What Special Features Do You Need?
Ask, ask, ask the sales reps about what’s available.
Remember, some networks won’t let you share printers or modems or even send files to another computer. Also, will printing take longer to set up remotely than with all the equipment by your side? How easy is it?
Also, does the network have queuing? If user A and user B both send out files to be printed on the same machine, will a disk hold user B’s file until A is done? If there’s queuing, have you given up something in return?
Find out, too, if the network is interrupt driven? Let’s say someone’s getting information off one of your computer’s disks while you’re typing. Where should your computer concentrate its processing power? On the network? Or on your screen and keyboard? Better make it the screen and keyboard, since you want your machine to record all the keystrokes you’re putting in. And on an interrupt-driven system, this can happen. So there’s less chance of “Now is the time for all good men to ...” coming out as “Nwi thetme fr all good mn....”
Is error checking in use? Will the computers ask if the others received the signal okay? Will they start again if they didn’t?
Also, what about machine A using its software to work with the contents of machine B’s disks?
And can you use your pet word-processing software to print an electronic file on someone else’s printer without getting in the way of the program he’s running at the time?
What about electronic mail and equivalents of The WEB’s “flash” command? Can you easily open your electronic mailbox to see what messages are awaiting you? Will your computer even tell you on screen when you have a “letter”? Will it beep at you? If there’s a flash-style arrangement for short messages to appear on screen, can you turn it off? Not that E-Mail and “flash” are pure delights. You may not be at the screen to receive your electronic message; with a phone message or an intercom, on the other hand, the other person would know immediately that you weren’t. Then again, with E-Mail or a flash-type arrangement, you can help soften the effects of telephone tag.[[78]]
Also, how about file locking, which keeps user A out of a file that user B is working on? That’s probably a “must.” You can’t have someone changing numbers at the same time you are and see the results add up wrong for both of you.
Another question arises. Do you want people from field offices to be able to dial in via modems? This dial-up experience—along with the general-network kind—might help you eventually make the transition to telecommuting. Obviously, however, modems may mean security problems.
Local area networks, of course, just like multiuser systems, have security risks even without modems. You’ll perhaps want to set up the network with passwords and user-privilege levels so that only you can get into every nook and cranny of the system—and no one can read every electronic file. It’s a question of management style. In fact, in respecting people’s privacy, you might even arrange for only them to be able to read some information stored on their hard disks. At any rate, do investigate the security capability of a system very carefully before buying. Don’t let a network’s technical failings complicate office politics.
Needless to say, too, make sure that no one can find his way to the payroll data base to give himself an unofficial raise.