ANB

Hi All, Not sure if this is allowed so please delete if not. I have updated ActivMan to support Arbor, and I am in search of some real schools to test this out on. I already have a couple of primary schools testing this but their data set is quite small and very limited so looking for much larger schools. In return, I will give free use of the product for a year, and then 50% off forever after that. This will be limited to may be 5, depending on the schools that respond. If anyone would like to offer an alternate incentive then please let me know.

I can't see any reason why any of them would not work on Windows Server 2008 R2. No one has mentioned otherwise. Adam

My background is software development so whenever I had a problem my first thought was to create a program to solve it. But they have not seen the light of day until I posted them in here. With the response I have had I'd wish I'd have done it much sooner. Most of these programs are 10 years old now. If any of the programs require a little tweaking to meet your needs then I can look in to it, as long as it is a little tweak, after all, they are free. Adam

I forgot to mention that I also have a little app for logging user logins and logouts. All you have to do it add it to the login and log off scripts and the the app will write out to a file on the network who is logging in/out, time, etc. Then should you need to track down where someone one was logged in, then you can do so. If this is of any interest to you then please email me at [email protected] where I will be only too happy to send it on to you. Kind regards, Adam

Hi all, I myself used to work in a school, and I developed various applications to aid network managers and technicians in their day-to-life. I would like to bring these to your attention as there may be something there that may be of help to you. Here is a brief list of free applications we have, some of which are not currently available from our website: Password Changer Allow staff to change the password of students when the students have forgotten it. This then saves time for the network managers and technicians as the teacher can do it instead. This does require permissions to be set correctly on the network. Registry Checker Do you require certain registry settings to be reset back to a default value every time a user logs in? This free utility will do exactly that! RunAs A simple replacement for the standard Windows RunAs except that you can supply the users’ password on the command line. This can be useful when running batch files. Share Copy Doing any server migration? This can save you hours by copying shares from one server to another. All permissions and attributes are copied too! Please note this application is also integrated into another product called Shares Manager, which is a paid for application. Shares From Directory Do you need to create shares for all of your users in bulk? This application can create shares in a flash based on a bunch of selected directories. Each directory will be shared the same as its name, along with various options that you can specify. Please note this application is also integrated into another product called Shares Manager, which is a paid for application. Add Directory Rights Similar to the Shares From Directory application, this application will add the user of the same name as the directory to the permissions of the directory. When selecting multiple directories each one will have its equivalent user account added. This can be useful when creating new user accounts and you need to set the permissions on them quickly. This could also be useful when migrating to a new server. Please note this application is also integrated into another product called FileSystem Utilities, which is a paid for application. Inherit Rights This little application will propagate the file permissions of a folder to all of its children, and children’s children. This could also be useful when migrating to a new server. Please note this application is also integrated into another product called FileSystem Utilities, which is a paid for application. NT File Copy This little application will copy files along with their attributes and permissions. In Windows attributes and permissions are inherited from the destination location. This application will append the permissions and set the attributes as specified by the source. This could also be useful when migrating to a new server. Please note this application is also integrated into another product called FileSystem Utilities, which is a paid for application. We also have some applications that have never seen the light of day but were created, like all the others, to solve headaches of network managers and technicians. Here are some of them that may be of interest to you: Print Manager This application will monitor all print jobs and record them to a database. At present there is no method of viewing the records except for looking in the database manually. However, should this be of interest then we would implement a reporting mechanism. Originally it was conceived that this reporting mechanism would appear in the introupe Intranet product. System Status Notification When a system “goes down” usually the phone never stops ringing. With this application the network manager can update the status of services centrally which will then get pushed out to every PC, whereby they will receive a notification that a service has become unavailable. When the service is updated to be available again then the notification is sent to each PC to update them. Systems Manager The principle of this application is to remotely manage every PC on a network. A client is installed remotely from a central location which acts as the eyes and ears of you. From the central location you can inform the client to perform various actions including registry tweaks, file management, shutdown, logoff, send message, etc. Modules for introupe A few modules have been developed for introupe but have never been released commercially. These modules include an Internet Access Manager where staff can request websites to be allowed or banned, and students can view categorised lists of websites that have been allowed. Another module is called Work Experience. This is designed to manage the staff who are allocated to visit students on work experience. If any of these applications are of any interest to you then please email me at [email protected] where I will be only too happy to send them on to you. Kind regards, Adam

