I am throwing this out for consideration.  We ask that folks with problems provide a diagnostic file with requests for help.  With the default name of tower used by so many folks, my download directory quickly fills up with diagnostics file that  all beginning with "tower" and it can become confusing to say the least.  And moving down the file name to use the date-and-time portion is a bit of headache.  I find that scanning the list of file name for a certain name is much quicker than trying to find specific date or time. 

 

I am proposing that the initial setup and installation instructions be change to include a recommendation that the default name be changed to something besides "tower".  I realize that changing the system name at a later date can really open up a can of worms but the new user does it early in the installation process, those issues can will be avoided. 

Edited April 7, 20179 yr by Frank1940

Might I suggest using a Guid Generator for the initial default name?

 

 

I think that is a bit of overkill.  Plus, it takes the server name out of the realm of quickly recognizable words.  The human brain is very quick to identify combinations of letters as words and can often find a desired one from a list without actually having to 'read' every word.

I'm not sure how this would improve things. Why are a bunch of downloads beginning with "tower" harder to read than a bunch beginning with, for argument's sake, "server"? Am I missing something?

Hopefully, you read the first sentence of the second paragraph of the original post.  The intent was that folks choose a name with a bit of originality.       Like the name of their first pet, or the place where their grandfather was born, or the name of the favorite superhero, or the nick name of their alum mater, or their wife's mother's maiden name. 

Edited April 8, 20179 yr by Frank1940

Guids I say. Guids!

I think Brit has a point, a GUID would kind of make people rename it.....

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I did a quick bit of research on this topic and it appears there is a limit of fifteen characters to the Microsoft naming convention so if GUID was used, the string would have to truncated.  But I see your point about using the it even if the prime intent was to get folks to make the change.  IF a default name like   bba3de2e-8609-4   were to be presented as the name for their server, most people would be willing to jump through fire to get it changed to anything more friendly!  

Even just a random generator of characters would work.

Until you get a whack of people asking "What is the name of the server?"  Why make something even more error prone.

 

Although I believe the OP was talking about something more akin to a setup wizard that would walk you through basic settings, including setting a name (that would default to tower)

First thing I did was change the name from Tower (give me visions of Frank Zappa and Bobby Brown) to tdm.  Short, sweet and telling people it stands for "The Disk Machine" meant s the remembered it more often than not.

Can you not change it anytime without issues?

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2 hours ago, skylark said:

Can you not change it anytime without issues?

 

Yes, it can be changed anytime.  BUT the problem with doing is that this often requires that many other devices, computers and applications that can attach to the server are using the old name as a part of their settings and also have to be changed.  This requires that user also find each and everyone of those settings and change them also.  The hassle of doing this usually means that if the server is not renamed when it is first setup, it will probably never be changed. 

If I'm understanding the problem correctly, your difficulty is that the default name for the diagnostic file is something like tower(date.string).zip and you have to many to easily sort when trying to help someone. If that's correct why not just suggest that people rename the diagnostics file when they upload it. Perhaps adding their forum user name to the beginning of the file name.

The diagnostic file could also be generated with a random name. Then when you have a bunch in your downloads folder they could be someone easier to search for. At work we use number strings at the end of files to make searching for stuff easier. Something like (4070.86). While not as easily read by the human eye while scrolling it is super easy to search for in a couple of seconds.

There should be a balance between changes the user can make to help people diagnose their system, but also still be easy for noobs to handle. While changing the server name is fairly easy, the wiki and most forum members refer to "Tower" when helping which could be somewhat confusing.

Just a few thought.


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On 4/9/2017 at 5:30 AM, dalben said:

First thing I did was change the name from Tower (give me visions of Frank Zappa and Bobby Brown) to tdm.

So you changed it Dinah-Moe then :-)

Edited April 19, 20179 yr by praaphorst

@Frank1940 This seem like overcomplicating a very simple problem. Might be better to change things on your side instead. Make a folder for diagnostics and have subfolders with the username. Then it's pretty easy to find the right diagnostics.

This is how I do it.

16 minutes ago, saarg said:

@Frank1940 This seem like overcomplicating a very simple problem. Might be better to change things on your side instead. Make a folder for diagnostics and have subfolders with the username. Then it's pretty easy to find the right diagnostics.

This is how I do it.

I continually lose track also.  I just re-download them.  Simplest solution, and its usually just scrolling back up a post or two.  Takes far less time than trying to organize them on my desktop...

2 hours ago, Squid said:

I continually lose track also.  I just re-download them.  Simplest solution, and its usually just scrolling back up a post or two.  Takes far less time than trying to organize them on my desktop...

 

I have to agree that is the simplest way