PC Pro 2000 November/pcpro1100a.iso/Essent/Internet/DUNMgr/readme.txt

Text File | 2000-05-29 | 14.3 KB | 278 lines

DUN Manager - Readme File for Release 2.0e - 29th May 2000
==========================================================

Important: if you are upgrading from DUN Manager Release 1.x,
please read the upgrade information below.

DUN Manager is a Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4 and 2000 application designed
to simplify and enhance Dial-Up Networking.  Features includes single
click connection start-up and hang-up of a connection defined by time or
day of week, monitoring in a call status window of up to eight
simultaneous connections or ISDN channels including those started by
other applications, a flashing icon while online, automatic
disconnection options to avoid remaining online by accident (including
playing sounds), reconnection for dropped calls but stopping at a
specified time (ie 8am) or after a specified period, hang-up may be
delayed until just before the next call cost increment, timed
reconnection to drop and redial a call after a specified period (where
short calls are free), alternate numbers on busy, check alive with
redialling, auto dial support from browsers, a scheduler for automated
connections and tasks, detailed connection activity logs for problem
finding, session logs with about 50 different call details including
cost and data volumes (which may be exported to Excel for further
analysis), session reports with several sub reports (telecom costs, ISP
usage, successful and failed connections, and windows user), logging of
non-RAS calls (such as fax), keep alive, dial and hang-up remotely using
a browser, call waiting re-enable after connection, PC clock setting,
program launching, a performance graph showing data flow speeds, import
and export connection entries, ISP database to create entries
automatically, and various diagnostics including Trace Route, Ping Host,
Finger and Address Look-Up.  DUN Manager includes telephone tariffs for
46 different countries, with 125 tariffs from 30 UK operators.  DUN
Manager may be purchased with single or site licenses.

Overview
--------

DUN Manager from Magenta Systems Ltd sits in the Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4
or 2000 system tray as an icon, allows single click start-up and hang-up
of a dial-up networking connection defined by time or day of week,
monitoring in a call status window of up to eight simultaneous
connections or ISDN channels including those started by other
applications.  Redialling may be done if the initial connection speed is
poor or alternate numbers dialled on busy.  How connections are started
is fully configurable, as is whether a call status window appears.  If a
logon name or password has not been specified, a window appears before
dialling starts, to avoid a wasted call, or may be forced where the
password is not saved for security.  A performance graph shows the
historic transmit and receive data speeds during the call, and graphs
may also be viewed later for further analysis.  Calls are redialled if
authentication fails, or if check alive (using ping) fails.

DUN Manager provides features to stop a connection being dropped (when
there are no telecom bills), to deliberately drop an idle connection (to
avoid large telecom bills) or timed reconnection to drop and redial a
call after a specified period (where short calls are free), reconnection
for dropped calls but stopping at a specified time (ie 8am) or after a
specified period, and keep alive will stop the ISP disconnecting due to
idling.  Data flow hang-up will drop the connection when it becomes
idle, while timed hang-up drops after a specified period, in both cases
with a warning sound and a short period allowing reset of hang-up
checking to stay on-line.  The disconnection periods and settings depend
on the time or day of week.

The flashing system tray icon is a reminder while on-line, particularly
for those with internal modems, a sound may be played periodically as a
further reminder and a call status window can regularly appear.  Sound
effects may be associated with start of dialling, successful connection,
periodically while online as a reminder, as a warning of idle
connections, and when disconnected.  Sounds may be suppressed during the
night.

The PC clock can be automatically corrected from an Internet Time
Server.  Other applications may be launched when a connection starts or
hangs-up, hang-up when an application completes.  Call waiting can be
disabled before a connection and re-enabled afterwards.  A web server is
built-in, showing the call status remotely in a browser for users on a
network accessing the internet through a proxy server and allowing calls
to be dialled or hung-up.  The web server can also serve other local
pages for an intranet.

