Download Pick: Servers Alive

Here is my download pick of the week.

There are all sorts of monitoring solutions out there for alerting you as to when a resource is not available but one of my favorites is a program called Servers Alive by a company called Woodstone.

The program allows you to monitor your servers on a web page as well as send out email alerts when a server goes down. We use it to ping our branch routers and notify us if they go down. There are a lot of free add ons to the product. It is very easy to set up using the programs graphical input screens.

Woodstone offers a free unlimited trial of Servers Alive you can download from here:

http://www.woodstone.nu/salive/index.asp

This product came in very handy for us last evening during powerful windstorms to let us know which branches we could expect to have problems with this morning.

To purchase the product it is reasonably priced under $500 US($199 euro) for the enterprise edition however the free edition works great!
Here is a sample ouput of our web page from servers alive.

Status of hosts at last check

Brecksville	DOWN since 4:06:46 AM, 9/15/2008
Maple Heights	DOWN since 4:06:44 AM, 9/15/2008
Olmsted Falls	DOWN since 4:06:43 AM, 9/15/2008
Warrensville	DOWN since 4:06:46 AM, 9/15/2008
Bay Village	RUNNING since 4:06:12 AM, 9/15/2008

We basically created a disrtibution list email with all of our admins on it called Serversalive in exchange and set it so it will send out updates when our routers bounce up and down. Here is sample text:

Warrensville is DOWN (0%)

Mail generated by Woodstone Servers Alive at Monday, September 15, 2008 4:06:46 AM

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New Microsoft video with Seinfield and gates

OMG! Are they serious? Really? Really? This is not going to sell
anything. Not even remotely funny. The Microsoft
downward spiral continues.


Video: New Family
Look,
I am no MS Hater. I've been one of their biggest cheerleaderd since Dos 2.1, over 30 some years ago. It just REALLY irks me that they are spending this type of money to try to "improve" their image when really all they need to do is just engage the vendors and help show them how to write their programs and drivers work on Vista. Thats all. Seriously. Thats it. That is ALL they need to do.

I'm not finding any humor in the fact that I have 750 Vista PC's sitting here for over a year now that I can't deploy because every time I think I have a "golden image" another gotcha comes along with Vista that prevents me from implementation. ONE YEAR!!!

I thought woohoo, SP1 will come along and fix my problems. Boy was I wrong. The bottom line is Vista works great IF

A:) You are not on a domain using roaming or mandatory profiles.
B:) You are an administrator of your machine.

Otherwise the list of incompatabilites in programs and drivers is sickening. Blame it all you want on 3rd party vendors, but it is Microsoft's problem. And Bill Gates adjusting his shorts or doing the robot no matter how funny you find it, is not going to change peoples opinion of Microsoft when they have a computer in front of them causing maddening issues.

If this continues, no matter how bad they may be, I will be considering Macs or Linux for our next purchase, at least I know the programs I need to put on the local desktop on them will run. I can run the rest from Citrix

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Download Pick: A technical guide for Upgrading to Xenapp 5

Citrix is releasing several documents as part of its Virtual Expo today. One is a Technical Guide for Upgrading to XenApp 5.

Check it out here:
http://support.citrix.com/article/ctx117913

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Adobe Reveals Project Genesis: Are they taking aim at Citrix

Uh Oh
At the Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, Matthias Zeller, product manager at Adobe, demonstrates a prototype of the enterprise desktop client called "Project Genesis." The new software allows business users to create custom workspaces by combining and sharing applications, video, Web sites, and office documents. Find out more at the Adobe Genesis Team Blog

Watch the video below.

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Citrix XenApp 5.0 Clients Available, XenApp 5 released to MyCitrix

With the release of Xenapp 5 to the web,(get it in your MyCitrix) Citrix also has released several new client versions and yes once again has renamed them as promised at Citrix Synergy earlier this year.

First there is the Xenapp Plugin which is the new name for the Xenapp 11 client that was the new name for Citrix Presentation Server client that was the new name for the Citrix ICA Client.

That is split out into the Xenapp Web Plugin version 11(the ica web client) and the Xenapp Plugin for Streaming Apps version 11.

Find them all at http://www.citrix.com/clients

There were also two Access Management Console extensions posted earlier.
See
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX118347
And
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX118352

Here are some key talking points on XenApp 5.0 from Citrix:

XenApp 5 Highlights
Delivery of ALL Windows Applications
-
New inter-isolation communication capabilities simplify how virtual applications are packaged, maintained and updated, and ensure that the applications can interoperate as if they were installed locally.
-
Support for application streaming via HTTP and HTTPS provides more flexibility for application delivery.
User Experience 2.0
-
XenApp 5 includes a redesigned, intuitive and consistent user experience on the desktop and over the Web.
-
The ability to prioritize users and applications ensures the best experience for critical use cases.
Application Performance Monitoring and Support
-
Significantly expanded monitoring provides rich data into the user experience to enable faster and better assessments of performance issues.
-
New end user simulation tools allow administrators to proactively identify performance issues before they are experienced by end users. This capability allows IT organizations to track the performance of real-world end user tasks and measure their performance against service level commitments.
Support for Windows Server 2003 and 2008
-
XenApp 5 leverages the architectural enhancements in Windows Server® 2008 to improve security and manageability. For example, administrators will now be able to apply patches to Terminal Services without needing to reboot.
-
XenApp farms can now contain both Windows Server 2003 and 2008, allowing customers to begin migrating to Windows Server 2008 right away.

If you are looking for a comparison of Xenapp 5.0 features compared to previous releases look here;
http://www.citrix.com/site/resources/dynamic/salesdocs/Citrix-XenApp-Comparative-Matrix%28Aug08%29.pdf

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Get Java Working in Google Chrome

To get Java working on Google Chrome
Open Chrome. Go to http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/ea.jsp

Download the JRE 6 Update 10 RC (orange button)

Choose Online Installation JRE File .allow it to run.

(Online Installation JRE file jre-6u10-rc-windows-i586-p-iftw.exe, Download this small file (less than 0.5MB), then run it to download the remainder of the JRE )(approx. 11MB)

Open and Close Chrome. (restart chrome) You now have Java.

I can now play Pass the Pigs at my site at http://www.stressedpuppy.com/ in Chrome. WOOHOO!

Sun has also put up a page that gives the version you need at: http://java.com/en/download/faq/chrome.xml

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Download Pick: Desktops

The guys at Sysinternals Microsoft have released Yet another app. This one is called Desktops.

Desktops allows you to organize your applications on up to four virtual desktops. Read email on one, browse the web on the second, and do work in your productivity software on the third, without the clutter of the windows you're not using. After you configure hotkeys for switching desktops, you can create and switch desktops either by clicking on the tray icon to open a desktop preview and switching window, or by using the hotkeys.

Get it at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc817881.aspx

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