1.
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What Is Soda Lime Times? |
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Soda Lime Times is an on-line magazine, sometimes
called an "ezine," that is published on the first day of
every month. The magazine is primarily for lampwork
beadmakers, and those who use lampwork beads to make
jewelry and other interesting and unique things. It is
intended to be informative, entertaining and inspiring
to all beadmakers, but especially to those with skill
levels of novice to intermediate. The magazine is
published by lampwork beadmakers for lampwork beadmakers
worldwide.
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2.
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Why the 1st? |
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It is
live on our website on the 1st of each month and if you
do not unsubscribe from our newsletters, you will get an
email from us on the 1st of each month reminding you to
retrieve and save your copy to your computer.
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3.
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Is the magazine just an ezine or is it available in
print? |
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The Soda Lime Times is an ezine, meaning that
it is in PDF format. Print magazines are expensive to
produce and would require us to sell each issue for a
much higher price. Because it’s a PDF, you get to decide
how much of the magazine you want to print. With print
costs going up every year it’s nice to be able to offer
our readers 60+ pages of quality material each month for
just $4.95. We haven’t raised our prices since we
launched in 2011, and we don’t intend to.
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4.
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How do I subscribe? |
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Subscription is a two-part process. First, click on the
"subscribe" button. You are asked to configure your
membership account by providing a username, password,
email address, and your real name. Then you get to
decide whether you want a month-to-month subscription or
a yearly subscription, and whether you want to pay using
PayPal or a credit card. None of your credit card or
PayPal information is stored on the Soda Lime Times
website; it is all securely stored and maintained by
PayPal or our credit card processor. Once payment is
made, you are returned to the Soda Lime Times
website where you may use your username and password to
log in.
Going forward you will be
re-billed by PayPal or Authorize.net each month on the
monthly anniversary date of your first payment. For instance, if you
subscribed on the 12th of the month, you will be
re-billed on the 12th of each subsequent month for as
long as you wish to remain a subscriber to the
magazine. You may cancel your subscription at any
time. Either in PayPal or by emailing us at
support@sodalimetimes.com. If you have a yearly
subscription we do not automatically re-bill. We give
you the option of continuing your subscription, or
not.
Because of the way our
billing cycle is set up, unless you subscribe on the
first day of the month, you will always receive your
issue before you are billed for that month. For
example, if you subscribe on Jan. 12th you will get
the Jan. issue which was published on Jan. 1st. Then
you will get the Feb. issue on Feb. 1st, but won’t be
billed for it until Feb. 12th. When your subscription
expires or payment fails, you won't have access on Feb
13th unless you resubscribe. DO NOT create a new
account (a new login) but just use the Renew button in
your membership profile.
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5.
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How do subscribers download the magazine? |
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From
the Home Page, sign in and you will be taken to the
subscriber’s page. Once there, look for the "Get Current
Issue" button. Click on the button and the current
issue should load. You may read the issue online, or
download it to your computer but we ask that you save it
to your computer so we don't have to keep sending issues
that weren't saved. Please save them to keep down
costs of customer support tickets and keep down the
costs of SLT to you. You may also print the issue for
your own use. See below for information about our
copyright and questions about sharing. Just make sure to
save the issue to your own computer (not just the link
because the links will change each month).
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6.
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I tried to download the current issue, but the previous
issue comes up instead. What do I do? |
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Each
month we replace the previous issue with the current
issue on the 1st of the month at 12:01am EST. If
it is after that time, and you are seeing last month's
issue, refresh your browser to release some
cookies/cache. On a windows computer this is done
by hitting your F5 keyboard key. You can Google
how to do the same with other operating systems.
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7.
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Do you have any advice about how and where to save my
issues? |
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We
sure do! We receive many emails from readers whose
computers have crashed or been infected with a virus and
they have lost their Soda Lime Times issues. We
are happy to replace them when this happens, but if you
save your SLT issues (and any other tutorials you
purchase from other artists) onto an external thumb
drive, iPad or other device, they will be safe in the
event of a computer malfunction. Thumb drives are less
than $20 and will hold years’ worth of Soda Lime
Times issues.
