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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/

Altus Passfilt Pro
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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 WinternalsAdministrator’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

Winternals Administrator's Pak 5.0
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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.

Pug Vault Basic
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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

LogMeIn IT Reach
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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

About the Author

Dan Hong is the associate Web editor of MCPmag.com, CertCities.com, TCPmag.com, Redmondmag.com and RCPmag.com.

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