On a network of 50 users, it's difficult to ensure that each user remembers to rebuild their desktop and update their virus definitions file on a regular basis - two of the most important preventative maintenance tasks there are. Unless you're the system administrator and you do this yourself once a month (which takes a lot of time especially for 50 Macs), you rely on each user to remember to do these tasks on their own.
As time goes by, the users forget. Their Macs run sluggish because they haven't rebuilt their desktop file for two months. They pick up a virus because their virus definitions file is three months out of date.
This is where Maintenance Robot takes over. Place this utility in the Startup Items folder on each Mac on the network and the robot will force users to perform these tasks on startup at intervals you've preset. Maintenance Robot's dialogs are modal so users can't ignore them. If there's no task scheduled to run, Maintenance Robot simply quits on its own - users don't even see it happen.
Maintenance Robot was originally designed for one of our customers with 40 Macs on an ethernet network. Much of my time was spent rebuilding the desktops on their Macs once every two weeks as well as updating their Virex Virus Definitions file once a month. Until we built Maintenance Robot, this was all done manually since we just couldn't convince the users to remember to do this themselves. Maintenance Robot ended up saving the customer approximately 8 to 10 hours' worth of labour every month. Over the course of one year, doing this manually ended up costing them approximately 96 to 120 hours of labour.
Using Maintenance Robot
Using Maintenance Robot is very simple. Since this utility does not use preference files, you can configure one copy and then copy it to all of the Macs on your network saving valuable time. To "administer" Maintenance Robot, double-click on Maintenance Robot. When you see the "Splash Screen" appear, hold down the "option key" on your keyboard and click once on the "OK" button. You'll see the "Administration" screen appear.
In the Administration Screen:
Set the Robot's State After Closing to whatever you want the robot to do on the next startup (according to the settings below). Use the checkboxes to set Maintenance Robot up for the first time.
Set the Reminder Settings to launch your choice of virus definition file on one particular day of each month. Virex Virus Definition Updates used to come out around the 5th or 6th of each month. That gave us time to download the definition file and then copy it onto the main server a day or so before the users received the update reminder - they were set to the "8th" of each month. Set the "Reminder Settings" to perform a Desktop File Rebuild once a week. We chose every Monday.
Select a Virus Definition File Location. Suppose you store your virus definition files on your server - click the "Locate..." button and point Maintenance Robot to the file. You can use your choice of Virus Application - Virex, SAM, NAV or McAfee. Maintenance Robot will store this location in it's resource fork. When the day arrives, this file will be automatically launched as soon as the user clicks the "Update Virus Def's" button.
Maintenance Robot Has "Smart" Features
If both tasks fall on the same day, the user will be reminded again after the first task has been completed. What if the task falls on a Saturday or Sunday when the office is closed? Maintenance Robot will then choose the first workday after the weekend (even after a long weekend).
Maintenance Robot also sets the "default" button in its reminder dialog to whichever task is waiting to be performed saving the user an extra mouseclick. The user simply hits the "return" key to complete the task. Painless.
Why Rebuild The Desktop Every Week?
We swear by it. You can't harm your computer by doing this and our experience proves that users who rebuild their desktops once a week have far fewer problems than those who don't (especially on Macs with tens of thousands of files).
How Much Does Maintenance Robot Cost?
When you register Maintenance Robot with Mountain Ridge Dataworks, we send you a pre-personalized copy without the splash screen. Maintenance Robot comes in three sizes:
- Small Size for 2 to 10 Macs on a network $129.00
- Medium Size for 11 to 49 Macs on a network $249.00
- Large Size for 50 or more Macs on a network $499.00
To register, simply fill out the order form and send it to us. You can fax it or send us an e-mail for faster processing. We'll e-mail your pre-personalized copy of Maintenance Robot to you as soon as it's ready to go.
Known Problems
Some Quadras have refused to automatically rebuild their desktops with Maintenance Robot - particularly the Quadra 700's. We don't have a fix for this just yet but we're working on it.
If your virus definition file is buried inside of too many folders, move it to the top level of the drive it resides on otherwise the definitions file may not launch.
WE DO NOT PROVIDE FREE TECHNICAL SUPPORT FOR UNREGISTERED VERSIONS OF MAINTENANCE ROBOT NOR DO WE PROVIDE FREE TECHNICAL SUPPORT FOR SYSTEM MAINTENANCE AND COMPUTER HARDWARE/SOFTWARE RELATED PROBLEMS.
