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    How to monitoring the Blogosphere

    Date:12/14/2007

  • What are people saying about you? Is your business being talked about on blogs? What is being said? Is this something you need to address before it gets out of control? Monitoring the blogosphere has become a cost of being a part of the Internet world that we live in today.
  • In blog marketing businesses need to be proactive about managing their digital reputation. In addition to monitoring what is beings said about your company and its brands, it’s necessary to know what’s being said about your competitors. This can put you ahead and potentially into new opportunities.
  • You can track what is being said yourself, but that takes time. You can hire another company, but that takes more money. Monitoring blog conversations can be done using tools available on the internet whether you choose to do this yourself or hire someone else.
  • Here are some Great Blog monitoring tools;
  • 1.Monitor News feeds with Yahoo News or Google News.
    2.Search blog results only using Google Blog search.
    3.Technorati has many advanced blog search capabilities.
    4.Be emailed alerts anytime your company name or brand name is detected by Google on the Internet with Google Alerts. This alert can be set to by source type (blogs, web, news, all, etc).
    5.Search forums or create alerts with boardtracker.com
    6.Monitor blog conversations and which other blogs link to this conversation with BlogPulse conversation tracker.
    7.Watch trends in how often your company name or brand is used with blogpulse.com trend tool.
  • By combining several of these tools, you can get a good idea of who is talking about you, your company or your competition.
  • Refer:http://www.webdesignseo.com/blog-marketing/monitoring-the-blogosphere.php

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    What Can You Do With RSS?

    Date:11/23/2007

  • While the popularized geek use for RSS is generally considered to be exclusively limited to the realm of publishing and subscribing to news headlines and blog feeds, many other innovative and useful applications of RSS have been sprouting here and there.
  • Whether it is for business, marketing, PR, competitive intelligence or for security protection, video entertainment or tracking downloads for your newest product, RSS is a breakthrough technology which can truly be applied to thousands of possible applications.
  • Here are some of the most interesting ones:
  • photo　Photo credit: Ronen
  • Monitoring Newsgroups/Usenet
    Google Groups is a free online community and discussion group service that offers the Web's most comprehensive archive of Usenet postings. Google Groups can be monitored using RSS feeds. In order to monitor a specific newsgroup simply add "/feed/msgs.xml" to the end of the Google Group URL. Add the new URL to a newsgroup reader and receive updates each time a new post is added to the newsgroup.
    Example Feed from Google Groups.
  • Other online community-oriented and online group-collaboration services that fully support RSS include:
    YahooGroups http://www.yahoogroups.com/
    SocialText http://www.socialtext.net/
    Near-Time http://www.near-time.com/
  • Shared Calendars
  • photo　Photo credit: Marja Flick-Buijs
  • Build a calendar for public or private use and receive calendar updates via an RSS feed. Shared calendars can be created for personal reminders to pay bills or attend social functions. Calendars can also be used for specific groups like schools, sporting events, or industry events. A shared calendar can be fully syndicated and shared using RSS feeds.
  • CalendarHub http://www.calendarhub.com
    Example Feed - http://www.calendarhub.com/rss/21882/month
    RSS Calendar http://www.rsscalendar.com/
    Zimbra http://www.zimbra.com/
  • Weather
  • weather　Photo credit: Michael Shake
  • Enter a zip code and obtain the weather information for a specific region. Click the orange RSS icon and add the feed to your RSS reader. Each day, at your specified time, you will receive local and regional weather reports as they are made available. RSS feeds can be customized to include current local conditions, local Doppler radar, pollen trends, regional video forecasts with expert commentary, and extended forecast details.
  • Yahoo Weather http://weather.yahoo.com/rss/
    Weather.com http://www.weather.com
    RSS Weather http://www.rssweather.com
  • Classifieds (Homes/Jobs)
  • Classifieds Photo credit: Tan Kian Khoon
  • Curious about the availability of specific employment opportunities in a specific industry? Receive notification when positions are made available. RSS feeds can be created for regions, salary ranges, or positions.
  • Craigslist http://www.craigslist.org/
    RSSJobs http://www.rssjobs.com
    CareerChannel http://www.careermag.com/MKT/RSS/
  • Ego Searches
  • Ego Searches Photo credit: Gina Smith
  • An egosurfer is one who surfs the Internet for his own name, to see what, if any, articles appear about himself. Ego searches are free and simple searches designed to monitor blogs and news portals for mentions of your company, product, competitors, or other specific keywords. Conducting ego searches, not only allows you to stay informed, but also allows you to maintain a strategic advantage over competing companies. A number of new Internet services are freely available that make these 'ego searches' painless and easy.
  • Many of the services allow you to create a keyword based feed. Each time new information containing the keyword appears in the searched resources, the RSS feed updates.
  • Egosurf http://www.egosurf.org/
    Monitor This http://uckan.info/depot/monitorthis/
    Technorati Watchlist http://www.technorati.com
  • Refer:http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/04/11/what_can_you_do_with.htm

