General Help
Registration
Why do I have to register in order to use the on-site public databases and programs?
How do I register for Gene Regulation.com?
How is my registration information used?
May I change my registration information?
What do I need cookies for?
How does Gene Regulation.com access control works?
How do I log in manually?
Do I have to log out manually?
What do I do if I forget my password?
When I try to log in, the system tells me that my account has been
disabled. Why?
Other Questions
What system requirements are there for using your site?
How can I contact Gene Regulation.com?
Q) Why do I have to register before I can use the on-site
public databases and programs?
Our databases and tools are free only for non-commercial and
academic usage. In order to enforce these
restrictions, you have to register with all
the information necessary to validate your access permission.
Q) How do I register for Gene Regulation.com?
We've made registering for Gene Regulation.com as painless as possible.
Simply visit our 'Registration Page' by following the 'Register' link
on our home page and answer a few questions about yourself and
you'll be off and running!
Once you've registered, you'll have access to our public databases and
programs, every time you log in to our site.
On the 'Registration Page', a HTML form requests the
following information:
Personal Data:
Account Data:
Optional Data:
It is mandatory to fill in those fields that are labeled in bold and marked with
an asterisk.
Submit the form using the 'Register' button at the bottom of the page.
The system will perform some sanity check and verifications on the
given data. In case of problems, the registration form
will be printed again with an additional hint and some
instructions on top of the page. Follow the instructions to solve
the problem and re-submit the form using again the 'Register'
button.
Immediately after you have successfully registered, you will
be able to log in.
Later, you will receive an email from our
automated email verification authority, containing your
account name and UID (only for internal purposes).
Please reply to this email as soon as possible.
If your reply will not been seen by the verification system
within a certain period of time (usually about two weeks),
the specified account will be disabled until successful email
verification.
(See also 'When I try to login, the system tells me that my
account has been disabled. Why?').
Q) How is my registration information used?
Your registration information is used only to
enforce access restriction to our public databases
and tools.
No other third-party parties will have
access to this kind of information.
Q) May I change my registration information?
This is not yet possible! Sorry!
We intend to offer this service in the near future. Please
check back again later this year.
Q) What do I need cookies for?
A cookie is a small amount of information that a Web site sends to
your browser. Many Web sites are customized on a person-by-person
basis using cookies, so is gene-regulation.com
When your browser receives a cookie, this cookie will be added
to an in-memory cookie table.
When you close your browser, usually this table will be discarded
along with all the cookies added during the session.
The browser saves the cookies on your hard disk for future use only if
the cookie itself contains an expiration date that points to the
future. Don't worry! A cookie only takes up a tiny bit of space on your
hard disk.
During each startup, the browser checks its permanent cookie database to
see, if it contains not-expired cookies and reinitializes the
in-memory table accordingly.
If the browser receives a cookie that it has seen before and that contains an
expiration date that points to the past, the browser will
discard the previously set cookie from the in-memory table
and also from the permanent database.
Every time you re-visit a Web site, your browser checks to see if you
have any pre-defined preferences (cookies) for that particular
site. If one exists, your browser returns the cookie to the Web
site so that it can be used there, e.g. to provide account or ticket data
to validate access to restricted resources.
Because Gene Regulation.com verifies access using cookies,
you will not be able to login, if your browser doesn't support them
or if cookies are globally disabled.
See the next question on how Gene Regulation.com access control works.
Q) How does Gene Regulation.com access control works?
An access ticket will be generated by the server after your login data (account and
password) have been successfully validated, containing information that will grant
access to restricted areas of our site.
This ticket, along with
additional data, will be wrapped into a cookie and sent to your browser.
This cookie does not contain any life-time or expiration information,
and will thus be discarded when the session ends.
The ticket itself, of course, has a limited lifespan (10 hours).
If it expires, you will have to login again.
Access to any of the restricted areas will be granted
depending on the presence and the validity of the ticket (implying
the presence of the cookie). If no ticket can be found or if the
ticket is invalid, you will be redirected to the login screen
(again and again, until cookie and ticket will be seen).
Q) How Do I log in manually?
Use the login section on our home page and enter
account name and password into the corresponding fields.
Press the 'Login' button to log in.
The top line of the login section displays the current
status and, if logged in, the active account name.
Q) Do I have to log out manually?
No, not really!
When you close your browser, the cookie along with the
ticket will be discarded.
The ticket has also a limited lifespan (10 hours).
If it expires, you will be logged out automatically.
Q) What do I do if I forget my password?
Forgetting your password doesn't have to be a time-wasting hurdle for
you to jump over just to get back to logging in!
For security reasons we cannot reveal your current password to you
but we can allow you to create a new one.
At the login section click on the 'Password forgotten' link.
On the next page, enter your user name and click 'Submit'.
When you originally registered, you were asked for an optional secret
question and a corresponding answer. We will prompt you with your secret question and
if you provide the correct answer, you will be taken to a page where you
can enter a new password.
If you cannot remember your secret
answer or if you haven't provided a question during registration,
you have to register again using a different account name.
Q) When I try to login, the system tells me that my account has been disabled. Why?
You haven't replied yet to the verification email of our
automated email verification authority, so that your account
could not have been verified and was thus disabled.
If you still have access to the original verification email,
send it to the specified recipient. As soon as the
email has been received and processed, your account
will be enabled again. We will notify you via email.
Otherwise, send an email containing your registration data
to siteadmin@gene-regulation.com, and we will manually
enable your account, provided that your data matches
our records.
Q) What system requirements are there for using your site?
All you need to use our site is a cookie-enabled visual HTML
browser capable of handling redirects.
Usually all modern browsers offer both features offhand.
Q) How do I contact Gene Regulation.com?
See About Us.
