Questions about the free trial

I clicked on my trial activation and nothing happened, the site says I'm already registered/activated.

My trial expired before it was supposed to. What happened?

Is the trial full featured?

I never got the activation email

How can I upgrade my trial account to a full subscription?

Account Subscriptions And Pricing

Annual Subscriptions

Academic Discounts

Account Administration

Add an additional user to my account

Delete a user from my account

Edit the permissions of a user.

Change a user's password.

Change my password.

Change my contact information.

Change my billing information.

Close my account.

My account was placed on hold.

What happens when I close my account?

View my billing history.

Get a copy of an invoice.

What's a Transaction ID?

How do I change my Service Plan?

Change your account's default settings.

Capture Service

Take a screen capture.

Take Full Page Captures.

Take screen captures of an entire site.

Recapture previously ordered captures.

Capture the source code from my pages along with its image.

I want to see my screen captures.

How do I sort my screen captures?

Move/Copy files between projects

Rename a project

Rename a file

Delete a project

Using capture ratings

I need to download my screen captures

Pull up a printable view of my screen capture projects.

Remote Access Service

What is BrowserCam's Remote Access service?

How does BrowserCam's Remote Access work?

What can I do with the service?

What are my payment options?

What do I need to use the service?

How does the service work (technically, on the inside)?

Can I Use AOL On The Remote Access Machines?

What Do I need To Remember While Using Remote Access?

Is Remote Access included in the free trial?

General Stuff

Are you a GSA,CMAS certified, etc?

My website is behind a firewall or password protected area of my site, what can I do?

Isn't that a security risk?

BrowserCam seems to be caching my pages?

What versions of Macromedia Flash are installed?

I updated my user's permissions, but the changes haven't taken affect. Did I do something wrong?

How many pages can I crawl at a time?

What happens if I select the full screen?

Is there a way I can let others see my projects?

Should I use BMPs, JPGs, or PNG's?

I clicked on my trial activation and nothing happened, the site says I'm already registered/activated.

My trial expired before it was supposed to. What happened?

We evaluate requests for trial account extensions on a case-by-case basis. The clock can be reset, but we can only do so for certain reasons. Please email us at support@browsercam.com for more details.

Is the trial full featured?

No. The free trial does not include the Remote Access service. Access to some resource-intensive capture features, such as Full Screen Capture, is also restricted. For the Screen Capture Service you will have 24 hours maximum from the time you click the emailed activation link, so don't click it until you're ready to use it. After 24 hours or 200 captures (whichever comes FIRST), no additional captures can be produced, although you may still view your captures. In order to take additional captures, you should register as a paid BrowserCam customer.

I never got the activation email?

Our automated message might have wound up in your computer's spam folder. If you send us an email at support@browsercam.com we'll look it up and send it to you.

How can I upgrade my trial account to a full subscription?

To upgrade your trial account, please take the following steps:

1. Log into your trial account

2. In the My Plan Summary section, click on the link in the sentence "Change my plan."

3. Enter all of your registration information. If you've already entered it, click the "Update" button.

4. Enter all of your billing information, or click the checkbox, which will load your registration information from the previous page. You will also need to select your credit card type and enter your credit card number with no spaces or hyphens. After selecting your card's expiration date, click on the "Update" button.

On the next page, select the radio button which corresponds to your desired billing plan (Capture, Capture Plus, Remote, Classic, Classic Plus, or Premium) and the desired plan duration (One-Day, One-Month, Super-Saver, or Annual). Once you click on the "Submit" button on the confirmation page, your new subscription will be opened.

In the Available Service Plans section, select your desired subscription in the Plan Duration column. Once the page reloads, select your desired service type in the Service Type column. Click the "Update" button when finished.

Annual Subscriptions

We offer several types of Annual subscriptions.

Annual accounts include up to ten (10) sub-users in the account, but the BC-Premium service plan allows up to 25 users. If you need more information, please email us at sales@browsercam.com . We accept payment by credit card,check, wire transfer, and Paypal. If you'd prefer to pay by check, please send it to:

Please sign up for a trial account first and send us a message at support@browsercam.com , which includes your username so we know which account to activate. We will also need a purchase order (PO) number from you to activate the account. Once activated, payment is due in full within 30 days from activation of the account. We greatly appreciate prompt payment since your Annual account will be activated in good faith in anticipation of your payment.

