8 little-known technologies that instantly make Microsoft shops run smoother

Any efficient IT shop today, Microsoft-centric or not, has a never ending need for good management tools. The collection in this blog covers a lot of territory, solving issues that arise from group policy management, training, password policy, collaboration, remote connectivity, managing your infrastructure, managing the new Server 2008 core and even opening and editing documents from anywhere.
What these tools all have in common is that they will make your Microsoft shop immediately run better -- meaning they don't require a lot of fuss and muss to install or manage. Like several of my other lists, I focused on technologies that are not already well known names in the industry. (Note: Want to see the screen shots of these tools in a hurry? Check out the slideshow of these eight tools.)

As usual, I won't keep you in suspense. The eight tools in this blog post are ...

Now, onto the list ...

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PolicyPak

Everyone knows Group Policy is great at controlling thousands of Windows' settings. But controlling the thousands of applications that run on Windows, and their settings, hasn't been easy. Enter PolicyPak. PolicyPak Software leverages Active Directory Group Policy to ensure application compliance and to help manage your application's settings. PolicyPak has two editions and offers preconfigured PowerPaks for some common enterprise applications. But the real power comes with PolicyPak Professional with its PolicyPak Design Studio (PPDS). PPDS enables administrators to create their own configurable PolicyPaks for any third party or corporate in-house software. PolicyPak Design Studio enables administrators to drag-and-drop their way to a customized UI (usually made to match the UI of the application they want to control.) This customized UI can then be leveraged by other administrators in the company to manage corporate applications (without needing any knowledge of how the target application works).

PolicyPak's motto is cute, but the message is powerful: "What you SET is what they GET." PolicyPak's claim-to-fame is that it will quietly re-apply any application settings changed by the user (with the settings established by your IT department.) PolicyPak can ensure that applications' security features are always re-established to your set standards, even if users try to wiggle around them. This is a huge boon to those concerned with security, control and compliance issues on the desktop.

PolicyPak has a free Community Edition enabling administrators to create and use their first PolicyPak right away. Then, as needed users can upgrade and grow into the software to create more PolicyPaks to manage more applications.

ClipTraining

I have blogged about this company before. (Disclosure, this company was founded by a buddy of mine, but there's a reason he's my buddy ... he's a smart guy with great ideas.). ClipTraining is a task-oriented video training tool. I have seen other products and, as I was an early adopter of ClipTraining, I think this start-up just blows away the competition. The newest updates to the company's training library (which is coming soon) will include the ability to track end user training and will include self tests for users to check their knowledge. A new feature called “ClipNotes” will let users quickly check what the clip will teach. But wait, there's more. ClipTraining has also added closed captions to clips. You can see a demo of the changes at http://www.cliptraining.com/demo/flvcc.html. Co-founder and director of clip production (and my buddy), J. Peter Bruzzese, is a 15-year veteran in technology education. Peter has also spent the last nine years speaking and writing on technology. Tim Duggan the co-founder and director of sales and marketing has worked for the past decade in both the education and corporate sides of technology.

The folks at ClipTraining believe that technical education can be broken down into smaller more workable portions for the end user. They also have the philosophy that technology training should not be painful. As Peter likes to say “When a person has a choice of root canal or sitting in a training class and they choose root canal that means we need to improve our teaching methodology.” In addition to the library, ClipTraining offers the opportunity to have custom clips created for your organization. It was in this way that I first worked with ClipTraining. My firm was moving away from using Goldmine as both a CRM package and e-mail client. Many users had not worked on Outlook as an e-mail client since Office 97, so we needed training for users to understand what new features would be included in the newest Outlook release. ClipTraining was the only company willing to customize the training for what our users needed. Turning a “cookie cutter training” from a two-day broad stroke overview into a four-hour pinpointed study, saved us lots of time and money.

• Microsoft
• ce
• ClipTraining
• Excito Bubba Server
• group policy management
• Hiveware for Word
• network management
• Open VPN
• password management
• Password Reminder PRO
• PolicyPak
• training
• Windows 2008 Server Core Configuration
• Windows Server 2008