Copyright: RAS professional (C) 1996 Frank Thomas Schweitzer


Features and Overview

RAS professional is an extention of the standard Micorosoft RAS manager. That means, with RAS professional it should be much easier and comfortable to connect to your Dial-inn Server.

The major extra to the standard way is the ablity to calculate your online costs and analyse your online-behaviour via Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access.

The user interface is one more BIG feature in RAS professional. You use RAS professional in an object orientated way, that means all functions are available by the object through itself.For Example you dial, by clicking the right mouse button onto a phonebook. A context menu will be shown, where you could choose to dial.

RAS professional feature list:

•	Dialing RAS phonebooks

•	Creating RAS phonebooks

•	Renaming RAS phonebooks

•	Deleting Ras phonebooks

•	Handles providerlist, that means, you could select a list of phonebooks which will be cycled until you’ll get a connect.

•	Integrated costcalculating, with integrated costeditor

•	Cost splitting  for every phonebook and user (!)

•	Creates clearly arranged LOG-file, with the export function to ASCII and MS Excel (tabbed text)

•	Autolaunching programs after successfull connection

•	Handles login-scripts

•	Integrated Holiday database to provide better costcalculating

FAQ-List:

Q: Does RAS professional work under Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 or Windows NT 4.0?

A: This version of RAS professional does only work under Windows 95, but there exists a special NT-build, please check the RAS professional homepage at http://www.student.uni-kl.de/neurohr/ras_pro.htm for details.

Q: On my system RAS professional doesn’t save the passwords, is this a shareware limit?

A: No, RAS professional isn’t restricted in any way in the shareware version. The problem with remebering the password isn’t really a RAS professional problem. Micorsoft has release an update called „Service Pack 1“. But this updates includes a big bug in the password caching function. Since the 17th May 1996 Microsoft has released an update for their „Service Pack 1“ which should fix the problem. The easiest way to get rid of this bug, is to uninstall the „Service Pack 1“.

Q: Does the scale manager work on every telephone billing system?

A: No, it is very complicating to provide this, BUT it works NEARLY in all countries (e.g. USA, Canada, Japan, Germany, Italy, Denmark, England, France, Switzerland, Austria, Austalia, Brasil, Argentina, Netherlands....)

Q: I’ve trouble to reach the RAS professional Homepage at http://www.student.uni-kl.de/neurohr/ras_pro.htm,

is there a mirror site, or an alternate location?

A: No, but you can find it at the famous FTP-servers, just search via http://altavista.digital.com after RAS&professional, or via archie-request after ras_pro.zip. BUT to provide that you get the newest release of RAS professional check the hompage. If it is really unpossible to you to get a new release, I will mail it to you.


 Basic concepts

Object-oriented operation

The operation of RAS professional is almost completely object-oriented. This has very many advantages. For example, you don't have to search through however many menus looking for a particular command which then turns out not to be useable with the currently selected object; and you will not  be confronted with greyed-out, unselectable menu items.

With RAS professional, nearly all commands can be performed on the objects which offer them. A click on the right mouse button shows a context-sensitive menu with the possible commands for the currently selected object. Commands which do not make any sense on this objects are not shown at all. In this way it is clear at every point what commands are available.


 Phonebook TAB

Main part

This dialog part is the main program part. Here you can add, edit and dial phonebook entries and providerlists.

As discribed in ‘Basic concepts’ all features are available, by clicking the right mouse button on the specific object.

Dial a phonebook

There a two possiblities to dial a phonebook:

1) Expand the tree, by double clicking onto the phonebook part. Now all phonebooks are shown. Just press the right mouse button onto the phonebook you want to dial. Choose ‘Dial entry’ and the dialing procedure starts.

2) Expand the tree, by double clicking onto the phonebook part. Select the phonebook you want to dial and press the ‘Dial’ button at the end of the Dialog.

Creating a new phonebook

 Press the right mouse button onto the phonebook part. After choosing ‘New entry...’ the System dialog to create a new phonebook is shown.

Deleting, renaming a phonebook

Expand the tree, by doule clicking onto the phonebook part. Now all phonebooks are shown. Just press the right mouse button onto the phonebook, you want delete or rename. Choose ‘Delete entry’ or ‘Rename entry’.