I wrote a little app quite a while ago that ran when a user logged in or out and then updated a MySQL database. I never got around to making any web pages though, and never made it into a full blown app. My intention was to write another app that would display all the computers in the room (after the teacher selected one) and display who was logged on it, but I never got around to it. If you're interested then email me at [email protected]. You're more than welcome to try it out and see if it meets your needs. Adam

It's probably too late but I have some free utilities which handle creating shares, setting permissions, and propagating them accordingly. I used to have them on my website at ANB Software Homepage but removed them when I merged them all together to make paid for applications. If you still need these then email me at [email protected] and I will email them over to you. Adam

Is anyone willing/capable of testing and comparing these applications and reporting back their findings and views? I'm sure network managers and technicians would like to know which tool is best for different circumstances and scenarios. Thanks again to the people who have volunteered to test ActivMan. If there is anyone else then please email me at [email protected].

Hi Jody, As I said in my email to you, and just to let everyone else know, ActivMan has never been tested on an RMCC3 network. I would guess and expect it to work no problem. If someone would like to test this then please email me at [email protected] and I will email you a full version to try. If anyone who has already got a copy and are running RMCC3 then can you please report back and let us know if it works? Thanks. Adam

This is different. ActivMan does not have anything to do with SIMS.NET logging directly into AD. It extracts all the students and staff from SIMS.NET and create AD user accounts so that staff and students can log on to any networked PC, so that YOU don't have to create all their logons using a culmination of batch files and tools. This takes away all the hassle of creating new users, and can also disable students and staff that have left, without you even lifting a finger! It can also be scheduled to run whenever you wish so that you never need to worry about new students and staff arriving and old students and staff leaving! Kind regards, Adam Bent

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I'm not aware of any such tool, and we already have quite a few schools using SIMS across the UK that are already using this software. And also people have contacted us from my post here to enquire about testing and reviewing this software. There are also other similar products available from other companies. So, if there is such a tool I'm guessing that it does not live up to the powerful features and flexibility of ActivMan. Also, ActivMan is constantly being updated to include customer feature requests. So, if something does not quite work how you would like, then it can be changed to accommodate you. ActivMan is designed specifically for schools to manage their students and staff. Only the first step is to actually extract the data from SIMS. There is also setting all the user's properties, member groups, home directories, etc. As well as actually creating their home directory and specifying any desired permissions, along with sharing this directory so that the user can access it, whilst also setting the desired settings on this too. There are also a host of other features deemed useful to network managers and technicians in schools. So, for anyone else interested, please contact me at [email protected] for your free 60 day trial for testing/reviewing. This is a product aimed specifically for schools, so if anyone has any suggestion for new features, improvements, tweaks, etc, then it can be done. All at no extra cost. I want this product to be what you want and what you will use, i.e. "designed by schools for schools". Kind regards, Adam Bent

Hi all, My company has recently completed a new version of our powerful Active Directory User Manager application called ActivMan. The main features are: * Speed - create new users FAST using templates! * Reliability - using templates reduces errors * Scalable - manage multiple networks * Mass Manipulation - update multiple accounts quickly * Import Users - from either CSV or an ActivMan client * Auto Import - never worry about new users arriving and old users leaving * MIS - extract students and staff DIRECTLY * Secure - encrypt data when transfering between admin and curric networks More information about ActivMan can be found on my company's website, ANB Software Homepage. There is also a presentation highlighting the features (accessible from the homepage). I am looking for anyone who could test this new version and/or do a review on it. Any reviews, with your permission, may be used for marketing purposes. If not, then any comments or reviews will be used to improve the product. If anyone is interested then I will give you a free unrestricted 60-day trial for testing/reviewing. For any of the testers/reviewers who like the software then I will give you free use of the software for 1 year. The license for ActivMan is yearly and pricing starts from £35pa. So, if anyone is interested then please contact me for your 60-day trial. Thank you. Adam Bent