Announcement: Spiceworks 4.0 is out!

I would have posted this on Friday last week, but I was way too busy at work!

In any case,I had the privilege of attending a Spiceworks 4.0 web conference on Thursday that went over some of the new features of SW 4.0.

This is certainly VERY exciting news!  I installed 4.0 on friday, and have been loving the smoother interface, and the responsiveness overall.  Nice job guys!

Side note:  I also LOVE the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference in the screenies...

Serve Your Users with the IT User Portal! Wish you had an intranet to serve your users’ IT needs? The Spiceworks IT user portal is just that! Customize it with your company’s logo and colors Drag and drop content to format the layout to your liking Include info like contact details, maintenance schedules & newsfeeds! Add knowledge articles and FAQs
Run the Spiceworks Help Desk with Exchange 2007 Ready for some great news? The Spiceworks help desk now supports Exchange 2007! Get tickets and send email using your Microsoft 2007 Exchange server Use Exchange 2007 over protocols like POP or SMTP
Loop In Relevant Parties with cc: on Help Desk Tickets Working a ticket that requires someone else to be in the loop? Now you can cc: others on any Spiceworks ticket. Get approvals without drafting a separate approval request Make sure your boss knows a touchy topic is being addressed
Work Faster with a Streamlined User Interface Want to work more swiftly in Spiceworks? Our cleaner user interface makes it easier to find things! See tabs and detail views up top Do common tasks, like creating a ticket in one-quick-click See more of your tickets without having to scroll down - the new interface is now optimized for higher screen resolutions Follow new cookie crumb trails to help you cruise thru Spiceworks
Watch Videos via the Spiceworks TV Widget Checked out the full line up on Spiceworks TV? The handy Spiceworks TV widget will make sure Spiceworks videos are a part of your regularly scheduled program! Watch Spiceworks tutorials, webinars, IT comedy clips & more Access Spiceworks videos directly from your dashboard
Manage Spiceworks Updates in Your Subscription Center Did you know that you can control all the communications you receive from Spiceworks? The new subscription center allows you to: See and manage all your Spiceworks subscriptions Explore the variety of communications that Spiceworks has to offer including product & company updates, partner offers, survey opportunities & more Opt to receive a daily or weekly email summary of the Spiceworks Community posts that you care about most …and remember, when you opt to receive these emails, you're doing your part to help keep Spiceworks free!
See Your Set Up with Network MapBETA Want to see a visual layout of all your network elements and how they inter-relate...Spiceworks network mapBETA makes it possible for select layer 3 devices! See how your devices are connected View how much bandwidth each of them is consuming Identify users consuming the bulk of your bandwidth in network “hotspots”
Triage Windows Events with ID Collaboration Wondering what to do about a particular Windows event you came across in your logs? Now Spiceworks has Windows Event logs! Includes a “look up” link that takes you directly to a description of the issue Connects you to all other Spiceworks users who have dealt with that ID before
Tweet from Spiceworks with Twitter Integration Tweet much? Now you can “tweet” from Spiceworks using our new Twitter Integration! Tell the Spiceworks Community what you're doing while you’re doing IT “cc: Twitter” to update your Twitter account directly from Spiceworks Have a Spiceworks ‘swoosh’ appear next to your tweets to show your followers that Spiceworks is where “everything IT” happens!
Extend What You Can Do with New Plugins Want to get even more functionality (& fun!) out of Spiceworks? Grab one of the many plugins that Spiceworks users and partners alike have created to extend the value you get from Spiceworks. Put your user portal in your local language with the 'user portal translator' plugin Get a laugh with the Daily Dilbert comic plugin Compare how many MS licenses you’ve bought vs. how many Spiceworks detects (no worries, Spiceworks keeps your info private!) with the the Microsoft License Organizer plugin Archive 5 email accounts for free, then use the LiveOffice Mail Archive plugin to set up and monitor the status of your email archives
Manage Requests On-the-Go with “Tickets Anywhere” Wish you could work on your tickets while you’re out to lunch? Now you can with "Tickets Anywhere!" Work tickets from a mobile device as though you were sitting at your desk Send an email to your help desk - handy hashmark commands let you create, respond, reassign, classify and close tickets

Look cool?  Then get Spiceworks here:

Podcasts on your BlackBerry or iPhone: Stitcher

Stitcher
http://stitcher.com/home.php

I'm a BlackBerry user - since it has become more central in my every day life, I'm finding that I am looking for a wider array of applications that I never had the opportunity to use on my old 8703 (RIP). As such, I'm using it more and more for its multimedia capabilities. I'm a daily user of Slacker radio, I download Revision3 Internet shows to my video player, and my Storm serves as my MP3/Audio player of choice - - only wish I had a bit more space, but we'll get there soon I think...!