Academic Discounts

Add an additional user to my account

Delete a user from my account

Click "My Account" in the upper right hand corner of the page.
Click "Delete" next to the user you wish to remove.
Click "Delete" to confirm.
We'll send the user an email with their username and password.

Note that if the user has projects associated with their account, you'll be asked whether to assign the files to another user, or to permanently delete them.

Edit the permissions of a user

Click "My Account" in the upper right hand corner of the page.
Click "Update" next to the user you want to edit.
Check or uncheck the User's Rights boxes as desired.
Click "Update" at the bottom.
Changes will be in effect during the user's next login.

Change a user's password

Click "My Account" in the upper right hand corner of the page.
Click "Update" next to the user you want to edit.
Enter and re-enter the new password.
Click "Update" at the bottom.

Change my password

Click "My Account" in the upper right hand corner of the page.
Click the "Edit" button under the Account Contact Information section.
Enter and re-enter the new password.
Click "Update" at the bottom.

Change my contact information

Click "My Account" in the upper right hand corner of the page.
Click the "Edit" button under the Account Contact Information section.
Change your information as needed.
Click "Update" at the bottom.

Change my billing information

Click "My Account" in the upper right hand corner of the page.
Click the "Edit" button under the Payment Info section.
Change your information as needed.
Click "Update" at the bottom.

Close my account

Click "My Account" in the upper right hand corner of the page.
Click here to close the account. (This will close your account permanently).

OR

Click here to place your account temporarily on hold. (This will freeze your account and stop any automated billing, but you can re-open the account again in the future and your work will remain intact for 6 months).

My account was placed on hold.

Accounts are placed on-hold automatically when your credit card is declined or when a user chooses to place their account on hold. If your account has been placed on hold automatically, updating your payment info will usually clear the account and release the hold. If that doesn't do it, please email us at billing@browsercam.com . Accounts that have been placed on hold retain their captures for 180 days.

What happens when I close my account?

First off, no matter what, you are always welcome back. When you close your account, all your captures, all your account info and all your payment info is deleted right then. This cannot be undone by you or by customer service. Therefore, we recommend that if you are not likely to use your account for an extended period of time that you place your account on hold rather than closing it.

View my billing history.

Click on "My Account" and scroll down. Current Monthly Usage shows your activity for the month. To see your entire history click on the link in "Click here for full history" at the bottom of the billing history section.

Get a copy of an invoice.

Click on "My Account" and scroll down. Click on the link in "Click here for full history" On the far right, click on view Invoice to see the invoice related to that particlar charge. (If you believe the charge is in error or you'd like a refund just email us at billing@browsercam.com .

What's a Transaction ID?

This is a unique identifier that the credit card processing agency assigns to your transaction. We use this to track down protential discrepancies in billing and to process refunds.

How do I change my Service Plan?

To change your service plan, click "My Account", click on the link in "Click here to switch plans". You'll be asked to confirm you existing contact and billing information. After that you can select your new pricing plan from the menu.

Change your account's default settings.

Click "My Preferences" in the upper right hand corner of the page.
Change your preferences as desired.
Click "Update" at the bottom.

Take a screen capture.

Click "Capture" on the navigation bar.
Enter the name of your new screen capture project

a. Click the "Share this Project with Other Users in Your Account" checkbox to allow other users on your account to view the captures in your project.
b. Click the "Make this Project Publicly Accessible" checkbox to share your screen captures with the world.

Enter one or more URLS to capture.
If your pages are secured with HTTP Basic Authentication, enter your username and password in the available fields to llow BrowserCam into your site. note: This feature will not work with the AOL browser.
Click on the "Continue" button.
Select one or more browsers.
Accept the default options beneath the browser selection menu if you find them acceptable, or change the option to suit your needs.
Click "Continue" to place your screen capture order.

