Tag Archives: shop

New MultiMac NIC driver package (20161005) released

Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of a new release of our MultiMac NIC driver package.

More information about the MultiMac NIC drivers may be found in the wiki.

New in this release:

An updated E1000B driver.
An updated MMALE driver.
An updated MMLEM driver.
An updated MMRE driver.
An updated MMAE driver.
An updated MMALC driver.
A new MMIGB driver for older Intel NICs.
A new MMSK driver for SysKonnect SK-NET NICs.
All the other drivers are not changed at all. In fact, they are the same files that were distributed in the last release simply copied into this current release for convenience.

Note that when you install this package, four of the drivers are marked as untested (MMAE, MMALC, MMIGB, MMSK) and are not automatically selected for installation. This means that the developer does not have the hardware to test these drivers and could not get someone to test them. If you want to use these drivers, you must select them on the packages page of the installer. If you use one of these four drivers and would like to become the official tester for it, please see the info section of the .txt file for the driver (mmae.txt for example) after installation, or the ReadMe on the wiki.

As always, please read the .txt file that comes with each driver and also provided on the wiki. If you have problems with any of the drivers in this release, please read the Debugging Guide in the wiki first. If your problem cannot be resolved with the Debugging Guide, then the problem should be reported to the ticketing system. Simply log in with your Arca Noae credentials, select MultiMac from the list of projects, and open a ticket.

This driver package is available for download from the Arca Noae website as part of your Arca Noae OS/2 & eCS drivers and software package subscription. Please log into your account in order to access your software.

If you haven’t yet purchased a software subscription, this is a great reason to do so now.

ACPI package version 3.23.02 released

Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of our ACPI Package for OS/2 and eComStation version 3.23.02.

This release contains the following changes:

Updated to ACPICA 20160527. ACPI 6.1 is now supported.
Fixed some issues with toolkit programs
There are toolkit changes with this version.

This driver package is available for download from the Arca Noae website as part of your Arca Noae OS/2 & eCS Drivers and Software Subscription. Please log into your account in order to access your software.

More information about the ACPI Package may be found in the ACPI wiki.

If you haven’t yet purchased a software subscription, this is a great reason to do so now.

How’s your NetDrive?

NetDrive for OS/2 is an essential connectivity tool for OS/2 and derivative operating systems, including eComStation. This week, NetDrive 3.1.5 has been released, addressing a couple minor issues and enabling the use of the updated plugin for SFTP connections, now available from the Arca Noae store. NetDrive 3.1.5 is a free upgrade for existing NetDrive 3 licensees.

You may purchase new or additional licenses for NetDrive and a number of commercial plugins from our store.

Blue Lion in the news

It’s happened again… We’ve been slashdotted…

It all started when James Sanders wrote this piece in Tech Republic, which among other bits of Blue Lion news, correctly reported the official product name of Blue Lion as ArcaOS 5.0.

As was to be expected, this news took on a life of its own, and pretty soon, we were slashdotted.

Try a quick web search for “ArcaOS 5.0” and you’ll see what we mean…

Some of the comments which follow these articles can be quite humorous. Many people have fond memories of OS/2 (2.0? 3?), but have never had an opportunity to run it on modern hardware or even on a gigabit LAN, nor have they had the experience of running modern software on the platform, such as Firefox 38.8.0 ESR or Apache OpenOffice 4.1.2. (Both of these current applications have been ported and made possible on the OS/2 platform by our good friends and strategic partners, bww bitwise works, GmbH. You may find more great stuff from bitwise in our store.) For those of you who do take the time to post and respond in these venues, our heartfelt thanks for updating some of the users who seem a little out of step.

Of course, there are some great comments by well-respected people in the tech arena, like Brian Proffit and Brian J Dooley (thanks, guys).

Whatever your preferred language, enjoy the read, and be sure to add your own comments, including your more recent experience with OS/2 and the difference modern drivers and software make.

New MultiMac NIC driver package (20160530) released

Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of a new release of our MultiMac NIC driver package.

More information about the MultiMac NIC drivers may be found in the wiki.

New in this release:

A new MMLEM driver for Legacy Intel Pro/1000 Ethernet adapters.
All the other drivers are not changed at all. In fact, they are the same files that were distributed in the last release simply copied into this current release for convenience.

As always, please read the ReadMe.txt file that comes with each driver and is also provided on the wiki. If you have problems with any of the drivers in this release, please read the Debugging Guide in the wiki first. If your problem cannot be resolved with the Debugging Guide, then the problem should be reported to the ticketing system. Simply log in with your Arca Noae credentials, select MultiMac from the list of projects, and open a ticket.

If you haven’t yet purchased a software subscription, this is a great reason to do so now.

Who’s speaking at Warpstock Europe?

There will be plenty of information on hand at this year’s Warpstock Europe event. Here’s a sampling of what to expect from Arca Noae:

Saturday, David Azarewicz will be presenting on device driver progress and plans for the future (Blue Lion will be a milestone, but not the end of the road, by any means).

Also on Saturday, Lewis Rosenthal will be discussing what to expect in the Blue Lion package. While all of the details have not been set, we have a pretty good idea of what will be included.

Later in the afternoon, Steven Levine will pick up on Arca Noae SNAP. Learn what is coming next for this accelerated video driver.

We will return on Sunday with an update on YUM and RPM and how these technologies play an important role in Blue Lion by Lewis Rosenthal, as well as future plans for the well-received Arca Noae Package Manager.

Arca Noae’s last presentation on Sunday will be from Alex Taylor via Skype, discussing printing and fonts.

Between Arca Noae staff and the other presenters, there should be something for everyone. Arca Noae is the exclusive source for Warpstock Europe tickets. If you haven’t yet purchased your tickets, please visit our store today.

