Review: Helium Music Manager 9 jazzes up music management

You don't have to be a hard-core audiophile to appreciate Helium Music Manager, but music fans with will get the most out of this application. This music organizer and player that helps you stay on top of extensive collections of files. It features an attractive design, but sometimes it's just a bit harder to use than it should be.

Helium Music Manager features a wizard that makes it easy to add music files.

I like how easy Helium Music Manager makes getting started: Launch the application, and it displays a wizard that lets you select which files you'd like to add to its music library. The process is quick, though adding thousands of files obviously takes a bit of time.

Once your files are available through Helium, you can see its organizational features at work. Chief among them is Helium's tag editor, which lets you work with individual files or batches, to speed things along. Casual users may be overwhelmed with how many options there are for tagging audio files, but music aficionados will appreciate the choices.

The application lets you monitor its progress as it adds music files. Unfortunately, many of Helium's other management features are not available in the free version. You have to upgrade to either the $29 Premium or $49 Network (up to 5 users) versions to take advantage of the features that allow you to analyze and repair MP3 and FLAC files, and locate and manage duplicate files. Rival MediaMonkey offers this kind of de-duping feature in its free version.

Helium makes syncing with mobile devices more complicated than it should be. Helium proved more difficult to sync with mobile devices than MediaMonkey. That application synced easily with both an iPhone and an Android phone. Helium, meanwhile, made the process disappointingly cumbersome, requiring that I choose a folder on the phone into which I'd like to transfer the music—and it didn't let me specify exactly which music to tranfer. A more automated, streamlined syncing process would go a long way toward increasing Helium's appeal.

Helium Music Manager Premium does offer additional features that make it worth the upgrade for heavy users, including the Music Browser, which allows you to browse through your music collection in different ways. It displays lists of recently played files, top artists of the week, and tag clouds that let you see visual representations of artists and genres. It's a neat way to find new music that might otherwise be buried in your collection.

Helium's design is attractive and modern. I like Helium Music Manager 9's design. Its slick black and fuschia look is appealing and modern. But I do wish the application itself were easier to use and that more of its features were available in the free version.

Liane Cassavoy is a veteran technology and business journalist. She contributes regularly to PCWorld and has written about business issues and products for Entrepreneur Magazine and other publications. She is the author of two business start-up guides published by Entrepreneur Press.
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Mobile device management shifts to the cloud

New cloud-based software lets employees register, secure, and manage their personal devices without IT department involvement. And a simplified Web interface automates a lot of management tasks.

The software, dubbed Anyware, is completely new code from MobileIron, which originally created a conventional enterprise server application for managing mobile devices. With Anyware, MobileIron intends to become a cloud service that can adapt to handle the mobile management needs of companies large and small.

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In a related announcement, MobileIron will offer Anyware specifically integrated with the mobile apps proliferating on the web-based CRM platform Salesforce.com. Currently, Salesforce administrators in the enterprise "have no access to enterprise mobility management," says Ojas Rege, vice president of strategy for MobileIron. That lack is increasingly urgent as more and more mobile apps for Salesforce appear on the vendor's App Exchange. MobileIron will offer "Anyware for Salesforce," which provides from within the Salesforce web interface a range of administrative views, tools, actions, and reports that support a company's mobile Salesforce users.

The initial release of the Anyware cloud service supports iOS and Android devices. End users surf to anywhere.com to register their devices with a username and password, and a device profile is automatically downloaded to their phone or tablet. That's the only step users need to take, according to Rege.

Once registered, users see two icons on their device, one for Anyware and one for the Anyware app catalog, an enterprise-specific site for mobile apps. The catalog is set up by an Anyware administrator, who lists the approved custom and third-party apps that corporate users can, or should, download. The catalog links seamlessly with both Google Play and Apple App Store. As with those online stores, you click on an app in the Anyware catalog and it downloads and installs on your device. And also as with those online stores, users can rate and review the Anyware-listed apps. "This was a huge request from lots and lots of our enterprise customers," says Rege.

Anyware includes a feature to store and then download to a secure on-board container a selection of enterprise documents, which can be stored in different "content catalogs" in the Anyware cloud. One can be for marketing and sales, another for engineering staff. These work-related documents are secured, manageable and kept separate from the personal content on a personally-owned device. It is not intended to be a full-blown document management system or replace them.

