I have a hardware lock version of PhotoModeler (parallel port dongled) and I get error messages about the lock not being detected.

There are a number of reasons this might happen.

1. Are you confident your parallel port is functioning properly? Test with a printer perhaps. Some new computers with parallel ports have them disabled during this legacy transition phase - see if you can turn the parallel port back on.
2. Visit the Rainbow Support website (the lock used by PhotoModeler is made by Rainbow).
3. Some Toshiba laptop computers have trouble detecting the lock if you run Windows 2000 or XP. Visit http://www.rainbow.com/support/thor.html and type "Toshiba patch" in the search engine to bring up the article describing the problem and instructions to fix.