Take Full Page Captures.

On page #2 of the capture process, select the "Full Page" radio button in the Capture Area menu. Please note that accounts are limited in the number of Full Page Captures that they can take.

Take screen captures of an entire site.

Click "Capture" on the navigation bar.
Enter the name of your new screen capture project.
Click the radio button labeled "Crawl a web site for multiple URLs"
Enter the starting URL (usually the home page) .
Select "Entire Site" and "Stay within domain".
Click on the "Continue" button.
Select the available pages on the site that will be crawled. Click the "Select All" button to choose all pages.
Click on the "Continue" button.
Select one or more browsers.
Accept the default options beneath the rowser selection menu if you find them acceptable, or change the options to suit your needs.
Click "Continue" to place your screen capture order.

Recapture previously ordered captures.

Click "Capture" on the navigation bar, and then select the "View Projects" link.
Select your project from the project pull down menu.
You have 3 recapture options:

1. Manually select the captures that you'd like to recapture, mouse over the "Recapture" link and select "Checked Items".
2. Select "Just This Page" to recapture the entire page without selecting any captures' checkboxes.
3. Select "Entire Project" to recapture the entire project with 1 click.
Clear your browser's cache to avoid seeing the old capture's thumbnail image again.

Capture the source code from my pages along with its image.

This option can be selected in Step #2 of the screen capture process. There is a new checkbox entitled "Save Page Source", which will save the page's source code when checked. If this option is selected, links entitled "View Page Source" will appear in the upper right hand corner of your projects' thumbnail images.

There are a few limitations that we want to make you aware of to prevent confusion later on:

1) If the page source file (ending with .txt) cannot be generated, the link will say that there is an error with saving the page source.
2) Page source capture cannot be done on the AOL machine as the AOL browser does not use our proxy server.
3) To get the best results, when submitting the capture form to our system, please ensure that the link submitted contains the exact file upon which you want to capture the page source. For example: https://www.browsercam.com/default.aspx instead of https://www.browsercam.com (even though they both may end up being the same page)
4) You can capture source code by default by checking the "Save Page Source" checkbox in your preferences section.

I want to see my screen captures.

Click "Capture" on the navigation bar, and then select the "View Projects" link.

How do I sort my screen captures?

You can sort by page, by browser, by operating system, by date, or by status.
Click "Capture" on the navigation bar, and then select the "View Projects" link.

Move/Copy files between projects

Click "Capture" on the navigation bar, and then select the "Organize Projects" link.

Rename a project

Click "Capture" on the navigation bar, and then select the "Organize Projects" link.

Rename a file

Click "Capture" on the navigation bar, and then select the "Organize Projects" link.

Delete a project

Click "Capture" on the navigation bar, and then select the "Organize Projects" link.

Using capture ratings

Our Capture Ratings feature allows you to mark your screen captures in a way that lets you know whether or not that particular operating system/browser combination meets your expectations, if it needs more work, or if your code simply isn't working with that particular combination. You can fully customize the ratings system or your "flags" to your personal preferences. If you delete a Capture Ratings flag and that flag is currently being used, all of your captures using that flag will be reset to "Not Rated". This feature's default setting is off, but it can be easily turned on and customized in your account's perferences section.

I need to download my screen captures

Click "Capture" on the navigation bar, and then select the "View Projects" link.
Select your project from the project pull down menu.
You have 3 download options:

1. Manually select the captures that you'd like to download, mouse over the "Download" link and select "Checked Items".
2. Select "Just This Page" to download the entire page without selecting any captures' checkboxes.
3. Select "Entire Project" to download the entire project with 1 click.

Pull up a printable view of my screen capture projects

Open the project that you need to see. In the "View" pulldown menu, select the "Printable View" option. Select the number of rows and columns that you want to be displayed on the page and click the "Printable View" button. Your project will be displayed cleanly without any control buttons, pulldown menus or section tabs. Click your browser's Back button to return to the previous page.

To print your screen capture page, use your browser's print function.

What is BrowserCam's Remote Access service?