Anyware administrators log in via a browser and see a tabbed interface for the Anyware Console. MobileIron has created an extensive set of wizards to guide administrators through tasks such installing certificates, accessing email, configuring Wi-Fi or VPNs, and creating password policies.

Under the "Add Policy" tab, for example, administrators can select from an extensive selection of  ready-to-use templates, such as "compromised devices" for detecting and dealing with jailbroken mobile phones.  

Whether using the Anyware or Anyware for Salesforce interface, administrators don't have to be IT experts to handle these kinds of management policies and tasks, according to MobileIron.

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Mobile device management shifts to the cloud

Network World - New cloud-based software lets employees register, secure, and manage their personal devices without IT department involvement. And a simplified Web interface automates a lot of management tasks.

The software, dubbed Anyware, is completely new code from MobileIron, which originally created a conventional enterprise server application for managing mobile devices. With Anyware, MobileIron intends to become a cloud service that can adapt to handle the mobile management needs of companies large and small.

In a related announcement, MobileIron will offer Anyware specifically integrated with the mobile apps proliferating on the web-based CRM platform Salesforce.com. Currently, Salesforce administrators in the enterprise "have no access to enterprise mobility management," says Ojas Rege, vice president of strategy for MobileIron. That lack is increasingly urgent as more and more mobile apps for Salesforce appear on the vendor's App Exchange. MobileIron will offer "Anyware for Salesforce," which provides from within the Salesforce web interface a range of administrative views, tools, actions, and reports that support a company's mobile Salesforce users.

The initial release of the Anyware cloud service supports iOS and Android devices. End users surf to anywhere.com to register their devices with a username and password, and a device profile is automatically downloaded to their phone or tablet. That's the only step users need to take, according to Rege.

Once registered, users see two icons on their device, one for Anyware and one for the Anyware app catalog, an enterprise-specific site for mobile apps. The catalog is set up by an Anyware administrator, who lists the approved custom and third-party apps that corporate users can, or should, download. The catalog links seamlessly with both Google Play and Apple App Store. As with those online stores, you click on an app in the Anyware catalog and it downloads and installs on your device. And also as with those online stores, users can rate and review the Anyware-listed apps. "This was a huge request from lots and lots of our enterprise customers," says Rege.

Anyware includes a feature to store and then download to a secure on-board container a selection of enterprise documents, which can be stored in different "content catalogs" in the Anyware cloud. One can be for marketing and sales, another for engineering staff. These work-related documents are secured, manageable and kept separate from the personal content on a personally-owned device. It is not intended to be a full-blown document management system or replace them.

Anyware administrators log in via a browser and see a tabbed interface for the Anyware Console. MobileIron has created an extensive set of wizards to guide administrators through tasks such installing certificates, accessing email, configuring Wi-Fi or VPNs, and creating password policies.

Reprinted with permission from NetworkWorld.com. Story copyright 2012 Network World, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Review: iPod Copy Master can't master music management

iPod Copy Master $20.00 iPod Copy Master will help you copy music from your iOS device to your PC, but be prepared for an unattractive design and a higher price tag than that of its competitors.

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Copying music from your iOS device to your PC is not as easy as it should be, thanks to the limitations of iTunes. Neither is it made much easier with iPod Copy Master, a $20 application that promises to streamline the task. Fortunately, its rivals do a better job.

The free version of iPod Copy Master is so limited as to be almost useless.

iPod Copy Master sounds promising, as it offers to transfer 1,000 songs from your iPod, iPhone, or iPad to your PC in less than 30 minutes, and touts its ability to copy playlists and ratings back to your PC, too. But you'll have to hand over $20 to access any of those features, as the free version is so limited as to be almost useless. It allows you to copy only one track from your iPod to your PC, and not just one track at a time—one track only.

iPod Copy Master's default skin is supposed to resemble wood, but it's neither realistic nor appealing.

iPod Copy Master also sports a design that looks as though it's supposed to resemble wood, but comes no closer to real wood than those station wagons with faux-wood panels on the side that you used to see back in the 1980s. You can change the skin, but the only other option in the free version sports a black background with white text, which quickly irritated my eyes.

The black design is more attractive, but it made my eyes hurt.

And, really, even a more appealing color scheme can't help iPod Copy Master. This application has the basics covered, as it easily detects an attached iOS device, and quickly pulls up its contents on your PC's screen. And I like that you can choose between transferring the music only to a folder on your desktop or doing that and syncing with iTunes. But that's about it.

