Support

Have a question or a problem? Do yourself a favor and do a quick scan before pulling out your email client - you'll probably find that the answer is on this page. If not, please shoot us an email and we'll get you helped out.

• What's the best browser to use here?
• Text seems to be overwriting other text.

• Why is an address required for ebook purchase?
• I forgot my password
• I want to change my shipping address
• I want to change my email address
• I bought some books from you and others from somewhere else. Can I get all of my purchases listed in the downloads with my username/password?

• Incorrect/incomplete shipments
• Damaged goods
• Why can't I buy books at one of your distributors but get access to pre-release downloads from your website?
• Why don't you take phone orders?
• Why can't you guarantee shipping on same day that I place my order?
• Why are your shipping costs higher than Amazon or other online stores?

• Troubleshooting downloads
• I tried downloading a file but got an error.
• The page said I didn't have any downloads.
• I tried clicking on the URL in the email but I got a 'file not found' error.
• I tried opening the PDF file but got an error message.
• Where is the Hacker's Guide 6.0 CD?

• I'm having trouble viewing CHM files.
• I've got a question about something in one of your books.
• How do I contact the author?

We recommend using the fine Internet browser Firefox (build 1.5 or later). It's fast, free, and doesn't come with those 'new security hole of the week' horrors commonly associated with other popular browsers.

This site is built according to the W3C.org standards and renders fine with Mozilla 1.0 and above. It also generally works with most flavors of IE 5.0 and above and in certain builds of Netscape 4. However, there have been a number of problems reported with earlier versions of IE, with IE 5.5 plus Large Fonts, and if you're using NS6, well, just forget the Web in general until those losers at AOL/Netscape learn some software discipline.

The most widely reported problem is a bug shared by IE and Netscape where those browsers do not render absolute positioning attributes correctly. This can result in some text overwriting other text.

If you are experiencing this problem, rest assured that we're working on this problem. It aggravates us to no end to have to deal with this when the major browsers don't even bother to support the standards they claim to (Netscape's head of product development recently stated that their product releases are now dictated by the marketing and legal departments - and that product engineering and testing have no say in the final decision - nice, eh?), but that's life in the big city. In the meantime, we have found that IE 5.01 SP1 is the very best browser you can be using (navigate to www.microsoft.com, then click on Downloads, and choose Internet Explorer 5 for the operating system you're running on.)

First of all, you'll need to have cookies enabled in order to use any part of the website where you would enter information (such as 'Buy', 'Downloads', or 'Your Account'. This is so that your identify can be tracked from one page to the next. We only use cookies during the span of a single browser session; we don't store cookies from one session to the next.

Second, check your connection, particularly if you're behind a corporate firewall. Probably half of the problems we hear about are due to someone being behind a firewall that's configured so as to prevent the type of activity someone is attempting.

OK, now down to it. Despite the pretty face, this is just another computer program. There might be bugs in it. Or you might be doing something wrong. Or there might be something in between - an unexpected activity that I haven't trapped for. In any case, here's how to report trouble properly. If you don't report it properly, then the chances are (a) slim, (b) none that I'll be able to help.

1. Make sure you explain exactly what you're having problems doing. There are a lot of places to enter information here, and simply saying "I couldn't enter my information on your site" isn't enough information for us to help you.

2. What operating system and browser were you using?

3. Describe the steps you took. Be as precise as you can. Simply saying "I tried your website" isn't really enough information. Which pages? Which links? What data did you try to enter?

4. Describe what happened? Don't just say, "and then see what happens?" What happened on your computer might not be the same thing that happens here when we try to repro the steps.

5. Explain what you expected to happen. Again, be specific. Perhaps the site is working properly, but you're expecting something that's the site isn't designed to do.

These steps may seem like a lot of red tape to go through, but... how am I supposed to respond to an email like "I couldn't get into the site" from a person I don't know.

There could be hundreds of things that have happened, all the way from bad DNS records at an ISP to a bug in the software on your machine or in our website to a user error. Being specific and detailed will allow me to help you out faster and more efficiently.

Our credit card processor has extremely stringent rules for processing transactions over the Internet. We're required to collect detailed information in order to minimize fraud. Your address (as well as other information) will never be sold, rented or given to anyone else, ever.

No problem. I mean, these days, who hasn't?

Here's where you change your shipping address, zip code, and telephone number. Please make sure you change your shipping address before you place an order. Once an order is placed, it hits the shipping department within a few minutes and address labels and packing slips are printed out immediately. Changing your address after an order is placed won't affect those documents that have already been printed.

You'll need to know what your old email address is, but you don't have to have access to the account anymore.

Yes, you can add your books to your profile, regardless of where you bought them, through a registration process. You'll need the book itself for proof of purchase during the registration process.