A scheduler allows connections to be automatically started at specified
times and repeated until a particular time.  Once connected, the
scheduler will run an application or perform various other specified
tasks.  Auto dial support means that when an application attempts to
open a connection to a remove server (by clicking on a web link), DUN
Manager will automatically dial the default connection (which may depend
on the time or day of week), optionally giving a warning prompt first.
If DUN Manager is not running, it is automatically launched for auto
dial.  A minimum gap between may be specified between scheduled and auto
dial connections, hang-up may be after a specified period or when they
become idle, but then delayed until just before the next call cost
increment.

An activity log stores all progress messages for each connection, the
phone number dialled, session duration and performance statistics, and
is designed to be useful to ISPs for resolving connection problems.
Logging shows multi-link calls separately, and also non-RAS calls (such
as fax, HyperTerminal and Ameol2).  If the modem keeps connection
diagnostics (K56K, X2 and V90) these can be automatically logged after
each call.  Old logs are automatically deleted after so many days.

Connections entries may be exported and imported for back-up or to copy
to other PCs.  An ISP database allows entries to created automatically.

A session log keeps about 50 different call details including cost and
data volumes (which may be exported to Excel for further analysis).
Session reports include several sub reports (telecom costs, ISP usage,
successful and failed connections, and windows user).  Each telephone
number dialled can be defined with a different telecom tariff, to allow
for discount schemes like BT Best Friend.  The time left in seconds
until an incremental call cost will occur is shown.  DUN Manager
includes telephone tariffs for 46 different countries, with 125 tariffs
from 30 UK operators.  Holidays may have special tariffs.  The UK
tariffs are taken from the Magenta Systems Ltd. UK Telecom Tariff
Comparison web site:

http://www.magsys.co.uk/telecom/

DUN Manager also includes various internet diagnostic utilities,
including Address Lookup, Reverse Lookup, Ping Host, Trace Route, Finger
and a Telnet terminal for accessing remote servers.   All these
utilities save up to 30 previously used host names, easing subsequent
diagnostic sessions.

DUN Manager is shareware, developed by Magenta Systems Ltd, in the UK.
DUN Manager may be evaluated for 30 days, but must be registered if
usage is to continue.  Until registered, after a few days DUN Manager
may display a nag screen for a short period after each connection.
Registration costs ú25 (UKP) which is about $41 or Ç38 (euro) with
discounts for site licenses, and is usually done from the Registration
option within DUN Manager via email with an encrypted credit card number
or by printing a page to be faxed or snail mailed.  DUN Manager may also
be registered via the web site at: http://www.magsys.co.uk/dunman/


Tariffs
-------

Tariffs are included for the following 46 countries: Argentina,
Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Croatia, Cyprus,
Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany,
Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy,
Jersey, Kenya, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Monaco,
Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain,
Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates,
Venezuela and the UK.  Further countries are being added regularly.


Installation
------------

DUN Manager comprises a program file DUNMAN.EXE (about 1 Mbyte in
size, and three small DLL files.  Installation will therefore not effect
any other Windows applications.  No software will be installed in the
Windows directory.  The only prerequisite is Windows 95 (any version),
Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000, with TCP/IP networking and
Dial-Up Networking (Remote Access Services) installed.  DUN Manager will
work on 486/66 PCs with 16 Mbytes of memory, but anything slower is not
recommended.  For Windows 95, it is strongly recommended that Dial-Up
Networking 1.2 or 1.3 is installed, these are available as upgrades from
the Microsoft web site.  Performance statistics may not be available
with earlier versions of DUN.

DUN Manager is usually distributed as a ZIP file which should first be
unzipped into a temporary folder.  If you do not already have it, the
Winzip application from http://www.winzip.com/ (or from most magazine
cover CD-ROMs, Tucows archives, etc) is strongly recommended.  The
program SETUP.EXE should then be run to install DUN Manager.  About 1.5
Mbytes of disk space is required for the software and documentation, but
more will be required if logging is used.  If you have received an
executable with a version number like DUNMAN20.EXE, this should be run
just like SETUP.EXE to install the software.  The DUN Manager icon is
placed on the desktop, allowing easy start-up.

