General
Question 1: What is the procedure for ordering product?
Question 2: Where do you find the card code?
Question 3: Do you provide network licenses?
Question 4: How do you install a program?
Question 5: Can I transfer the activation from one machine to another?
Question 6: I enter my registration number and email address to activate your software. When I click next, the program gives me an error, stating "Connection with the Premier Biosoft Server could not be established". Why?
Question 7: How to activate Beacon Designer™ and Primer Premier?

AlleleID®
Question 1: How can I activate AlleleID®?

Beacon Designer™
Question 1: How can I activate Beacon Designer™?
Question 2: It takes hours for me to BLAST a few sequences. What should I do?
Question 3: How does Beacon Designer™ access sequences from the Internet without using a browser? Does it need a browser?
Question 4: Why does the program give a poor rating to a primer/probe set when I am evaluating it, even if the dG values for hairpins, dimers etc. are OK. This is true even when I enter a primer/probe set that the program found and rated well previously?
Question 5: How do I know, on what parameters the program failed to search suitable pair of primers and probe? How do I find out which parameter to change?
Question 6: It takes hours for me to BLAST search sequences against Human or Eukaryotic genomic databases. What should I do?

NetPrimer
Question: I am not able to download NetPrimer applet these days. Why?

SimGlycan®
Question 1: What are the annual renewal charges?
Question 2: What is the upgrade policy?

Ordering
Question 1: What is the procedure for ordering a product?
Question 2: Who s a PI and why do you need his contact information?
Question 3: What is a registration number?
Question 4: Where do you find the credit card code?
Question 5: What do you ship to fulfill the order?
Question 6: How can I pay?

Annual Maintenance Policy
Question 1: What is your upgrade policy?
Question 2: What are the annual maintenance charges?
Question 3: What are upgrades?
Question 4: Are upgrades free?
Question 5: What if an upgrade is announced after I place an order?
Question 6: When are upgrades released?
Question 7: What if I don't upgrade in the second year but decide to in the third year?
Question 8: How can I order Annual Maintenance?
Question 9: I paid annual maintenance today. I receive an email that shows the annual maintenance validity of after 6 months. Why?

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General

Question 1: What is the procedure for ordering product?
Answer: You can order online using a credit card or by submitting a purchase order. You can order offline using an institutional purchase order or by using our offline order form. For details, click here.

Question 2: Where do you find the card code? Answer: The Mastercard Card, Diners Club, Discover or Visa "Card  Verification Value" or CVV is printed in  the signature area of the back of the card. It is the last 3 digits AFTER the credit card number in the signature area of the card.

The American Express 4-digit "Card Verification Number" is printed on the front of the card above the credit card number, on either the right or the left side.

Question 3: Do you provide network licenses?
Answer: All current programs are single user desktop versions. You can install them on a network. All workstations then would be able to run them in demo mode and each workstation on which you would like to run the program will have to be activated. We do offer volume discounts. Please e-mail us for details.

Question 4: How do you install a program?
Answer: Once you download the demo version double click the installation file (the .exe or .bin file). The installation wizard will step you through. To install the program please choose the default settings.
For Windows*: By default, the program will install in C:\Program Files and the icon to launch the program will become available in the Start Menu under Programs.
*For Windows 10: You can find the program in the Apps view. To get to the Apps view, click the small arrow down sign near the lower-left corner of the Start screen. The program can be pinned to the Start screen by right-clicking the icon and choosing Pin to Start.

Question 5: Can I transfer the activation from one machine to another?
Answer: Yes, the activation can be transferred to a new machine. You just need to install the program on the new machine and activate using your Registration number and PI's email address.

Question 6: I enter my registration number and email address to activate your software. When I click next, the program gives me an error, stating "Connection with the Premier Biosoft Server could not be established". why?
Answer:
1. Launch the program.
2. On the first screen that opens, click "Set Proxy Server" button. It is in the right bottom corner
3. The Internet Settings window opens. Please check "Use a Proxy Server" option.
4. Under "Address" type the proxy server's host name or IP address. Under "Port" type proxy server's port number.

