Spiceworks, my favorite tool for managing IT networks, has released a new version. Spiceworks scans your entire network and audits the devices in you infrastructure. Not only does Spiceworks create a comprehensive IT inventory, but it also monitors the health of vital systems. It can alert you when certain conditions are met, errors are found, systems run out of hard disk space, printer ink is low, and much more.

Another cool feature is to have Spiceworks scan multiple sites, and report back to a central collector. This is great for me, as the company I work for, is an outsourced IT Helpdesk for several medium sized businesses. We’ve deployed Spiceworks at all of our clients with more than 10 PCs. This allows our business to be proactive in our approach to IT instead of reactive.

Don’t even get me started on how good Spiceworks has been for License Management.

Spiceworks 4.6 brings a host of new features include:

• View and Kill Processes Remotely
• Ability to discover virtualized servers on VMware (vSphere & ESX/ESXi), showing all the virtual machine data and configuration details
• Better Helpdesk ticket management
• Network mapping improvements
• See network alerts and notifications in your Spiceworks Toolbar
• And more…

If you have never tried Spiceworks, you should. It is free, and after you use it, you will be converted. Oh yeah, did I mention it’s FREE (As in BEER)? I used to work for a software company that developed one of the premier Enterprise IT Discovery platforms, and believe me, Spiceworks can do a lot more than even some multimillion dollar Enterprise platforms. That was always the “dirty little secret”. Anyways, check it out, you’ll love it.

I’ve been wanting to test out Firefox 3 since it was released a short time ago.  I have so many tweaks and plugins installed on my old Firefox 2 instance, that I am not ready to blow it away just yet.  Also, over time I’ve been burned many times by becoming an early adopter that I’ve learned just because its new, does not necessarily mean its better.   I decided it would probably be a good idea to install FF3 to my USB  thumb drive instead of my main system for now.  Luckily PortableApps has packaged and released Firefox3 portable for USB drives.

• Download Firefox 3 Portable for USB

I know there are hundreds, if not thousands of list of Windows “free software” on the web. But every time I read one of those lists, I usually find one or two applications which I wasn’t aware of previously. So I figured that one more list couldn’t hurt. People like lists. There will obviously be a lot of things that you have seen before, but I’m sure some of you will find some new gems to try. This is by no means a complete list of Freeware. I am only adding software to this list that I’ve used and determined to be worthwhile. Many of these applications may fall on the “geeky” side, as I mainly do IT consulting.

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The problem I hear most from my clients is “My computer is slow”. There can be many reasons your computer is “slow”. In this article I will describe some simple techniques for speeding up your Windows XP installations. The main culprit for a “slow” computer is insufficient RAM. There are several settings you can change on your computer to speed up applications and the basic operation of your system. These tips are geared toward basic computer users who don’t understand how computers operate and what makes them “slow”.

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I test a lot of software in the course of my work for clients as a freelance consultant. I work with several non-profits and small/medium sized businesses. Controlling costs is always a concern for small business and I always try to suggest free solutions whenever its appropriate. There are several very good open source and freeware Windows applications available now. If you end up using any of these free solutions with your clients, please suggest they donate to the developer. Supporting the tools you use will help them continue to grow and support your business in return. In this article I will suggest a few of the applications I use or suggest to customers on a regular basis. The software listed in this article is geared toward the "average office worker".

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