New Products

Two new arrows in Avocent's quiver are the MergePoint 5224 and 5240, appliances for controlling the service processors found in nearly any server. Service processors help manage servers independently of the main processor, controlling such functions as power, hardware monitoring and alerts. With its MergePoint appliances, Avocent claims to be the first company to “enable IT administrators to manage multiple service processors in Windows, Linux and UNIX servers from a single console”, leveraging the “embedded management capabilities of servers already in their network”. Product advantages include the ability to manage and control nearly all types of service processors (DRAC, iLO and RSA II) with a single gateway; increased efficiency through the unified utilization of service processors; reduced costs via consolidation of service-processor Ethernet ports; and added security through authentication, authorization and accounting features.

www.avocent.com

Here's the deal. Right now, No Starch Press is giving life to so many great titles, I'm not completely sure which single title will bring you the most geek enlightenment. So, let's give the coolest ones some abridged love, shall we? First, there's Linux Appliance Design by Bob Smith, John Hardin, Graham Phillips and Bill Pierce. Although many books tell readers how to run Linux on embedded hardware or how to build a Linux application, No Starch says this is the first title to demonstrate how to merge the two to create a Linux appliance. The CD includes a prototype appliance—a home alarm system—that readers can use and modify. Next up, because we know many of you do BSD, there's Designing BSD Rootkits: An Introduction to Kernel Hacking by Joseph Kong. Written in a cheeky style with lots of geek humor, the book covers the fundamentals of programming and developing rootkits under the FreeBSD operating system. Finally, the Book of Qt 4 by Daniel Molkentin, a core KDE developer, shows readers how to build applications both with and without Qt's graphical GUI builder, Qt Designer.

www.nostarch.com

Monopolists need tools like this to keep them honest. You can now download Sun's plugin application for Microsoft Office 2003 that will allow for “seamless two-way conversion of Microsoft Word's documents to and from ODF”. At the time of this writing, support for spreadsheets and presentations is due in April 2007. The conversion is claimed to be fully transparent to the user. Might this be the end of the beginning of the end of the

sun.com/openoffice

Database admins should note that BakBone Software has released the new NetVault: Backup APM for MySQL, version 3.0. The solution provides low-complexity deployment and protection of the MySQL Enterprise and Community editions, consolidated backup and recovery and a common administrative UI that allows users to set up, configure and define a wide range of backup policies and scenarios. Additional highlights include full, incremental and differential backups while data is on-line and accessible; a common UI across multiple storage engines; consolidation of multiple storage engines into a single job; and protection down to the table level. The product is a MySQL Enterprise Gold Certified solution.

www.bakbone.com