DUN Manager - Readme File for Release 2.0i - 12th November 2000
===============================================================

Important: if you are upgrading from DUN Manager Release 1.x, 
please read the upgrade information below.  

DUN Manager is a Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4 and 2000 application designed
to simplify and enhance Dial-Up Networking.  Features includes single
click connection start-up and hang-up of a connection defined by time
or day of week, monitoring in a call status window of up to eight
simultaneous connections or ISDN channels including those started by
other applications, a flashing icon while online, automatic
disconnection options to avoid remaining online by accident (including
playing sounds), reconnection for dropped calls but stopping at a
specified time (ie 8am) or after a specified period, hang-up may be
delayed until just before the next call cost increment, timed
reconnection to drop and redial a call after a specified period (where
short calls are free), alternate numbers on busy, check alive with
redialling, auto dial support from browsers, a scheduler for automated
connections and tasks, detailed connection activity logs for problem
finding, session logs with about 50 different call details including
cost and data volumes (which may be exported to Excel for further
analysis), session reports with several sub reports (telecom costs,
ISP usage, successful and failed connections, and windows user),
logging of non-RAS calls (such as fax), keep alive, dial and hang-up
remotely using a browser, call waiting re-enable after connection, PC
clock setting, program launching, a performance graph showing data
flow speeds, import and export connection entries, ISP database to
create entries automatically, and various diagnostics including Trace
Route, Ping Host, Finger and Address Look-Up.  DUN Manager includes
telephone tariffs for 47 different countries, with 125 tariffs from 30
UK operators.  DUN Manager may be purchased with single or site
licenses. 


Overview
--------

DUN Manager from Magenta Systems Ltd sits in the Windows 95, 98, ME,
NT4 or 2000 system tray as an icon, allows single click start-up and
hang-up of a dial-up networking connection defined by time or day of
week, monitoring in a call status window of up to eight simultaneous
connections or ISDN channels including those started by other
applications.  Redialling may be done if the initial connection speed
is poor or alternate numbers dialled on busy.  How connections are
started is fully configurable, as is whether a call status window
appears.  If a logon name or password has not been specified, a window
appears before dialling starts, to avoid a wasted call, or may be
forced where the password is not saved for security.  A performance
graph shows the historic transmit and receive data speeds during the
call, and graphs may also be viewed later for further analysis.  Calls
are redialled if authentication fails, or if check alive (using ping)
fails.  Dial and hang-up can be allocated to hot keys to avoid using 
the mouse.  A VPN connection can be automatically started after an ISP
connection to access a corporate LAN.   

DUN Manager provides features to stop a connection being dropped (when
there are no telecom bills), to deliberately drop an idle connection
(to avoid large telecom bills) or timed reconnection to drop and
redial a call after a specified period (where short calls are free),
reconnection for dropped calls but stopping at a specified time (ie
8am) or after a specified period, and keep alive will stop the ISP
disconnecting due to idling.  Data flow hang-up will drop the
connection when it becomes idle, while timed hang-up drops after a
specified period, in both cases with a warning sound and a short
period allowing reset of hang-up checking to stay on-line.  The
disconnection periods and settings depend on the time or day of week.  

The flashing system tray icon is a reminder while on-line,
particularly for those with internal modems, a sound may be played
periodically as a further reminder and a call status window can
regularly appear.  Sound effects may be associated with start of
dialling, successful connection, periodically while online as a
reminder, as a warning of idle connections, and when disconnected.
Sounds may be suppressed during the night. 

The PC clock can be automatically corrected from an Internet Time
Server.  Other applications may be launched when a connection starts
or hangs-up, hang-up when an application completes.  Call waiting can
be disabled before a connection and re-enabled afterwards.  A web
server is built-in, showing the call status remotely in a browser for
users on a network accessing the internet through a proxy server and
allowing calls to be dialled or hung-up.  The web server can also
serve other local pages for an intranet. 