Once in a while, a book arrives damaged, or missing pages - or the wrong one shows up. If you've ordered directly from us, just email us with your order number, name, shipping address (no PO Boxes, please), and phone number (and, of course, the description of what happened), and we'll replace it within two days of hearing from you!

Once in a while, a book arrives damaged, or missing pages - or the wrong one shows up. If you've ordered directly from us, just email us with your order number, name, shipping address (no PO Boxes, please), and phone number (and, of course, the description of what happened), and we'll replace it within two days of hearing from you!

The primary reason is that our distributors (such as Amazon or Fatbrain) don't have a mechanism for doing so. They generally can't take advance orders (and receive money) so they'd have to rework their ordering systems to handle and track advance orders. Then they'd have to create a mechanism to contact us about an advance order and then get the information about downloads back to you. That's a lot of stuff to do for a small return.

The secondary reason is, bluntly, we want you to buy stuff directly from us or one of our distributors (for out of US customers) when possible. When you buy a book from a distributor, well, there are bunch of people in the middle that each take their cut of the price. As a result, my authors and I don't see as much revenue. Thus, we try to provide extra benefits to you if you buy from us - usually we can ship faster, and you can get access to pre-release books.

Well, there are several parts to this question's answer. First, actually, we do. We'll be happy to take your order if someone is around. There's a small manual order processing charge, and it will take a bit longer to process your order, but we can definitely do it.

However, Hentzenwerke Publishing isn't a huge, multi-national company with offices in 30 countries and acres of cubicles with people waiting to take phone orders. It's just me, several dozen authors and editors, and some part-time folks who come in to help pack books and get them ready for UPS. Thus, there usually isn't someone sitting here by the phone to take an order.

Second, it's very inefficient to take an order over the phone. People usually want explanations about advance ordering, e-books, how to download, and so on - all of which is available on our website. Furthermore, more often than not, when someone calls, they'll say "While I have you on the phone, can I ask you a quick technical question?" So it often becomes a 20 minute process to take an order for a $29.95 book.

And it's terribly inefficient to attempt to return a call, and spend two days playing telephone tag. There isn't any profit in either of those scenarios, so we try to avoid them.

And, finally, we don't get a lot of requests to order by phone - maybe once a week. As a result, it doesn't make sense to hire someone to stay by the phone for those couple of calls. We've got a lot of information on our website, and we're happy to answer questions via email. The phone is just the least efficient mechanism to do so.

We process orders each night - printing packing and shipping documents, packing the boxes, and assembling everything for pick up by UPS the next day. Occasionally we'll have so many orders, or we'll run out of stock and have to order down from the warehouse, that we can't prepare a book in time for next day's pickup. We also don't have control over when our UPS pick up occurs, and once in a while they just forget to make their pick up. That's why we say that we'll generally get your books shipped within two business days.

The big on-line stores ship huge volumes of merchandise and thus get large discounts from UPS. We're also here to make a profit, and we intend to stay around for a while, unlike many of those "dot-coms" who want to chew up someone else's cash for a couple of years and then try to go public before they crash and burn. We can't subsidize shipping and packaging from a pot of investor's money.

What was your question again? Occasionally someone reports receiving an error when trying to download files for a book from our website, but in many cases, the report doesn't provide enough information to try to troubleshoot the problem. For example, "I got an error when trying to download the files"or "I couldn't download the files" or "I couldn't log in" - upon reflection, most people realize that they need to provide more information.

If you are having problems, please follow these steps and answer these questions so that we can help figure out what the trouble that you are having is, and what we might be able to do to help you out:

1. How are you accessing the Internet? Dial-up machine from home, permanent connection from home, or from work? Are you working on a machine that's behind a firewall?

2. Did you go to www.hentzenwerke.com? If not, what URL did you use?

3. Did you click on the link that says "Download"? If not, which link did you click on? Why? What could we do to make the link for downloading the Source Code and ebook files more obvious?

4. Did you click on the link to the download center?

5. What route in the download center did you take?

Already registered
5a. Have you already registered? This means that you have an email address and password with us, either because you bought something directly from us before, or because you've submitted them when registering before.

5b. Did you type your email and password in?

5c. If you did, what values did you enter?

5d. After clicking the button, did you get a page that started out saying "An email containing the links...."?

5e. Was the list sorted according to the way you chose in step 5c?

5f. Did you get the email?

5g. Upon clicking on the hyperlink for a file you are interested in, did you get the file downloaded successfully? If not, what happened?

Forgot password
5a. If you forgot your password and clicked on the "Forgot your password" link, did you get the "1. Forgot password" screen?

5b. What email address did you enter in the text box?

5c. Did you get an email with your password?

Not registered
5a. If you haven't registered yet, and thus clicked on the "Not registered" link, did you get the "1. Register" screen?