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    Five Enterprise Content Monitoring Tools

    Date:11/16/2007

  • While the market for security applications that monitor and filter enterprise content is relatively new and small—around $60 million in 2006—Gartner says it is growing. Here’s a sampling of some infosecurity products CIOs are using today.
  • iPrism
    St. Bernard Software claims iPrism blocks IM and peer-to-peer traffic and blocks employees from visiting URLs that are phishing sites, contain threats to PCs or aren’t prohibited by enterprise usage policies.
  • Metron
    eTelemetry says Metron tracks bandwidth usage, surfing and chatting. Its Locate product passively maps people to the IT infrastructure. Together, eTelemetry claims its “people-to-IP” matching technology provides visibility into how each employee is using the infrastructure.
  • Securify
    Securify claims its appliance passively captures and analyzes traffic into and out of critical data centers and across corporate boundaries such as extranets. Securify says its “monitors” track all transactions to users to provide a view of “who” is accessing “what” applications and “where” in the network.
  • 7
    Vontu claims that 7 is the first integrated, enterprise-class data loss prevention product that identifies “data at rest, data in motion and data at the endpoint”—meaning on servers, databases and PCs; e-mail, IM and Web; and removable media such as USBs, CDs and iPods.
  • Vericept
    Vericept says its Risk Management platform gives enterprises visibility into all insider risk whether inadvertent or malicious. These include unauthorized access of confidential customer information; document leaks; unencrypted transmission of cardholder information; the posting of financial reports and source code; damaging blogs by insiders; intellectual property theft; and network and e-mail control.
  • Refer:http://www.cio.com/article/106156/Five_Enterprise_Content_Monitoring_Tools

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    Free Flowing Network Monitoring Tools

    Date:11/12/2007

  • While the market for security applications that monitor and filter enterprise content is relatively new and small—around $60 million in 2006—Gartner says it is growing. Here’s a sampling of some infosecurity products CIOs are using today.
  • iPrism
    St. Bernard Software claims iPrism blocks IM and peer-to-peer traffic and blocks employees from visiting URLs that are phishing sites, contain threats to PCs or aren’t prohibited by enterprise usage policies.
  • Metron
    eTelemetry says Metron tracks bandwidth usage, surfing and chatting. Its Locate product passively maps people to the IT infrastructure. Together, eTelemetry claims its “people-to-IP” matching technology provides visibility into how each employee is using the infrastructure.
  • Securify
    Securify claims its appliance passively captures and analyzes traffic into and out of critical data centers and across corporate boundaries such as extranets. Securify says its “monitors” track all transactions to users to provide a view of “who” is accessing “what” applications and “where” in the network.
  • 7
    Vontu claims that 7 is the first integrated, enterprise-class data loss prevention product that identifies “data at rest, data in motion and data at the endpoint”—meaning on servers, databases and PCs; e-mail, IM and Web; and removable media such as USBs, CDs and iPods.
  • Vericept
    Vericept says its Risk Management platform gives enterprises visibility into all insider risk whether inadvertent or malicious. These include unauthorized access of confidential customer information; document leaks; unencrypted transmission of cardholder information; the posting of financial reports and source code; damaging blogs by insiders; intellectual property theft; and network and e-mail control.
  • Refer:http://www.cio.com/article/106156/Five_Enterprise_Content_Monitoring_Tools

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    Free Flowing Network Monitoring Tools

