Whistle InterJet II Release Notes

4.0b7
June, 1999

For the latest information about the current release, click here.

These Release Notes include important information you should know about this release, as well as descriptions of the new features included in this release of WhistleWare II Version 4.0.

Important Notes

• To access WhistleWare using Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01, 4.5, or a later version for Mac OS, you must install Mac OS Run Time for Java (MRJ) 2.1 or a later version on your Macintosh computer. You can download a free copy of MRJ from the Apple Computer Web site: http://www.apple.com/java/.
  
  Once you install MRJ on your computer, you may need to log in to the InterJet twice whenever you access WhistleWare using Internet Explorer.
  
  With MRJ enabled, Internet Explorer on a Macintosh computer may sometimes use more memory than is assigned to it, and therefore stops working. To help alleviate this problem, you can increase the preferred memory requirement for Internet Explorer to 8192K or more. To change the memory requirements for a program, follow the instructions in Mac OS Help.

• Both Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer can sometimes fail unexpectedly, display colors incorrectly, or fail to refresh the screen entirely. These problems do not affect the data or configuration information on the InterJet.

• When you view InterJet Help in Netscape Navigator, resizing the Help window may cause the text formatting to change. To restore normal text formatting, click your browser's Reload button.

• When you point to buttons and symbols on WhistleWare pages, short descriptions of those items appear. However, the descriptions may not display properly when you view WhistleWare in Netscape Navigator. Netscape Communications may correct this problem in a future release of Navigator.

• When viewing WhistleWare, ensure that your monitor's screen resolution is set to at least 800 x 600 pixels. However, at this minimum resolution, you may not be able to see the entire display for some WhistleWare pages without scrolling. In this case, use a higher screen resolution or close the browser's toolbars.

• On networks using AppleTalk routers, the InterJet sometimes does not recognize changes to AppleTalk router configurations. In this case, Macintosh computers cannot access the InterJet file server using AppleTalk. To resolve the problem, simply reboot the InterJet so that it can adapt to the changes in your AppleTalk routers.

New Features in WhistleWare 4.0

Better Navigation

WhistleWare 4.0 includes a new, easy-to-navigate interface to help you use the software more efficiently.  Each InterJet agent presents a View of the system that indicates the functions of the agent and how they interact. To access other areas of the software, you simply point to the objects on the View to display a menu, or click the object to go directly to the associated page.

Add-on Features

Whistle Communications now offers several additional features that you can buy to enhance your InterJet:

• Secure Remote Access—Allows up to ten remote users to access your network simultaneously.

• Web Site Blocking—Allows you to prevent users on your network from accessing selected categories of Web sites or specific Web sites.

• Virtual Private Network (VPN)—Allows you to connect your InterJet  to another, remote InterJet to create a private, secure network through the public Internet.

• Hardware upgrades—Depending on which InterJet model you have, you can add support for an ISDN connection or a leased-line connection, such as a fractional or full T1 connection.

To learn more about add-on features and how you can purchase them, click Add-ons on the InterJet home page.

Scheduling

A new InterJet Activity Schedule provides enhanced flexibility for controlling all time-related activities of the InterJet. You can quickly adjust the schedule to allow or limit Internet access at specified times, process incoming and outgoing e-mail messages, schedule automatic backups of InterJet data, and so on. To display the InterJet Activity Schedule, click Schedule on the InterJet home page.

Connection Reports

You can now view detailed reports on the ISP connection activity of your InterJet, which can help you optimize the use of your InterJet. You can see at a glance which users access the InterJet most frequently and the average duration of Internet access for each local user per day. If your InterJet uses a dial-on-demand connection to your ISP, you can view reports on the average duration of ISP connections per day and and per call, as well as a report on the success rate for connection attempts. To view connection activity reports, click Reports on the InterJet home page.

Internet Access Controls

WhistleWare now allows you to limit Internet access to only certain users in your organization. By selecting account privileges and specifying Internet access on the InterJet Activity Schedule, you can prevent specific users from the accessing the Internet, while still providing them with internal and external e-mail service.

Online Help System

InterJet Help has been enhanced with an easy-to-navigate table of contents and a complete index. You always have quick access to InterJet Help on any WhistleWare page.

Advanced Features

For users with sufficient expertise, the InterJet now includes the following advanced features:

Firewall configuration—You can configure the InterJet firewall to allow external computers to establish certain types of connections with computers on your Office network.

Mail routing—You can specify mail delivery routes to redirect incoming e-mail messages to specific subdomains, machines, or e-mail addresses on either your Office network or another network.

