SudokuXP
@paulspages.co.uk

Terms and condition of membership.

Please read these terms and conditions before signing up for membership.

How much does it cost?
A one-off payment of £3.00 (three UK pounds). There is nothing more to pay after that.

Who can join?
Anyone except, sadly, residents of EU countries other than the UK. This is because of VAT regulations which I can't meet. Perhaps in future it'll be OK.

What do I get?
Unlimited access (subject to the ‘fair use’ policy – see below) to the SudokuXP website. This includes (but is not limited to):

• The main SudokuXP pages, including puzzle generator, players and solvers.

• Printer-friendly pages for printing out puzzles.

• The SudokuXP Gallery, containing over 35,000 pre-built and graded puzzles.

• ‘How to solve sudoku’ tutorial.

What’s this ‘fair use’ policy?
If someone is sending in vast quantities of page requests (basically a denial of service attempt), then I reserve the right to cancel their subscription and refund their fee. Don’t worry though, I’m not talking about printing off 50 puzzles to take on holiday -  that kind of use is fine.

Who can use my membership?
Membership allows just you to log in (i.e. not to share your username and password with other people). However I want to be realistic and fair about this, so if you want to let your child (or parent!) log in under your name sometimes, that’s OK. It’s also OK to print off a batch of puzzles for use in a school, club or other organisation, as long as it's not on a commercial basis.

Which computers can I use it on?
You can log in from as many different computers as you like, provided it’s only one at a time. To run SudokuXP a browser must have cookies enabled, which means that some computers in libraries, internet cafes etc may not be suitable. Other than that, you can use it wherever you like.

What can I use it for?
Private use only – this membership does not entitle you to sell the puzzles generated by the page commercially, or to republish them in any form (e.g on another website). If you want to use the puzzles commercially, contact me – I’ve already done deals with a number of publishers, and my rates are very reasonable!

How long will you keep the site available?
As an absolute minimum, I guarantee to keep it available for one year from the date of the last member joining. In practice, I hope to keep it going for many years. It costs to keep it online (principally for bandwidth), which is why I’ve left the ads on the main page – hopefully they'll pay for the bandwidth once new members have stopped arriving.

Can I get a refund if I don’t like it, or it doesn’t work on my computer?
Sorry, no. The nature of web pages and javascript code mean that once you’ve accessed it, you’ve got it on your computer, so I can’t do refunds (it’s a bit like refunding the ticket price for a concert – you can’t take the concert back).

For that reason, please check that it will run on your web browser and computer before paying for membership. You can do this by trying SudokuXP's Puzzle of the Day. If this works OK, then full membership will too.

If you’re really unhappy with SudokuXP, and you really want your money back, then email me at sudokuXP@paulspages.co.uk, telling me why. I don’t want anyone to feel they’ve been let down by me or my website.


What browsers and computers does SudokuXP work on?
SudokuXP has been tested on Internet Explorer 6.0 and Mozilla Firefox 1.0.4, under Windows XP with SP2. It’s not guaranteed to run in any other configuration, although it does work in many (as stated above, try SudokuXP's Puzzle of the Day, and if that works, so will SudokuXP).

There are known issues with Opera. I don’t intend to fix these (life’s too short, and Opera has too many idiosyncrasies). For that reason I recommend that you don’t take out membership if Opera is the only browser available to you (actually I recommend that you use a different browser, but I'm too polite to say that! :-) ).

What information will you keep about me?
Just the email address and password you use to log on. PayPal handles the credit/debit card transaction, and your card details are not sent to me.

I won't reveal your email address to anyone else. If you've checked 'Send me details of updates and new features in SudokuXP' on the registration page, then I'll send you details of new versions of SudokuXP etc. If you haven't, then I won't.

You can change your email address and password at any time. If you want your details removed altogether, email me at sudokuXP@paulspages.co.uk, and I'll remove them. It's fine to use a dummy email address (e.g. "nosuchperson@nosuch.server"), but if you do, then you won't be able to get a password reminder sent to you.

Why have you started charging a membership fee?
Because demand for my sudoku pages has been so high that it’s used up all my server bandwidth. Also, while I enjoy developing the software, it does take time, and since this is how I earn my living, I’d like to get some income. I did try inviting donations, but response was rather low, so I’m afraid that anyone who wants to use the new version will have to pay. (Thanks to everyone who did donate though - donors have all been given free accounts, so saved themselves a quid!).


Hope you enjoy the puzzles!

Paul Stephens.