These Net.Medic 1.2 release notes cover the following information:
-New Features in This Release
-Installation Notes
-Bugs Fixed in This Release
-Known Problems
-Notes About Performing Some Basic Operations
-Documentation Notes
Note:
If you experience any difficulty in installing or using Net.Medic, please visit the technical support page at the VitalSigns Web site (www.vitalsigns.com). If the information that you need is not on this Web page, then please check the following sources of information:
-Net.Medic getting started guide
-Net.Medic online help system
The Net.Medic getting started guide provides step-by-step instructions on how to install and get started using Net.Medic. Although a manual is not included in the download and bundled software, you can easily order one via phone, mail, or fax. To order a manual separately, go to the VitalSigns Web site and click on How To Buy. From there, you can order a manual by following the supplied instructions on how to order by phone, fax, or mail.
The Net.Medic product comes with an extensive online help system. To access the Net.Medic online help system, simply choose Help from the Net.Medic Help menu or click on the Help button (the ? button) in the Net.Medic toolbar. If you experience any difficulty in installing or using Net.Medic, please visit the technical support page at the VitalSigns Web site (www.vitalsigns.com). If the information that you need is not on this Web page, then please check the Net.Medic online help system. To access the Net.Medic online help system, simply choose Help from the Net.Medic Help menu or click on the Help button (the ? button) in the Net.Medic toolbar.
NEW FEATURES IN THIS RELEASE
This section gives an overview of the new features added to the Net.Medic product since the 1.0 release.
1. Simplified and Faster Installation Process
The installation process has been significantly simplified and the install time has been reduced.
2. Support for Netscape Communicator 4.0 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0
Net.Medic now uses a new mechanism for installing the hooks for monitoring browser activity. With this new approach, these browsers are now supported.
3. Improved Notify Capabilities
Four major improvements have been made to the Net.Medic e-mail Notify function.
First, automated e-mail notification is now only available for chronic problems or extremely severe warnings. This should help to minimize the possibility of flooding webmasters, system administrators, and ISPs with e-mails about intermittent problems. This, in turn, will enable them to focus on solving chronic problems that plague their users.
Second, the text automatically included in the e-mail notification now includes a larger number of variables. In particular, IP and TCP errors are broken down into individual error conditions. The use of modem and the connection rate are also reported. The ISP entry and egress router addresses are included along with the actual server IP address contacted by the browser.
Third, in order to help e-mail recipients understand and interpret the contents of a Net.Medic e-mail, the e-mail notification now includes an event number. This event number is a link to the VitalSigns Web site. E-mail recipients can click on the link to open a Web page that contains more detailed information about the specific problem reported by the Net.Medic user.
Fourth, the ability to send Net.Medic e-mail notifications using Extended Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (ESMTP) mail servers has been added.
4. Improved Modem Diagnostic Details
Net.Medic's e-mail notifications related to modem problems now include additional diagnostic information. These additional details can be helpful in determining the cause of the Net.Medic user's modem problems.
5. Improved DNS Availability Reporting
Net.Medic's ability to determine if a Domain Name System (DNS) server is available has been improved.
6. Revised Net.Medic's Service Provider History Report
This report now includes targets that may be helpful in evaluating the quality of service provided by your ISP.
7. Local Database To Facilitate ISP Identification
This version improves the database of ISPs in the product to identify the ISP name from many different ISP Point of Presence. It also handles many more ISP exchange points.
8. IP Address in Notify Mail Target
The SMTP address in Notify target can now be an IP address rather than a fully qualified domain name.
9. New Version Checking Capability
Net.Medic now has the ability to check if there is a new version of Net.Medic available for download. Net.Medic 1.2 will automatically check the VitalSigns Web site once a month to determine if there is a new version that should be downloaded.
10. AOL Support
Net.Medic 1.2 includes limited support for AOL while using Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer. A new category has been added to Net.Medic preferences-miscellaneous that includes the ability to manually configure your AOL dial-up speed. Please note that this should only be used if you are using AOL; dial-up speed is normally detected automatically by Net.Medic.
This support is enabled by entering the modem dial-up speed through the Net.Medic Preferences window. To access this capability, choose Preferences from the Net.Medic View menu and then click the Miscellaneous tab in the displayed Preferences window.
