The new sign-up process

We have made some important changes in the sign-up process, some of which was, frankly, long overdue.

Previous versions of Kerika let you provide any email address which you could use to create your new user profile, and a small percentage of our users provided what were clearly fake email addresses. Since the process of creating a new user profile took place at the local computer, not our central server, we didn't have any easy way of checking whether someone had provided a legitimate email address or not.

This was something we have been wanting to fix for a long time, but it took us a while to get around to it because we had to first build a user database that we could manage centrally, and also build a subscription system. Meanwhile, there were a number of changes to the Kerika user interface that we wanted to implement because of feedback we got last year from our initial set of users.

The net result: everything took longer than expected!

So, here's how the new sign-up process works:

1. You need to sign up at our Web site, which takes about 10 seconds since all we ask for is your name and email address.
2. We send a confirmation email to the address you provided. This is a lot like signing up for other Web sites and services: the confirmation email contains a special Web link that you need to click on in order to complete the sign-up process. This helps ensure that people provided their own, real email addresses when they signed up.
3. Once you click on the Web link contained in your confirmation email, you get taken to your personal account page. This page contains your personal License Key, which is a long, random string of numbers and letters. (Techies will recognize this as a GUID.)
   

You can download the software at any time, but you need the License Key in order to set up your new user profile. When you start up Kerika, you will be asked to enter the License Key, which you can enter (with or without the dashes, and in upper- or lower-case). Note: the license key doesn't use the letter "O", so if you see something that looks like the letter "O", that's actually the number zero.

Once you enter the License Key, Kerika finishes setting up your user profile, and you can start using the software. You get a 30-day free trial, after which you need to buy a monthly subscription.

One very important point to remember: don't pass on your License Key to anyone else; otherwise they will be able to impersonate you online and possibly steal your project data!