No specific data points for each item.  Just the refresh time of the page.

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On 
Behalf Of Richard Stovall
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2013 4:13 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] RE: test IE uptime?

That helps a lot.

Do you need 10 second data points for each item, or is that just the refresh 
time of the page?

On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 12:39 AM, Jimmy Tran 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
So let me explain the situation.

These are 40” displays connected to a w7 box all enclosed inside of a 
protective case.  The displays are at train stations, bus stops, and light rail 
stations.  If the machine were to be turned on, it would power up, wait for 
network connectivity and start a scheduled task which would load IE in kiosk 
mode.  IE would have a specific home page set for that location.  Then the page 
refreshes every 10 seconds to update the display.

We have no control or access to the 511.org<http://511.org> server who hosts 
the webpages and transit times.  All we have access to is the standalone kiosk. 
 The test is to determin iif the home page ever fails to refresh/reload.  We 
just want to make sure if the page does not load for whatever reason it might 
be, that it is  logged and documented.

If it were to fail, it would be due to the following reasons:

1.       Machine loss power – system up time would tell us that

2.       4g or wifi connection went out – currently no way to log this

3.       IE process crashed – currently no way to log this

4.       511 page is offline – currently no way to log this.

So to sum it up, I need to find a solution that can answer items 2,3, and 4.  I 
figured a script running on the host that could somehow search the page for key 
words and if it fails, it records it to a txt file.

Jimmy

From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> 
[mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] 
On Behalf Of Richard Stovall
Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2013 7:14 PM
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>

Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] RE: test IE uptime?

What type of error?

There's almost certainly a way to do what you're looking for with wget, or 
Powershell, or another scripting language, if what you're really trying to 
gauge is what the server is doing.  I think that's the key question at the 
moment.  Are you trying to record and interpret a particular client response, 
or are you actually looking to make sure the server is doing what it is 
supposed to be doing.  (Or some combination of both, which might entail 
separate monitoring straegies.)

On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 10:04 PM, Jimmy Tran 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
That was just a political requirement made by people who don't understand 
computers. I'm not sure if other browsers can run in kiosk mode.

The main thing we need to know is if the webpage displays an error during a 
period of 7 days we need to be notified.

What were you thinking?

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Stovall [[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>]
Received: Thursday, 31 Oct 2013, 6:57pm
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> 
[[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>]
Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] RE: test IE uptime?
Let me rephrase the question.

Does IE have to be the rendering engine?

If yes, why?  Are you testing IE's (a client's) ability to render a server 
response correctly, or are you really trying to monitor the server itself?  
There's likely a big difference here in terms of what is easy to do and what is 
not.

On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 9:49 PM, Jimmy Tran 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Yes


Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Stovall [[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>]
Received: Thursday, 31 Oct 2013, 6:45pm
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> 
[[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>]
Subject: Re: [NTSysADM] RE: test IE uptime?
Does IE have to be the rendering engine?

On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 9:05 PM, Jimmy Tran 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
If there's a cost associated, that may be ok. There really isn't a budget 
allocated for this but if it's cheaper to buy a software than me writing some 
scripts that might be a better way to go.

You provide some great keywords to do some searching on thanks!


Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4
-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Schaefer [[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>]
Received: Thursday, 31 Oct 2013, 5:56pm
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> 
[[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>]
Subject: RE: [NTSysADM] RE: test IE uptime?
Well, the basic concept you are looking at is “end user experience monitoring”, 
as opposed to “component monitoring” (e.g. a server or hard disk) or “service 
monitoring” (e.g. is a website up)

There’s plenty of third party products out there that can simulate client 
actions – usually via an agent installed on the remote machine. Or you do a 
“poor man’s” job and do this yourself with a bit of scripting. I assumed you 
wanted the latter since you didn’t mention any existing tools you have or any 
budget.

Cheers
Ken

From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> 
[mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] 
On Behalf Of Jimmy Tran
Sent: Friday, 1 November 2013 11:45 AM
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: RE: [NTSysADM] RE: test IE uptime?

I will look in to that. Any other ideas?

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4

-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Schaefer [[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>]
Received: Thursday, 31 Oct 2013, 5:30pm
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> 
[[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>]
Subject: [NTSysADM] RE: test IE uptime?
Write a little script (e.g. using VBScript and ServerXMLHTTP object) that makes 
the same HTTP request? You can then log the details to a log file to later 
analyse.

Cheers
Ken

From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> 
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jimmy Tran
Sent: Friday, 1 November 2013 11:21 AM
To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: [NTSysADM] test IE uptime?

I’ve been tasked with determining a way to document if a web page in IE errors 
out.  Basically, the page will refresh every 10 seconds with updated data.  I 
need to find a way to see if the page comes back with a page error or not.  Any 
ideas out there?  These tests will be performed at kiosks that have no 
management that have poor internet connectivity.

All I can currently measure is system up time, not internet connectivity uptime 
or page errors in IE.

TIA

Jimmy





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