11. Revised Thresholds
Several Net.Medic thresholds were revised to reflect the feedback received during the Net.Medic 1.0 public beta. In particular, the thresholds, which caused the IP and network error conditions to be reported to system administrators and service providers, were revised.
12. Enhancements to the AutoCure Feature
There were several improvements made to the Net.Medic AutoCure feature. There is a new AutoCure control panel that contains a list of previously cured AutoCures with the ability to undo or redo the cure.
13. New Filter For Hiding Low Severity Error Conditions
You can now hide entries that have a low severity. This enhances the ability to filter and view health log messages in a Net.Medic report. To use this feature, choose Hide Low Severity from the View menu in the Health Log window.
14. CPU Load Monitoring
The alarm thresholds for CPU and memory usage performance conditions have been significantly changed.
15. Notify Against Slow SMTP Servers
The timeout for notification has been increased from 4 seconds to 60 seconds so that the Net.Medic client can send e-mail notifications using SMTP servers that are slow to respond. In addition, the e-mail notification has also been moved to a separate thread.
INSTALLATION NOTES
This section contains general notes about installing Net.Medic.
Before You Start
Before starting the Net.Medic installation process, shut down the following:
-Any Internet browsers
-Anti-virus programs, and
-Any earlier versions of Net.Medic open on your desktop.
Note that it is essential that you exit all browsers and any version of Net.Medic that are currently running on your system before installing Net.Medic 1.2. (To shut down Net.Medic, right-click on the Net.Medic cross icon in your system tray and choose "Exit" from the displayed pop-up menu.) It is not necessary to uninstall any existing versions of Net.Medic that are on your system before installing Net.Medic 1.2.
System Requirements
You will need the following minimum system configuration to install Net.Medic:
(1) 16 MB of RAM (24 MB recommended)
(2) A hard disk with 2 MB of free space
(3) Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0 or later operating system
(4) A disk drive that can read high-density 3.5" disks if you want to install the product from the installation disk rather than downloading it from the network
(5) A Pentium processor
(6) An Internet account and connection via a modem or LAN
(7) Netscape Communicator 4.0, Netscape Navigator 3.x, Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, or Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.x.
Note that Microsoft NT 3.51 is not supported at this time. Also, ISDN modems are not supported.
Recommended Configuration
By default, Net.Medic is installed in your StartUp folder. This is the recommended configuration because Net.Medic will automatically appear in the lower-right corner of your screen (your system tray area) every time you reboot your computer. You can quickly open the Net.Medic dashboard (Net.Medic main window) by left-clicking once on the Net.Medic system tray icon.
Uninstalling Net.Medic
If you want to remove the Net.Medic product from your system, complete the following steps:
(1) Close all browsers open on your desktop.
(2) Exit Net.Medic by right-clicking on the Net.Medic cross icon in the system tray and choosing "Exit" from the displayed menu.
(3) From the Start button in the taskbar, choose "Settings" and then "Control Panel".
(4) In the control panel, double-click on the Add/Remove programs icon.
(5) In the Add/remove program dialog box, choose "VitalSigns Software Net.Medic", and then click the Add/Remove button.
(6) In the uninstall process, choose the automatic uninstallation option. This should completely uninstall Net.Medic and clean up all of its registry entries. Note that the VitalSigns folder still contains the Net.Medic data files. These data files are not automatically removed so that you can access your Net.Medic data in the future if you decide to reinstall Net.Medic on your system. However, if you want to remove these Net.Medic data files from your system, complete the following Steps 7 and 8.
(7) Reboot your computer.
(8) Manually delete the Net.Medic data files by dragging the files to the recycle bin.
Browser Notes
Net.Medic has been tested and works with Netscape Communicator 4.0, Netscape Navigator 3.x, and Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or 3.x. It may, however, work with other 32-bit browsers. Check to see if your browser is 16-bit or 32-bit. Note that the current version of Net.Medic does not work with AOL browsers.
Feedback via E-mail
If you have questions or comments, please e-mail them to:
feedback@vitalsigns.com
GENERAL NOTES AND KNOWN PROBLEMS
The section describes some general notes and the known problems about the Net.Medic product. For more detailed product information, refer to the Net.Medic online help system. You can also obtain more information about the Net.Medic product at the VitalSigns Web site (http://www.vitalsigns.com).
GENERAL NOTES
This subsection provides general notes about the Net.Medic product.
