Archive for: Software
When you open an Internet browser you might not realise, but you are using an SaaS (Software as a service). SaaS is typically described as a method of delivering applications to users over, most commonly the Internet, (but not necessarily) without the requirement for the user to install, maintain and develop the software and associated infrastructure.
SaaS runs on the companies servers and they control the software as a whole. i.e. OS patching; firmware updates etc; ensuring availability of the application. The end user benefits are clear, with SaaS consumers not requiring any of the initial infrastructure outlay or application development costs, the only requirement being that of connectivity, e.g. Internet, MPLS VPN. As one of the key typical characteristics of SaaS is connecting to the SaaS application over the Internet, a reliable internet connection becomes paramount to the consuming business. Whereas, when the application was ‘in-house’, a greater risk revolved around server resilience over that of LAN / WAN the converse is true with SaaS, no WAN connectivity and you cannot access your SaaS.
GFI VIPRE Antivirus is one of the best solutions available in the market regarding operating systems security. With a lot of versatility, GFI VIPRE offers tons of options and configurations to deploy on client or server machines, plus is very simple to install.
Operating systems security against malware and virus is a key factor in every organization, even though most small or mid-size companies avoid this matter. GFI VIPRE Antivirus provides the simplicity and scalability any company should be looking for in security solutions.
Some of the most important features included in GFI VIPRE Antivirus are:
Simple installation and environment configuration: The platform does not require complex configurations. For a complete detailed step-by-step check this link.- Centralized management: Central console to administer all your clients and the possibility to delegate read-only permissions to operators.
- Easy deployment: Fast and several options to discover machines, plus automatic deployment included. If clients are not available, MSI manual installation can be used.
- Scalability: You can configure different sites and different policies that will be handled by GFI VIPRE Antivirus, making possible to protect all necessary computers with different options among them.
- High compatibility: Windows 2000 SP4 or newer operating systems are supported as client machines (Windows 7 included of course).
- Flexible reporting: Vast options to configure reporting within your environment.
- Very low resources necessary: GFI VIPRE Antivirus represents one of the antiviruses that require a very small portion of your machine resources, making it completely silent and transparent to users.
Here’s a comparison from the most used antivirus and the CPU usage when a scan is running:
As a quick reference, here’s an overview about the process of implementing GFI VIPRE Antivirus (detailed step-by-step here):
- Review requirements for server and client machines.
- Define the type of machines and the behavior you would like to be present in the antivirus software, depending on the machine category.
This will be represented in the policy we can configure for each category we decide (for example: mobile computers will have a more restrictive policy than the workstations).
- Install GFI VIPRE Antivirus.
- Create and configure system policies to apply agent machines.
- Add agents and validate VIPRE installation. The platform provides the possibility for automated installation and of course manual.
- Run a manual scan in agents to validate current health status of your clients. Automatic scans in agents can be configured but we can also trigger manual scans whenever we need.
- Generate reports using Report Viewer.
- Configure any additional sites and permissions for different type of users. We can have simple operators to the platform using the GFI VIPRE console.
You can download the free trials for GFI VIPRE Antivirus in this link.
StarWind iSCSI software represents one of the simplest tools available in the market to facilitate the use of high availability –clustering- for your servers and services, like a web server hosting your site, without the need of acquiring expensive and complex hardware to do it.
Achieving high availability for services in organizations it is not an easy task, decisions makers in several companies do not consider this solution as viable considering the costs we have to assume in storage and the new layer of complexity added to our platform. StarWind iSCSI software appears to solve both of these problems.
StarWind provides the possibility to use a simple server with normal hard drives to act as an iSCSI (open Internet protocol) portal which is charge of offering remote storage to machines and easily transform those in high availability clusters for your services. Also, using Windows Server 2008 R2 we will see that the procedure to create a cluster if we are using StarWind iSCSI is really simple.
To create a Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Cluster using StarWind iSCSI software can be done within 5 steps (the complete guide available here):
- Review requirements for the environment: Having one machine acting as an iSCSI server using StarWind software and at least to machines, same hardware baseline, to conform the cluster.
- Install StarWind iSCSI SAN software: Easy step, just follow the wizard.
- Configure and create storage within StarWind iSCSI: This application has a very intuitive console to administer the resources, so you won’t find much problem completing this.
- Install Failover Cluster feature in machines and run validation wizard: The validation wizard will execute several tests to the servers in order to assure us that the cluster will be stable.
- Create Windows Server 2008 R2 Cluster: A three-step wizard that, if we executed the validation without any problem, this wizard should complete in the same way.
You can download a free trial for StarWind iSCSI software from this link.
Also there are more resources to take a look:
Five Easy Steps to Configure Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Cluster using StarWind iSCSI SAN
StarWind iSCSI SAN: Quick Start Guide
iSCSI SAN Storage Videos and Webcasts
iSCSI Cluster Support: Frequently Asked Questions
Spreadtweet is a great app which provides a unique and original way to use Twitter, disguising it as a common spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel. So if you are trying to hide your Twitter activity from co-workers, this is the perfect application for you.
“So, you work at a big corporate, huh? And you’re not allowed to use Twitter… Wouldn’t it be awesome if there were a Twitter tool that looked just like Excel?” This is what @elliottkember says to all those Twitter users that are afraid to open a browser or any Twitter application related in their offices.
Spreadtweet, an Adobe AIR app, offers three different types of user interface: Office OSX, Office 2003 and Office 2007.