A scheduler allows connections to be automatically started at
specified times and repeated until a particular time.  Once connected,
the scheduler will run an application or perform various other
specified tasks.  Auto dial support means that when an application
attempts to open a connection to a remove server (by clicking on a web
link), DUN Manager will automatically dial the default connection
(which may depend on the time or day of week), optionally giving a
warning prompt first.  If DUN Manager is not running, it is
automatically launched for auto dial.  A minimum gap between may be
specified between scheduled and auto dial connections, hang-up may be
after a specified period or when they become idle, but then delayed
until just before the next call cost increment.  

An activity log stores all progress messages for each connection, the
phone number dialled, session duration and performance statistics, and
is designed to be useful to ISPs for resolving connection problems.
Logging shows multi-link calls separately, and also non-RAS calls
(such as fax, HyperTerminal and Ameol2).  If the modem keeps
connection diagnostics (K56K, X2 and V90) these can be automatically
logged after each call.  Old logs are automatically deleted after so
many days. 

Connections entries may be exported and imported for back-up or to
copy to other PCs.  An ISP database allows entries to created
automatically. 

A session log keeps about 50 different call details including cost and
data volumes (which may be exported to Excel for further analysis).
Session reports include several sub reports (telecom costs, ISP usage,
successful and failed connections, and windows user).  Each telephone
number dialled can be defined with a different telecom tariff, to
allow for discount schemes like BT Best Friend.  The time left in
seconds until an incremental call cost will occur is shown.  DUN
Manager includes telephone tariffs for 47 different countries, with
125 tariffs from 30 UK operators.  Holidays may have special tariffs.
The UK tariffs are taken from the Magenta Systems Ltd. UK Telecom
Tariff Comparison web site:

http://www.magsys.co.uk/telecom/ 

DUN Manager also includes various internet diagnostic utilities,
including Address Lookup, Reverse Lookup, Ping Host, Trace Route,
Finger and a Telnet terminal for accessing remote servers.   All these
utilities save up to 30 previously used host names, easing subsequent
diagnostic sessions.

DUN Manager is shareware, developed by Magenta Systems Ltd, in the UK.
DUN Manager may be evaluated for 30 days, but must be registered if
usage is to continue.  Until registered, after a few days DUN Manager
may display a nag screen for a short period after each connection.
Registration costs £25 (UKP) which is about US$37 or €42 (euro) with
discounts for site licenses, and is usually done from the Registration
option within DUN Manager via email with an encrypted credit card
number or by printing a page to be faxed or snail mailed.  DUN Manager
may also be registered via a secure web site at:
http://www.magsys.co.uk/dunman/


Tariffs
-------

Tariffs are included for the following 47 countries: Argentina,
Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Croatia, Cyprus,
Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany,
Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy,
Jersey, Kenya, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius,
Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, South
Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey,
United Arab Emirates, Venezuela and the UK.  Further countries are
being added regularly. 


Installation
------------

DUN Manager comprises a program file DUNMAN.EXE (about 1 Mbyte in
size, and four small DLL files.  Installation will therefore not
effect any other Windows applications.  No software will be installed
in the Windows directory.  The only prerequisite is Windows 95 (any
version), Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000, with TCP/IP
networking and Dial-Up Networking (Remote Access Services) installed.
DUN Manager will work on 486/66 PCs with 16 Mbytes of memory, but
anything slower is not recommended.  For Windows 95, it is strongly
recommended that Dial-Up Networking 1.2 or 1.3 is installed, these are
available as upgrades from the Microsoft web site.  Performance
statistics may not be available with earlier versions of DUN. 

DUN Manager is usually distributed as a ZIP file which should first be
unzipped into a temporary folder.  If you do not already have it, the
Winzip application from http://www.winzip.com/ (or from most magazine
cover CD-ROMs, Tucows archives, etc) is strongly recommended.  The
program SETUP.EXE should then be run to install DUN Manager.  About
1.5 Mbytes of disk space is required for the software and
documentation, but more will be required if logging is used.  If you
have received an executable with a version number like DUNMAN20.EXE,
this should be run just like SETUP.EXE to install the software.  The
DUN Manager icon is placed on the desktop, allowing easy start-up.

If DUN Manager 2.0d or later is already running, it will be stopped
automatically as installation commences.  

