By Bob Vogel, B2 Marketing
There’s always something or another that goes whacky with my laptop… and the cause is usually not obvious.
I remember one time that my email stopped accepting html content, but only from selected senders. I spent weeks going through my spam settings, Outlook configurations, talking to my ISP, talking to my IT security guy, looking on the internet for other cases.
Finally, a smart IT guy I know ran a little program to compare the registry settings deep-down – like eight layers into the Office app settings – where one value was changed. He put it back to where it was before, and the problem was solved, even though he couldn’t actually explain what the setting was for or why it was behaving like that.
That’s probably why so many IT pros swear by Network Detective. It works like that, except on steroids.
If you’ve read my stuff in this publication before, then you’re probably familiar with this tool and know that it can perform a fairly comprehensive and sophisticated IT assessment quickly and easily.
It really collects a mountain of data, and all of the reports are very well organized, brandable, and professionally produced. And, if anything is obviously out of whack, it also will highlight any issues it finds.
But sometimes, as in my case, nothing is actually “broken.” It’s just “different.” And if you don’t know what you are looking for it’s hard to know where to even start.
Enter the Network Assessment Comparison Report, exclusively in Network Detective. Every time you run an assessment on a given network, the software generates a unique encrypted data file containing all the findings. This file is kept stored in the Network Detective application. Then, whenever the need arises, you can generate a report that compares the results of any two network scans, and highlights ONLY the things that have changed.
Aside from trouble-shooting, this is a fabulous way to keep tabs on the comings and goings of end-users on the system, new assets added, those that have not logged in, and a ton of other things.
If you want to see what this report looks like, and all the other reports you can generate with Network Detective, check it out here: www.rapidfiretools.com/reports.