    Date:11/12/2007

  • At first glance, nothing beats free. Linux runs on everything from mainframes to mobile phones; Snort is the most widely used Intrusion Detection System (IDS) software and Open Office is taking a bite out of Microsoft's dominance of the office suite market.
  • There are also numerous free products available for network management. In this article we focus on two that can be used to capture and analyze network traffic data coming from switches and routers - ntop and Scrutinizer - as well as how to get support for both when needed.
  • Packet Parsing
  • ntop and Scrutinizer are both tools for accessing and analyzing NetFlow data. NetFlow was developed by Cisco Systems Inc. as a part of its Internetwork Operating System (IOS) that comes with its routers and some of its switches. It helps customers monitor their networks, analyze traffic patterns, track usage and plan for expansion. The most recent release is version 9.
  • While traditional Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) shows bandwidth utilization, it doesn't provide the necessary insight into exactly what is traveling on the network. Further granularity is needed to apply QoS policies, determine bandwidth hogs and identify the affect of new applications installed on the network. To achieve this, NetFlow examines the packets passing through a network interface in reference to seven attributes: IP source address, IP destination address, source port, destination port, Layer 3 protocol type, Class of Service and router or switch interface. All packets with the same attributes are considered part of the same flow, the bits and packets for that flow are tallied, and the data on completed flows is stored in a cache for export.
  • NetFlow requires two elements: a data generator and a data collector. The data generator is any device that is set up to collect and export NetFlow data. It is a push technology which will bundle the data from about 30 to 50 flows and send it off to the collector. UDP format is generally used to transport the data, however other formats are available.
  • To activate NetFlow on a router, type in:
  • #ip flow-export version 5
  • #ip flow-export destination <ip address> <port number>
  • #ip flow-export source <interface#>
  • Then, visit each physical interface and type in:
  • #ip route-cache flow
  • The data collector is a workstation or server with a database and analysis software installed which collects the data exported by the network devices and makes it available for analysis by the network administrators. Once the collector is configured to listen to the correct UDP port (default is 2055) it starts receiving the NetFlow data. NetFlow traffic is about 2 percent of the current bandwidth utilization and a 20MB interface generates about 1GB of raw data daily.
  • NetFlow is a proprietary Cisco format, but the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is developing a standard based on NetFlow v.9 called Internet Protocol Flow Information eXport (IPFIX) which will work with devices using IOS as well as products from many other vendors. For the latest news on IPFIX and drafts of the protocol, go to the working group's website at www.ietf.org/ html.charters/ ipfix-charter.html .
  • NetFlow is available on nearly all Cisco network devices except for the 3660 Multiservice Platform and the 2900, 3500 and 3750 switches. In addition to Cisco, commercial vendors providing NetFlow reporting applications include AdventNet, Arbor Networks, Fluke Networks, CA, HP, IBM and NetQoS.
  • No Cost Netflow
  • For those looking for a freeware NetFlow analyzer, one option is to use ntop (www.ntop.org), an open source network traffic probe developed by Luca Deri at the University of Pisa and released under the GPL. It runs on Unix (including Linux BSD, Solaris and Mac OSX) and 32-bit Windows platforms. In addition to supporting NetFlow and IPFIX, ntop also supports VoIP and sFlow (a hardware-based flow reporting solution) data. Traffic statistics are stored in Round Robin Databases (RRD) for long term analysis, and data is presented via a web interface.
  • Another free tool for analyzing flow technologies is Scrutinizer (www.plixer.com/ products/ free-netflow.php) from Plixer International, Inc. of Sanford, Maine. Scrutinizer is a collector of NetFlow data as well as the other flow technologies sFlow and IPFIX. It also collects VoIP data from Avaya, Cisco, Nortel, Asterisk and other PBXes. Scrutinizer runs on Windows boxes (2000/XP/2003) with a minimum of 2Gb of RAM and 50 Gb available disk space for trial installations. Production environments have higher recommended hardware specifications. It integrates with products from a number of other network management software products including Ipswitch Inc.'s What'sUp Gold, SolarWinds' Orion and Numara Software's Track-It, as well as Packeteer appliances.
  • Like ntop, Scrutinizer uses a browser interface. Data is shown covering intervals from five seconds up to a week. When viewing a graph, administrators can drag the cursor over a section to drill down further into that data. A network admin, for example, when looking at a weekly graph of top talkers on a particular connection, might spot a traffic peak on Wednesday morning at 3 A.M. - a time when the office is empty and traffic should be minimal. Dragging the mouse over that peak drills down into that time period and exposes that a particular machine was acting as a zombie, sending out spam.
  • Seeking Support
  • Both ntop and Scrutinizer are good ways of getting a quick look at what is traveling on the network. But, as the old adage goes, there is no such thing as a free Linux. Even though the software comes as a no-cost download, there is still the expense of installing, maintaining and hosting the software. Many organizations, therefore, find it cheaper to pay for a supported version: RedHat and SuSE for Linux, Sourcefire for Snort and Sun Microsystems' StarOffice. Similarly, ntop and the free version of Scrutinizer are good up to a point, but they are limited in their usefulness when compared to a commercial product. Just as many companies prefer to go with a commercial release of Linux, so do they want support for their free flow collection software. And both ntop and Scrutinizer have support available for a fee.
  • For those who need to get more out of ntop, the ntop organization, offers fee-based services from the ntop developers. The ntop website also lists companies in seven countries offering on-site ntop support ( www.ntop.org/ consultancy.html ).
  • With Scrutinizer, one of the main drawbacks of the free software is that it only stores the data for 24 hours. This is still useful for immediate debugging of overloaded connections, but doesn't one the longer range view needed for capacity planning, or to spot the source of recurring, intermittent problems. When one needs support and a more robust feature set, several other versions of Scrutinizer are available for purchase.
  • Holding a masters degree in Computer Information Systems, Michael Patterson has many years of experience as manager of the Network Operations Center at Cabletron Systems in Durham, N.H. He is currently the president of Plixer Inc, a maker of network management software such as Scrutinizer NetFlow and sFLOW Analyzer, based in Sanford, Maine. He can be contacted through www.plixer.com .
  • Refer:http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2007/08/26-free-tools-for-buzz-monitoring.html