Creating a providerlist

The providerlist function is a major extra to the Mircosoft standard RAS. If your provider offers more than one telephone number to dial in, connecting to him can be very hard. So just create a list of phonebooks to cycle through.

Press the right mouse button onto the provider part and select ‘New provider’. A dialog will be shown, where you could add the phonebooks you want to cycle through.

Dialing a providerlist

Expand the tree by double clicking onto the provider part. All providers will be shown. Select the provider you want to dial, and press the dial button, or press the right mouse  button, and select ‘Dial provider’.

Editng and modifying a providerlist

Expand the tree by double clicking onto the provider part. All providers will be shown. Select the provider you want to modify and press the right mouse  button, and select ‘Edit provider’. A dialog will be shown, where you could edit the providerlist.

Autolaunching programs

Expand the tree by double clicking onto the phonebook part. Select a phonebook and double click onto it.

Now select the Autolaunch part, and press the right mouse button. Choose ‘Insert application’, a dialog to add an application will be shown. You could add max. 65000 (!) applications. These applications will start automatically after you have dialed this phonebook.

Deleting or editing autolaunch programs

Expand the tree by double clicking onto the phonebook part. Select a phonebook and double click onto it.

Now expand the  autolaunch part, you will see all autolaunch programs, just click onto the program you want to modify or delete, with the right mouse button. Select ‘Edit’ or ‘Delete’ in the menu.

The ‘Overall call-fee indicator’

RAS professional logs all connections, this ‘mini’ log is shown in this part.

The ‘call-fee indicator’ in the phonebook part

Here RAS professional logs all connections of THIS phonebook.

By clicking the right mouse-button onto the ‘Scale’ part you could select a ‘scale’, this scale yould be one of the predefined ‘German Telekom’ scales or on of the three userdefined scales. But before selecting a userdefined scale, you should define the scale in the scale-manager TAB.

Editing the login-settings

Press the right mouse-button onto the ‘Login-settings’ and choose ‘edit’ after that a dialog will be shown, where you could setup your username, password, login-script and redial-time. If you setup a password here, it will be stored (!).


 LOG view TAB

Filelogging

This dialog part shows you the LOG-file. All successfull connects are logged here.

In this dialog, you can delete all calculated costs, by killing the LOG-file.

You can export the LOG into an ASCII-file or into an MS-Excel (tabbed text) file.


 Overview

In this dialog, you can create and edit a userdefined scale, which describes your telephone billing system. For german users, it shows the ‘Deutsche Telekom Tarife’.

Only for german users: „Achtung, hier sind die neuen Tarife der Deutsche Telekom integriert, die erst ab

dem 01.Juli 1996 in Kraft treten“.


Userdefined scales

Scale-manager

What does the author mean by this ? It is very easy: The main idea to develop RAS professional was, not only to connect to an ISP, no to connect and calculate the (telephone-) costs.

For that reason it is necessary to develop a „scale manager“ too.

The scales for german users are hardcoded into the program itself, users from other countries must create their scales first.

Creating or/and editing

By creating or editing a userdefined scale, you’ll have to be carefull, because RAS professional doesn’t check, if you define your scale with errors (no syntax checking).

Important !

The main thing is that you define the scale from 00:00h up to 24:00h!

Like this example:

From 00:00 To 04:30

From 04.30 To 09:41

From 09.41 To 17:53

From 17:53 To 23:57

From 23:57 To 24:00

You see that the end of one entry must be the beginning of the next

If you have trouble in understanding the dialog, take a look at the ‘Deutsche Telekom Tarife’. After that you should understand, how a scale is defined in RAS professional.

Deutsche Telekom scales

These scales are only for german users, BUT they could help other users to create their scales.

The „Deutsche Telekom“ seperates into „Weekdays“ and „Public Holidays & Sundays“. The public holidays are always Saturdays and Sundays. So RAS professional checks the Sunday and Saturday mark in the „Public holiday group“. The definition of the Weekday scale is located in the „on weekday list“ and is valid on monday, tuesday, wednesday, friday. The defintion of the Public holiday scale is located in the „on sundays and public holiday list“ and is valid on saturday and on public holidays.


