Readers highlight exceptional products that help them do their job
Windows & .NET Magazine reader Lee Burton of Scottsdale, Arizona, offers high praise for Lockstep Systems' Backup for Workgroups. He said, "It is very easy to use, and it is very reasonably priced. I've been looking for a way to back up and restore everything on a Windows box, including the registry, and this product actually does it! It uses TCP/IP, so it will back up across the network. I can even use it to satisfy my offsite backup requirements."
Backup for Workgroups sends all your networked Windows workstation data to a backup server that's equipped with a hard disk. The software automatically backs up your data according to a schedule that you define; can restore one file, a directory, or an entire computer; is hard diskbased rather than tape-based; supports Windows registry database backup; and uses encryption and compression techniques. To reduce storage space, the software backs up files that are common to multiple workstations only once. The Mirroring feature lets you add extra protection to your data by mirroring the backup server to a second hard disk. Pricing starts at $299 for a 3-client pack, $399 for a 5-client pack, and $1299 for a 25-client pack. The software supports Windows XP/2000/NT/Me/9x systems.
Caelo Software's Nelson Email Organizer (NEO) can organize your email messages. You can index every word of every email message, group messages into folders by date sent or received (e.g., today, yesterday, last week, January 2000), and keep messages you don't want deleted. NEO doesn't affect or change anything in Microsoft Outlook; it just runs as a companion product to Outlook. The software also automatically redirects your e-newsletters, discussion lists, and company marketing mail into individual or grouped bulk mail folders. NEO supports Outlook 2002/2000/98/97. Pricing is $39.95 per license.
Ralph Marcuccilli of Fort Wayne, Indiana, recommends NEO as a top product. He said, "The software is truly a tool that makes managing large volumes of email much easier. It is the ultimate UI for Outlook!"
Simon Morris of Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, UK, is an IT contractor and found that his servers were rapidly losing space even though he deleted the temporary files and infrequently accessed files. He had used Cerious Software's ThumbsPlus at home and decided to try it in the office. ThumbsPlus lets you scan network drives for multimedia files. Morris said, "I spent several hours searching through the folders that the program highlighted, which contained image and video files. The amount of obscene and nonwork-related images was immense. Over a few hours, I deleted at least 5GB to 10GB of these files. This scan was run once a month and the serious offenders were warned. After 3 months, the amount of these files became less and less as the information got around that this type of file would not be tolerated. In a public company, I am sure that the presence of these files would have led to serious warnings, if not outright firing of the offenders."
ThumbsPlus uses color settings to highlight which folders and subfolders contain images. The image preview pane lets you view the image from within the interface. Pricing starts at $79.95 for a single-user license. ThumbsPlus supports Windows XP/2000/NT/Me/9x systems.