ISDN Connection
This version of Net.Medic does not support Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) connections.
Firewall
Net.Medic was designed to work with most firewall configurations. There must be outbound Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) support at the firewall for Net.Medic to provide accurate demarcation information when accessing external Web sites.
Proxies
Net.Medic was designed to provide support for most Intranet proxy server environments. Net.Medic will characterize the environment between your browser and the proxy server. ISP and Internet data are not relevant in this case. The proxy delay is characterized in Net.Medic's Server dashboard pane. Note that the number of router hops shown in the Net.Medic animation pane (Activity pane) is the number of routers between your PC and the proxy server.
Proper ISP Demarcation
If your ISP has not entered the names of their routers into the DNS server's table then you may not get complete demarcation of your ISP.
Throughput Pane's Send and Receive Statistics
Net.Medic reports the send/receive bytes of all the network connections combined. Consequently, if you have a modem and a LAN connection and are transmitting data on both of these interfaces, the data is combined into one. The send and receive chart in the Net.Medic's Throughput pane reports the combined send and receive information.
Combined Modem and LAN Adapter Cards
If you're using a combined modem and local area network (LAN) adapter card, some of the tests applicable for the LAN environment will fail when Net.Medic is not on a LAN.
Data in Net.Medic's Health Log and E-mail Notifications
Net.Medic has a health log, which reports the conditions that Net.Medic has encountered with your online connections. You can obtain a diagnosis and prescription for a problem listed in the health log by double-clicking on the health log entry.
Sometimes the recommended prescription for a problem is to contact the person responsible for the problem. If the prescription is to send e-mail to the appropriate resource (for example, your ISP or webmaster) and it is a chronic problem, click Notify in the Net.Medic Diagnosis window and Net.Medic will display a preformatted mail message that you can send.
The last column of the health log indicates how many times Net.Medic has encountered the problem over the last 30 minutes. Net.Medic automatically generates an e-mail notification for chronic problems or severe warnings. This policy will help to avoid flooding the webmasters, system administrators, and ISPs with e-mails about intermittent problems. This, in turn, will enable them to focus on solving chronic problems that plague your online connections.
When Net.Medic generates an e-mail message it automatically includes details about the encountered problem. This information is obtained from the health log. Note that the data reported in the health log and e-mail notification applies to the data of the last event that contributed to the entry in the health log.
Before sending the e-mail, Net.Medic asks for your permission to send it. When sending a Net.Medic e-mail notification, you can enter only one address on the "To:" and "Cc:" fields.
Number of Entries in the Health Log
In the health log, color is used to signify the severity of a condition. Yellow indicates a warning condition (low severity) and red indicates a problem condition (high severity). By default, Net.Medic reports warning and problem conditions in its health log. You can easily change this default and have Net.Medic only report high-severity problems in its health log. This, in turn, will reduce the number of health log entries and focus on the problem conditions that you should probably investigate further.
To have Net.Medic report only high-severity problems in the health log, follow these steps:
(1) In the Net.Medic Health Log window, pull down the View menu.
(2) In the View menu, choose Hide Low Severity.
Accuracy of Net.Medic
Net.Medic provides indices of performance-relative measures that you can use to compare how fast one Internet Service Provider (ISP), Web site, or page download is compared to another. It is not a performance metric.
Net.Medic uses analysis techniques that calculate performance measurements as closely as practical within the limits of the Microsoft Windows and Internet environments. Because of these limits, and because Net.Medic was designed to minimize diagnostic traffic over the Internet, the results calculated by Net.Medic are close approximations, not absolute measurements. In some instances, Net.Medic provides the best estimate of performance for a specific attribute based upon sampling of available data; in other cases, Net.Medic is able to more precisely calculate the attribute based upon available data. In addition, Net.Medic employs baselining technology that enables the software to trend the end-user's unique performance experience and to assign indices of relative health, which become increasingly accurate over time.
If you are interested in tools for metering performance where precise accuracy is important, there are numerous tools to complement Net.Medic, such as the ones listed in the Related Products Web page at the VitalSigns Web site. The cost of such tools can range from thousands of dollars per unit to hundreds of thousands of dollars per unit.
Product Information
Product information is available instantly, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via the World Wide Web at:
http://www.vitalsigns.com
BUGS FIXED IN THIS RELEASE
This section describes the bugs fixed since the Net.Medic 1.0 release.
