Question on integration/license of BT.com and BT Pro

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jfenton78
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Question on integration/license of BT.com and BT Pro

Post by jfenton78 »

I had some question regarding the integration/licensing of the website and BT Pro.

1. If you purchase BT Pro with Gold do you have to purchase a Gold membership in 1 year and at what price? Can I use BT Pro with the Free BT.com

2. To follow up on previous, do I have to purchase BT Pro each year?

3. If I don't buy the BT Pro Gold edition (only regular), can I still download software updates?

4. Not to doubt the quality or reliability of the website, etc; but if BT.com disappears, will BT Pro still work (ie. does it check in with the website to "validate" itself)? If so how often?

5. I read about people using BT Pro on more than one computer is this correct? If I purchase one license, can I run BT Pro on two Windows computers?

6. To follow up on the previous, how does 1 license work with a dual boot system? I dual boot my computer with Ubuntu and WindowsXP and would like to have BT Pro available for each OS. Would I need one or two licenses? I know the Linux version is not available yet, but soon...just preparing.

Thanks for the help and answers.

jf
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lathe
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Re: Question on integration/license of BT.com and BT Pro

Post by lathe »

jfenton78 wrote:1. If you purchase BT Pro with Gold do you have to purchase a Gold membership in 1 year and at what price? Can I use BT Pro with the Free BT.com
BTP + GOLD allows a user to access the online recipe database and download them from within BTP. There are a number of pricing options for GOLD ranging anywhere from $1.25 to $14.95 depending on how long you want to have access. Keep in mind that the free BeerTools.com membership won't make it possible for you to download as many recipes into BTP. The limit for the free membership is 5 recipes per month.
jfenton78 wrote:2. To follow up on previous, do I have to purchase BT Pro each year?
No. BTP is a stand alone application. Once you purchase it, it is yours. BTP operates independently of BeerTools.com
jfenton78 wrote:3. If I don't buy the BT Pro Gold edition (only regular), can I still download software updates?
Absolutly! You simply go to the "My BeerTools" tab (here on the website) and download any available updates. Additionally, if an update is available for your version BTP will notify you.
jfenton78 wrote:4. Not to doubt the quality or reliability of the website, etc; but if BT.com disappears, will BT Pro still work (ie. does it check in with the website to "validate" itself)? If so how often?
I think #2 and #3 answer that.
jfenton78 wrote:5. I read about people using BT Pro on more than one computer is this correct? If I purchase one license, can I run BT Pro on two Windows computers?
The EULA allows for BTP to be installed on another machine provided that BTP isnt used by other brewers. This is for convenience because many BTP users will take their laptop into the shop with them to brew...etc.

The keys are platform specific. So this would require the computers involved to be running the same OS.
jfenton78 wrote:6. To follow up on the previous, how does 1 license work with a dual boot system? I dual boot my computer with Ubuntu and WindowsXP and would like to have BT Pro available for each OS. Would I need one or two licenses? I know the Linux version is not available yet, but soon...just preparing.
I think #5 covers this. I will say that once the linux version is available, we may make it possible for some users to migrate their keys to Linux.

I hope this helps.

Lathe
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jfenton78
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Post by jfenton78 »

Thanks for the prompt reply. I was just curious about these issues and couldn't find answers elsewhere. Good luck on adding the new features.

jf
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billvelek
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Re: Question on integration/license of BT.com and BT Pro

Post by billvelek »

lathe wrote:Snip ... Keep in mind that the free BeerTools.com membership wont make it possible for you to download recipes into BTP. ... snip
Lathe, has something changed in that regard? When I first purchased BTP in October, IIRC, it was without the Gold membership, and there was some discussion back then and for a short time thereafter about BTP advertising the availability of so many recipes, and a sense by some of us of being somewhat mislead. For instance, even now your home page still contains this comment: "with BTP you can access over 5,000 recipes 'right out of the box'" per your August 24th announcement, and also this comment: "you have access to over 5,400 recipes right away" per your release announcement dated October 24, 2006. Anyway, during ensuing discussion I was advised that with the trial membership, BTP could access 5 recipes per month, but the with Gold membership, BTP could access 50 recipes per month. Putting all other issues aside, I have one main concern now based on your above comment.

I went ahead and purchased the Gold membership on December 2, 2006. Since that time -- over 5 months now -- I have downloaded a total of only 8 recipes, and I have not brewed a single one; those downloads were for the purpose of helping me to learn and understand the workings of BTP. I'm sure there are excellent recipes on BT.com, but without a rating system of some sort, I've been more comfortable designing my own with BTP than using some other untried recipe that might be great or might be toilet water; afterall, designing our own recipes is what BTP is for. Now, once you and Jeff get things all worked out so that we can upload recipes from BTP and then download them with all data including the mash schedule, etc., then I might reconsider and take a crack at trying a few from the folks I've met on these forums. And for that reason, I want to be able to download recipes from BT.com to BTP. However, based on my past usage that I've just described, FOR ME it is hardly worth renewing my Gold membership (please note that I am not discouraging others from using it; it just isn't for me). But, I certainly want to be able to have access to the 5,400 recipes if I should choose to try one at some time in the future, and I shouldn't be required to keep a Gold membership because that was not part of the deal. Therefore, I hope I have just misunderstood what you said (your quote, above) and that I will continue to have at least limited access to the recipes on BT.com even without a Gold membership -- and that means the ability to download them to BTP (which is certainly implicit in your advertising). Please clarify this for me: when I revert to a trial membership, will I be able to access the limited 5 recipes per month for downloading to BTP?

Thanks.

Bill Velek
Visit www.tinyurl.com/bvelek - portal to my brewing sites: 3,100+ members on 'Grow-Hops', and 1,350+ brewers on my 'BrewingEquip' group.
Running BTP v1.5.3 on WinXP 2005 SP3 w/AMD Athlon 64@3800+, 1GigRam, Res 1024x768
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jeff
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Re: Question on integration/license of BT.com and BT Pro

Post by jeff »

billvelek wrote:Please clarify this for me: when I revert to a trial membership, will I be able to access the limited 5 recipes per month for downloading to BTP?
Yes, you can download 5 recipes each month with a trial membership at BeerTools.com. GOLD boosts that limit to 50/mo. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Jeff
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Post by just-cj »

But you can still browse all the recipes, right? I agree that it's kind of an artificial limit, but as long as you can still look at all the recipes and then just download the couple that you want to use and/or reference, that's not too bad.
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