Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!tank!gargoyle!dawyd
From: dawyd@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (David Walton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: What I'd like to see in the AppleShare of the 90's
Summary: More management tools would be nice...
Keywords: accounting, communications
Message-ID: <581@gargoyle.uchicago.edu>
Date: 16 Jan 90 01:12:54 GMT
References: <25184@brunix.UUCP> <25862@cup.portal.com> <25447@brunix.UUCP> <25942@cup.portal.com> <1990Jan15.173834.27744@phri.nyu.edu>
Reply-To: dawyd@gargoyle.uchicago.edu.UUCP (David Walton)
Organization: U. Chicago Computing Organizations, Academic and Public Comp.
Lines: 34

AppleShare could really use better facilities for keeping track of and
communicating with users.  To wit:

* The ability to send messages to any or all users at any time,
  instead of only when the server is about to shut down.

* Some form of accounting, by which I mean basic information about
  when users log on and for how long.

AppleShare seems to have been written under the assumption that all
users would be in the same physical office, and that communicating
with users, if necessary, could always be done face-to-face.  The
basic feedback mechanism was word of mouth.  For those installations
that enable anonymous ('guest') login or which allow access across
multiple zones (where users are very likely in different buildings),
such communication isn't possible.  The administrator can't really
gather the information he or she needs to assess how the server is
being used.  Yet in a very primitive form, the basic functions for
getting that information--recording logins and logouts and
communicating with users--are already provided in AppleShare.  The
information about who is logged in is displayed on-screen; and one can
broadcast a message to all users that the server is shutting down.  I
could be wrong, of course ;-), but I can't imagine that Apple's
software engineers would have that much difficulty expanding those
functions just a bit.

Apple need not turn AppleShare into a large-scale package for managing
hundreds of accounts or providing access to users across the country,
but I do think that they should provide a few basic tools for using
their software and machines more effectively.-- 

David Walton		Internet: dwal@tank.UChicago.EDU
University of Chicago   {  Any opinions herein are my own, not      }
Computing Organizations {  those of my employers (or anybody else). }