MacX DVD Ripper Pro it’s paid application where we can not only rip DVDs, but also we can convert those into MOV, MP4, FLV, AVI or even MP3. But now, there’s a special offer for all of us: Until October 28th, we can get it for free!
Direct download for Windows here, and for Mac click here.
Among the features in MacX DVD Ripper Pro, we can find:
- Output formats: MOV, MP4, FLV, AVI, and MP3.
- Supporting portable devices: iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV, and PSP.
- Remove CSS encryption, all region protection, Sony ARccOS Protection, APS.
- Rip Disney DVD with New Copy protection.
- Available for Windows and Mac.
MacX DVD Ripper Pro, freeware until a few days more, usually costs U$S39.99, so you better hurry and get yourself a copy!
Prey Project it’s pretty cool software created for users who want an effective way to locate their devices in case they get stolen. Prey can be installed in Windows, Linux, Mac or any device with Android OS, including smartphones.
Prey can notify users about the device location sending a signal over the Internet, or SMS in case of Android phones. The program runs as an agent in background and is completely silent. Here are some of the specs:
- Open Source and completely free.
- 100% geolocation aware. Prey uses either the device’s GPS or the nearest WiFi hotspots to triangulate and grab a fix on its location.
- Know your enemy. Take a picture of the thief with your laptop’s webcam so you know what he looks like and where he’s hiding.
- No unauthorized Access. Fully lock down your PC, making it unusable unless a specific password is entered.
- Wifi auto connect. If enabled, Prey will attempt to hook onto to the nearest open WiFi hotspot when no Internet connection is found.
- Watch their movements. Grab a screenshot of the active session.
- Scan your hardware. Get a complete list of your PC’s CPU, motherboard, RAM, and BIOS information.
- Light as a feather. Prey has very few dependencies and doesn’t even leave a memory footprint until activated.
- Keep your data safe. Hide your Outlook or Thunderbird data and optionally remove your stored passwords, so no one will be able to look into your stuff.
- Full auto updater. Prey can check its current version and automatically fetch and update itself, so you don’t need to manually reinstall each time.
Did you ever picture yourself using a 3D desktop on Windows? Aximion is the application available for converting our Windows desktop in a very cool 3D environment.
Windows desktops are indeed one of the most common places where we feel very comfortable, the simplicity and the fact that it did not have significant changes through the years are one of the reasons. But also, among the years, other possibilities appeared with other operating systems, making some interesting tweaks in user’s desktops.
Aximion makes our desktop look really cool, but it could take us a while to get used to it. One of the disadvantages is that the “Start” button is not available, so we must find our applications browsing around.
Requirements to use it:
- Windows XP 32/64 bit, Home/Pro, Service Pack 1/2/3
- DirectX 9.0 installed
- A video card that supports: •DirectX 9.0
o Vertex Shaders 1.4 and Pixel Shaders 2.0
o At least 128 Mb of on-board video memory
Direct download from here.
We already showed you interesting versions for Mario Bros, like the “Street version” or “Eye Mario Bros”, but did you ever consider playing an infinite Mario Bros game? Here it is.
You may think “Ok, this is just a loop game where the same characters appear over and over again” but no, this is an adaptive version of the game, which increases the difficulty according to the skills of the player. This game is in fact a project developed for an Expressive Intelligence study.
The game is created in Java (.jar), and you can download it directly from here. Controls: arrows to move, ’s’ to jump, ‘a’ to run.
Here are some of the specs about this game:
- Upon successful completion of a level, the challenge is increased.
- Faster completion times result in larger increases in difficulty.
- Upon death, the difficulty is decreased based on the amount of progress made by the player.
- If the player is close to the goal upon death, then the difficulty is decreased only a small amount.
- A new level is generated when the player either completes a level or fails to complete a level after three deaths.
OpenOffice 3, released in 2008, reached a new milestone this week with the release of the 3.3 beta build. This new compilation does not offer much new functionalities, but does include several fixes.
We’ve also announced in November of 2009, that OpenOffice 3 reached 1 million downloads, making it the most popular OpenOffice suite so far. The 3.3 build just added a few more small features:
- Improvements in the dictionary and translations.
- Possibility to add different colors in sheets.
- Stability improvements and several bugs fixed.
This build is available to download for Windows, Mac, Solaris and Linux (of course); in Linux versions we can use the 32bit and 64bits. All builds available here.
The open source community maintains a simple way to do things, never stop collaborating. Even though the work it is not always great, they keep offering possibilities; which in this world is a vital thing to have.
Betta IT Solutions is presenting a new iPhone product, this time oriented for the baby market: The Baby Monitor iPhone App; which we can use it with a camera to keep an eye on those little ones.
The baby monitors products are definitely not new in the current market, but this is the first time an iPhone app is involved. The iPhone app cost is U$S39, and no, does not include the camera.
What do you need besides the app? A camera compatible with this app; the compatibility options should include: IP camera, Infrared, 2 way audio, iPhone compatible, 3G.
But we can also buy the official Baby Monitor camera, which is the recommended (of course), option for this site. The cost of this camera is U$S139, again, not exactly cheap but with tons of features which you can check them in the official site.
The general specs of this app are:
- Digital monitoring eliminating all static noise common to baby monitors.
- Two way audio enabling you to hear everything and speak to anyone looking after your baby live
- Infrared low Lux night monitoring (minimum illumination: 0.5Lux @ F2.0)
- Pan and tilt camera movement controlled from iPhone
- Take snap shot photos anytime and save to your photos
- Record by movement sensor option
- Sound muting option both ways
- Lifetime support
