Technical Announcements
October 11, 2019
Product and Service End of Life Announcements
REFLECTIVE COMPUTING
After nearly 30 successful years providing software and support
to the neuroscience community, Reflective Computing will be closing
its doors on 31Dec2020.
PROGRAM UPDATES
TEMPO Program Updates will end 31Dec2019.
Users who have active Program Update
subscriptions will be able to download the last
Program Update from Reflective Computing's
website when it is released.
Users without an Active Program Updates
subscription may purchase the last Program
Update up to 31Dec2020.
UNIVERSAL KEY
A Universal Key will be distributed with the
last Program Update. The Universal Key allows
you to move your TEMPO software to new computers
without the need of a Key file from Reflective
Computing.
For users whose TEMPO software is so old (2014
or earlier) that Universal Key does not work, we
will provide KEY files until 31Dec2020.
Alternatively, you can purchase the last Program
Update up to 31Dec2020.
PERSONAL TECHNICAL SUPPORT
TEMPO Personal Technical subscriptions will end
31Dec2020. Personal Technical Support will not
be available after this date.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT HANDOUTS
Over the years, we accumulated a number of
Technical Support handouts for recurring issues
with customers. These handouts focus on
resolving specific problems and include the
content of email conversations with problem
statements, tests the user can run and
resolutions.
The last Program Update will include a copy of
all Technical Support handouts.
Users without Program Updates may purchase a
copy of the Technical Support handouts up to
31Dec2020.
THANK YOU
We wish to thank you for your incredible support
and confidence. It has been a privilege to work
with fine scientists who are doing such
important work. Our sincere and best wishes for
continued success go out to each of you.
With gratitude and thanks,
-- Sheldon Hoffman
November 29, 2010
New Hardware and Operating System Support
For user who would have questions requiring the
phasing out of diskettes and other hardware and operating system
related issues, here is a general schedule of improvements and
enhancements and the order we expect them to be released:
-
We are actively working to eliminate the diskette requirement.
We are currently beta testing the next release of the TEMPO software
which will continue to work with diskettes (for the benefit of
existing users) but will also be able to be configured to work
without diskettes. Diskettes will no longer be required for TEMPO
server, COBALT server and VideoSYNC computer.
-
After the diskette requirement is eliminated, we will work to
eliminate the parallel port requirement (for the hardware key) on
the TEMPO and COBALT servers.
-
We will modify the the software to work on Windows 7/32 bit. We
simply haven't tested this yet, it may work fine without any
alterations required.
-
After we confirm that the software works on Windows 7/32 bit,
we will focus on extending it to work on Windows XP/64 bit
and Windows 7/64 bit operating systems.
Determining release dates is difficult given the nature of software
development so we don't attempt to do that. However, are goals are
as follows:
We are hoping to release #1 and possibly #2 in the first quarter
of 2011.
Depending on when #1 and #2 are released, #3 and #4 are
scheduled to be released in the 2nd or 3rd quarter of 2011.
SYMPHONY
November 2010. For users interested in Symphony and its applications:
We are beta testing the new Symphony Spike Sorter and Symphony
Triggered Averaging software.
Once this software has been beta tested, we plan to release it
at no additional charge to all Symphony users.
Determining release dates is difficult given the nature of software
development so we don't attempt to do that. However, are goals are
as follows:
We are hoping that beta testing will be complete by the end of
the first quarter of 2011
November 16, 2009
Analysis of Microsoft time bug with Workaround Recommendations
We have analyzed the Microsoft localtime() bug which caused the
TEMPOW.EXE client program to reject an otherwise valid password
during the period 01Nov09 and 07Nov09, inclusively.
This bulletin reports the results of our analysis and our
recommendations for working around the problem.
The analysis below is based on checking the behavior of the
localtime() function for every date from 01Jan2009 through
31Dec2020. We did not analyze dates before 01Jan09 or beyond
31Dec2020.