 Options TAB

In this part, you can modify some options in RAS professional:

•	Playing sound after successfull connect, playing what sound after successfull connect.

•	Close RAS prfessional after disconnect.

•	Enable/Disable filelogging and costcalculating, could be usefull, if you connect through callback server

•	Minimize the ‘Connected to...’ window after connect. If you want to use this feature, RAS professional must know the caption-text of this window. In the US Windows version this caption is ‘Connected to’ in the german Windows version it is for example ‘Verbunden mit’. So if you are using a german Windows, you’ll have to change the Text from ‘Connected to’ into ‘Verbunden mit’. After you have typed in the correct Text, RAS professionl will automatically minimize this window after successfull connect.

•	Autoconnect to a provider or phonebook entry at startup


 License

RAS professional is shareware

You may test RAS professional for 30 days. After that you must either register it or stop using it.

The functional capability of the program is not restricted in any way. So you are free to test all of its features. Please support the idea of shareware and register if you like it.

Registration

With the registration you will receive a key which grants you full usage rights. This key is valid for all open beta and release versions of RAS professional.

Prices and ordering

You can find the order form and price information in the file "order.txt".

order.txt

    Information and Order Form for RAS professional

    -----------------------------------------------

      1  Information about the Registration

      2  Order Form

    1  Information about the Registration

    -------------------------------------

    Thank you very much for your interest in RAS professional !

    The registration is based on single persons because every person

    will receive a very personal key.

    The key is valid for all public release and beta versions of RAS professional.

    How to order:

      Please fill out the order form, sign it and send to

        Frank Thomas Schweitzer

        Ruedesheimer Strasse 12

        65197 Wiesbaden

        Germany

        FAX#: +49 69 7892407

thomas.schweitzer@wiesbaden.netsurf.de

    How to pay:

      There are 2 possibilities:

       a) Send 25 US$ or 35 DM in an envelope (cash)

          Please note: It is at YOUR risk. If it gets lost...

                       But so far, no money *has* gotten lost :-)

                       In my opinion this is the best way to pay

                       because it is easy and fast.

       b) Cheque. German banks charge about $15 for an exchange.

          So registration fee will be $40.

          That's not for german users ! For germans there will be no exchange,

          if you fill out the cheque with 35 DM.

    Please note:

    - Do not forget to sign the order form.

    - Please make sure that your e-mail address is valid.

      This will make things much easier.

    2  Order Form (please print)

    ----------------------------

    I would like to register RAS professional. I will receive my very personal

    key, which grants me the full usage right.

    I agree not to give the key to third parties.

    I accept the disclaimer of warranty.

    I agree not to hold Frank Thomas Schweitzer responsible for anything other

    than taking up disk space.

            Name ____________________________________________________________

          Street ____________________________________________________________

 City, State ZIP ____________________________________________________________

  E-Mail Address ____________________________________________________________

  Signature (important!) ____________________________________________________

  Please fill in the following blanks:

  Where did you get RAS professional from ? _________________________________

     (please let me know

      the full WWW/FTP address)


 Contacting the author

Postal address

Frank Thomas Schweitzer

Ruedesheimer Strasse 12

65197 Wiesbaden / Germany

FAX +49 69 7892407

Internet e-mail

thomas.schweitzer@wiesbaden.netsurf.de


 Trademarks

Acknowledgement

The software and hardware products mentioned in RAS professional (online help, other texts, the software itself) as well as programs with their own tradmarks belong to their respective owners and manufacturers; they are hereby acknowledged.


Options II TAB

•	Here you could select the caption style, you prefer.

•	Set the redial on „XXX“-error, this option is usefull, if you are using an ISDN line, which doesn’t know the busy-signal. Check the errors, on which RAS professional should redial, after they have appeared.


Holiday database

Since version 0.63, we have a holiday database.

Store all public holidays into this database, so RAS professionals calculated costs won’t be wrong.

To provide, that you don’t have to redefine every year all public holidays, RAS professional offers you the option to type a ZERO as the year. By typing this ZERO, you define this holiday as an „every year at the same date“ holiday. An exmaple for such a holiday is the christmas day, it is always the 25th Dec.