USB driver package version 11.14 released

USB Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of release 11.14 of our updated USB stack.

This release fixes a problem when booting from USB devices.

As always, problems encountered with this version should be reported to the ticketing system. Simply log in with your Arca Noae credentials, select USB from the list of projects, and open a ticket.

More information about the USB drivers can be found in the wiki.

If you haven’t yet purchased a software subscription, this is a great reason to do so now.

New MultiMac NIC driver package (20160201) released

Arca Noae is pleased to announce the immediate availability of a new release of our MultiMac NIC driver package.

More information about the MultiMac NIC drivers may be found in the wiki.

New in this release:

A new MMBFE driver for Broadcom BCM4401 Fast Ethernet adapters.
A mew MMMSK driver for Marvell Yukon II Ethernet controllers.
The E1000B, MMAE, MMALC, MMALE, and MMRE drivers have been rebuilt to use updates to the system library, if any.
The E1000E, NVETH, R8169 are not changed at all. In fact, they are the same files that were distributed in the last release simply copied onto this current release for convenience.

As always, please read the ReadMe.txt file that comes with each driver and is
also provided on the wiki. If you have problems with any of the drivers in this release, please read the Debugging Guide in the wiki first. If your problem cannot be resolved with the Debugging Guide, then the problem should be reported to the ticketing system. Simply log in with your Arca Noae credentials, select MultiMac from the list of projects, and open a ticket.

If you haven’t yet purchased a software subscription, this is a great reason to do so now.

Effect of Colorado’s Sales & Use Tax on purchases from Arca Noae

If you are a resident of Colorado, or your business is located in Colorado, a recent Tenth Circuit decision concerning the requirement for out-of-state retailers to notify you of your responsibility to report and remit use tax to the State may have caught your eye. The Court has held that this requirement is constitutional and remanded further proceedings to a lower court. (See more, here.)

While it is not Arca Noae’s position to provide any kind of tax advice, we can provide links to various Colorado Department of Revenue documents to help clarify the nature of transactions between Arca Noae and you.

FYI Sales 89 defines standardized computer software as:

Computer software, including prewritten upgrades that is not designated or developed to the specifications of a specific purchaser.
Computer software designed and developed to the specifications of a specific purchaser but then sold to another purchaser.
Software that is modified or enhanced even if such modification or enhancement is designed and developed to the specification of a purchaser.

This would generally describe software offerings provided by Arca Noae as available from our online store. Further, the above FYI states:

SALES TAX ON COMPUTER SOFTWARE ON OR AFTER JULY 1, 2012
Computer software will be subject to sales or use tax if it meets all of the following criteria:
The software is pre-packaged for repeated sale or license;
The use of the software is governed by a tear-open non-negotiable license agreement;
The software is delivered to the customer in a tangible medium. Software is not delivered to the customer in a tangible medium if it is provided through an application service provider, delivered by electronic software delivery, or transferred by load and leave software delivery.
Mandatory maintenance agreements. Charges for maintenance agreements that the retailer requires buyers to purchase as part of their purchase of taxable computer software are subject to sales tax, regardless of whether the charge for the maintenance agreement is separately stated on the customer’s invoice or maintenance contract.
Optional maintenance agreements. Charges for maintenance agreements that the buyer has the option to purchase as part of a purchase of taxable computer software are not subject to tax if the maintenance charges are separately stated on the customer’s invoice. […]

Currently, all Arca Noae software and subscription content licensing sold through our online store is delivered by electronic software delivery, only, and not on tangible media. As of this writing, Arca Noae does not ship physical goods anywhere in the world.

Further concerns should be directed toward either the Colorado Department of Revenue or your tax professional.

EU-US Privacy Shield – Status Report

If you are a resident of the European Union and a customer of ours, chances are you have been watching (or at least are aware of) the situation regarding data transfer policy between the EU and the US.

On October 6, 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the “CJEU”) invalidated the European Commission’s Decision on the EU-US Safe Harbor arrangement, determining that the Commission’s finding that Safe Harbor was adequate was, in fact, inadequate. More on this decision may be found here.

On February 2, the US and the EU reached an agreement in principle to construct a framework to replace Safe Harbor and to reconcile differences between the laws of both governments. That framework has been named the EU-US Privacy Shield. In response to the agreement, the US Department of Commerce released a fact sheet, which we are making available as a pdf, here.

As the new framework promises to have farther reaching implications for how personally identifiable data is handled by third parties, we have contacted both of our current payment processors (Stripe and PayPal) for their comments. While we are still awaiting comment from PayPal, Stripe has responded that they, too, are monitoring the situation, but have not yet made any changes to their policies or procedures, pending more concrete guidance.

We want you to know that we take the privacy concerns of our customers very seriously, and we will continue to monitor this and any other legislation which may have an impact on doing business with us, whether you are located within the US or anywhere in the world. We believe that our current privacy policy remains in accord with the spirit of the new EU-US Privacy Shield as we anticipate it, but we will keep you apprised of the situation and will make adjustments as necessary.

More information and commentary on the EU-US Privacy Shield may be found on these sites:

Digital Media, Technology & Privacy Alert >> Agreement on EU-U.S. Privacy Shield to Replace Safe Harbor Faces Hurdles, Kibel, Gary A, Partner (Digital Media, Technology & Privacy), Davis & Gilbert, LLP, February 4, 2016.

Article 29 Working Party Reacts to the U.S.-EU Privacy Shield Agreement, Tielemans, Jetty and Steinhardt, Ezra (Data Privacy and Cybersecurity group), Covington & Burling LLP, February 2, 2016.