The analysis below was performed on a Windows XP (SP 3) system.
If you would like for us to perform this analysis on a different
version of Windows, please let us know.
For users who have active Program Update subscriptions:
We recommend that you download the lasted Program Update from
our web site. As of the November 2009 Program Update, the
TEMPOW client program no longer requires a password, obviating
the problem.
If for any reason you don't wish to update your TEMPO software,
you can follow the prescription described below for users who do
not have active Program Updates.
For users who do not have active Program Updates subscriptions:
We have found that setting or clearing the "TZ" environment
variable can change the behavior of the bug and allow you to
work around the problem.
To set or clear the TZ environment variable, refer to
the 02Nov09 Bulletin.
When you set TZ, it doesn't appear to matter what you set it to.
We tried EDT, EST, PDT, PST and XXX and got the same behavior in
all cases. What mattered is that it is set to something. So we
re commend you set it to your correct time zone. For users
outside the US, set it to XXX.
On Windows XP (SP 3), we have found that the TZ
environment variable must be set during the following
periods (including on the end dates of each period):
Set TZ during:
[ 8-Mar-2009 .. 14-Mar-2009]
[ 1-Nov-2009 .. 7-Nov-2009]
[ 8-Mar-2015 .. 14-Mar-2015]
[ 1-Nov-2015 .. 7-Nov-2015]
[ 8-Mar-2020 .. 14-Mar-2020]
[ 1-Nov-2020 .. 7-Nov-2020]
The TZ environment variable _MUST BE_ clear all other periods.
If you accidently leave TZ set, it will cause thebug to occur
during the following periods:
[ 8-Mar-2009 .. 31-Oct-2009]
[14-Mar-2010 .. 6-Nov-2010]
[13-Mar-2011 .. 5-Nov-2011]
[11-Mar-2012 .. 3-Nov-2012]
[10-Mar-2013 .. 2-Nov-2013]
[ 9-Mar-2014 .. 1-Nov-2014]
[ 8-Mar-2015 .. 31-Oct-2015]
[13-Mar-2016 .. 5-Nov-2016]
[12-Mar-2017 .. 4-Nov-2017]
[11-Mar-2018 .. 3-Nov-2018]
[10-Mar-2019 .. 2-Nov-2019]
[ 8-Mar-2020 .. 31-Oct-2020]
The following period has to be treated as a special case:
[ 8-Mar-2015 .. 14-Mar-2015]
because the bug appears both when TZ is clear and when TZ is set.
During this one week period, we recommend that you clear TZ and
set the year to 2016. This will allow you to run the TEMPOW.EXE
software. After 14Mar2015, return the year back to 2015 and
reset the date on all the files you created with dates in the
year 2016.
November 2, 2009
A number of labs have reported that the procedure below is a
workaround to the Microsoft Bug, which causes the TEMPOW.EXE program
to reject an otherwise valid password.
After applying this procedure, your TEMPOW.EXE client should
accept the previously valid password.
TENTATIVE RESOLUTION:
The procedure below allows TEMPOW client that were previously
correctly licensed to get past the password check.
Please only apply this procedure if your TEMPOW.EXE client
begin rejecting an otherwise valid password after 01Nov09.
For XP Users:
1. Click Start/Settings/ControlPanel
2. Double click System
3. Click Advanced
4. Click EnvironmentVariables button
5. Under User Variables for (username), click the New button
6. Set variable Name: TZ
7. Set Variable Value as follows:
Your time zone:
---------------
Eastern time: EST
Central time: CST
Mountain time: MST
Pacific time: PST
All other zones: XXX
8. Click OK a number of times to close all windows
9. Reboot client computer.
10. Run your TEMPOW client as usual.
If you use this procedure, please check carefully that the dates
and times of the files you save with TEMPOW are what you expect.
If you see anything unusual, we would appreciate if you reported
it to us. Thank you.
Please check back with our website periodically for the latest
information on this issue.
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