Mail
& Network settings
STAR can deliver the reports straight to your
doorstep, i.e. your email box, using any standard SMTP/POP Internet email
account or to your administration PC directly over your Local Area Network
(LAN). You are also able to store the reports on a FTP server. With the help of
the STAR "tags" (e. g. <PC>, <USER>, <DATE>, <TIME>) the
reports can be sorted according to your criterias.
1. Enter how you want the reports to be
delivered:
2. Decide if you want to
include screenshots with your report. Screenshot are available in the
interactive HTML report as well as with the STAR log file (the raw
data).
If you include screenshots in your report,
the report file is automatically zip compressed. This reduces its size
for more than 90%. The STAR Report Manager automatically will unzip the zipped
file. (Take a look in the help file at the Report Manager section: File menu,
Open for more details.) You don’t need other utilities to unzip the
file.
3. Decide WHEN you want the
reports to be emailed. You can select a size criteria (e. g. every 2 hours) or
email the reports once they reached a certain size.
Local
settings
For installations of STAR that run
unattended for long periods, the log file can grow large. Keep your STAR
software running completely maintenance free by using this function: If this
function is active and the raw log file size exceeds the specified size, the
STAR logging engine will automatically delete the current log file and start a
new log file. If you use this function STAR runs completely maintenance free and
you have always the latest information available.
Email
settings
To get started emailing reports, all you need to
enter is your email address!
By default STAR uses built-in email settings. But you
can also enter the settings of your own email account. This can be the address
of your usual email account or the address of a second email account. In the
first case you are basically emailing the file to yourself on this account. In
the later case the second email account then serves as a "relay" to receive the
file from STAR and emails it to your standard email account.
Note:
If you need full control over the STAR email process we STRONGLY recommend
that you use your own email account. We cannot guarantee the availability of
the built-in email. STAR is designed to work with any standard SMTP
accounts.
SMTP Settings (always
necessary)
(SMTP: stands for "Simple Message Transfer Protocol".
The standard email protocol used to send emails on the
Internet.)
Send from
Where does the email come from, the address of the
email account you are using to send the email. (E.g.
name@gmx.net)
SMTP server
Address of your SMTP server. Check with your email
provider for this address, typically it says something like mail.provider.com or
smtp.provider.com.
POP3 (sometimes
necessary)
(POP3: stands for "Post Office Protocol". The
standard email protocol used to receive
emails)
"Normally" you would only need to enter
the SMTP settings of your email account since STAR only sends mail and does not
receive it. However, some email service provider (e. g GMX Email) asks the user
to check her mail first before sending mail. They do this for authentication
purposes. If you need to check your mail first before you can send, you need to
also enter your POP3 settings and check the box "Unlock account box". Otherwise
leave the box unchecked.
POP3 server
Address of your POP server. Check with your email
provider for this address. Sometimes this is the same name as the SMTP server,
but mostly not!
POP3 username
Typically this is the first part of your email address
(e. g. "username").
POP3 password
The password to access your POP3 account. Your email
provider will tell you this.
Tip
You can test your email settings by using the "Send
email" button. This will send a test log file immediately.
LAN
settings
STAR contains support for deployment and
use on Local Area Networks (LAN).You can
create individual log files for each user and/or each PC by simply adding the
<PC> and/or <USER> tags in the STAR log file name. Other
available tags are <DATE>, <TIME>. STAR will automatically parse and
replace the tags with the current PC name, user name, date or
time.Example:You
name the log file "log_<USER>.sys". Your users (= user login name) are
"Lawrence Tan", "Steve Griffiths" and
"Administrator".STAR creates the following log
files:log_Lawrence Tan.sys
- log_Steve Griffiths.sys
- log_Administrator.sys
Note: On Win 9x/ME
systems it is possible that a user does not log in. In this case, and for
everything that happens before a login, the <USER> tag is replaced with
"Nobody" so the recorded information can be examined
separately.
Tech Tip 1: You can use
the <...> tags not only as part of the file name but also the file
path. If the specified folder does not exit, STAR will create it
automatically when it attempts to write to the
file.
Example: Your path name may look
like this:
\\my-computer\reports\<USER>\log_<DATE>.sys
This will result in all log files for " Lawrence
Tan" are written in the " Lawrence Tan" folder:
\\my-computer\reports\Lawrence
Tan\log_20010410.sys
\\my-computer\reports\Lawrence
Tan\log_20010411.sys
\\my-computer\reports\Lawrence
Tan\log_20010412.sys
Tech Tip 2: You
can use the "Send report via LAN" feature in to automatically create reports
on the *local* hard disk as well! This allows you to easily test the STAR report
generation. It is also a very neat feature if you use STAR to log activity
on your PCs for later reference.
Notes to Network
Administrators
1. Make sure that the network (or local) directory
exists and has full access rights (read and write) for all users! If a directory
does not exists, STAR will ask you to create it when you press the "TEST" button
on the LAN options page.
2. There is no limit to
the size or type of network that STAR is installed on, and there are no
requirements for any particular transport protocols. STAR is currently running
on small peer-to-peer office networks and multi-server networks with 100+
machines, with mixed operating systems including Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000 and
Novell.
3. All you need is one shared folder on
the Network. STAR will work on any machine that can write to that folder. Create
an invisible shared folder by adding a "$" sign to the share name so that the
end users can’t see it in Network
Neighborhood.
4. The number of Client PC
installations ("logging engine") allowed on your network is embedded in your
license key.
5. If the connection to the network
folder is lost at any point, STAR will save all information locally and resends
it once the network connection is established again. This is especially
important for a laptop that may be disconnected for long
periods.
6. To make sure you have the correct
path, we recommend that you use the "Browse" button on the LAN options
page.
7. Share Name Hint: You can setup an
"invisible share" by preceding you share name with a dollar sign ($). An
invisible share is not shown in the list of shares on your computer, but can
still be accessed by the share name (example: \\my-computer\shared$ where
"my-computer" is the name of your computer on the network an "shared$" is the
name of your hidden share).
FTP
settings
STAR makes it easy to store the reports on
a FTP server. You only have to provide the following
information:
Address
The address of the remote FTP server. It can be a
nameserver name (ftp.hostname.com) or a numerical address.
(198.123.221.032)
Username
The username used when logging on the FTP
server.
Password
The password used when logging on the FTP
server
Port
The port of the remote FTP server. This should be 21
for most FTP servers.
Directory
The directory on the remote FTP server where to log
files will be stored. Make sure that the directory name always starts with a
“/” sign.Click on
“Test” to check if you have entered valid information. It may take
several minutes until this test has completed. (Depending on the size of the
file you want to upload) So please be
patient.Note: If you don’t have
any web space you can go to http://www.thefreesite.com/Free_Web_Space/. There are a lot of
website provider listed providing web space for free.