I would be more willing to overlook iPod Copy Master's flaws if the free version offered more functionality. At $20, iPod Copy Master costs the same as CopyTrans, a more full-featured iOS management tool that allows you to copy files from your iPod to your PC. CopyTrans also offers a free version that lets you transfer 250 tracks at a time. And SynciOS offers files transfers and more iOS management tools for free…in an application that looks better than iPod Copy Master.

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Qualcomm to sell Omnitracs fleet management unit

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Qualcomm to sell Omnitracs fleet management unit

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Rackspace hosts VMware management with new dedicated server

The introduction of Rackspace’s hosted Dedicated VMware vCenter Server will allow IT staff to control their VMware environments from a data center run by the vendor.

As enterprises move IT infrastructure out of their own data centers, vendors are offering a growing list of alternatives that in Rackspace’s world includes hybrid clouds, which combine public and private clouds, and dedicated hosting. The latest addition to the latter offering is Dedicated VMware vCenter Server, which allows IT departments to retain full control with the tools they are used to without having to bother with the underlying infrastructure.

“Many of our customers have large VMware installations in-house today, and they have made significant investments in that and don’t want to throw it away,” said Andrew Wing, senior product manager at Rackspace.

For companies that want to stick with VMware, but don’t want to expand their data centers or have data centers at all, Rackspace already offers managed virtualization based on VMware vSphere 5.1. The addition of vCenter builds on that. From a single console, administrators can control virtual servers running in-house and in Rackspace’s data centers. It is also possible to mix vCenter servers that run in an enterprise’s own data center and ones that are hosted by Rackspace.

Until now, Rackspace’s hosted VMware platform used a shared vCenter model, which only offered limited management capabilities, according to Wing.

Rackspace will at first charge a yet undecided monthly fee per hypervisor that is managed by the hosted vCenter server and in the next phase move to a model where enterprises pay for what they use.

“It is just a question of getting our billing systems set up to make that a reality,” Wing said.

Today, enterprises are using Rackspace’s managed virtualization to run things like e-commerce platforms and Web content management systems. But Rackspace is hoping to attract more central IT functions, including ERP and CRM systems, according to Wing.

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Opscode adds networking to Chef management capabilities

Opscode has teamed up with Cisco Systems and Arista Networks to add networking features and has expanded its collaboration with Microsoft to broaden Windows integration for its renamed Enterprise Chef platform.

Chef is used to automate IT management, but any management platform is only as useful as the products it control. To widen the appeal of Enterprise Chef, Opscode has announced partnerships with networking vendors Arista, Cisco as well as Juniper Networks.

Working with Arista, Opscode has integrated Enterprise Chef with the company’s Extensible Operating System (EOS). The two have developed a Chef cookbook with recipes for automating the configuration of link aggregation, vlans and physical networking ports.

The cookbooks and recipes are written using the Ruby programming language and tell the Chef client how each node should be configured. The client, which is installed on every node, then does the actual configuration.

The work that Opscode is doing with Cisco and Juniper is similar in nature.

Cisco and Opscode are collaborating to integrate Enterprise Chef and Cisco’s One Platform Kit (onePK), allowing users to automate networking port configuration using cookbooks. Cisco is also integrating Chef into its Software Maintenance Upgrades (SMU) Manager.

Juniper Networks, on the other hand, is working with Opscode to integrate Enterprise Chef with Junos OS. Again users will be able to customers will be able to perform common network configurations directly rather than through a series of manual processes, Opscode said.

Opscode didn’t provide any details on when the integration with Cisco and Juniper would become available. The company isn’t just interested in expanding Chef’s functionality in the networking space.

On Monday, the company also announced an expanded collaboration with Microsoft to integrate both the open source version of Chef and Enterprise Chef with Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration. A new management platform that can be used to enable server roles, manage registry settings and manage groups or user accounts.

For users that want to learn more about Chef’s Windows capabilities, Opscode is organizing a webinar on Aug. 27.

Enterprise Chef was previously offered as two separate products, Private Chef and Hosted Chef, which have now have been repackaged as one product, available as on-premise software or as a hosted service. It is available free for up to five nodes, and beyond that it costs from $120 per month for up to 20 nodes.

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