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8.
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Why is some of the web site only available to
subscribers? |
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Access to some of the features of the web site and to
the monthly magazine is available only in the
subscriber’s area. This is a feature and benefit of
being a subscriber to the magazine. We will still have
lots of free stuff for those that want to visit our
site. But, over time the web site is intended to become
a more and more valuable resource for the subscribers.
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9.
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Why does PayPal say they need my credit card, if I only
want to use my PayPal account to subscribe? |
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PayPal provides an instant payment to Soda Lime
Times when a subscription is created. PayPal’s
policy is to secure the payment via one of three sources
so that an orderly culmination of the transaction may
occur. PayPal will first look to any available balance
in the subscriber’s PayPal account; then, from the
subscriber’s verified bank account; and third, from a
credit card attached to the Subscriber’s PayPal account.
If a credit card has not been listed on the account,
PayPal asks that one be listed at the time of
subscription to provide a backup in case the first two
options fail. The credit card is only used if the first
two sources of payment are not possible and do not fund.
A debit card is also acceptable and is treated just like
a credit card.
It is important to keep your
credit card information up to date with PayPal even if
it is just a back-up funding source. They will notify
you when your card is getting ready to expire and then
you can go to PayPal and update it. Doing so will
ensure that your subscription will uninterrupted.
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10.
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I got an email from PayPal about my Credit Card
expiring, but I ignored it. Now my payment to the
Soda Lime Times failed. What can I do?
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First
of all, don't worry. This happens all the time since
many people think those emails from PayPal are spam.
On the following LINK, PayPal has
instructions for both Personal and Business PP accounts:
https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/article/how-do-i-change-the-expiration-date-of-my-debit-or-credit-card-faq408
Once your credit card information
is updated, your subscription should continue
uninterrupted. PayPal rebills every three
days, so wait at least three full days (or four)
before you will notice your subscription renewal.
DO NOT RESUBSCRIBE during those four days and contact us
at
support@sodalimetimes.com if it doesn't update.
DO NOT RESUBSCRIBE OR YOU MAY BE BILLED TWICE FOR TWO
SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR YEARS UNTIL SOMEONE NOTICES IT.
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11.
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My subscription was cancelled. What happened? |
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First, we want to assure you that we NEVER cancel a
subscription unless we are correcting something with
your account.
Because PayPal (or Authorize.Net) are our
payment processors, they cancelled the account
automatically when they were unable to collect the
payment. They will try three times over an 11-day
period.
In most cases this is due to the subscriber’s credit
card expiring and not being updated (see above
instructions), or a new card being
registered with PayPal, but not linked to the Soda
Lime Times. A subscription can also be cancelled if
a subscriber’s credit card was stolen, lost or
compromised in any way. Don’t worry. It’s easy to fix.
Fortunately, it is very quick and
easy to re-subscribe, and you can even use your same
username and password.
First, you will need to go to
Pay Pal and make sure your card is updated as
instructed above, if you
want to use PayPal to subscribe.
While you are in PayPal, you
can set your available funding sources so that your
new card or updated card is linked to your SLT
subscription.
READ THIS TO SEE HOW FOR PERSONAL OR BUSINESS
ACCOUNTS
Then come to the
Soda Lime Times and re-subscribe.
- Just log into our site at
www.sodalimetimes.com and click Add or Renew a
Subscription. Follow the instructions and you will
be taken to PayPal where you can complete your
subscription in just a couple of minutes.
- Make sure to click save, and
your re-subscription is complete.
You should not have to do
anything more until it is time to update your credit
card information again in a few years.
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12. |
Paypal Skipped Payments
and/or Suspended Accounts (is it me or is it Paypal?) |
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Some of you are asking about suspended payments. Skipped payments in paypal are a separate issue from suspended recurring payments, and some of you are asking about the difference, and how to know what it means when Paypal sends you a suspension notice.
- SKIPPED PAYMENTS: are usually a time-out communicating between Paypal servers and your bank/credit card company servers. The system retries again in 5 days, and it usually goes through the second time. If not, it will try once more, five days later.
