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blog-md-excel-700x353 A popular feature of MDaemon is its ability to let administrators quickly pinpoint message activity and session information using detailed logs. Sometimes, however, what's required is more an overview of server usage such as how load is being shared across users or mailboxes for example. In this post I take a look at how you can use Microsoft Excel to query data you may not even be aware is available in MDaemon!

ba-v10-beta There's an exciting new release of BackupAssist in the pipeline so it's that time again when we reach out and ask for your help in giving it an early road test before it's unleashed on the public. BackupAssist version 10 is now in Beta, so if you'd like to grab a copy from the official Beta page, you'll get an early peek at some great new file and application cloud backup features, as well as the chance to provide your input.

mailstore-v10In the first major release since the company's acquisition by backup giant Carbonite, MailStore's development team today bring us the most secure version we've seen to date of their popular archiving software. Against a backdrop of increased Internet crime and social engineering threats, we see the German development team really zero in on security enhancements in this latest release - while continuing to make life easier for administrators.

ba-wordpress-700x353 I'm pretty sold on the fact that for a small business in particular, a backup product needs to be simple to get going with, low maintenance, and on the rare occasion you need support, that there's somebody on the end of the phone to help you quickly. Yes, you guessed it - I, from my completely unbiased position, think BackupAssist is a better product for a small company than BackupExec so I'm offering you another good reason to think about moving across. Starting today, if you make the switch to BackupAssist from Symantec BackupExec 2010 or later, for a limited time, when you buy the core BackupAssist application with 2 year's upgrade protection, we'll give you the second year completely free! . Upgrade Protection entitles you to all new versions, lets you link your software to the Multisite Manager if you wish, and of course provides our top-notch phone, email and remote support, completely free! Ready to take a closer look at BackupAssist? Download the free trial

MDaemon 16.5 It's inconvenient, it undoubtedly costs your business money and it has the potential to cause you headaches of epic proportions. Perhaps that's not the greatest sales strap line you've ever read? Well, that's because I'm not referring to MDaemon, in this case, I'm talking about your friend and mine, spam email. You know, that particularly enjoyable type where seemingly innocuous messages from colleagues/ suppliers/ customers, turn out to be from one of those aspiring Mr. Robot types hell-bent on crypto'ing the life out of your data. In 16.5 there's less chance of that happening as one of the new features of interest is the simple, but effective 'From Header Protection/ Modification'. That's not all - there's auto-updating, centralised Outlook Connector settings, an XMPP server (yes, I had to Google it too) and some improvements to Worldclient you've been asking for. Here are my highlights - as usual, you can find the exhaustive version available in the MDaemon Release Notes.

If you read my post on 'spear phishing'  you'll be aware that the hijacking of email accounts is on the rise. These attacks generally revolve around the attacker already knowing the login details for the account somehow. When I speak to customers they often wonder how the attacker knew their seemingly complex password. Did they simply guess it? The simple answer is no, in my opinion, that's very unlikely. It's much more likely that the email address and password were used on another site/ service which has led to them being compromised or 'pwned'.

better-mailstore-email-alertsLast year I wrote this article that described how you could use a combination of MailStore email archiver's auditing features, the Windows task manager and a PowerShell script to send you email alerts in the event an archiving job failed. This worked well but it was a little on the keen side, occasionally being triggered by a job failing that would actually just go on to run fine again shortly afterwards.

Storage WarsIf you're considering a backup strategy for your business, it won't be long before you need to start thinking about storage media, and which of the various types is best suited to your needs. In this post, I attempt to help by doing my best, to sum up the strengths and weaknesses of each as I see them, from my experience of working with customers using BackupAssist for Windows (which we're distributors of). I hope this will be of some use to you regardless of the software you're using, however, this is written with BackupAssist users in mind. First up....USB drives.

SecurityGateway v4.0Would you find it useful to be able to see the entries in a colleague's calendar? Perhaps a few of you share a meeting room and you'd like the ability to manage bookings? Maybe you just need an out-of-office responder you can set from Outlook? Today sees a new point release of Outlook Connector, a highly recommended add-on for MDaemon Messaging Server. It's the part that provides all of the above, plus lots more 'Exchange-like' functionality to help you work more efficiently by collaborating better with your colleagues. Here are the highlights of this minor update - as always, you can find a more detailed list in the official release notes.