Note: The Internet setting is similar to the Proxy server setting used in Internet Explorer.  If your proxy server is password protected, the program will automatically detect your proxy server setting and ask you to authenticate the connection by specifying a User Name andPassword. In the Authenticate Proxy window, specify User Name and Password (the fields are case sensitive) and click OK. We support ISA, Squid and Analog servers. For more details, please refer the Technical Information section of the online help of the program.

Question 7: How to activate Beacon Designer™ and Primer Premier?
Answer:

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AlleleID®

Question 1: How can I activate AlleleID®?
Answer: a) After you download and install the AlleleID® demo, launch the program.
b) Click Activate on the first window that opens. Check the license agreement, enter your registration number (the number is case sensitive) and email address of PI or licensee. Click Next.
c) You will see your current activation record. To activate AlleleID on a new computer click Add. To replace any of the current activations, select the record and click Replace. If you upgrade the OS or reinstall the program, click Reactivate.
d) Update the registration information following the onscreen prompts.
e) Upon completion of the registration process, the demo will be activated automatically.

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Beacon Designer™

Question 1: How can I activate Beacon Designer™?
Answer: a) After you download and install the Beacon Designer™ demo, launch the program.
b) Click Activate on the first window that opens. Check the license agreement, enter your registration number (the number is case sensitive) and email address of PI or licensee. Click Next.
c) You will see your current activation record. To activate Beacon Designer™ on a new computer click Add. To replace any of the current activations, select the record and click Replace. If you upgrade the OS or reinstall the program, click Reactivate.
d) Update the registration information following the onscreen prompts.
e) Upon completion of the registration process, the demo will be activated automatically
.
Question 2: It takes hours for me to BLAST a few sequences. What should I do?
Answer: The time to return results for a sequence varies dramatically, depending on the load on NCBI servers from just a few seconds to several minutes per search. It will also depend on the speed of your internet connection. You can expedite BLAST search by using standalone WWW BLAST by which you can BLAST your sequences locally. For details please look up Standalone WWW BLAST under the Technical Information section of the online help.

Question 3: How does Beacon Designer™ access sequences from the Internet without using a browser? Does it need a browser?
Answer: Beacon Designer™ programmatically connects to Entrez to download the sequences you need. It does not require a browser. However, Beacon Designer™ will launch a browser to show the sequence details when you choose View>Sequence Details.

Question 4: Why does the program give a poor rating to a primer/probe set when I am evaluating it, even if the dG values for hairpins, dimers etc. are OK. This is true even when I enter a primer/probe set that the program found and rated well previously?
Answer: The rating determines how well the designed oligo meets the search parameters relative to the tolerance limits specified for each parameter. If all parameters were at their ideal target values, the rating would be 100. On the other hand, if all parameter were exactly at their tolerance limits, the rating would be 0. The rating of a given probe, therefore, depends on two factors:
1. how close the probe is to the target value of each parameter and
2. how tightly the tolerances are specified. The default tolerances provided in the program are chosen to represent the requirements of typical experiments. Highly rated probes have most or all parameters near their ideal values and are very likely to work well.

A low rated probe would not necessarily fail. It may be worthwhile to consider its properties relative to your particular experimental conditions and decide whether the probe is acceptable or whether the low rating is an artifact of specifying the tolerances too tightly. Please refer to the 'formula for rating" under the Algorithm and Formulae section of the online help.

Beacon Designer™ uses statistical optimization techniques to display the best primer probe set for you. If for some reasons you think that they do not meet you research needs, it is possible to choose the primers and probes from the "Alternate" list. At default, the number of alternate primers and probes displayed are two. To get more sequences, go to Analyze>TaqMan® search and in the Output Options, change the number of Alternate TaqMan® Per Sequence to any number up to 50. The list will be available when you click Alternate TaqMan®... or Alternate Primers... in the TaqMan® Properties tab.