BrowserCam's Remote Access service is a tool to help web-developers and programmers build better websites. The service gives you remote access to dedicated machines loaded with any operating system you want. So if you work on a Mac and you need to see your website on Windows XP, BrowserCam will pop-open a Java Applet that gives you remote access into a dedicated Windows XP machine which you can then surf around in. In short, you can use BrowserCam's Remote Access service to access whatever operating systems and configurations you don't have without getting up from your desk.

Have you ever used Timbuktu, Remote Desktop, VNC, or RemotelyPossible? It's like that, only instead of accessing your machine, you access one of our machines in our server farm. Check out our little demo.

How does BrowserCam's Remote Access work?

Select the operating system you want, a VNC Java client will open (you can also download and use your own VNC client) where you'll see the login screen for your chosen OS. Login with your BrowserCam username and password, and you'll be logged into the machine as if you were sitting in front of it. Surf around using any of the dozens of browsers we have installed. When you're done click log off and your remote session ends. It's that simple.

What can I do with the service?

You can use it to check mouseovers, JavaScript, DHTML, flash and shockwave sites, as well as navigate dynamic forms, confirm SSL, test Java applets, etc. In general, it gives you access to operating systems and configurations your customers have but you may not have, thus it lets you see your website as your customers see your website without having to buy extra computers.

What are my payment options?

See our pricing plans here.

What do I need to use the service?

Nothing. Simply sign up for BrowserCam and you can begin using the service immediately. If you like the service, we suggest you download one of the many open source VNC clients. These will make your experience better than the Java VNC client we provide. But this is optional. BrowserCam Remote Access Service works on any browser that supports java, and it works on any operating system. We always recommend that you make sure you have an up-to-date copy of Java installed on your machine. Sun's download site is at https://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp.

How does the service work (technically, on the inside)?

We have a server farm of computers with all the operating systems your visitors and customers use. When you select a computer, we allocate a dedicated machine to you and open a VNC connection. When you're done, we return the machine to the pool for someone else to use.

Can I Use AOL On The Remote Access Machines?

Yes, but you will need an AOL subscription of your own. BrowserCam springs for an AOL account that lets our customers use the AOL browser on our screen capture service because it's only one account. To sponsor AOL access on each of our remote access machines, BrowserCam would have to pay for many, many AOL accounts. Frankly, that simply doesn't fall within the boundaries of our lean & mean budgetary constraints.
For you lucky ducks that have AOL accounts, remember to clear your username and password from the login screen of the browser when you're done using it.

What do I Need To Remember While Using Remote Access?

Whenever you use one of our Macs, whatever files you put into the session STAY there permanently until they're deleted. If you don't tidy up after yourself then BrowserCam is not responsible for whoever logs in next and decides to look at those files.

When you log into the remote access service, even if you choose the same machine that you were using in your previous session, you may not get the exact same machine again. Keeping track of your time is very important if the work that you're doing on our machines is critical.

Is Remote Access included in the free trial?

No, sorry. Each user gets their own dedicated machine, and we get thousands of trials. If we offered a free trial (even a little one), the trial users would quickly consume all the available machines. But, we do offer a free trial of BrowserCam's screen capture service and we put together a little demo so you get a sense of the service. Plus we offer a 100% Money Back Guarantee, so if you try the service and it's not what you thought just email us at billing@browsercam.com and we'll refund your money no questions asked.

Are you a GSA,CMAS certified, etc?

No.

My website is behind a firewall or password protected area of my site, what can I do?

If your website is protected by HTTP Basic Authentication, you can simply enter the username and password in the 1st step of the screen capture service process and our system will navigate through the username and password prompt. If you use form based SSL login, our screen capture service will not be able to navigate your site. Our remote access service is ideal for testing pages which are secured in this manner.

If you're using a true firewall (e.g. port blocking) you'll have to modify your own firewall. Here is a list of our IP addresses and port numbers:

74.205.74.211 is the address of our website.

67.192.7.165 (ports 8010-8040) is the address of our remote access service. Your firewall needs to allow an outgoing connection from your network to this IP in order to establish the VNC connection.

