completely free.

netChimes as you know it now, will always be free. A 'netChimes Pro' version might be introduced in the future, and will exist as a commercial product, but the standard netChimes utility will always be free.

NEVER! Birnam Labs is committed to making helpful software, and considers spyware and adware to be immoral and disgusting. netChimes comes with no third party software whatsoever.

No! Installing netChimes is very simple, and you can get started immediately.

If you have chosen to during installation, netChimes Installer will have added shortcuts to netChimes on your desktop and inside your start menu.

The most common problem that netChimes user have when installing netChimes is getting it to work behind a router. Please see this page for more help!

If the time ever comes, netChimes provides several easy methods to initiate the uninstaller. One, there is a shortcut to the uninstaller found in the Birnam Labs -> netChimes folder in your start menu (if you chose to have start menu icons installed). Two, you can access the unistaller directly on your hard drive, by navigating (via My Computer or Windows Explorer) to the folder that netChimes was installed to, and running Uninstall.exe. Three, you can go to Control Panel (Start Menu -> Settings -> Control Panel) and select Add/Remove Programs. One of the program items will be Birnam Labs netChimes. You can select this item and run the uninstall/remove link.

This can happen on machines that are operated by a system administrator where you only have limited permissions, such as a Windows NT4.0 or 2000 machine in a corporate environment. If you see this error, it means that netChimes did not have adequate permission to add a folder to the Start Menu. Please contact your system administrator and ask that s/he install netChimes from an Administrator access level.

This can happen on machines that are operated by a system administrator where you only have limited permissions, such as a Windows NT4.0 or 2000 machine in a corporate environment. If you see this error, it means that netChimes did not have adequate permission to access the registry to add uninstall information. Please contact your system administrator and ask that s/he install netChimes from an Administrator access level. netChimes can be run normally without this option, only uninstallation is effected.

This is known to happen on machines that use compression on specific directories or even entire hard drives. In order to install netChimes, first create the directory you would like to install to, and then decompress it. Installation should proceed normally after doing this.

After starting netChimes for the first time, press the Tools button on the bottom-left of the interface. This opens a large dialog window that might look complicated at first, but actually contains very clear directions. Follow these directions in order step by step to install netChimes on your server.

It can be anything you like, as long as you use only alphanumeric characters. This is simply the identification used by netChimes to recognize different alerts. So for your homepage, you might use the Alert ID "homepage" or maybe "index". For your downloads page, you might use the Alert ID "downloads". It is up to you.

Other than the changes you have made to your existing files (adding the netChimes PHP code), to uninstall netChimes on your server means deleting five files:

• netChimes_connections.php
• netChimes_login.php
• netChimes_passwords.php
• netChimes_send.php
• netChimes_settings.php

With standard use, no. But remember that netChimes is accessible by anyone with a correct password, and can support an unlimited number of clients. The more clients, the longer netChimes will take to relay a notification to each one. The delays will probably be unnoticable until you have several dozen people connecting at once.

No! netChimes is perfectly safe to use on your server. It uses standard PHP and does not modify any file outside of your web directory.

Although netChimes does not harm your system, your system administrator or hosting provider might still find reason to ask that netChimes be removed. This might be because the hosting provider does not want any unapproved sockets being open from their server, or another reason, regardless of netChimes' security. Birnam Labs is not responsible for any disgruntled hosting providers!

After starting netChimes open the Tools dialog to facilitate the server-side installation. Once the server scripts are in place, open the Configuration dialog to create the connections netChimes will receive notifications from. For each connection, add Alert IDs for each Alert you added to your code, and choose a WAV file to play for each alert.

The most common cause for this error is failing to alter the permissions for the netChimes_connections.php file. This file must have full read/write permissions enabled, for Linux server this corresponds to chmod 666.

Other reasons include client-side or server-side firewalls that render the netChimes port inaccessible. netChimes uses port 14242, please make the necessary modifications.

You can make as many modifications as you like! PHP is a very powerful server script and there are many possibilities. For instance, if your server also runs a MySQL server it might be preferrable to record the contact information in the database. If you would like to contribute your code to Birnam Labs to be included in future netChimes releases, please email your scripts to support@birnamlabs.com. Birnam Labs is not responsible for any modified script.

This is perfectly acceptable but the code may not be distributed. If you would like to contribute your code to Birnam Labs to be included in future netChimes releases, please email your scripts to support@birnamlabs.com. Birnam Labs is not responsible for any translated script.

Please contact Birnam Labs' Technical staff immediately! Send email to bugreport@birnamlabs.com