While designing a TaqMan® probe, the best primer-probe set is chosen. But while evaluating a probe, the program designs an optimum primer pair for the probe being evaluated. When the program designs such a pair, the target Tm (search parameter) is a range. Whereas while evaluating a probe, the search is restricted to the values set by the researcher. For example, the primer pair with a target Tm of 10 degrees less than the TaqMan® (+/- 2 degrees) are searched then the researcher will have to suitably change the Target Tm in the Evaluate TaqMan® Window, which is tricky. This is why a different primer pair is reported during evaluation. Parameters considered during design and evaluation are therefore different and result in different rating for the same probe.

Question 5: How do I know, on what parameters the program failed to search suitable pair of primers and probe? How do I find out which parameter to change?
Answer: When Beacon Designer™ fails in finding a suitable primer or probe, the search status appears in red under Primer / Probe Properties tab indicating the total number of primer rejected and the parameters they failed on. You can now change these parameters and launch a new search.

Example:

Status: No primer pairs found: 12348 rejected( Prodlen: 6794 Tm Match: 4728 Low Ta Opt: 426) you can increase both the product length and Tm to check if it is possible to design optimal primers and probes.

Status: No associated TaqMan® found: 13 rejected( Tm Mismatch:5 Distance: 8) You can change both the TaqMan® Tm and the Maximum Bases between Primer and TaqMan® in the Advanced Search Parameters to check if it is possible to design optimal primer and probes.

Status: No TaqMan® found: 31 rejected ( Hairpin: 16 5'End starts with G: 15) you can change the hairpin maximum dG in the advanced parameters to check if it is possible to design optimal primers and probes.

Question 6: It takes hours for me to BLAST search sequences against Human or Eukaryotic genomic databases. What should I do?
Answer: The sequences on BLASTing keeps the result page loading with new hits for a very long time.

To retrieve the BLAST results, Beacon Designer™ requires the page to load completely, which did not happen for the sequences. This causes the program to wait indefinitely when you BLAST the sequence.

The solution is simple. To get round this situation, simply activate the FILTER option in Beacon Designer™. This filters off the biologically insignificant (but statistically significant) hits (repeats) allowing the results page to load just a limited number of hit, allowing it to load faster. To do this, select the sequence and press the BLAST button on the toolbar. After selecting Human genome and genome (reference only) database, press the Advanced button. In the dialog box that opens, select the Filter option by checking the box. Press OK and then Search. This will retrieve your BLAST results immediately after filtering out insignificant hits.

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NetPrimer

Question: I am not able to download NetPrimer applet these days. Why?
Answer: The current NetPrimer applet requires Java plug-in 1.4 or later for Windows. Though the applet automatically detects its availability and downloads the plug-in if required, may we suggest downloading the Java plug-in 1.4 directly from

For Internet Explorer:
http://java.sun.com/products/plugin/autodl/jinstall-1_4_2-windows-i586.cab#Version=1,4, 0,0

The plug-in is about 11 MB and the time required to download will depend on the speed of your internet connection. Install it on your machine and then launch NetPrimer. Hope this helps.

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SimGlycan®

Question 1: What are the annual renewal charges?
Answer: The annual renewal charges are $2,950 USD and the catalog number is SG4-AM.

Question 2: What is the upgrade policy?
Answer: The purchase of SimGlycan® product grants the registered owner (the Licensee), who will be registered the right to use the SimGlycan® computer program and data files. Thereafter, for continued product use, this license can be renewed for each year by paying the prevailing Annual License Fee.

For more information regarding the Annual Maintenance Policy, click here.

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Ordering

Question 1: What is the procedure for ordering a product?
Answer: You can order online using a credit card or the institutional PO no. Alternatively, you can order offline using our offline order form or your institutional Purchase Order. When using the latter, you must include the Principal Investigator/PI name, email and phone number, which is needed for the electronic delivery of the product.