- SUSPENDED: means Paypal couldn’t get money via your Paypal account payment sources – either insufficient balance, or out of date or inaccurate bank/credit card info (e.g. expiration dates), or a mismatch in the contact/phone info that Paypal has vs. what your credit card company has on file. The result is suspended payments (and a membership that will expire at the end of the term). If there’s confusion as to what’s wrong in the Paypal account, the user must contact Paypal support directly.
Soda Lime Times has no access to your financial account with Paypal or your Bank. SEE ALSO STEPS BELOW!
- CANCELLED: usually means the user voluntarily cancelled
a membership, and it expires or we cancelled a subscription for you.
Suspended payments refers to the issue documented here and, by US Federal law, we have no access to the specific deficiency in your payment info or a means to correct it in Paypal, and it cannot legally be provided to us by Paypal Support - it can only be provided directly to you. So, if your payments are "suspended", we are referring (as we always have) any suspended payments users to Paypal Support to get the specific reason and resolution for their Paypal account. This would be the same with *any* payment processor, not only Paypal, and is essentially the same as a card being declined at the cash register in a store - it could be as simple as an outdated phone number on the Paypal or credit card or bank account, a zip code mismatch, or a change in expiration date, a routing number change, etc, or just info that isn't fully confirmed. While we understand it's not your intention to cancel your membership, by law
SLT Support cannot intervene, so we recommend resolving the issue with Paypal Support.
HOW TO REACTIVATE YOUR SUSPENDED PAYMENTS TO SLT: THIS INFO IS VERBATIM FROM PAYPAL SUPPORT
Here’s how to view the status of your subscriptions:
- Log into your PayPal account.
- Click "Profile" near the top of the page.
- Click "My money."
- Click "Update" beside "My preapproved payments."
You can view the status of your subscription under "Status."
Here are some more details about subscription statuses:
- Active: There are still payments scheduled for the future.
- Suspended: Payments have been temporarily stopped.
- Canceled: This subscription is canceled and no further payments can be made.
- Failed: The payment could not be completed. This payment may be reattempted.
- Billed: The subscription payment due for this billing period has been issued.
- To be billed: The subscription payment due for this billing period has not yet been issued.
- Pending: A subscription was created but a payment has not been completed
- Completed: The final subscription payment has been completed, and there are no payments scheduled for the future.
Here's how to reactivate a subscription or recurring payment:
- Log in to your PayPal account.
- Click "Profile."
- Click "Update" next to "My preapproved payments" on the "My Money" tab.
- Select the merchant whose agreement you want to reactivate and click "Reactivate."
Since you have your own Paypal account as a Paypal user,
Soda Lime Times cannot reactive your recurring payment. In the case of a Paypal account holder, it must be reactivated by the Paypal account holder. Any Paypal rep that tells you otherwise is giving you incorrect information.
Their reactivation link that they supply to us on this
side of things simply doesn't work, no matter what they
tell you. However, you should be able to reactivate it
yourself (above).
Recooping skipped or failed payments:
Sometimes we can click a link in our own SLT PayPal
account to activate an outstanding balance to collect on
it, but it doesn't reactivate your subscription.
You will need to do that yourself or renew your
subscription and cancel your old one, if all else fails
in trying to get your subscription started again.
Just email support and let them know what you have tried
and what you have done, so we can make sure you're not
going to be double billed in case something is
overlooked.
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13.
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If my credit card is lost or stolen, what do I do about
my Soda Lime Times subscription? |
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From
time to time a subscriber’s account will be cancelled by
PayPal because the credit card they had registered as a
back-up funding source was lost or stolen or the account
was closed for some other reason. In cases like this you
can go to PayPal to register the new card and
re-subscribe using the directions above. It does take a
few minutes to update with PayPal and re-subscribe, but
once it’s done there is nothing more to do until the new
card is set to expire several years down the road.
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14.
