Q: I understand that it costs $50 per teacher for this program, though I have a few questions regarding what $50 will buy us. 1. Is it $50 per computer? (Some of us have a laptop and a CPU in our room...would we need to pay $100?) 2. Does the $50 cover us for one year or for a permanent use of the program?

A: The cost (license) on all our programs is per-instructor. That means, for instance, if Mark buys the SAT Words College (whether he has 5 or 50 computers in his room), he's licensed to use it for life with all the students he has or will ever get on as many stations as his students use while under his direction.  He can even take it home and use it on his own computers--but the students, of course, cannot use it at home. Cheap, eh?

Q: If I were to buy the software (online version) at home, could I upload it at school? Is it based on a username and password? I do a lot of my planning at home and I would like the ability to plan here and at school. Thank you for your reply and I LOVE your product (my students do too!).

A: Yes, I know. With the expensive budget-robbing software out there for schools, it seems unlikely, but it's indeed true--once you buy, you get a key code that you can enter it into any computer you use--at school and at home--once you've installed the program on those computers.

Q: Is there a way to copy and paste questions from a Word document to the Game Show Wizard?

A: Yes you can copy and paste questions to the Game Show Wizard entry boxes. But be careful--if you copy anything but text (like an image) it will corrupt the file. You can open these game files manually by double clicking them. They open in notepad and you can see how the variables are constructed by doing so. But if you copied a non-text item into a box, not only will you get a bunch of zeros when you save and try to open it again, but it's also very hard to find the defect even when the game file is opened in notepad. It may be best to save a bunch of questions as a text file and open it in notepad. Then copy from there. That way when you copy them from notepad, you know you aren't copying anything funky.

Q: If I type in the questions at home, (assuming there is a password I receive with my purchase) can I then upload those files - questions - at school?

A: To transfer files from one computer to another for the Game Show Wizard, just copy your files in c:\program files\game show wizard\game files to a flash drive and store them in the same folder on the destination computer. If you have images, make sure you copy the folders named after your game in the c:\program files\game show wizard\image files directory as well.  Once you buy the Game Show Wizard, you get a key code that you can enter it into any computer you use--at school or at home--once you've installed the program on those computers.  It works this way (basically) with all of our titles.

Q: I would like to order the Pathos Game Show Wizard. Am I able to use the program on a Mac computer? I have a MacBook. If I send the fax order, then do you bill me later? Can I order by phone?

A: No, it doesn't work on Macs. None of our products do.  If you wanted to buy it for Windows, we do take purchase orders, checks, money orders, and credit cards.

Q: I purchased your game show wizard and downloaded on line and my classes love it. My computer crashed and I need to put the game on this computer. When I bought the game they send me a number to use on any computer I work on. Can I please have that again.

A: No problem. Your key code is . . . ***********

Q: On January 16th I received confirmation from Paypal regarding my purchase of Game Show Wizard. My understanding is that I would receive a key code within 12 hours. It has now been nearly 48 hours and I have received nothing.

A: Actually, with e-checks you have to wait until it clears, which takes about 3 days. The code will come as soon as we get confirmation.

Q: We have bought your software in July 2007 and I guess we are the first user in Austria. I would like to recommend your software to Austrian teachers and I want to prepare a little presentation for that.  I have only one problem at present: The number of letters that you are allowed to use for the questions is far too little. I have some questions that are much longer and your software only allows a couple of words. Is there anything I or you can do about it? I assume it wouldn't be much work to adjust the number of letters allowed.

A: The questions have a 250 letter limit, which will allow up to 25 10-letter words/spaces or 50 5-letter words/spaces. That's all we could get in without decreasing font sizes in the game, which we've already done once. Don't want the question fonts too small. One thing you could do for longer questions is to start the longer questions off and make the answers multiple finishes to the question, like . . .

The awesome and incredible Arnold Schwartzenegger, the greatest bodybuilder of all time . . .
--won the Olympia 7 times and the Mr. Universe 5 times.
--Starred in Conan the Barbarian.
--Is the governor of California and was born in Austria.
--[All of these answers are correct]

Q: I just want to make sure I am clear on prices and differences in the programs. Are Word Mage and Word College identical programs except college has college pictures in the background and there are 350 words in each one but different words for a total of 700 words? Is one program easier than the other? If I want to use this program for 4 kids, is the appropriate price I need to pay $39.95 for the download and $49.95 for the CD?

A: All correct! All the licenses for all of our titles allow for use by as many students as you teach. And the two programs mentioned are identical in difficulty.  Also, if you buy both, you get Tangia free (as a download) for use with all your students! Tangia is very cool.

Q: I have downloaded the trial version of Game Show Wizard and my students love it. However, I cannot get the Test Maker to work. I have followed the suggestions in the help section without success. The word processor opens but it is blank. The Exam Key does work. Any suggestions?

A: Some later Word versions don't quite sync for creating exams from your Game Show questions. No problem. You can open it with Wordpad by default instead and achieve basically the same results.  Go to the control panel of your computer and find the icon that allows you to change your file extension associations. Scroll down to the .rtf entry and change it to Wordpad (not Notepad). Now, go back and open up the editor, open a file, and create an exam. Then Alt+tab to the opened wordpad file--it should be there for editing.

Q: I have stumbled upon your website and love what I am seeing!
Do you have a catalog or other topics such as Romeo and Juliet and Graduation Exam Remediation?

A: Thanks!  The site displays exactly what we have. Please feel free to download and install the trials and demos as desired.  Thanks for looking!

Q: I see the transaction went through, but where is my download?

A: There's generally a several hour delay on processing. It's done manually due to previous experiences we've had regarding credit card fraud. Thanks for buying!

Q: When I am making a set of questions for the Game Show Wizard and I find text that I like on line, is there a way to copy and paste it. For images, I have been saving them as jpeg files and inserting them and it works. However, I need to know a way that I can copy and paste for the typing of questions. Also, as a math teacher, I'm running into problems typing exponents, square roots etc. It can be done in word and then copied as a jpeg but that doesn't apply for the text section.

A: With complex math problems, the best way to go is to create a jpeg that has equal dimensions--like 300x300 pixels. It will be clearest this way. You can also put whatever you want. Try opening Microsoft Paint in your accessories start menu. It works great for creating math problems for jpeg.
 
As far as putting exponents into text, you can try holding down the alt key while pressing a specific number. A list of the numbers that create these special characters can be found in a number of places on the web, such as here: http://www.fiveanddime.net/characters.html It's not perfect since only a few integers can be represented this way.

Another option might be to have x^5 represent x to the power of 5 for your students.   Most characters will highlight, copy and paste to the game show wizard question entries. Some don't. The above mentioned special characters will.

Q: I downloaded your 14-day Game Show Wizard trial for a class several months ago. Things did not go as I had anticipated, and I did not purchase the software at that time. I have been thinking of a different way of using this in class and want to know if I can trial it again or possibly purchase it. However; all my questions are on the original download although I can no longer access it. Is it still possible to access the question bank I created? It [the shortcut] is still on my desktop, just not operable, so I am hoping the questions are still there and you can give me a key code to enter to give it another trial.

A: Yes, if you buy the Game Show Wizard, you'll have the key code to unlock the program within 12 hours by email. The original files you created will still be accessible.  There's no way to redo the trial unless you install it on a different computer.