The so many happy users of Microsoft Office XP, 2003 and older versions are unable to work with documents, workbooks and presentations created by the newer versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint in their native format. More and more users are going for the latest versions of Microsoft Office and Microsoft's revenue statistics confirm this as Office is the most sold product for Microsoft in the last quarter! Users running the latest versions can opt to save files in the previous format as to make them compatible with previous versions, however, many users skip this step if they do not intend to share these files. Users of older versions can still open these files if they download and install a compatibility pack for Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The compatibility pack allows you to open, edit and save files that were created in newer versions of Office and therefore, you can keep your older version while getting that extra functionality! Before, going for this pack make sure that you read the prerequisites as users of Office XP and 2003 need to install all high priority updates before the pack and there are some restrictions with documents containing complex scripts. To read more about the pack and download the setup file go here.
ScriptLogic customers may already attend online seminars (webinars) about purchased software! That's quite normal, isn't it? But ScriptLogic's webinars can be interesting even to non-customers or users contemplating of trying out these solutions. The content covered in the webinars is very interesting even from a generic point of view and would give the viewer an understanding of the area covered. Although, the training is specific to ScriptLogic's products I still recommend it to all users. For example, the automated provisioning of services and resources explained in a training session most of the times can be done manually through the native tools. In addition, the training covers hot topics such as, Active Directory and networking stuff. The webinar duration is adequate that is, it is not too long or too short while it is very easy to register and reserve your seat. One thing I suggest to ScriptLogic web administrator or management is that they should keep past webinars available on their website, at least for some time! For more information about the training schedule and to register for ScriptLogic's webinars go here.
Windows Server 2008 has inbuilt functionality to perform reliable and effective data backups! The native tools can back up an entire volume to a .vhd file on a second local disk while you can still restore individual files from the vhd file! In cases of system volume failures where Windows does not start you can boot from the Windows installation media and restore the system volume from the backup. Apart from the GUI, you can use the wbadmin tool to initiate backups from a script or at a command prompt even when using Windows Server 2008 Server Core installations. A simple backup job that backs up drive c: and saves the vhd file to drive d: would look like: wbadmin start backup –backuptarget:d: -include:c: -quite Where the quite option runs the command with no prompts, backuptarget specifies the destination storage location and include specifies the drives to include in this backup job. But remember that you need to install the Windows Server Backup Features to have the tools available: In Server Manager, right click Features, and then select Add Features From the Features page of the Add Features Wizard, expand Windows Server Backup Features, select both check boxes and click Next. (If you are prompted to install additional features to support the command-line tools, click Add Required Features). Click Install and Close. To see an Automated System Image Backup example go here.
Beginning of May 2011, one of the most active management software houses SolarWinds has released another free tool called RTAFA (Real-Time AppFlow Analyzer) that monitors Citrix NetScaler, Juniper JFlow, sFlow and Cisco NetFlow – in real time. RTAFA analysis data to show you what types of traffic are on your network, and where it is coming from, and where it is going. The GUI is designed in a special way as to make diagnostics and monitoring more meaningful and easier to read. RTAFA can help users in the analysis of application performance by measuring latency and other parameters. The tool can also be used in datacenters and cloud computing environments. SolarWinds will be demonstrating its RTAFA in Citrix Systems' booth at Interop in Las Vegas. For more information go here.
Zoho's online CRM solution is wooing customers. As a hosted solution, the Customer Relationship Management solution allows customers the flexibility of performing work anytime anywhere. For big firms the whole customer relationship can get complicated and hence, a solution that is easy to use especially for newbies, and a solution that meets the users' needs in terms of functionality is definitely a winner. On top of all that the solution is very affordable when compared to established solutions such as, Salesforce's. Zoho is getting very positive comments from their corporate customers and what makes the difference is that some comments are coming from ex-Salesforce users! The lower cost, the overall ease of use and functionality is what the users are finding attractive when compared to other vendors'. An important feature of hosted solutions that users need to look for is security and according to their existent customers, Zoho's solution has inbuilt security features that addresses the users' needs. For more information about Zoho CRM and to see some customer comments go here.