Summary of Security Software

From: Sharon Bader (bader@interchange.ubc.ca)
Date: Tue Feb 22 2000 - 18:53:25 EST


To the Flow Community

Here are the responses to my question regarding Security Software.

The popular ones were;
File Guard Most responses
MacLogin Fewer responses
On Guard One other user, the one that was recommended to me. Power on
Software. www.actionutilities.com

Response;
FileGuard (version 3.2) is sold by ASD Software based in California. I
believe their web address is: http://www.asdsoftware.com or
http://www.asdsoft.com. Their site lists all the specifics about the
program. The price is around $145 but there are discounts for competitive
upgrading, academic institutions, etc which brings the price down to
$79.00.

If you have trouble finding their website, do a web search with
"FileGuard". That will give you a link to the site. I'm replying from home
so I don't have the manual with the address handy.

Response;
Do you mean "FileGuard"? This is a very popular disk and file access
program that keeps track of users, applications used and the amount of
time. Statistics can be viewed as a bargraph or a list by day or month for
each user. User access can be restricted by day of the week of time as well
as authoizing and restricting use of application programs, control panels,
etc.

This program is widely used by the flow community that is Macintosh based.
I use it on all three of our systems (including a G-3 running MacOS 8.6)
for the above reasons and to calculate billing invoices.

I highly recommend it.

Steve Merlin

Response;
Hi Sharon,
We had very good luck with On Guard when we used it to track use of our
Quadra
650 (OS 7.5.5). It can give you detailed records of usage, and it allows you
to
set up privileges for each user.

HOWEVER...

The version we have (3.0) is completely incompatible with OS8.6 on our new
G3.
The crashes were catastrophic, and I ended up having to re-install the
operating system once I got the computer to even start up again. Check with
Power On software to make absolutely sure that the version you get is
updated
to avoid this little problem, and back things up before running it...just in
case.

If you get it working, it's likely to be well worth the very reasonable cost
of
the program!
Lynn

(NOTE: THE NEW VERSION IS COMPATABLE WITH MAC OS8.6)

Response;
Several months ago, I went with an impression I got just from following the
list for a year-plus.  That was that FileGuard seemed to be the log-on
software of choice.  So, I posted what was essentially the following
question,
"Is FileGuard THE user log-on software of choice?  I am most concerned not
with billing and user time but rather with password access and control of
(authorized) use."

The responses I got back were by far "Yes!" to FileGuard, though it has
problems, mostly related to user logs and exporting them.  A good few people
wrote that MacLogin - shareware - worked just fine for them, perhaps I
should
try it out.

The only other log-on program I got much feedback on was DiskGuard (which is
a
lower security version, per se, of FileGuard, same company.)  If others are
using On Guard or any others, they're not promoting them in responses to my
questions.

I researched MacLogin and FileGuard and figured I'd try MacLogin for now,
provided MacLogin could... well, that's when my latest posting went out.
The
responses to that one were clearly mostly from MacLogin users, from whom I
got
a good deal of help.  Three or four FileGuard users wrote as well, though,
suggesting it instead.

That's the long and short (mostly long) of it.

I have installed MacLogin, and for now, it seems to me it will do the job.
I
think I'll step up in security to FileGuard if people work their way around
MacLogin.

Good Luck,
Cliff McArthur

Question;
Does any of the security software  being used monitor how many pages a
particular user prints.

Response;
Check out a program called Working PrintLogger at  www.working.com.  If you
use Macs, it might be perfect for you!



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