I really use my netbook for writing extended emails, documents, Facebook and some quick surfing. Other daily tasks have now been delegated to my Storm.

In any case - one thing that was noticably missing on my BlackBerry was a decent podcast application. Viigo is more than adequate for my RSS needs - but I'm missing my fix of Escape Pod (Sci Fi Short Fiction), Pseudopod (Horror Short Fiction), Skeptic's Guide to the Universe (Science), and my Scott Sigler (Independent Horror Fiction).

Stitcher is an application made for BlackBerry and iPhone which allows me to quickly browse and select podcasts for a quick listen.

Stitcher works like it advertises - find a podcast in the directory, allowing you to 'favorite' them. I can't say too much more about the application, as it just works as advertised. Iphone users, your mileage may vary, but I assume it works similarly with exception to running in the background (thanks to a multi-tasking limitation imposed on the iPhone pre 3.0 OS).

I do wish that Stitcher put an option on the global menu that allowed me to stop or pause (or close) Stitcher from anywhere I might be on my BlackBerry (say someone calls on the deskphone, and I need to mute it quickly).

Beside Stitcher and the forthcoming update to Viigo (podcast feature is still in alpha stages), what other free apps are there for the BlackBerry?

Likes:

• You can listen to your podcast while doing other things (at least on the BlackBerry, can't vouch for iPhone) - major
  
• Easy interface, no mess - major
  
• Good quality audio - major

Dislikes:

• Can't see a way of playing an older podcast from the same source - major
  
• Podcast choices are limited to those that sign up with the Stitcher service as a partner - major
  
• Occasional pauses in audio - medium
• Can't pause or stop audio unless in Stitcher app - medium
• Would like to see video streaming as well - minor
  

Easy as pie virtual drive mounting via ISO: Virtual CloneDrive 5.4.3.2

Virtual CloneDrive 5.4.3.2
http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html

When you start moving into the world of virtualization or disc archiving, you come upon a day when all of the sudden, it just doesn't make sense to have all those discs lying around. Also, if you are working on a virtual server/workstation, and need to mount some ISO files within Windows, you need something ridiculously easy.

Enter SlySoft (used to be 'Elaborate Bytes '- but development is being continued by SlySoft) 'Virtual CloneDrive'. This little program makes attaching to ISO files easy as a double-click. You can attach up to as many drive letters as you have remaining (after taking into account attached network and physical disks)...

What makes Virtual CloneDrive stand out is the pure ease of attaching to an ISO image. The first one is simplest; just double-click and go.

The next ISO you double-click switches out the first mounted image for the new one - but leaves the old ISO path in the recent history for Virtual CloneDrive, making it easy to pick your drive letter, then mount an ISO image from the listing.



The summary of Virtual CloneDrive says "Image files generated with CloneDVD or CloneCD can be mounted onto a virtual drive..." - but you can mount any supported image type made by any disc image creation program.

Features

• Supports all common image formats such as ISO, BIN, CCD (also DVD, IMG and UDF - Rob)
• Supports up to 8 virtual drives at the same time
• Easy to use - just double-click an image file to mount as a drive
• Virtual CloneDrive is freeware, you may use it at no cost.

System Requirements

• An IBM-compatible personal computer with a minimum 500 MHz Pentium-class microprocessor (1 GHz recommended) and 128 MB RAM (256 MB recommended)
• Windows 98/98SE/ME/2000/XP/XP64/VISTA/VISTA64
• If you use Windows 2000 or Windows XP you must be an administrator to install Virtual CloneDrive

(I love that they say "IBM-compatible" - that's old school!)

What I really liked was the fact you did not have to restart your computer after installing the software, much like you do with another of my favorites: Alcohol 52% (or Deamon Tools).

Likes

• Easy to use, this couldn't be any simpler
• No rebooting required
• Runs on 64-bit Operating Systems
• Quick

Dislikes

• Would like to see the software automatically mount subsequent ISO files that were double-clicked, rather than mount them as the first drive and list the others as 'ready to mount'
• Would like to see it have the ability to mount more types of image files, similar to Alcohol 52%.

Easy! No spills and no mess!

