SQL Server Magazine

We began using Thinstall Virtualization Suite because we needed to run several Java Virtual Machine (JVM) versions on a single Windows XP machine. After using Thinstall Virtualization Suite for that purpose for a while, I realized that our internal application development projects could also use it for testing and scaling.

One of the most attractive features of Thinstall is that it doesn’t need server or client software to run. You can create standalone .exe files of applications that run without any other software, making Thinstall instances very easy to deploy. Thinstall has made it much easier for us to deploy and move different versions of software throughout our organization.

We’ve saved a great deal of time (and stress) because we can avoid deploying different workstations to the same user and using virtual machines. VMs aren’t bad, but they do require a powerful workstation and some knowledge on the user’s part. Thinstall is easy to install and use. I’ve recommended it to other departments in the government of Quebec, and it has helped them resolve some of the same problems with running JVMs.

There are some features that I hope Thinstall will add in the future. Some sort of a solution builder would let us build an executable application from instructions without needing to capture a setup, and the documentation, especially about fine-tuning the product, could be clearer. Despite these shortcomings, I’ve enjoyed using Thinstall and enthusiastically recommend it to others.

Secure and Accelerate Network DNS
OpenDNS
I work for a restaurant franchising company. Although we oversee the operations of hundreds of restaurants, we maintain a lean IT department of five people that supports both point-of-sale and back-office systems.

I began looking for a publicly available DNS server when I was setting up a client PC. I did a Google search for “Open DNS” and stumbled onto the OpenDNS service. Setup of this free service is easy and bulletproof—from start to finish, the process took less than a minute. The product supports dynamically assigned IP addresses, and the Web site even has illustrated walkthroughs of how to set up various popular home routers. After a simple change to our internal DNS structure, we were using the OpenDNS servers.

OpenDNS’s antiphishing feature is great. Even with multiple antivirus signature updates and Windows patches, it had been difficult to protect all our users against the latest phishing scams and Microsoft Internet Explorer exploits. OpenDNS lowers our risk by blocking many phishing and potentially dangerous Web sites, and the company maintains the list for us. If you need access to a Web site that’s currently blocked, you can simply remove that site from the blacklist.

The reporting feature can show us all of our top DNS queries by domain, DNS record, and IP address. From the reporting page you can easily block sites, such as ad sites, that are high on your domain list. You can also purge your records from the OpenDNS system if privacy is a concern.

The price for OpenDNS is right, and it functions as advertised. It doesn’t get any better than that! I can’t think of any improvements the product needs, although I have heard that a new release of the OpenDNS dashboard is in development.

Easily Create PDF Documents
PDFCreator
I work as a PC technician at a small property management company, which has a main office and several remote sites. Nearly a third of the company’s employees work remotely.

Our IT infrastructure includes Linux and Microsoft Windows, and we use a variety of software applications to meet our business needs. We needed a way to easily create PDF documents, so I began searching for a low-cost application that would let us do that.

I specifically needed a product with solid, built-in security. I also wanted to produce documents that could be locked against certain actions—for example, I wanted to be able to prevent anyone without the necessary access rights from editing or printing a PDF.

While searching the Web, I ran across PDFCreator, a freeware PDF-creation tool. PDFCreator could do everything I needed and seemed to be the best free PDF creation product out there. Installation was simple and straightforward. The installation file is quite small, making the tool easy to copy (or email) to other computers. I found the program easy to use: To create a PDF from a document, I just select the PDFCreator print driver as I would select a printer in a standard document print window. PDFCreator lets me create PDFs from virtually all Windows programs. Although the settings parameters weren’t as straightforward as they could be—I had to guess where to click to change some of the settings the first few times I used the product—and the interface in general could be made easier to use, PDFCreator is a great program that meets our needs.

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