5b. What values did you enter into each of the fields?

5c. After clicking the button, what did the next screen say? (The message may vary according to what you entered in the various fields.)

5d. If the screen displayed "2. Confirm Registration" in red, and displayed the values you entered, did you click on the "Click here" link next?

5e. Did you get a screen listing all of our books, with "3. Select book" in red?

5f. Which book did you select?

5g. Did you click on the button at the bottom of the screen?

5h. Did you get a screen with "4. Proof of Purchase" in red?

5i. What question was displayed?

5j. What value did you enter into the text box?

5k. What was the result after you clicked on the button?

Be explicit. We have found that every problem someone has encountered has been resolved once they go through this set of seven questions.

The biggest culprit is still the inability to access our download area at all - because the customer is behind the corporate firewall. If you can't get to the download page at all, and you think you might be behind a firewall, try accessing the downloads page from a machine that's not behind a firewall, such as your machine at home. See the "Entering information" and "Troubleshooting" links to the left for instructions. After you've done that, and if you continue to have problems, email us here (books@hentzenwerke.com) and we'll help you hunt down the problem.

Whenever you run into a problem like this, you can save yourself a round of emails with us by giving us the specific details. For instance, a message like "I entered the word from my book and I still can't get to the downloads" doesn't give us enough information. What book did you enter information for? What was the question you were asked? What was the word or page number you entered? What was the message you received in return? If you help us out with this data, we can likely help immediately, instead of having to email you back and ask you for these details.

The URLs for some files are pretty long and some mail clients truncate the filename, typically chopping off a '.htm' or '.zip' extension that results in the dastardly 'file not found' error. Check your email again and see if this is what happened.

This often happens when you're using an older version of Acrobat Reader. As of this writng (Fall, 2002), the most recent version is 5.0. You can get it from Adobe's website here.

When the manuscript for the Hacker's Guide was delivered, it contained references to the CD that we had planned to provide with the book. However, the manuscript was also about 40% longer than we had budgeted. Rather than cut out 40% of the book's pages and include a CD, we kept the book and provided the files online. You can download the files from our website - click on the Downloads link.

I can't open the CHM file. See the screenshot for what happens.



We've seen an increase in the number of problems with CHM files over the last few years; that's why we stopped producing them. Between incompatibilities (like what you're seeing) as well as security holes (CHM files use the IE rendering engine, which seems to have a new exploit discovered every month), well, CHM files were a mess.

One reader reported that the CHM file "will not run from a path that includes directories with spaces in their names (ie 'C:\Documents and Settings\My Documents' or 'C:\Program Files'). Once I moved the CHM file to 'C:\temp', it opens perfectly.

I'm running Windows XP SP2, and I've never been able to open and read a .chm file. I tried downloading SQL Server Books Online, and I couldn't read that either. See the screenshot for what happens.



We've seen an increase in the number of problems with CHM files over the last few years; that's why we stopped producing them. Between incompatibilities (like what you're seeing) as well as security holes (CHM files use the IE rendering engine, which seems to have a new exploit discovered every month), well, CHM files were a mess.

So we went back and converted all of our books (back to 1999) to PDFs. It's also easier for folks who use Macs or Linux-based boxes, too, since the CHM file format is a proprietary format.

However, if you have to use a CHM file, the answer is located here.

In short, you have to right click on it first, choose properties, then 'Unblock.' But only if it's on your local computer, not across a network. See the following screenshot:

Got a question about the contents of a book of ours? Can't get a piece of source code to work? Think you've found an error or a typo?

Step #1: Make sure it's a problem with the contents of the book and not with the product itself. If it's a problem with the product, there are a number of online forums that provide excellent peer-to-peer support listed under the Resources link to the left.

Step #2: Check the FAQs and Errata pages for your book. Click on Catalog here, then click on the title for the book you'e working with. There are links for a variety of questions, problems, and errors for each book.

Step #3: Some books have technical support forums associated with them. For example, our Visual FoxExpress and Web Connection books both have sections dedicated to them on the web site of the vendors of those products. It's quite probable that your issue has already been experienced by someone else or can be quickly answered by a peer on one of those forums.

Step #4: Email the author(s). Their email addresses are located in their bio on the page for their book as well as in the "About the Author" section in the front of the book. Remember, though, that authors have other committments and it may take a bit of time for them to research a question on something they may have written several years ago. Don't expect an answer back in 20 minutes!

If you encounter other problems, please email books@hentzenwerke.com. We won't be able to answer technical questions, but we can probably point you in the direction of additional resources that may help.

The author's email address are located in their bio on the page for their book as well as in the "About the Author" section in the front of the book. Remember, though, that authors have other committments and it may take a bit of time for them to research a question on something they may have written several years ago. Don't expect an answer back in 20 minutes!