\i0 . If you bought your machine from a reseller (a dealer or a NeXT VAR), you should contact the reseller. \
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\i Higher education
\i0 . If you're a customer in higher education, you should contact the campus support center for NeXT at your college or university. (If you don't know who that is, the bookstore or microcomputer center from whom your machine was bought should be able to tell you.) \
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\i Developer support.
\i0 If you've attended our class in Programming NeXT Computers, you may contact NeXT directly. Details on how to contact NeXT for technical support are provided in class. For information on how to become a NeXT developer, see NeXTanswers misc.538. If your company is a NeXT developer but you haven't been to class yourself, please direct your question to someone in your company who has attended class.\
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\i Customer support.
\i0 Non-registered developers, resellers, support providers and direct customers who qualify may purchase a subscription to NeXT's Customer Support Hotline. The Hotline provides immediate, personal assistance by NeXT technical experts on networking, system software and other technical issues. This is not a development support hotline. To qualify, subscribers must attend and complete the NeXT System Administration Course. \
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\i Europe
\i0 . European customers should contact their local reseller. If you are unclear about the appropriate support channel, you can learn where it is from NeXT's European Information Center (+45 84522) or from your local NeXT office. (See
\i0 . If you live in Asia and bought your machine from a reseller in Asia, you should contact the reseller. If you bought your machine somewhere else, such as in the U.S., and brought it with you when you moved to an Asian country, you should contact NeXT Computer Planning and Marketing Center of Canon Inc., Japan. (For information on how to contact Canon, see NeXTanswers misc.538.)\
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\i Internet bulletin board.
\i0 If you have access to the Internet, you can profitably make use of comp.sys.next. This is an electronic bulletin board whose readership includes many talented and knowledgeable people who often help answer questions. (See NeXTanswers misc.599 for information on how to obtain the software to read comp.sys.next and other Internet NetNews.) Comp.sys.next is subdivided into groups called "programmer," "sysadmin," "announce," and "misc." Frequently asked questions are stored in "announce"—look for entries with "FAQ" in the subject. (These are also available on archive servers; look for the directory pub/next/FAQ.) \
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\i FTP and email archive servers.
\i0 The Internet archive servers contain many NeXT-related documents, programs, and programming examples that can help answer your questions. You can submit and receive materials via anonymous ftp or email. See NeXTanswers misc.227 for details.\
\i0 . If you don't have Internet access but do have a modem, you can use the NeXT forum on CompuServe. CompuServe is accessible worldwide, by a local phone number in most of America, and by Minitel in France. It provides a message section where you can leave messages, announcements, questions, answers, and general NeXT trivia. There is a library section (like an archive site) that offers a place to upload and download programs and other files. They also have scheduled “live” computer conferences with NeXT users from around the world. See NeXTanswers misc.741 for details.\
\i0 At a NeXT User Group meeting, you can meet other NeXT users and developers, exchange ideas and software, and get answers to questions. As of Dec 1, 1991, there are over 250 NeXT User Groups with over 14,000 members worldwide. See NeXTanswers misc.536 for details.\
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\pard\tx1140\tx2300\tx3440\tx4600\tx5760\tx6900\tx8060\tx9200\tx10360\tx11520\fc0 Before asking a question of anyone, it's helpful to follow these steps:\
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\pard\tx440\tx1920\tx2880\tx3840\tx4800\tx5760\tx6720\tx7680\tx8640\tx9600\fi-260\li420\fc0 1. Search for an answer in Digital Librarian. You probably already have NeXT Developer and NeXT User in your default bookshelf, as well as the release notes and UNIX man pages. Other targets you'll probably want to add to your bookshelf are:\
\pard\tx1140\tx2300\tx3440\tx4600\tx5760\tx6900\tx8060\tx9200\tx10360\tx11520\fi-240\li1120\fc0 • system administration documents: /NextLibrary/Documentation/NextAdmin\
• /NextDeveloper/Examples (you need to have permission to index this)\
• /usr/include (you need to have permission to index this)\
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\fi0\li0 NeXTanswers
\fi-240\li1120 , MiniExamples, TechSupportNotes, SupportBulletins (perhaps in /LocalLibrary; ask your system administrator, or obtain them from the archive
2. Produce a small example of your problem. If it's a programming question, it's often helpful to make a tiny application that exhibits the behavior you have a question about. Often breaking the problem down help you see what the cause is. If it's a bug, narrow it down to a small reproducible test case.\
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3. When asking a question, mention the problem that you're trying to solve. Often you get wrapped up in a particular solution, and there is a simpler alternative that you hadn't thought of.\
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4. When communicating by email, include your simple example directory, or an explanation of how to reproduce your problem. NeXT Mail attachments help a lot.
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5. To avoid unnecessary duplication of effort, support personnel usually prefer that you not direct your question to multiple channels. If you do need to ask more than one person, it's courteous to inform each recipient that you have done so (for example, by cc'ing everyone on your email). \
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\pard\tx1140\tx2300\tx3440\tx4600\tx5760\tx6900\tx8060\tx9200\tx10360\tx11520\fc0 Once you obtain the answer to your question, if you feel the information would be generally useful, you are welcome to send in a submission to NeXTanswers! See NeXTanswers help.405 for details.\
