Most probably you already had some problem with software from a large company, like e.g. Windows from Microsoft. Did you write an e-mail to that company about your problem? And if you did, was there a useful answer? Strange question, isn't it?
Well, if you have a problem with a Dreamshare product, you can write an e-mail, and you will receive an answer, because I personally stand behind my products (read more about me here), and I care. You find information about how to contact me here.
Before contacting me there are possibilities to find answers for problems and questions yourself: You can read the manual of Gwendolyn - it was written to be informative and helpful. You can go through the tutorials in Gwendolyn - they are designed to teach you a lot about the program. Finally you can check the "Frequently Asked Questions" below.
FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
I need to install Gwendolyn again,
but I lost my registration information. How to proceed?
Will there be
updates for Gwendolyn, with corrections and more names?
I found
information about a name somewhere that differs from the information
in Gwendolyn. What does that mean?
I found an important name
that is missing in Gwendolyn. How can this happen?
The database is
heavily weighted towards "Western" names. Why not more names from
other cultures, e.g. Indian, Korean, Chinese etc?
Can I license
the database and use it for own, possibly commercial purposes, e.g.
for building a baby name website?
Why does the
program have the somewhat unusual name "Gwendolyn"?
What about a
program and a database with surnames / family names?
Will there be
Gwendolyn versions for other platforms, e.g. Linux or Mac OS X?
I need to install Gwendolyn again,
but I lost my registration information. How to proceed?
Download the latest version. It is now freeware, with full functionality without any
need to register.
Will there be
updates for Gwendolyn, with corrections and more names?
No.
I found
information about a name somewhere that differs from the information
in Gwendolyn. What does that mean?
It can mean quite different
things. This might be an error in the Gwendolyn database. Sometimes
there are competing, equally probable theories about the etymology of
a name; Gwendolyn might mention one, your source another. Sometimes
science progresses; Gwendolyn or your source might still feature outdated,
"overthrown" information. And finally and unfortunately some sources,
especially some "baby name websites", are very inaccurate and
unreliable. In any way do not hesitate to report your find and contact me.
I found an important
name that is missing in Gwendolyn. Why is this possible?
Probably for a simple reason: There are just
too many names! The number of names in use is surprisingly and (for
the layman) unexpectedly high. Already in a single major country there are
several ten thousands of names in regular use. The number of names in
Gwendolyn (over 8000) may seem large, but the database is not
complete, not in any respect, and not by far. On the other hand,
for a "supported" country usually all the frequent names are there,
and sometimes it is surprisingly hard to come up with missing names.
The database is
heavily weighted towards "Western" names. Why not more names from
other cultures, e.g. Indian, Korean, Chinese etc?
There are several reasons: I as the author of program and database being
myself from the West; large number of prospective users in the West;
good availability of information about Western names while only scarce
information for names from some other cultures.
Can I license
the database and use it for own, possibly commercial purposes, e.g.
for building a baby name website?
If you are serious it is probably well worth to
contact me
because first I am really the sole "owner" of the database and thus
can decide, and second because I am usually quite open to
reasonable and sensible deals. Anyway, what you are not allowed to do
is simply rip-off the database.
Why does the
program have the somewhat unusual name "Gwendolyn"?
When I started this whole name "business" I first
needed a good name for a website about given names. I wanted to
avoid the usual "BabyNames", "NamesForBaby", "SuperBabyNames",
"BabiesBestName" and so on stuff that one starts to confuse after only a
few seconds and came up with "Kunigunde", a rather old but still
well-known name in German-speaking countries. (You find the website
here). When I expanded
into English, Gwendolyn became Kunigunde's sister, so to speak.
What about a
program and a database with surnames / family names?
Gwendolyn will most probably stay a given-names-only program. I have to
concentrate, and there are already more given names than I will ever
be able to include. Furthermore I hardly have any expertise with
family names.
Will there be
Gwendolyn versions for other platforms, e.g. Linux or Mac OS X?
No. But my website babynames.ch offers
much of the functionality of Gwendolyn, on any platform with a modern web browser.