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    Buzz Monitoring: 26 Free Tools You Must Have

    Date:11/02/2007

  • There are a lot of companies that will happily relieve you of your dollars, in exchange for buzz monitoring services. While many large companies will enjoy the peace of mind that comes from having a company track their reputation for them, the rest of us need something a little less expensive–or better yet, free!
  • We've compiled a list of twenty six buzz monitoring tools that are free of charge. Use these tools to keep track of your company reputation or even spy on your competition!
  • 1. Your Industry
    If you simply don't have time to track everything that specifically relates to your company–or your competition–you can still track news that relates to your industry. Moreover and Yahoo are just a couple of resources that offer RSS feeds for aggregated industry news.
  • 2. Mainstream Media News
    One of the best ways to track mainstream media mentions of your company is to use Google News. Enter your company name, sort the results by date published and then subscribe to the RSS feed. You'll get instant RSS updates of any news items that mention your business. Example for "apple".
  • 3. News Buzz
    It's one thing to track any news that relates to your business, but what if you just want to know about the news that becomes popular? Sites such as Digg and Reddit will let you search for submitted stories that match your company name. Subscribe to the resulting RSS feed and you'll know about any story on Digg that mentions your company–or your biggest rival.
  • 4. Social Media News
    By the time a hot news story gets picked-up by the mainstream media, it could have made the rounds for days in the blogosphere. You can capitalize on positive buzz and put out any reputation fires by tracking social media. Technorati is one of the best options for tracking social media sites. Custom RSS feeds let you get quick updates on any blog that utters your company name.
  • 5. Blog Posts
    If a blog happens to "ping" the blogosphere, the chances are that it will get on Google Blog Search. Even if the blog isn't in Google news, or doesn't make the main Google index, Google Blog Search might still find that story that mentions your CEO or your recent product launch. Get alerts to matching stories via email or RSS.
  • 6. Blog Comments
    Sometimes tracking a blog post doesn't reveal the full conversation about your business. The blog post might be positive, but those leaving comments could attack your reputation. Services such as co.mments.com track the comments left on blogs. You can search for your brand and subscribe to the RSS feed for instant updates.
  • 7. Blog Conversations
    A negative blog post appears on a low-trafficked blog and there are no comments to track. End of story? Not quite, what if a very popular blogger picks up on the story? It could spread very quickly and catch you by surprise. Blogpulse's conversation tracker will help you track who's linking to that blog post about your company.
  • 8. Blog Trends
    How well is your competitor's new product launch going? Blogpulse trends lets you track whether a keyword is getting growing blog mentions or not. Apple's iPhone saw a 1000% jump in blog mentions leading up to its launch.
  • 9. Bookmarks
    Remember the days when your customers would bookmark your site in IE and you never knew about it? Thanks to online bookmarking services such as del.icio.us more people are sharing their bookmarks online. RSS feeds make it easy to track whenever someone bookmarks a web page that includes mention of your company.
  • 10. Photos
    Did an employee release a top-secret photo of your new products? Did someone snap a photo of your CEO leaving a strip-club? The chances are high that they might upload it to image hosting sites such as Flickr. Luckily, you can subscribe to an RSS feed that will update you on any new image that matches your company name?or the name of your slimy CEO.
  • 11. Videos
    So what if your CEO was caught on video having a lap-dance? Ouch! Ok, less damaging, someone releases a video showing a negative product review. Google Video recently switched focus to index videos from many online hosting sites (such as YouTube and MetaCafe). Now you can keep track of videos that include your company.
  • 12. Tags
    Wouldn't it be great if you could enter a keyword and see who used that word as a "tag" How much better would it be if you could see matching tags across more than a dozen sites? Keotag.com does just that, making it easy for you to track if someone tags a page using your company or product name.
  • 13. Forum Posts
