Welcome to the ``tip of the week'', a pithy kickshaw provided
        on a virtually weekly basis.  This time we discuss reports of
	problems with the math department computers.

			Reporting Problems
			------------------

	When you report a problem to the system administrators, such as 
	an application which will not run, we ask that you take the
	following steps:

	(a) Send your electronic mail reporting trouble to 

		consult@math.ufl.edu

	This will reach the largest audience of people who might be
	able to lend a hand -- if you write just one of the system
	administrators then a response is likely to be slower.

	(b) Please be as specific as possible.  Report both the name 
	of the workstation or X-terminal at which you were seated
	and the name of the compute server on which your process
	was running (look for the server name in the prompt of any
	shell window).

	(c) Differential diagnosis is especially useful:  if you
	have had trouble with an application on one machine but not
	on another, that can tell us a lot if you report the details.

	(d) Try to pass along any error messages.


	A fill-out form for error reports is part of the Online Help
	collection available through the Documentation menu item
	in our window system's main menu.

	Past Tips of the Week are found in /usr/local/tips and may
	be consulted through the Documentation/Online Help menu
	item of the window system's main menu.


						     cws@math.ufl.edu

Subject:	reporting problems