Susan Perschke
Perschke is a web and database developer with 15+ years of industry experience. You can reach her at susan@arcseven.com.
REVIEW: 3 free open source reporting tools
Eclipse BIRT, Jasper Reports and Pentaho offer many features similar to costly commercial products, only for free
Cloudflare wins managed DNS shootout
For many enterprises, deploying a fully built-out DNS network may not be feasible. Thus, many have turned to third-party DNS providers. In this review, we look at four major managed DNS providers: Dyn, Amazon Web Services Route 53,...
10 super-user tricks to boost Windows 10 productivity
With these 10 tips, we take the guesswork out of turning Windows 10 Professional into a lean, mean productivity machine.
Pandora FMS wins open-source monitoring shootout
Doing more with less remains an ongoing challenge for IT execs. Making sure everything keeps humming along to meet SLAs can be challenging for resource-stretched IT departments. For all but the smallest shops, effective monitoring...
Step-by-step guide to setting up dual boot on your PC or laptop
Are you tired of your operating system dictating what you can and can’t do with your PC or laptop? Need more control over your computing environment? Dual boot might be the answer.
Why I switched back to Firefox
Remember when you ditched Firefox for Chrome and pinkie-swore you’d never go back? Yeah, me too.
Top tools to manage cloud apps
AppNeta edges Exoprise in four-vendor test of products that fix cloud bottlenecks.
Nasuni raises the bar for hybrid cloud storage
Subscription-based service offers scalable storage for enterprises.
Review: Open source proxy servers are capable, but a bit rough around the edges
Artica scores highest in four-product test, IPFire, Squid and Apache also deliver solid proxy services.
Storage on a budget: GlusterFS shines in open source storage test
One alternative to buying expensive storage-area networks or other hardware-based dedicated storage is to deploy open source storage software on existing server hardware. For this test, we evaluated three such open source storage...
Red Hat OpenShift delivers rapid app deployment, collaboration
Platform as a Service is a cloud-based hosting environment for application development designed to provide a full-featured development, staging and production environment without the need for extensive in-house infrastructure.
Ubuntu impresses in Linux enterprise server test
Introduced in 1991, Linux boasts an estimated 67 million users worldwide according to linuxcounter.net. Free versions abound, but companies adopting Linux as part of critical infrastructure typically require more support than a...
7 steps to securing Java
Java, the popular OS-independent platform and programming language, runs on just about every kind of electronic device imaginable, including computers, cell phones, printers, TVs, DVDs, home security systems, automated teller...
Cisco edges F5 in VPN shootout
Connecting remotely to network servers is a fact of life for millions of end users. Whether working from a PC or a mobile device, users rely on secure, reliable remote connections to maintain their productivity.
Microsoft DirectAccess impresses
Available since Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsofts DirectAccess server role became fully integrated with the OS in Windows Server 2012. DirectAccess is designed to connect a VPN-type session automatically as soon as a compatible...
Java security questions answered
Most of the products tested (except Windows Server 2012), use Oracle's Java in one form or another, at least for client access and also in some cases within the management interface. With numerous vulnerabilities recently discovered...
Six free databases with commercial-quality features
Free or open source databases run hundreds of millions of public-facing and private applications worldwide, but how effective is this technology and how do these products compare? For answers, we reviewed six popular free or open...
Review: 6 free email servers for small business
Even as social networking continues to gain in popularity, email remains the undisputed workhorse of messaging, far eclipsing all other forms of electronic communication. Email administration can be a costly function, especially for...
How to Choose a Mail Server
Choosing a mail server is never an easy task. Email management itself is a complex endeavor, and this is reflected in the wide variety of tools we choose to create, edit, send, organize and reply to the vast numbers of email messages...