Using applications whitelisting with CoreTrace Bouncer

CoreTrace has a new software-only version 6 that provides solid endpoint protection by only allowing vetted applications to run across your enterprise. There are agents for all 32-bit versions of Windows since 2000 and 64-bit Windows 7 and Server 2008.
CoreTrace Bouncer
http://CoreTrace.com
Pricing begins at $35 per endpoint

New features of Symantec Backup Exec 2010

Symantec has a new R2 version of its Backup Exec 2010 backup software that is easier to install, quicker to make backups, and a raft of new features that include better support for virtualization, archiving, and deduplication.

Symantec Corporation
Mountain View, Calif.
http://backupexec.com
Pricing: $1174 for one media server, deduplication and archiving options extra

PC Management with KACE Appliances

The Dell Kace appliances are used to manage, control and deploy desktop system images that contain user files and applications and to do PC inventory and audits.

Pricing
Dell Kace 1000 Systems Management Appliance
$TKTK

Dell Kace 2000 Systems Deployment Appliance
$4500 for 100 nodes, additional nodes $13
$39,000 for unlimited nodes

Dell/Kace Systems Management Inc.
Mountain View, Calif.
kace.com

Running IE v6 on Windows 7 with Symantec Workspace Virtualization

If you are looking for a way to run IE v6 on Windows 7 desktops, take a look at Symantec’s Endpoint Virtualization technologies. The software includes two different modules that are free of charge, including Workspace Virtualization administration and the Browser Selector tools. They are fairly simple to setup and flexible enough to isolate individual applications from the host Windows 7 OS.
Symantec Endpoint Virtualization
http://www.symantec.com/connect/endpoint-virtualization
Entry level pricing starts at $45 per node

Three minutes to data loss protection with Blue Coat

Blue Coat DLP Appliance
410 N Mary Avenue
Sunnyvale CA 94085
http://bluecoat.com/dlp
Price: 250 users starts at $12,000 + $34 software licenses subscription per user

Data loss protection is still an evolving field, but Blue Coat brings a comprehensive solution that can be quickly configured to stop leaks of confidential data to unauthorized users. Is your data leaving with employees that are getting downsized? Is your customer list now the property of one of your competitor's? The Blue Coat DLP Appliance can detect when critical information is being copied from your network to a Web mail account, or placed inside a document that is emailed as an attachment, even over an encrypted connection or hidden inside a compressed file ZIP archive.

The revolution will be televised

Those of us growing up in the 1960s might remember the song by Gil Scott-Heron, The Revolution Will Not be Televised. If you read over his lyrics, you will see lots of cultural references to the era. Remember, Vietnam was our first televised war. Before we had the Internet, we all watched the evening network news and could see the daily battles, body counts, and see for ourselves what was happening half a world away. It was a transformative media moment.
http://www.gilscottheron.com/lyrevol.html

While it wasn't live, it was very powerful TV. We had the full filtering and editing prowess of the network TV news organizations, with reporters on the ground and editors back in New York to package it neatly into 22-minute programs. We had Uncle Walter and Chet and David to tell us what was the significance of what we were seeing, and we had a simple us-versus-them war (which we lost big time, by the way). How simple those days seem now.

This week we witnessed another transformative moment, using the Internet and live streaming technology as another weapon. This time we are seeing events from the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, as a group of boats were stopped by Israeli military on their way to try to break the Gaza blockade. The flotilla came well prepared, not with traditional weaponry but with TV cameras and Web uplinks to broadcast what was going on to the world at http://www.livestream.com/insaniyardim.

The Livestream.com site is a tool that anyone with a Webcam and a broadband Internet connection can quickly become their own broadcaster, and the site carries thousands of live video feeds all day long.

Max Haot, Livestream’s co-founder said in the New York Times that he thought about whether to censor the live flotilla video but decided not to do so. He thought the Gaza flotilla was “a controversial but genuine humanitarian mission.” Still, he found himself thinking that his company needed policies in place to handle live videos of conflicts in the future. “After the events unfolded, I spent most of my Monday wondering if we had helped terrorists or a great humanitarian cause.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/02/world/middleeast/02media.html

Part of the issue was that we could watch the scene unfiltered, yet we still don't really know what happened. Were the flotilla organizers humanitarian aid workers or terrorists with a very clever propaganda agenda? Who attacked whom? Was the concrete and steel being carried by the flotilla going to be used in Gaza to protect civilians or store munitions? What we do know is that at least nine people were killed during the raid. What we don't know is how many Gazans and Israelis die every day because of the sad circumstances there. What we forget is that Gaza is run by a group that doesn't even want to acknowledge Israel's existence. The deeper that I and anyone else dug into this, the more unanswered questions I came away with.