Alternatives:

• Alcohol 52%
• Deamon Tools Lite
  
• Pismo File Mount

Need to make an ISO?

• LucerSoft ISO creator
• CDBurnerXP
• ISO Recorder

Article: Panda Cloud Antivirus installed. Ok Cloud, fix me up.

 

 

Not too long ago, Lifehacker published a post regarding a new free AV program from Panda – called ‘Panda Cloud Antivirus’.  Currently in beta, this new AV is on the fast track to revolutionizing the way we think of AV programs as intrusive, bloated, sometimes complex apps that slow down our computer and break seemingly benign programs.

 

This new idea of theirs seems like a cool concept; Rather than having to keep downloading virus and malware definitions, Skynet-er, I mean the ‘Cloud’ determines what is and isn’t dangerous to your computer, and does all of this on the fly (and in the background).

 

*Read the Panda Cloud Antivirus blog post on the mentality behind the Cloud scanning technology.

 

A snippet:

One of the main pillars of Panda Cloud Antivirus is its real-time use of Panda Collective Intelligence, which is an online from-the-cloud system that automates the entire malware protection cycle; collecting new samples, analyzing, categorizing, creating detection and disinfection routines and delivering the protection to each node.

Thanks to this approach users do not need to worry about updating signature files anymore. In fact, detection of millions and millions of different malware variants is no longer limited by the size of a signature database, as Collective Intelligence can hold literally unlimited number of detections without consuming any memory on the users’ PC.

All your base are belong to us…in the Cloud.

 

Very cool.  Great idea – and I hope it works out for them.  The idea that malicious files will be analyzed and categorized on the fly by something greater than my PC that isn’t necessarily human is intriguing…let’s see where it takes us a year from now.

 

What about your preference for Avast?

 

If you’ve been paying attention to my posts whenever I speak of AV, you’ll note that I’ve always been a fan of Avast! antivirus.  But, that doesn’t mean that I’m an AV elitist; my netbook has Avira installed and at work I have AVG corporate installed.  Also, I typically give AVG free to my home clients as they don’t know what to do when Avast! prompts for a renewal serial number.  So, I hope you can tell that I have an open mind.

 

 

 

Panda CAV: First look – where’s the beef?

 

One thing I noticed right away is that there is an obvious lack of buttons and menus when you examine the AV console.  I think this is a good thing…right?  What about all the doohickies and whatsits for us technical types?  Where’s all of our buttons?  Panda CAV is intended to be as simple as possible, so I guess for you button mashers, there’s an unfinished game of Diablo calling for you.

 

My minor gripe just as well might be the true end-user appeal of the Panda Cloud AV program.  I mean, think of it – it’s a perfect fit with parents and other tech-deficient relatives who don’t know what to do when they are prompted with a pop-up box asking if they would like to block some program that they did not install nor click on.  So, if the computer is being cleaned and protected without user interruption, then I say point goes to Panda.

 

What about the beta, any real gripes?

 

Since I’ve not run Panda CAV long enough to talk about how well it works, I guess I have just a couple minor cosmetic issues upon first glance:

 

• When selecting a full system scan, ‘Scan all my computer’ is a little unwieldy as far as a phrase goes…kinda like ‘all your base are belong to us’, right?  Maybe Panda should re-word that to ‘Scan all of my computer’, or ‘Scan entire computer’, etc.  Petty, I know.  However, think of it this way; The hallmark of malware posing as an actual AV program is bad grammar or english. 

 

• Note the upper right-hand corner.  ‘Correct’ is an odd word to pick that really means ‘Clean’ or ‘Uninfected’ or ‘No problems detected’. 

 

• The interface could be spruced up a little bit…I dunno, it still kinda reminds me of one of those fake AV programs (Internet Antivirus 2009 and it’s variants).

 

 

One cool feature of the Panda CAV (yep, I’m tired of typing Cloud Antivirus) is the ability to hit up the ‘Recycle Bin’ and recover a program that Panda may have misidentified.  You can get to it by clicking the lower right-hand corner of the console.

 

Another cool feature?  Your system doesn’t trudge along like a drunk tortoise stuck in a tar pit while an AV scan is running.

 

So – while this isn’t really a review of the program itself and how it performs, it is more of a ‘first-installed impressions’ type of blog post.  I will most likely be installing this into a virtual PC session and see how I fare while surfing with the goal of getting infected…stay tuned.

 

• Download Panda CAV
• Read the Panda CAV blog

 

Check out the highly effective video (if you can get past the nasal voice of the narrator!):