A number of WAV sound files suitable for the events in DUN Manager may
be downloaded from the DUN Manager web site in file DUNSOUND.ZIP, which
should be unzipped into the C:\WINDOWS\MEDIA or C:\WINNT\MEDIA directory
for convenience with the specific directory then set in. Preferences,
General - Sounds.

Now that installation is complete, you should follow the steps for
Initial Set-Up and Use in the Help file.


Upgrading, Restrictions and Notes
---------------------------------

DUN Manager Release 2.0a was a major release that involved over four
months of development and three months of beta testing.  There are a
large number of new features, as detailed in the Help file, Release
Notes 2.  When you upgrade from Release 1 to 2.0a or later, there are
several important preference settings that must be made, for
disconnection and costing to continue to work properly.  There are too
many changes with this release to make all the settings backward
compatible.  Please allow a good period of time to look around this new
release and read the help, before making any connections.

After installing and running the new release, the DUN Connections window
should open automatically, take Defaults and set Dialling,
Disconnection, Reconnection and Sound properties that will effect all
your connection entries.  If you have multiple connection entries that
need differing properties, select these entries one by one from DUN
Connections, take Properties, tick the options to override on the
Defaults tab, and change what is necessary.

Call costing has also changed, with all settings now under Preferences,
Logs/Cost.  You need to specify which tariffs apply to which dialled
telephone numbers.

There are now two different Call Status windows, one of which should be
selected in Preferences, General - Appearance. Most of the new
multi-call facilities are supported in the new Multi-Call Status window.

The first time that you access DUN Manager 2.0a or later, some old
connection specific settings from 1.2d and earlier will be deleted.  If
you subsequently need to re-install 1.2d or earlier due to serious
problems with the new release, it will be necessary to access
Preferences - Connections, and re-enter Dial Attempts, Tariff for Call
Costing and Alternate Numbers for each connection.

Release 2.0a and later introduced a new format for the Session Logs,
storing a lot more information about each call and allowing improved
reports.  There is an option in the Session Log window to convert the
old format logs into the new format, so that historical information is
not lost.  Once the old session logs have been converted, they may be
deleted, any files with names in the format 'session-2000-03.log' (where
the year and month differ).  WARNING, do not delete the new session log
files that have one extra S (sessions-2000-03.log).

Also, with Release 2 all tariff files are now in the sub directory
COSTING, so all files with the extension TRF in the main DUN Manager
directory may be deleted.


Distribution
------------

DUN Manager may be freely distributed via web pages, FTP sites, BBS and
conferencing systems or on CD-ROM in unaltered zip format, but no charge
may be made other than reasonable media or bandwidth cost.  Any
notifications must state that DUN Manager is shareware with nags until
registered with Magenta Systems Ltd.  Please email Magenta Systems Ltd
if you distribute DUN Manager in some way, so you can be notified of
upgrades or other important changes.

DUN Manager may also be distributed or sold by partners.  For instance
dealers could pre-install DUN Manager on new PCs, and can then be
assured of receiving a commission from Magenta Systems Ltd if the
software is subsequently registered.  Please contact [e-mail]
if you are interesting in reselling DUN Manager with PCs or internet
services.


Copyright Information
---------------------

DUN Manager is copyright Magenta Systems Ltd, England, 2000.

Magenta Systems Ltd
9 Vincent Road
Croydon
CR0 6ED
United Kingdom

Phone [phone], International Phone [phone]
Fax [phone], International Fax [phone]

Email: [e-mail]
Web: http://www.magsys.co.uk/dunman/
Download: http://www.magsys.co.uk/dunman/dunman20.zip (1,031,478 bytes)
Alt Download: http://www.dunman.freeserve.co.uk/dunman20.zip
Sound files: http://www.magsys.co.uk/dunman/dunsound.zip (527,487 bytes)

There is also a support conference on the CIX conferencing system,
cix:magsoft.  Information on joining CIX may be found at
http://www.cix.co.uk/.