Perhaps as the other journalists who were on the boats can tell their stories we can assemble a more complete picture. (The Israelis confiscated their equipment shortly after they boarded the boats.) But one thing is clear: Wars will be fought in real-time in the future, with world-wide audiences. In the words of Scott-Heron, "You will not be able to stay home, brother. You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out."

"[Israel] may be a start up nation, but we are bricks and mortar communicators. Our adversaries have control-alt-deleted us," writes Amir Mizroch, the executive editor of The Jerusalem Post, in Wired:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/06/how-free-explains-israels-flotilla-fiasco/

Making the move to Windows 7

If you are still running XP on your desktop, like me, you may be thinking about upgrading to Windows 7. XP is getting long in the tooth, many newer programs (especially those from Microsoft) aren't easy to run on it without a lot of effort, and you can't upgrade Internet Explorer if you are interested in sticking with Microsoft for your Web browsing.

Of course, you may just want to stick with XP until your aging PC emits its last dying gasp and then just buy a new PC with Win7 already on it. That can be fine for some people.

But if you do want to upgrade, Microsoft doesn't make it easy. The only way you can install Windows 7 is to wipe your disk clean and start with a fresh install. While this is appealing in a spring-cleaning sort of way, it may not be what you want to do. What they call an "in-place upgrade" – meaning that you can preserve your files, your applications, and your other customized settings – will only work if you are upgrading from Vista.

I have tested six different products that enable this migration directly from XP to Win7, and each has its good and bad points. Which product will work for you depend on a few different factors. Two of them are ideal for single PCs, or maybe up to ten individual PCs, but not for bulk migrations if you are planning on doing this across your entire corporation. These are Zinstall ($89) and Laplink's PCmover ($20 to $60). I was initially attracted to Zinstall because it offers a very elegant solution: you create an XP virtual machine that can be summoned at the push of a button while running Win7 on your desktop. Inside this VM, you can add new apps or do anything that you would do with your regular XP PC. The only problem is that instead of running two operating systems I ended up running a useless piece of metal with no operating systems, because of something that was wrong with Zinstall's install. Laplink's software converts things as you would expect, so you can't go back to XP once you have done the upgrade.

The other four tools are Microsoft's Windows Automated Installation Kit (free), the Dell/Kace Kbox 2100 hardware appliance ($4500 for 100 PCs), Viewfinity User Migration (free while in beta), and Prowess' SmartDeploy ($2000 per enterprise-wide license). Each of them has similar processes, because you aren't really keeping XP around, just the hardware it is running on. The trick is preserving enough of your user's footprints to make it feel like home. They work as follows:

• The tools start out with a fresh copy of Windows 7 as a master image.
• The entire machine is reimaged with Windows 7 -- just without you having to sit in front of it while the bits are put on the machine from a standard install DVD.
• Next, they stir in the particular applications that you want to deploy across your enterprise. This gives you the opportunity to clean house and create a more managed environment, which may not be what your end users want to hear, but gets back to that spring cleaning sentiment mentioned earlier.
• Each tool has ways to deal with the variety of hardware configurations that you place the image onto, and some make it easier to copy the user application settings and data files over to the new world of Windows 7.
• Finally, you send forth the image to your desktops and have them reboot with the new copy of Windows 7.

Sounds complicated? Yes, it is harder than jamming a DVD into your drive and letting it do its thing for an hour or so. But if you get the tool working properly, you can do a massive upgrade in a matter of a few hours, no matter how many PCs you need to touch.

What do I recommend if you have dozens of PCs to upgrade? I would start with either SmartDeploy or the Kbox. Both handle things somewhat differently, and you are going to want to read and watch my reviews to understand some of the issues.

If you are in Chicago next Thursday evening May 20th, you are welcome to come by the Chicago Windows User Group meeting where I will be speaking about this topic and showing how to use each product in a little more detail. Email me privately if you would like to meet up.

If you want to read more, go to a page where I have links to the various articles and video reviews that I have done for sites such as ITexpertVoice.com, SearchEnterpriseDesktop.com and CIOupdate.com. You can go to links on each of the reviews on all six products here:
http://webinformant.wordpress.com/win7/

Don't worry, the videos are just a couple of minutes long. Good luck with your own migration.