| Volume
13,
Number 3
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Summer
2003
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Winchester,
Virginia
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“Ace
Contact Manager” Joins DMAC’s NetBased Products
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“Ace
Contact Manager” (www.goace.com)
joins DMAC’s NetBased Software Products division this fall.
DMAC acquired Ace as a product that will take DMAC and its
clients into new areas.
Although
DMAC’s first release of Ace Contact Manager is only slightly
different from the last release by its prior owners, new features
include true net-based capability and Noreen has doubled the
content of the help files. The downloadable, demo version of Ace
is fully functional, but is limited to three users and 30 records.
As
usual, the plans DMAC has for it are wonderful (in our eyes of
course).The first step was to move Ace to a network environment.
The next step will be to upgrade to 32-bit and get Ace in sync
with other DMAC products. Then enable Ace to readily exchange data
between DMAC products and other products. Stay tuned; DMAC is
hyped on this data management world!
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Universal
Naming Convention Comes To Unibase By DMAC In Newer Operating
Systems
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Years
ago Ricky Nelson (not Rick Tarbox) wanted DMAC to put Universal
Naming Convention (UNC) names into Unibase by DMAC. Well, finally
most of the newer Microsoft and LINUX operating systems support
UNC names so Unibase by DMAC now supports it.
If
the operating system does not support UNC and a UNC name is used,
it fails. When a user has various client operating systems, some
may support it; some may not. Try it with older versions and find
out.
So
what is UNC? DMAC thinks this stands for calling a server and a
volume by name instead of by letter. Thus the old way (what was
this called?) to reference a file in the Unibase directory on
serverf vol1 mapped as drive g:
would have been to use the following:
G:\unibase\tmp\turkey.txt
Using
UNC this could have been entered as the following:
\\serverf\vol1\unibase\tmp\turkey.txt
So
that is the difference. DMAC has clients doing this new way when
defining devices in spooler management. Printers can also be
accessed using UNC:
\\serverf\canon
But
of course, the little rules differ with each Microsoft operating
system. Windows 95
and Windows 98 normally support only eight.three character names
unless sufficient upgrades have been added to the OS. And remember
printers have to have an eight.three character name for these
operating systems.
This
feature will be in release 8.1 of Unibase by DMAC.
And, as usual, if there are problems that are not Microsoft OS
problems, our clients will send us enough information to fix them.
Happy device labeling.
(We are checking unibase.ini file names now).
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NetStaffTrakr
Proceeds Through DMAC’s Upgrade Process
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DMAC’s
NetBased Product, NetStaffTrakr, will soon return from DMAC’s
repackaging /manufacturing process with lots of new features. As
its first release as a DMAC product, users gave us a big list of
“needs.” Upgrading the help files was immediate. Noreen did
that quickly and these new help files are in distribution.
NetStafTrakr
is in quality assurance on its other new features. This next
release will include the following enhancements after they pass
QA:
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Novell logout also logs out of NetStafTrakr.
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Importing
users from prior versions.
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Activity
log can now be sorted.
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Comments
can be entered while “in”.
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Checked
out field can be set as a mandatory fill.
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Forcing
a default logout is possible as an option.
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Changing
font size does not mean you cannot see text.
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Activity
log has more data.
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More
choices in clearing the activity log.
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Ability
to pre-schedule more than one logout.
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Display
names by group.
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Ability
to keep track of time zone differences.
As
usual, the plans DMAC has for NetStafTrakr are wonderful (in our
eyes of course). This step gets NetStafTrakr in sync with other
DMAC products. The next step will be readily exchanging data
between DMAC products and other products. Stay tuned; DMAC is
hyped on this data management world!
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Microsoft
XP OS Runs Slow Sometimes. Why?
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DMAC
would love to say “Do not ask us why Microsoft’s XP Operating
System runs so slowly at times; we do not know.” But actually
there is a better answer in this day of the web. If you put the
following search query, “XP OS Slow Problems” into Google you
get over 60,000 returns. Reading through this information tells
you at least two things:
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The problem is real.
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Lots
of fixes are possible.
One
quick answer, of course, would be for Microsoft to fix the
problem.
After
many hours of reading these returns, Fred selected one return for
Rick to review. Rick read it and complained that Fred should have
emailed it to him not printed it out. Then Rick tried one of the
ideas and pronounced that it worked. Too early to tell if Fred
agrees that it helped.
It
seems that any time XP machines are on a local network with
operating systems other than XP, problems arise.
MCSE,
Brian M. Posey, has this to say (plus much more in his comments),
“Service Pack 1 slows XP down. File lock problems occur. Windows
XP has trouble writing to Windows 2000 domain controllers.
Microsoft support article 321169 talks about the problems. Delayed
TCP/IP packets cause problems.