Question 2: Who is a PI and why do you need his contact information?
Answer: The software owners are the authors of the software. When you 'purchase' any software you are, in legal terms, purchasing the right to use the software. We must know who is the rightful owner/Licensee of the software in order to complete the sale. We assume that the Licensee is the Principal Investigator/PI of the lab.

Question 3: What is a registration number?
Answer: We issue a registration number to you when you purchase a product. It is a unique alphanumeric code that is necessary to transform the demo version of the product into a fully functional product by activating it.

Question 4: Where do you find the credit card code?
Answer: Card code refers to the "Card Verification Value" or CVV. It is printed in the signature area of the back of the card. It is the last 3 digits AFTER the credit card number in the signature area of the card. This holds true for the Mastercard, Diners Club, Discover and Visa. The American Express 4-digit "Card Verification Number" is printed on the front of the card above the credit card number, on either the right or the left side.

Question 5: What do you ship to fulfill the order?
Answer: When we receive your order, we process it and
a. We send the registration number and the instructions to activate the program by email to the PI. You can then activate the program by downloading the latest demo version.

b. We send the invoice to the specified billing address.

c. We also send a CD containing the demo versions of all products with the registration number printed on the sleeve. We send it to the specified shipping address by ordinary US mail . It is not essential for the product delivery, but is a courtesy mailing to send a printed copy of the registration number.

Question 6: How can I pay?
Answer: We accept payments by check, bank drafts/demand drafts, EFT (Electronic Fund Transfer) and credit cards. To pay by credit card please use this form.

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Annual Maintenance Policy

Question 1: What is your upgrade policy?
Answer: To continue supporting the latest developments in assays and algorithms, we have found it necessary to institute an Annual Maintenance Policy. We have a team of five software engineers and one biologist for each product working full time, dedicated to continuous improvement. For the first year from the date of purchase, we will provide all available upgrades free of charge. After that, you will be asked to pay a small Annual Maintenance Fee, which will cover all upgrades for the following year. Of course, you are in no way obligated to upgrade. You may continue using the version you have, as long as you wish.

The support team is available by e-mail [support@premierbiosoft.com] Monday through Friday. We hope you will be satisfied with the value that the Annual Maintenance Policy will bring you.

Question 2: What are the annual maintenance charges?
Answer: The charges for the products are as follows:

Question 3: What are upgrades?
Answer: Upgrades are the newer versions of our products with enhanced functionality. We release them frequently, generally about one per quarter.

Question 4: Are upgrades free?
Answer: Yes, for the first year. They are then free as long as the maintenance is current. You may download upgrades from our web site or upgrade using the Smart Updater built into the program.

Question 5: What if an upgrade is announced after I place an order?
Answer: The software maintenance for the first year is included in the purchase price. If a product upgrade is released within one year from your purchase date, you may download the upgrades free of charge.

Question 6: When are upgrades released?
Answer: We release product upgrades when:

• New features or functions to support the latest developments in assays and algorithms have been added.
• Reported problems have been corrected.
• Support for newly released operating systems have been added.
• Changes to the key web resources used by the program have been accommodated.

Question 7: What if I don't upgrade in the second year but decide to in the third year?
Answer: You will be charged an annual maintenance fee for two years.
Please click Annual Maintenance Policy for Annual Maintenance terms and fee structure.

Question 8: How can I order Annual Maintenance?
Answer: To order Annual Maintenance

1. Go to our website(www.premierbiosoft.com)
2. Login using the email address of the PI registered with us.
3. Click "Annual Maintenance Renewal Status" under the Product Central on your personalized home page.
4. In the page that opens, click Order button present on the right hand side.
5. Fill out the requisite information and click Submit.

Question 9: I paid annual maintenance today. I receive an email that shows the annual maintenance validity date of after 6 months. Why?
Answer: The annual maintenance renewal period starts from the day maintenance expired. It does not start from the day you pay maintenance. For example your Beacon Designer™ maintenance expired on 07/25/2005, the maintenance will be valid till 07/25/06 even if you pay the maintenance on 01/01/2006. For details, click here.

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