    Sometimes the most important conversations don't happen on blogs. Forums and message boards can host conversations about your company and you'd never know about it. Don't panic! Sites such as Boardtracker.com will keep an eye on popular forums for you and alert you by RSS if your company is mentioned in a thread.
  • 14. Changing Information
    Wikipedia is one of the most trusted resources for information on the web. You might be interested in any updates to your company profile or maybe you want to know if your competitor is trying to remove links to your web site. Fortunately you can track change history for any Wikipedia page and have the changes sent to your RSS reader of choice.
  • 15. Job Listings
    If your competitor wants to start a new service or launch a new product, the chances are they'll need to hire new staff to achieve this. Classifieds search engine Oodle scours many online job listings and aggregates the information in a central location. Set up RSS feeds for searches on your biggest competitors and you'll know whenever they list a vacant position.
  • 16. Financial Filings
    You can get a good feel for the financial health of your publicly-traded competitors by keeping a close eye on their SEC filings. Use Edgar Online and you'll know if they're subject to an SEC investigation or if their CEO is dumping stock faster than Martha Stewart.
  • 17. Conference Calls
    Sticking with public companies, sometimes you can learn some competitive information by listening to the company's conference calls. But who has time for that? SeekingAlpha lets you subscribe to the RSS feed of conference call transcripts. Open up the transcript and you can quickly get a snapshot of their financial health. You might even learn about a new product launch–one which you might want to think about for your business.
  • 18. Patents
    Keeping track of patent filings was notoriously difficult before Google Patent Search came along. Now you can keep any eye on patents filed that relate to your industry. Better yet, keep track of patents that might violate your company held patents.
  • 19. Events
    Yahoo's Upcoming lets you get RSS alerts on any new event that matches your selected keyword. You can keep track of conferences that you might want to attend, or sponsor. In addition, you could keep track of seminars or meeting being held by your competitors.
  • 20. New Products
    Let's say you want to get some ideas of products that might be hot right now. Amazon.com lets you view product "tags" and then review similar tags. You can use this to get an idea of companion products that you might want to launch.
  • 21. Search Query Trends
    hat search queries are popular at Google right now? Thanks to Google Trends you can get an idea of which keywords are most searched for. You can narrow your research to specific countries or cities–letting you know if a product has global or local appeal.
  • 22. Keyword Referrals
    Sure you could probably take an educated guess as to which sites might get the most traffic for a particular keyword, but it's more fun to actually spy on your competitors. Compete's Search Analytics allows you to enter a keyword and see which web sites are getting traffic for that keyword.
  • 23. Site Referrals
    Ok, so maybe you're not sure which keywords you should target for your next SEM campaign. Compete's Search Analytics will also let you enter any domain name and see which keywords are driving traffic to that site. Now you know which keywords your competitors are targeting.
  • 24. Email Updates
    If you're not quite ready for all of that RSS reader nonsense, you can still keep track of the latest buzz via email. Google Alerts let you track web, blogs, news and groups for any phrase you want. Select daily, weekly or "as it happens" updates and you'll get an email whenever your company name is mentioned.
  • 25. The Untrackable
    Some stuff just can't be tracked that easily. If you want to track changes at a site–even if they don't offer RSS or email updates–there are many tools that will do it for you. Our favorite is Copernic's Tracker which, for $50, will let you keep an eye on any web site. Use it to monitor RipOffReport.com, forum threads, or even your competitor's web site.
  • 26. Anything You Want
    You don't have to be a developer in order to create your own custom buzz monitoring tool. Thanks to Yahoo Pipes, you can quickly set up your own RSS tracking, complete with filters. Want to track Twitter for mentions of your company? Not a problem with Yahoo Pipes.
  • Over to You
    So, that should be enough buzz monitoring tools to get you going. Some are more useful than others, but all are FREE! What are your favorite buzz monitoring tools? Leave a comment or post to your own blog and ping us.
  • Like this post? Check out our FREE Beginners Guide to Online Reputation Management
  • Refer:http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2007/08/26-free-tools-for-buzz-monitoring.html