A number of WAV sound files suitable for the events in DUN Manager may
be downloaded from the DUN Manager web site in file DUNSOUND.ZIP,
which should be unzipped into the C:\WINDOWS\MEDIA or C:\WINNT\MEDIA
directory for convenience with the specific directory then set in.
Preferences, General - Sounds.

Now that installation is complete, you should follow the steps for
Initial Set-Up and Use in the Help file. 


Upgrading, Restrictions and Notes
---------------------------------

DUN Manager Release 2.0a was a major release that involved over four
months of development and three months of beta testing.  There are a
large number of new features, as detailed in the Help file, Release
Notes 2.  When you upgrade from Release 1 to 2.0a or later, there are
several important preference settings that must be made, for
disconnection and costing to continue to work properly.  There are too
many changes with this release to make all the settings backward
compatible.  Please allow a good period of time to look around this
new release and read the help, before making any connections. 

After installing and running the new release, the DUN Connections
window should open automatically, take Defaults and set Dialling,
Disconnection, Reconnection and Sound properties that will effect all
your connection entries.  If you have multiple connection entries that
need differing properties, select these entries one by one from DUN
Connections, take Properties, tick the options to override on the
Defaults tab, and change what is necessary.  

Call costing has also changed, with all settings now under
Preferences, Logs/Cost.  You need to specify which tariffs apply to
which dialled telephone numbers.  

There are now two different Call Status windows, one of which should
be selected in Preferences, General - Appearance. Most of the new
multi-call facilities are supported in the new Multi-Call Status
window.  

The first time that you access DUN Manager 2.0a or later, some old
connection specific settings from 1.2d and earlier will be deleted.
If you subsequently need to re-install 1.2d or earlier due to serious
problems with the new release, it will be necessary to access
Preferences - Connections, and re-enter Dial Attempts, Tariff for Call
Costing and Alternate Numbers for each connection.  

Release 2.0a and later introduced a new format for the Session Logs,
storing a lot more information about each call and allowing improved
reports.  There is an option in the Session Log window to convert the
old format logs into the new format, so that historical information is
not lost.  Once the old session logs have been converted, they may be
deleted, any files with names in the format 'session-2000-03.log'
(where the year and month differ).  WARNING, do not delete the new
session log files that have one extra S (sessions-2000-03.log). 

Also, with Release 2 all tariff files are now in the sub directory
COSTING, so all files with the extension TRF in the main DUN Manager
directory may be deleted.  


Distribution
------------

DUN Manager may be freely distributed via web pages, FTP sites, BBS
and conferencing systems or on CD-ROM in unaltered zip format, but no
charge may be made other than reasonable media or bandwidth cost.  Any
notifications must state that DUN Manager is shareware with nags until
registered with Magenta Systems Ltd.  Please email Magenta Systems Ltd
if you distribute DUN Manager in some way, so you can be notified of
upgrades or other important changes. 

DUN Manager may also be distributed or sold by partners.  For instance 
dealers could pre-install DUN Manager on new PCs, and can then be
assured of receiving a commission from Magenta Systems Ltd if the
software is subsequently registered.  Please contact
dunman@magsys.co.uk if you are interesting in reselling DUN Manager
with PCs or internet services.


Copyright Information
---------------------

DUN Manager is copyright Magenta Systems Ltd, England, 2000.

Magenta Systems Ltd
9 Vincent Road
Croydon 
CR0 6ED
United Kingdom

Phone 020 8656 3636, International Phone +44 20 8656 3636
Fax 020 8656 8127, International Fax +44 20 8656 8127

Email: dunman@magsys.co.uk
Web: http://www.magsys.co.uk/dunman/
Download: http://www.magsys.co.uk/dunman/dunman20.zip 
(1,102,293 bytes)
Alt Download: http://www.dunman.freeserve.co.uk/dunman20.zip
Sound files: http://www.magsys.co.uk/dunman/dunsound.zip
(527,487bytes)

There is also a support conference on the CIX conferencing system, 
cix:magsoft.  Information on joining CIX may be found at 
http://www.cix.co.uk/.  