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Can I contact PayPal and talk to a real, live person? |
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Yes,
there really are living people working for PayPal and
they are actually very nice and helpful. At the bottom
of the PayPal home page is a Contact link. Click that
and then select Call Us. You will be issued a one-time
pass code that you will type in when you call. Listen to
the choices, but just say "operator" and you will bypass
the endless choices the machine gives you. Once an
operator answers he or she should be able to help you
with your account.
We are also here to help if
you'd rather talk to us in person than communicate by
email. Just call us at 423.366.6335 EST and we'll be happy
to help.
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15.
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May I subscribe using only my Credit Card? |
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Yes,
when you are ready to subscribe you get to choose
whether you want to use PayPal or your credit card.
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16.
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Why is the magazine screen blank or some pages blank when I try to see it
online or such a struggle to get the PDF files to load? |
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This started happening sometime in June 2018, and after
thoroughly investigating we found that members couldn't
even fully load issues that they had saved in previous
months. So something has happened with browsers and/or
computer updates during June. We have some suggestions
or possible causes below.
This is not a technical issue with
Soda Lime Times, itself. So please read what's below.
1. The Soda
Lime Times is delivered using the PDF format. They
are large files (most are about 14mb large) so they
cannot be emailed but they can be easily opened with the
proper programming (we do not support them being opened
in browsers, so please use programs that are made to
open PDF files)
Install
or update your Adobe Reader software. It was made to
open PDF files and we do not support the opening of our
PDF in browsers. Should you have a problem with any
particular browser, especially Microsoft Edge which no
longer wants to open PDF files for some reason, you will
need to contact your browser tech support. Browsers that
seem to do well are Firefox and Opera.
https://get.adobe.com/reader/ Uncheck the middle
column that wants you to install McAfee because it will
haunt your computer if you don't. I've found it rather
hard to get rid of.
If you still have a problem
reading PDF files, please contact Adobe for help at
http://www.adobe.com/support/
2. If you're
using an iPhone, tap once on the PDF's first page until
a drop down comes down asking you to open it in iBooks,
but you should save a copy for backup on an external
drive for safety because some members' iBooks suddenly
had none of their past issues loaded anymore. You
should always save the monthly issues to a hard drive or
jump drive for safe backups.
3. The member may
not have let the PDF file fully load before saving it to
their computer, or clicked to save too fast. If you do
not let the PDF magazine fully load, sometimes it can
end up being saved with some blank pages because you
saved it too soon without letting it load all the way.
4. The member may be using a browser such as
Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome. If opening in a
browser, the ones which haven't had any reported
problems (to us) are Firefox and Opera. The member could
open the PDF in a browser, let all the pages load by
viewing them while scrolling up and down and THEN save
the issue to their hard drive or jump drive. This isn't
a guaranteed fix but has worked for some members.
5. The member may need to update their software,
device, browser or even their computer operating system
and drivers.
6. The member may be having
conflicts with browser plug-ins/add-ons. Disable them to
see if that fixes the problem.
I'm afraid we
can't support or fix these types of technical problems.
However, the recommended program of Adobe Reader can be
download here
https://get.adobe.com/reader/ Uncheck
the middle column that wants you to install McAfee
because it will haunt your computer if you don't. I've
found it rather hard to get rid of.
If you still
have a problem reading PDF files, please contact Adobe
for help at
http://www.adobe.com/support/
For
other topics, please visit our FAQs page on our website.
Please understand that this is not a technical
problem with Soda Lime Times but we will continue our
watch for any news about what happened with Microsoft,
Google and Apple in June for any fixes that actually do
work. Until then, Adobe Reader is your best friend.
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17.
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How will I know when a new issue is available? |
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Every
month we upload the new issue to our website on the last
day of the month so that it is available to you by the
first of the month. At any time after we upload the
issue subscribers can log onto our site and get the new
issue.
We email our
subscribers each month as the new issue is published.
The new issue is available to you for a full month
before we replace it with a new issue. Please note
that at the time a new issue becomes available, the
previous issue will no longer be available. So, be
sure to get your current issue during the month of
publication. The new issue replaces the old issue on
the first day of each month.
