Jeanna Johnson of Tyler, Texas, really likes GFI Software's GFI MailEssentials for Exchange/SMTP. Jeanna says, "GFI MailEssentials has drastically reduced the number of user complaints regarding spam in my organization. After installing the software and using it for a month, I'm beginning to understand why everyone was so frustrated. Using the reporting feature, I determined that about 46 percent of our incoming email was spam—and this is an organization that receives about 40,000 incoming email messages a week. GFI MailEssentials was very easy to install and configure. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a reliable spam filter."
GFI MailEssentials installs on a mail server or the Internet gateway and uses Bayesian filtering technology to catch spam before it reaches your users' Inbox. GFI's filter uses a mathematical formula and data set that customizes itself to your installation: GFI MailEssentials automatically downloads continuously updated spam data from GFI and also collects data from your outbound mail, resulting in a filter that's constantly learning and adapting to your company's unique email profile. After a 2-week learning period, GFI MailEssentials delivers a 98 percent spam-detection rate.
The software lets you choose how to dispose of spam. You can delete it, move it to a folder, forward it to a public email address or folder, or send it to end users so they can review it. The program can archive all inbound and outbound mail to a Microsoft SQL Server database so that you can search for a single message or an email thread.
Other features include easy tuning of the Bayesian engine, the ability to let users whitelist or blacklist senders, mail-header analysis and keyword checking, and third-party DNS blacklist checking. The database-driven reporting engine lets you create reports detailing your inbound and outbound email.
GFI MailEssentials supports Windows Server 2003, Windows 2003 Advanced Server, Windows XP Professional Edition, and Windows 2000 and integrates with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Exchange 2000 Server. Using the SMTP protocol, the software also supports Exchange Server 5.5, IBM Lotus Notes, and other SMTP and POP3 servers. Pricing starts at $315 for a 25-mailbox license and includes 3 months of free support and 1 year of antispam updates. A free 30-day trial version of the software is available on GFI's Web site.
| Reader | Jeanna Johnson Tyler, Texas |
| Product | GFI MailEssentials |
| Company | GFI Software |
| Contact | http://www.gfi.com, 888-243-4329 |
With virtual machine (VM) software, you can enable multiple OSs to run concurrently on one machine. Windows IT Pro reader Senapathy K from Bangalore, India, is a believer in VMware Workstation. He says, "My colleagues and I set up a testbed of four VMs that run on a single physical machine. The physical machine has 4GB of RAM and a 50GB hard disk. With this configuration, VMware let us set up a distributed network of machines—each with its own IP address. A great advantage was that once we configured each virtual server (with OS, third-party products, additional software, and settings), we simply archived the test environment. After we dismantled the testbed, bringing it back to life was a simple matter of unzipping the archived files."
VMware Workstation isolates and runs multiple OSs and their applications in secure VMs that exist on one piece of hardware. The VMware virtualization layer maps the physical hardware resources to each VM so that it has its own resources, such as CPU and disk capacity. Each VM is the functional equivalent of a standard x86 machine, with configurable memory size; disk support with configurable size; and USB, DVD-ROM, and CD-ROM device support. You can add or change OSs without repartitioning disks; run new OSs and legacy applications on one computer; and build complex network configurations for testing.
VMware Workstation 4.5 supports Windows 2003/XP/ 2000/NT. Pricing starts at $189 for an electronic download version.
| Reader | Senapathy K Bangalore, India |
| Product | VMware Workstation |
| Company | VMware |
| Contact | http://www.vmware.com, 650-475-5000, 877-486-9273 |
PassGo Technologies' SSO Plus leverages a user's Windows authentication to provide fast and seamless sign-on to additional applications and resources, whether network- or Web-based. Installing the product is simple—the single SSO Plus file runs on individual workstations. After SSO Plus is installed, the user simply logs on to the system as usual and the software manages all other system, Web, application, and network logons.
SSO Plus learns passwords for new applications automatically: Users access applications and enter logon credentials as required. The client software recognizes the logon and prompts the user to accept future logons to the application. If the user accepts, SSO Plus adds the credentials to the database it stores on the client and inserts them automatically each time the user runs the application in the future. SSO Plus secures the local password database with Triple DES (3DES) encryption and stores the encryption key in the Local Security Authority (LSA) area of the registry. Users can view and change passwords from the SSO Plus management console.
Windows IT Pro reader S.F. recommends SSO Plus as a hot product. He says, "SSO Plus is a nice product that saves me loads of time and makes using my PC application a lot easier. It's even free for home use!" SSO Plus runs on Windows XP/2000/NT and requires Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 4.0 or later with 128-bit encryption. For corporate pricing, contact PassGo Technologies.
| Product | SSO Plus |
| Company | PassGo Technologies |
| Contact | http://ssoplus.com, http://www.passgo.com, 888-652-3983, [email protected] |
EDITOR'S NOTE
Have you used a product that changed your IT experience by saving you time or easing your daily burden? Tell us about it, and we'll send you a T-shirt if we write about the product in a future Windows IT Pro What's Hot column. Send your product suggestions with information about how the product has helped you to [email protected].
