Details

Hot Looks, Nice Voice

While most remote-access servers look like your average flat hub that you hide in a network closet, SBE's netXpand Central has a sexy chassis with some curves in it. You can lay the purple box on its side, or you can set it upright with pedestal-like feet for the vertical look. The netXpand Central also has a voice-assist feature that reports the router's status to you. When there is an error, a voice says a number that you look up in the user's manual to troubleshoot the problem. It also adds sound effects when you remove or plug in a modem from one of the server's ports.

Shiva Secures Remote Win 95 Clients

Windows users concerned with security should check out Shiva's Windows 95 Security Pack, which provides roaming dial-back and change password feat ures. The security kit lets remote users modify dial-back phone numbers as they move from location to location and enables the end user to modify a password as often as necessary, eliminating forced static authorization. Shiva helped Microsoft develop the dial-up networking client in Windows 95, and the Windows 95 Security Pack is the first in a series of enhancements to extend the remote-access functionality in Windows 95. It is bundled with ShivaOS and available on Shiva's Web site ( http://www.shiva.com ).

GUIs

All the remote-access servers have helpful Windows-based software utilities that are a big improvement over command-line interfaces. For instance, the Transcend AccessBuilder Manager (TABM) configuration utility that comes with 3Com's AccessBuilder 4000 provides an external view of an AccessBuilder server showing the status of any installed ports. There are instances when you must use the command-line interfaces, but you can use TABM to set passwords and install new servers, and you can pop up on-line help when necessary.

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Hot Looks, Nice Voice

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Great GUI!

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