Previous:		If you need help
Next:		Announcements
(See printing version)

What our Users Have to Say ...

On Wed, 27 Sep 2000, Ryszard Gokieli wrote:
Dear Nicole & Roger,
this month I have sent 2 mails to HELPDESK. In neither case did I receive ANY answer, not even the automatic one about the ticket allocation. Can you check what is going on here (and please also with the problems therein!)? In your recent CNL article you write that I should have received this notification "almost immediately"...
Thank you, best regards - Richard

Dear Ryszard,
Just to make the things a little more clear, I must first apologize for my CNL article being a little unprecise. The sentence:

"you should quite immediately receive a notification message (with a
ticket number), acknowledging that your problem..."

"you should either receive a direct reply form the Helpdesk, or a
notification message (with a ticket number), acknowledging that your
problem..."

"N.B. Those messages are not necessarily sent to the originator of 
the e-mail, but often directly to the user who has the problem (when
the request is not sent by the user himself)". 

In your case the explanation is: password changes do not generate a ticket, but a direct reply from the Helpdesk, which was not sent to you, but directly to the users with the problem.
Regards,
Nicole Cremel / User Support and CNL Editor.

On Tue, 5 Sep 2000, Joachim Tuckmantel wrote:
Hello Miguel,
I did not receive a paper copy of the CNL for already some years and was quite happy scanning the web-version. Thus I was very astonished to find a printed copy in my mail box, my name on it. The only thing I know was that a few days ago I had a look in the electronic version of the latest edition (including the very nice mouse cartoon, I made a screen shot from it !!), but to my best knowledge I did not order nor a single paper copy nor a general subscription.
Is this a single error somewhere at CNL's place, if not, could you please cancel an eventual subscription for a paper copy but KEEP me on the ELECTRONIC notification list ....
Thanks and regards Joachim

We have recently decided to widen the default paper distribution to all professional CERN staff, thus your "unexpected" paper copy. The ground to it is to ensure that at least CERN staff are in the default information loop regarding IT activities, similar to what happens with the Bulletin.
Of course no problem to check you out from that distribution.
Regards,
Miguel Marquina / User Support

On Sat, 26 Aug 2000, Hamid Chakir wrote:
Bonjour
Je vous prie de bien vouloir nous envoyer votre enrichissante revue ``CERN COMPUTER NEWSLETTER'' à notre Université pour enrichir notre bibliothèque et que nos étudiants profitent le maximum de vos informations enrichissantes. Nous voulons bien recevoir les numéros apparus depuis Janvier 1999 jusqu'à nos jours.
Pour cela, est-il dans la mesure du possible de nous envoyer regulièrement les futurs numéros? Merci infiniment.
En attendant de recevoir votre réponse, je vous prie d'agréer l'expression de ma considération distinguée.
Professeur Chakir Hamid

Cher M. Chakir,
Tout d'abord merci de votre interêt pour le CNL. Veuillez noter que la réponse a vos requêtes se trouvent dans la "CNL Home page", a l'URL: http://cern.ch/ref/cnl et à la page "Help&Info" (http://cern.ch/ref/cnl/help).
Je viens d'ajouter vos nom et adresse pour l'envoi des prochains numéros, à travers la "web form" "CNL PAPER Version REGISTRATION" http://cern.ch/ref/cnl/help/register).
Pour les numéros apparus depuis Janvier 1999, ceux-ci (version PostScript) sont tous accessibles depuis le Web a l'URL: http://cern.ch/ref/cnl Est-il possible pour vous d'imprimer localement chez vous ces numéros ? (Sinon nous pourrons effectivement vous les envoyer par courrier).
Nicole Crémel / CNL Editor.

On Tue, 7 Nov 2000, Ryszard Gokieli wrote:
Bonjour, Nicole!
I would like to ask you for a help in fixing the broken links in old CNL articles. This is of course due to the constant changing of the web-servers name at CERN without maintaining backward compatibility and I am sure you are suffering from it as anybody else (probably more...) - but maybe you can take up this point in any further discussion on this subject... I think that we, the "users", have lost this battle...
In any case the problem I have at hand is a large number of DELPHI users, who are still using VXCERN for their mail. And now with the VXCERN being probably removed in the coming months (if no LEP running anymore...), they need to change to Unix mail. I direct them to old CNL articles on this subject - unfortunately, some links are broken there. Can you please fix this?
The first example is Tami Kramer's article in CNL 231 on the future of VXCERN: http://consult.cern.ch/cnls/231/art_vxcern.html. Both the link to another CNL article and the link to Pine clients are broken (although only the latter leaves the user on his own).
Thank you for your help, best regards -
- Richard Gokieli / DELPHI

Hello,
Thanks for pointing to me these invalid links and I hope I have corrected them. However please note that the CNL articles must always be considered as "punctual" information (like any other newspaper) and the information which was available on old CNLs is not "guaranteed" (even though it is available on the Web). I am pleased to correct wrong information that users bring to my attention (as you did) and when I can (otherwise I can also put an "obsolete" background on the Web). But I cannot afford to run regularly some HTML checker for all invalid links on old CNLs and then correct them to the right value (which is the difficult part).
Regards,
Nicole Cremel / CNL editor.

Regarding the VXCERN migration I invite all users to read the related article in this CNL.

About ``A French Story about Consulting'' in the last CNL...

On Fri, 15 Sep 2000, Bernd Pollermann wrote:
The joke has been told many times, but doesn't work:
Either the shepherd had 1586 sheep + one dog
but then the consultant would have counted 1587, or
the shepherd had 1585 sheep + one dog, but then
the shepherd made a mistake as well ...

Indeed Bernd, you are perfectly right !... The CNL Editor did not even notice this obvious mistake, and I have no idea how many readers have. The consultant was not that bad!