Ascend Archive
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Re: (ASCEND) Re: Net.Medic ain't very helpful

At 01:15 AM 12/08/97 -0400, you wrote:
>At 05:43 PM 8-11-97 -0700, Shiloh Costa wrote:
>>
>>Has anyone come up with any solid explanation as to why Net.Medic is
>>not an accurate diagnostic tool?  I briefly checked the program over,
>>and it reports things that a normal user wouldn't even notice.
>
>[snip]
>
>>The real question is how to convince the user that they "helpful
information"
>>that Net.Medic provides really isn't very useful and it will not help to
>>"cure" the network.
>>
>>Any ideas?
>
>Usually, simply telling the customer that the program is not a valid
>diagnostic tool, along with a quick lecture in the realities of network
>routing and the programming of error messaging, will do.  Even to most
>novices, the messages tend to sound bogus.  Once you affirm that they are,
>it will usually end the situation.
>
>If they're persistant, remind them that the program a) can only see things
>from their end of the connection, which is not a good place to be looking
>at it; b) is still not as smart as the system administrator who's actually
>looking at the system monitors; and c) only costs a few bucks, while we've
>got thousands invested in the hardware and the software that runs and
>monitors it.
>
>If they remain stubborn, look up their call record and ask them if they're
>so smart, why couldn't they get their modem initialized two weeks ago? ;-)
>
>If they get militant about it...  Well, our TOS policy on e-mail
>harrassment is pretty clear, and it applies to mail sent to the helpdesk.
>If they like sending this stuff so much, they can send it to the helpdesk
>of their next provider.  :-)
>
>Seriously, though:  In my experience we've never had to ask more than once
>to make this thing go away.  It just keeps popping up in the hands of other
>folks who don't know any better.
>
>Marty Nix
>mnix@ispalliance.net
>ISPA Technical Support

That was a good approach to the situation Marty.  Thanks for taking the
time to share that with us.  I might actually find use for some of your
ideas. :)


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