Parent proxy server designation—You can specify a parent, or upper, proxy server on either your Office network or another network to handle all user requests for Web pages or FTP files on the Internet.

Batch processing of user accounts—You can export and import InterJet user account information to and from files, which you can open in a spreadsheet program, enabling you to create or edit multiple user accounts simultaneously.

To use advanced features, you must log in to the InterJet using the Administrator (admin) account.

Remote Client Software for the Secure Remote Access Add-on Feature

To use the Secure Remote Access add-on feature, you must install and configure PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol) client software on your remote computer. The InterJet works with the following PPTP client software:

• Microsoft VPN Adapter: Included with Windows 98. For Windows 95, you may need to obtain the Dial-Up Networking Upgrade, version 1.3 or greater, from the Microsoft Web site: http://www. microsoft.com
  
  
• TunnelBuilder for Windows 95/98: Available from Network Telesystems: http://www.nts.com.
  
  
• Remote TunnelBuilder for Mac OS: Available from Network Telesystems: http://www.nts.com.

Using a  PPTP client, you can access all InterJet services, including:

• files in the dropbox and your personal folder on the InterJet file server
• e-mail messages from the InterJet mail server
• Web sites on your intranet
• all network resources that use TCP/IP, including printers and applications.

On remote computers running either Windows 95/98 or Mac OS, you can use an FTP client program to access files on the InterJet. Or, on a Windows 95/98 computer, you can use Windows Network Neighborhood to access files on the InterJet, as well as other computers that have resource sharing enabled. However, on a remote Macintosh computer, you cannot use the Chooser to access the InterJet or other network resources using AppleTalk.

Installing and configuring the Microsoft VPN Adapter

Refer to InterJet Help for information about the Microsoft VPN Adapter.

Installing and configuring TunnelBuilder for Windows 95/98

Install and configure TunnelBuilder by following the instructions that Network Telesystems provides. When defining a tunnel, specify the public IP address of the InterJet and your InterJet login name and password. For the VPN Protocol, select PPTP. For the Network Protocol, select IP only.

Important: Ensure that the NetBEUI and IPX check boxes are clear. The InterJet does not support NetBEUI or IPX over the Secure Remote Access connection.

For information about InterJet IP addresses, refer to InterJet Help.

Installing and configuring Remote TunnelBuilder for Mac OS

Install and configure Remote TunnelBuilder by following the instructions that Network Telesystems provides. When configuring the software, specify the following information:

• MacTCP or TCP/IP control panel: Specify information about your own ISP account.
  
  
• Network or AppleTalk control panel: You need not configure this control panel because the InterJet currently does not support AppleTalk over the Secure Remote Access connection.
  
  
• NTS PPP Dialer: Specify your ISP account information and modem information. In the VPN Settings dialog box, specify the public IP address of the InterJet and your InterJet login name and password. On the DNS tab, you may need to specify the internal IP address of the InterJet on your Office network.
  
  For information about InterJet IP addresses, refer to InterJet Help.

Using the Xitami Web/FTP Server with Scheduled Backups

You can use the InterJet Activity Schedule to specify the days and times at which the InterJet automatically creates backup files of its data. To create a backup file of the the entire system, the InterJet must save the backup file on a client computer that is running an FTP server. Whistle Communications provides the Xitami Web/FTP server on the InterJet II CD-ROM, which you can install on a computer running Windows 95 or 98. Once you install Xitami on a computer, you can configure it to create an FTP user account, as follows:

1. Run Xitami.
   
2. Click the Xitami icon on your computer's task bar to display the Xitami dialog box.
   
3. Click Setup.
   
4. Log in to Xitami.
   
   The Xitami Administration Web page appears.
   
5. Click Configuration.
   
   The Server Properties page appears.
   
6. Click FTP in the upper-right corner of the page.
   
   The FTP Configuration page appears.
   
7. Under User configuration file, click Define.
   
   The FTP User Properties page appears.
   
8. Click New in the upper-left corner of the page.
   
9. Specify a user name and password for the FTP user account.
   
10. Specify a login directory. (Xitami automatically creates the directory on the client computer.)
    
11. Provide the account with all user permissions by selecting their check boxes.
    
12. Click Save.
    
13. On the FTP User Profiles page, click Save.

To schedule automatic backups of InterJet data, follow the instructions in InterJet Help. In the URL for the FTP server, specify the user name and password for the FTP user account that you created using Xitami. Do not include the login directory that you created for the account. However, if you create a folder within the login directory, in which you want to the InterJet to save the backup files, you must specify that folder in the URL for the FTP server.