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    Open source network monitoring and management tools

    Date:10/26/2007

  • Network monitoring and management applications can be costly and cumbersome, but recently a host of companies have sprung forth offering an open source alternative to IBM Tivoli, HP OpenView, CA and BMC -- and they're starting to gain traction.
  • The major commercial software vendors, known as the "big four," are frequently criticized for their high cost and complexity and, in some cases, are chided for being too robust -- having too many features that some enterprise users may find completely unnecessary.
  • Many of the open source alternatives are quick to admit that their solutions aren't for everyone, but they bring to the table arguments in their favor that networking pros can't ignore, namely low cost and ease of use.
  • Flexibility included
    Some users have said the Tivolis and OpenViews of the world are hard to customize and very inflexible, but open source alternatives are often the opposite. They are known for their flexibility. "You can use the product as you want," Karpovich said.
  • Nagios developer Ethan Galstad said flexibility is a major influence on enterprises looking to move ahead with an open source monitoring project. Nagios makes open source software that monitors network availability and the states of devices and services.
  • "You have as an end user much more influence on the future of the feature set," Galstad said, adding that through the open source community, end users can request a feature they want, discuss the pros and cons and, in many cases, implement that feature within a relatively short time.
  • And for things that Nagios and other open source monitoring tools don't do, end users can tie the tools in with other solutions to create the environment they want.
  • "There are a lot of hooks," Galstad said.
  • Another big concern for enterprises is the high cost of network management and monitoring solutions, where a large chunk of money is spent and not all features are used. With open source, Karpovich said, "you're not wasting a lot of money."
  • Galstad agreed, adding that enterprises can save a bundle on licensing fees by implementing open source monitoring tools
  • Along with Zenoss and Nagios, other open source network monitoring and management tools are gathering steam. The likes of Groundwork OpenSource, Hyperic and Qlusters offer open source alternatives. Some vendors have gained enough popularity that they are now being billed the "little four."
  • Functionality varies
    Karpovich is quick to note, however, that the "little four" designation doesn't necessarily mean the vendors offer as much functionality as their non-open rivals. He plays by the "80-20 rule."
  • "We'll do 80% of what they do," he said. "We never do everything they do because a lot of it is irrelevant."
  • Ofer Shoshan, founder and CEO of Qlusters, maker of OpenQRM, an open source application and network management and monitoring tool, said recent interest in open source comes from growth in the industry and tools that can handle bigger deployments.
  • "In the past, most of the open source tools were aimed at small installations; they were not enterprise grade," Shoshan said. "They were unreliable, unstable and couldn't manage large numbers of systems."
  • Support is an issue
    Some open source monitoring tools offer a level of support now and can support large installations, but still there is some level of apprehension on the part of network pros that putting an open source -- instead of commercial -- tool in charge of their monitoring may not be the best choice, mainly because of a lack of service and support.
  • "No serious CIO would risk his job deploying a solution that doesn't have service and support," Shoshan said. "He would have to be crazy. And many open source solutions out there didn't have enterprise-grade support and service."
  • Galstad added that this lack of a "security blanket" could prompt some end users to shy away from open source alternatives.
  • "There is no one person or one company to choke if something goes wrong," he said. "You might not be able to get the help that you need."
  • "But for those who are willing to do a little research and work on their own," Galstad continued, "they're much more comfortable with digging into the problem and finding a solution."
  • Refer:http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid7_gci1242762,00.html