1. Improved Demarcation Algorithm
Previously if an ISP had only two routers in their domain and the first router did not respond, Net.Medic incorrectly reported that the ISP egress router was not reachable. This situation is now recognized and handled correctly. Additional tests have been added to improve the accuracy of determining the availability of the routers at the demarcation points.
2. Invalid GDI Handle
When Net.Medic is used with a debugging version of the kernel, it issued a few invalid GDI handle messages. These have been corrected.
3. Low Memory Condition on Windows NT
A problem relating to the identification of low memory on Windows NT has been fixed.
4. Interaction Between E-mail and Browser Socket Activity
A problem relating to e-mail (SMTP/POP) and browser socket activity caused the "Connection to Server" status message to be displayed in the Net.Medic status line. This problem has been corrected.
5. Memory Leak Problems Fixed
There were several memory leaks that were fixed. In particular, if the browser auto-loaded more than 128 URLs in an hour, this caused a memory leak that lead to a memory corruption and Net.Medic crash. This problem has been fixed.
KNOWN PROBLEMS
This subsection covers the known problems with the current version of the Net.Medic product.
DNS AutoCure Problems
The Domain Name System (DNS) server is a computer that acts as the server for a domain. (A domain is a part of a network in which the data processing resources are under common control. Each domain in a network is managed by a domain name server.) One of the main functions of the DNS server is to convert the host names of network nodes to IP addresses. If the primary DNS server fails, the secondary DNS server handles the responsibility. If the secondary DNS server fails, Net.Medic supplies a backup DNS server.
The Net.Medic cure for DNS status alarms inserts the address of a reliable DNS server on the Internet. This DNS server will become the new secondary DNS server and the existing primary DNS server remains unchanged. Note that the existing secondary DNS server, however, will become third in your list of DNS servers. Any existing DNS server, which was third in the DNS server list prior to the AutoCure, will be retained in the Net.Medic cure log but will be discarded from the DNS server list.
Note that the DNS AutoCure is ineffective for Net.Medic users on Intranets that are behind a firewall. The firewall prevents queries to resolve the host names of network nodes that are located outside of the Intranet. If Net.Medic detects this situation, it may disable the DNS AutoCure. If the cure is disabled, the AutoCure button in the Net.Medic Diagnosis window will be grayed (dimmed).
AutoCure for Failed Restart Connection Problems
When using AutoCure for failed restart connections, the restart may fail because the underlying DDE layer will prevent data from being received.
Remote Modem Disconnect Problems
When a remote modem disconnection occurs, Net.Medic sometimes reports this situation as a normal disconnect.
Page/Site Visit Problems
In rare cases, Net.Medic may report visits to different Web pages and sites as a single Web page visit if the visits occur in quick succession.
Display Colors Problems
If you are using Net.Medic on a laptop computer that has an older color monitor and you're running other applications, the Net.Medic display (dashboard window and browser inlay) does not always use the proper display colors. To work around this problem, follow these steps to change Net.Medic's display mode from 256 color to 16 color.
(1) Pull-down the Net.Medic View menu and choose Preferences.
(2) In the displayed Preferences window, click the Colors tab.
(3) In the displayed Colors panel, click the 16 color mode radio button.
(4) Click OK to implement the changes and close the Preferences window.
NOTES ABOUT PERFORMING SOME BASIC OPERATIONS
If you have questions about how to perform basic Net.Medic operations (for example, how to open and close the Net.Medic dashboard window), please check the following sources of information:
-Net.Medic Technical Support page at the VitalSigns Web site
-Net.Medic online help system
-Net.Medic getting started guide
DOCUMENTATION NOTES
The following are notes that relate to the Net.Medic documentation.
Ordering a Net.Medic Manual
Our retail product includes a Net.Medic manual and disk set. You can, however, order the Net.Medic manual as a separate item. To order a manual separately, please go to the VitalSigns Web site and click on How To Buy. From there, you can order a manual by following the instructions on how to order by phone, fax, or mail.
Accessing Net.Medic's Data Sheet and White Paper
Visit the VitalSigns Web site at http://www.vitalsigns.com to view and download a HyperText Markup Language (HTTP) version or an Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of Net.Medic's data sheet and white paper.
