X1 Customizes Hunts for Info
Desktop search tools can be great at helping individuals find relevant content on their increasingly large and data-heavy systems. But in corporate environments, these tools exist mainly as islands that dont fully connect to server-based resources.
X1 Technologies June release of X1 Enterprise Edition —which includes X1 Desktop Client, X1 Server and X1 Deployment Manager—tackles this problem by integrating server-based search capabilities and client configuration and deployment tools with its excellent desktop search application. X1 Enterprise Edition is priced at $7,500 per year.
Strictly from a client perspective, X1 Desktop Client is one of the better desktop search tools Ive tested, easily accessing and searching any e-mail system as well as documents, images, and other media and files. During tests, X1 Desktop Client search results showed content as it appears in its native application and let me quickly take action, such as sending an e-mail message.
Using the X1 Deployment Manager in X1 Enterprise Edition, I could build a custom deployment of the desktop client for eWEEK employees, with the option to add or remove menus and tool bars and preconfigure options settings.
X1 Enterprise Editions X1 Server can index content on network shares or on the server and make the content searchable either to X1 desktops or through a browser interface. However, this was very Windows-centric, requiring an IIS (Internet Information Services) Web server for deployment and Internet Explorer for the browser interface.
For more information, go to www.x1.com.
–Jim Rapoza
DemoFall Shows Smarter Phones
When the DemoMobile conference was renamed DemoFall this year, it was a sure sign that wireless connectivity and mobile applications have become so ubiquitous that users expect remote access to data from any of their computer systems.
The products that took the stage at DemoFall last month showed just how far mobile computing has come since the original PalmPilot debuted at a Demo conference almost 10 years ago.
A few of my favorite technologies introduced at this edition of Demo turn smart phones into remote controls. Destinator Technologies (www.destinatortechnologies.com) demonstrated software that allows any smart phone to morph into a GPS device and be used for real-time routing and navigation. The Destinator software has a real-time traffic monitoring feature, and itll be interesting to see how quickly a Destinator-equipped phone can react and reroute a user who has taken a wrong turn.
Another impressive product I saw on the show floor was EasyReach, from the company by the same name (www.easyreach.com). The remote desktop search service allows users to search documents on any PC from a smart phone, BlackBerry or Web browser. Users can search for documents on their remote PCs using keywords and can then forward those documents to colleagues via e-mail.
Due this week, the EasyReach remote desktop service starts at $8 per month for unlimited access to one PC, or $80 per year; or $10 per month for unlimited access to two PCs, or $100 per year.
More coverage of DemoFall can be found at the eWEEK Labs blog at inside.eWEEKlabs.com.
–Anne Chen
SecureWave Makes Data Stay Put
SecureWaves Sanctuary Device Control 3.0, released in August, is a centralized IT management tool that enforces acceptable use of removable and portable storage devices on end-user systems. Specifically, I was able to lock down my laptop tightly, preventing any USB memory stick from storing data created by me on my system.
Device Control 3.0 costs $45 per licensed endpoint device. Although that price might seem steep, the tool does a reasonably good job of ensuring that data stored on a laptop or PC stays there. The alternative is to special-order much more expensive hardened equipment that does not have USB ports.
Device Control 3.0 provides context-sensitive enforcement of when portable devices can be used. For example, I quickly created rules that allowed me to use a USB memory stick in the lab but not on the Ziff Davis corporate network.
The security-conscious part of me really liked the “allowed” approach to securing my laptop. I listed the devices I allow (for example, iPod, digital camera or memory stick) and when and in what context (home, work, branch office) each device is allowed. Everything else is prohibited automatically.
The location-specific feature is new in this version of Device Control, along with performance improvements and more granular rules to control when and where devices can be attached to an endpoint system.
More information is available at www.securewave.com.
–Cameron Sturdevant