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    Security tools

    Date:10/19/2007

  • Using Snort, Nessus and Tripwire for network security
    Why pay a proprietary vendor a ton of money for a security application you can get for little or no money? In this tip, learn pros and cons of Snort, Nessus and Tripwire.
  • IPSec VPN clients
    Lisa Phifer discusses the features and benefits IPsec clients have to offer and what they are often missing. Her discussion includes information on open source VPN clients.
  • Designing a DMZ and using iptables
    Our editors posted a question on ITKnowledge Exchange to help "Ruhi" plan for a demilitarized zone using iptables, and fellow techies jumped in to help out, providing excellent advice for DMZ design.
  • Nmap: A valuable open source tool for network security
    Security practitioners who don't use open source tools are missing a valuable opportunity to get a new perspective on their network security without loosening the purse strings.
  • Snort: Open source intrusion detection
    Snort is an open source network intrusion detection system (NIDS) created by Martin Roesch. Snort is a packet sniffer that monitors network traffic in real time, scrutinizing each packet closely to detect a dangerous payload or suspicious anomalies.
  • Snort is based on libpcap (for library packet capture), a tool that is widely used in TCP/IP traffic sniffers and analyzers. Through protocol analysis and content searching and matching, Snort detects attack methods, including denial of service, buffer overflow, CGI attacks, stealth port scans, and SMB probes. When suspicious behavior is detected, Snort sends a real-time alert to syslog, a separate 'alerts' file, or to a pop-up window.
  • Snort -- The poor man's intrusion detection system
    Is intrusion detection the missing piece in your information security puzzle? Many organizations evaluate products like ISS RealSecure and the Cisco Intrusion-Detection System but choose not to implement them for financial reasons. Fortunately, there's an open-source alternative -- Snort.
  • Snort makes IDS worth the time and effort
    Open source Snort is a free and powerful alternative to commercial intrusion-detection systems.
  • Nessus: Open source vulnerability scanner
    Getting started with Nessus: How to install and configure the open source vulnerability scanner
    Nessus, an open source vulnerability scanner, can scan a network for potential security risks and provide detailed reporting that enables you to remediate gaps in your corporation's security posture. This tip introduces the tool and explains how to install and configure your own Nessus deployment.
  • Nessus: Vulnerability scanning in the enterprise
    General advice for building an enterprise scanning program with the open source vulnerability scanner Nessus.
  • Managing Nessus reports
    Vulnerability scanning with Nessus can produce mountains of data. Learn three tips for getting the most out of the open source vulnerability scanner and managing the data produced by this valuable tool.

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    Administration tools for middle-small web sites

    Date:09/16/2007

  • Besides the normal ALEXA ranking, search engine, Link reputation, GooglePR and Sogou Rank, there are some other new tools worth to be recommended
  • 1. Traffic monitor: Google Analytics
    Link Address: https://www.google.com/analytics/home/
    Before the appearance of Google Analytics, there are many good monitoring tools, like the service by http://www.cnzz.com/
  • According to the introduction on Google blackboard,Analytics'main functions are:
    •Capture the detail information about Google capture and collect your web site
    •Diagnose potential capture problem and learn how to improve it.
    •Learn what kind of keyword can bring you more traffic
    •Share your web site's information with Google
  • Compared with Web Server based log – AWStats, the statistic of Google Analytics is based on javaScript, or we can say Cookie. So if user's browser forbidden Cookie or JavaScript, relative visiting will not be recorded.
  • Google Analytics' record method which is based on cookie is more accurate because only if HTML file is loaded, the record can execute. Log type AWStats also records the non-html file's visiting.Actually, this is not what people really care about.
  • 2. Performance Monitor: YouMonitor.Us
    Web site: http://youmonitor.us
    YouMonitor.Us is the pioneer and leader in network monitoring field. It can monitor the performance and accessibility through its globally distributed monitoring nodes.
  • YMU system has four new points that are creative:
    •When monitoring your web site, YMU will focus on accessibility and visiting performance
    •24*7 constant monitoring service
    •Monitoring range covers all over the world, so you can know clearly the visiting performance globally.
    •Configurable options of monitoring targets selecting,monitoring interval, threshold configuration and real time report generation
    •In main page, you can experience its external service to monitor one web site without registering
  • YouMonitor.Us
  • Here is the real time visiting speed statistics in five cities.Among them, there are three monitoring points coming from China hangzhou, shanghai and Beijing. This is what we are satisfied with.
  • Besides providing average visiting speed, it also gives the speed comparison chart where we can see clearly the difference between your site and those big sites

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