Scheduled
tasks on remote machines causes problems. SMB signing
incompatibility.”
Fred
thinks that if the above helps, then the articles might help more.
The reasoning is that if the above is gibberish to you, the
solutions will be also. If gibberish, then consult an expert ( at
least 50 miles away and with a briefcase?) to help. Or wait for
Microsoft to sort it out. See the article on Microsoft updates.
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TestITP
Now Expands IDC To List All Pages in TIF File
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Unibase
Imaging users now can expand an image data control (IDC) file to
show all the pages of a TIFF file outside of data capture in
Unibase Imaging. Users requested this feature to allow creating
IDC files automatically.
Previously,
Unibase Imaging automatically expanded the IDC file when a work
batch was first opened. Then a user creating the IDC file wanted
to pick up only the second page of a TIFF file. But there was a
catch; sometimes the second page of a TIFF file did not exist. In
that case, the user wanted the first page.
Thus
TestITP was created. The user now expands a work batch into IDC
file. Next the user treats the IDC file as a text file in the
Unibase Edit program. Here in the edit program the user throws
away the pages not needed for the batch and keeps the pages
needed. Result? From the newly created IDC file the keyer sees
only images from which data is keyed. The keyer process is faster
and less confusing because only needed pages are decoded and
displayed from the TIFF file.
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Time
Zones Are Not Always One Hour Apart
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Some
facts we learned before the Internet era must be relearned. One
fact which bit us at DMAC is that we thought times zones were one
hour apart. They are not. New Delhi, India, where DMAC is
currently doing a large install, is 30 minutes apart from some
neighboring time zones.
Why
is this important? DMAC tries to cope with various versions of
Microsoft, and the way they treat file times, by ignoring the
effects of time zones. What a headache when the 30 minute
difference appeared. DMAC’s client must have wondered as DMAC kept asking for
them to send debug information to DMAC. But, it is fixed.
And
now Calcutta with, its 45-minute time zone difference from its
neighbors, is all set for an easier Unibase By DMAC installation.
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Microsoft
Updates Must Be Installed; “Suck Up and Deal”
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Used
to be that Fred never installed an update from Microsoft because
many times the update made things worse. But with the rapid
changes in operating systems due to security fixes (or whatever)
no user now has a choice.
All
of us users must update any currently supported operating system
with whatever fixes Microsoft supplies. If the operating system is
no longer supported, then the user must make sure it is not
exposed to hackers. That includes local hackers and Internet
hackers.
Microsoft
has made it easy. Go to their web site and read about “Windows
Updates.” Follow the instructions or suffer the consequences.
DMAC
will now be encouraging all its clients to run Unibase on the
latest upgrades by Microsoft. DMAC will work to keep Unibase so
that it runs on these upgrades. (No small task)
If
you must use operating systems that have not been upgraded, do at
least two things;
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Make
sure these computers with these operating systems cannot be
accessed from the internet. Expect that local hacking can
occur at any time.
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Work
out a way to replace these systems as soon as you can. If not,
you stand a chance of being “out of business” with these
machines for a long time.
We
in the computer industry are where the automobile industry was
when safety improvements were first introduced. We could fight
changing, but we will not win.
As my daughter would say, “Suck up and deal.”
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WebBase
by DMAC Moves To IIS; Goes Into Alpha Test
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WebBase
by DMAC is now running at DMAC on a Microsoft IIS server. Soon it
will be available to users on the Internet. Do not expect to see
any differences between WebBase on LINUX and WebBase on Microsoft.
The
only difference DMAC wants is for WebBase to be easier to
administer at our clients sites. For administrators, LINUX in a
Microsoft shop is like the proverbial oil and water problems. DMAC
has found most administrators are able to support either Microsoft
or LINUX – not both.
So
now users can configure WebBase on the server operating system of
their choice. This choice should be what their people know. Moving
between does not work well for DMAC’s clients.
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Graphical
Wmenu Gets First Round Feedback Improvements
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Unibase
by DMAC, Release 8.0, reception could not have been better!
Everyone sent to DMAC what they thought should be added or changed
in the Graphical Wmenu executable. So DMAC did it and the result
is now in quality assurance for the 8.1 release.
The
following feature additions resulted from first round Feedback:
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Mapping the keyboard has been improved.
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Multiple
TIFF files move together in Image Data Control files.
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Imgpath.idx
handled better in IDC editor.
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Queue
editor looks at IDC directory now.
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Queue
editor handles remarks.
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Improved
Imgpath.idx editor added to job creation
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Readme
viewer added to environment control task.
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Help
and Tmp directories now available to Unibase Explorer.
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Wmenu
now recognizes different ETROOTS.
The
improvements will go into Release 8.0. See other newsletter
articles about what is coming for the next release.
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