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18.
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I'm not getting emails from the Soda Lime Times.
What is happening? |
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We send
out emails to every subscriber announcing the new issue,
but for some reason unknown to us, some email providers
block or bounce some of our emails every month. If you
did not get our courtesy emails you still have access to
the new issue. Read below…
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19.
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Do I need the email to get the issue? |
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No,
we send the emails to our subscribers as a courtesy, but
you can access the current issue at any time, from any
computer, by simply logging in either on the home page
or on the subscriber’s page.
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20.
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What happens if I forget to download and save an
issue? Can I get a replacement? |
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Yes,
once you have purchased and issue we will be happy to
replace it. Just email support@sodalimetimes.com and ask for a replacement.
We do not keep any purchaser histories online, so your
back issues are not available online. That is why we ask
you to save them to your own computer each month. If you
lose an issue, have a computer crash, or are missing any
issues you have paid for, just email us and we are happy
to help you.
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21.
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Can I purchase back issues? |
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Yes,
we have all of our back issues for sale on our website.
If you are a subscriber and want to buy back issues that
were published before you subscribed, you can purchase
them in the subscriber’s area for just $4.95 per issue.
(Remember, we’ll replace any issues you’ve already
purchased for free if they are lost or if you have a
computer malfunction). If you aren’t a subscriber, there
is a link to our back issues on our home page. Each
issue is just $6.95. Diane also has back issue bundles
in her Etsy store at
www.dianewoodall.etsy.com
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22.
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Do you have a free sample issue I can see before I
subscribe? |
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We
sure do! We have a link on our homepage that will allow
you to request a copy of our free sample issue.
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23.
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May I give the free issue to friends and
family? |
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Yes,
please do. Better yet, if they come to our site and sign
up for it they will be on our mailing list and will
receive our emails that we send out from time to time
with special offers, free tutorials, etc. We never send
out an email unless we have something of value to share,
so you don’t have to worry about us inundating you with
emails.
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24.
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Can I send issues of the magazine to friends and family? |
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Please don't. If you contact us we will be happy to help
you purchase a back issue, or issues, for someone as a
gift.
But if you are a monthly
subscriber or have purchased back issues, we ask that
you not distribute them to anyone else. The
Soda
Lime Times is copyrighted material intended for
your use only. It’s OK to show it to your friends so
they can see what it’s all about, but we ask that you
not email it to anyone. We understand that from time
to time you may want to print a tutorial and take it
with you to a Beads of Courage beadmaking day or to a
lampwork retreat, and that’s fine. Just please don’t
distribute links to the magazine or the PDFs without
our prior permission. If you email them, you are
subjecting Soda Lime Times to a loss of profit as the
search engines will scrape your emails (especially
Gmail) and has posted our issues for free online!!
Please do not share our issues through email.
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25.
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What if I want to un-subscribe? |
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Take
a deep breath and say Oooouummmmmmm, three times. Then
if you still want to unsubscribe:
1. PayPal users: go into your
PayPal account to do so.
2. Credit Card users: slip us an
email to cancel your subscription.
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26.
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May I write an article or do a tutorial for Soda
Lime Times? |
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We
welcome articles, article ideas, tutorials and tips from
our readers and friends. The Times is a "Themed"
publication, meaning that each issue has an overriding
theme. Unsolicited articles, tutorials and other things
provided by our members are appreciated, but may not be
used for some period of time, if ever, if the themes on
which we are working do not match your contribution. So
it is best to contact us by email with your idea and if
it fits you may see your name in print and become
famous. Click to access our Contact Us page:
https://www.sodalimetimes.com/contactus.html
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27.
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What is "BOC" and "LE?" |
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Good
questions. We use those acronyms all the time. They
stand for: Beads of Courage (BOC), and Lampwork Etc.
(LE). The first is our favorite bead related
Not-For-Profit organization and the second is a forum
aimed at the bead making (and related) world. For Beads
of Courage go to
http://www.beadsofcourage.org; Lampwork Etc. is
http://www.lampworketc.com |