News
IT Weekly Roundup, Jan. 28
From the business wires this week: a policy compliance solution, Group Policy security and admin tools, and a network protocols handbook.
From
BindView comes
Compliance
Center 2.0, the latest version of its policy compliance solution. One
of the first software products to be certified against Center for Internet Security
Level-2 benchmarks, Compliance Center supports Windows, UNIX, Linux and NetWare
environments, and integrates with HP Service Desk and Remedy Help Desk.
http://www.bindview.com
With its name change from AutoProf to DesktopStandard
Corporation Wednesday, the maker of the PolicyMaker Group Policy Extension
products released an enterprise-class security solution called PolicyMaker
Application Security (PMAS), which brings the total number of extensions
available through the PolicyMaker product line to 23. With PMAS, organizations
can lower the permissions and privileges under which applications like Microsoft
Internet Explorer and Outlook run when launched by an administrator. Inversely,
permissions of individual tasks and applications launched by restricted end
users can be raised. All PolicyMaker products support Microsoft Group Policy
Management Console (GPMC). http://www.desktopstandard.com
Gain granular control over your network’s password policies and establish
multiple-password policies for different users with Passfilt
Pro from Altus Network Solutions. The security
software helps build stronger passwords by scanning proposed passwords—case
insensitive—against its 27,000 word, customizable, plain-text dictionary.
Passfilt Pro comes in several versions which are compatible with virtually all
Windows operating systems. http://www.altusnet.com/passfilt/
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| Passfilt Pro can check a password through a
250,000-word dictionary in 200 milliseconds on a 1.2Ghz Pentium 4 computer. |
Windows systems administrators might find something useful in the newest release
of Winternals’ Administrator’s
Pak, version 5.0. A collection of repair, recovery and diagnostics tools,
the product suite features an improved ERD Commander 2005 and Remote Recover
3.0. New additions include Insight for Active Directory, AD Explorer, and Crash
Analyzer Wizard. http://www.winternals.com
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| Winternals Adminstrator's Pak 5.0 features 10
tools that can repair systems, restore lost data and remove malware while
offline. |
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| Pug Vault Basic supports Microsoft Windows,
Linux and Mac OS X 10.1+. |
Targeted for small-business owners, Pug Servers’
appliance-like RAID file servers offer convenience and power in a small, affordable
package. Pug Vault Basic has a clock speed of 600Mhz
and is priced at $699. Pug Vault Advanced has a 1.7Ghz
Pentium Celeron processor and is priced at $799. Both have 80GB of hard drive
space and 128MB of RAM, and come with Linux, Samba, Apache 1.3 Webserver with
PHP support, and Pug Admin Portal installed. http://www.pugservers.com
3am Labs announced its remote PC management and support
tool, LogMeIn IT Reach will be released in February.
The Web-based tool enables corporate IT managers to track, diagnose and fix
IT issues for an organization’s remote and traveling staff with the security
of 128- and 256-bit SSL encryption and support for RSA SecurID. LogMeIn IT Reach
costs $99 per user, per year. Additional user PCs are $79.95 per year. https://secure.logmein.com/ITReach
[Click on image for larger view.] |
| Fix users' broken VPN connections and troubleshoot
Outlook problems remotely with LogMeIn IT Reach. |
The Network Protocols Handbook, second edition,
from Javvin, is a handy reference tool for prospective
network admins preparing for Cisco, Microsoft or CompTIA certification exams.
The book explains and illustrates communication protocols like TCP/IP, WAN and
LAN; emerging technologies such as VoIP, SAN and VLAN; and even vendor-specific
technologies from Cisco, IBM, Sun, Microsoft and Apple. Print: $64.95. eBook:
$49.95. http://www.javvin.com