67.192.7.164 and 67.192.7.165 are the addresses we will use for the crawl feature.

67.192.7.171, 69.20.69.97, 67.208.183.189 and 67.192.7.165 are the addresses that our screen capture service will use to access your webpages. The remote access service uses these IP addresses as well for all outbound traffic. Your firewall will need to allow incoming connections from these 4 addresses to allow successful incoming connections from our servers.

Isn't that a security risk?

Yes. But a small one. BrowserCam is a rack of computers on a LAN that load up URLs and take screen captures. The computers making the captures only accept requests from our internal machines. So for this to pose a potential risk for you, a hacker would have to know the internal workings of BrowserCam, know that you had opened your port to us, break into BrowserCam, seize one of our servers, and use it to try and hack into your computer via port 80. The computers we use are too weak to make an effective Denial of Service staging ground. If your system administrator is skeptical about punching a hole in his/her firewall (and frankly they should be), we will generally take an audit phone call from them (again for monthly customers only) where we will walk them through our own security measures so they can make a more informed decision

BrowserCam seems to be caching my pages

I made a change to my website, took a capture and the page was unchanged. What happened?
Our system does not cache pages. We have a special proxy server that guarantees a clean request each time you generate a capture. However, there are three places to check to be sure it's not caching elsewhere.

(1) Make sure your local browser is not caching the screen captures themselves. This is a common oversight.
(2) Make sure you flush your web-servers buffer (usually by flicking the on-off-on switch or an unload button/command).
(3) Rare, but make sure you aren't caching at the firewall/proxy server level. Remember, BrowserCam is outside your LAN so if your webpage is publicly accessed via a proxy server or some other accelerator and you're bypassing that server, your proxy server may need to be refreshed. If you are still convinced it's our side, rename or remove one of your images on your page entirely. This will cause a big fat X to appear where the image should appear. If it doesn't, then you're pretty much guaranteed something is being cached somewhere, so email us with the page and the order # and we'll take a look.

What versions of Macromedia Flash are installed?

Linux: 7.0.25.0
Macintosh: 8.0.22.0
Windows XP: 8.0.22.0
Windows 2000: 8.0.22.0
Windows 98: 8.0.22.0 and 7.0.25.0

To see the versions for yourself, take a screen capture of https://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/documents/test_version.htm

I updated my user's permissions, but the changes haven't taken affect. Did I do something wrong?

Changes to users' permission won't take effect until the next time the user logs in. So log out, then log back in again, and the changes will be updated.

How many pages can I crawl at a time?

The maximum crawl allowed is 100 pages, although our BC-Premium customers can crawl up to 1,000 pages at a time.

If you try to crawl a large site (Yahoo! for example), the system will return an error at 100 pages found. Try restricting your search to fewer sub-pages, selecting "stay within domain," or by starting at a lower page.

What happens if I select the full screen?

Selecting the full screen will take a screen capture of the entire desktop. Use this option for websites with pop-up windows, sites with multiple windows, etc. Leave this option unchecked if you just want a screen capture of the browser window.

Is there a way I can let others see my projects?

Yes. Select "Make Public" on the View page to allow other users in your account to view your project files. Leave this unchecked if you don't want any one else to see them. No one outside your account can see any of your projects-ever, except for your Account administrator. The administrator sees everything within the account, and all activity shows up on invoices. So if you're moonlighting on a corporate account-be careful!

Should I use BMPs, JPGs, or PNGs?

In general, use JPEGs since they're small in file size and create a near perfect screen shot. Near perfect-not perfect. Sometimes you'll see a little fuzziness around small letters or images with lots of fine detail, and occasionally there are slight variances in colors. Bitmaps (BMP), on the other hand, won't give you that problem since a bitmap is a pixel perfect image of the screenshot. However, an 800x600 JPEG screen shot is about 250K, while the same bitmap file is about 1.5 megabytes (six times larger). Because of the size difference, we suggest you use bitmap files when you're checking precise color, or if you're using the image for high-resolution full color printing. The PNG format tends to give the best of both worlds. The quality is about the same as a BMP file; yet the file size is comparable to a JPG.