http://www.pcweek.com/reviews/0324/24prot.html
> For instance, an architectural company that needed to coordinate plans
> with suppliers could use NNTP to link its servers even though the
> architectural company may have installed Netscape's Collabra discussion
> server while its suppliers were using the public folders in Microsoft's
> Exchange or some other NNTP-compatible server.
They almost have it right, except Netscape got it wrong! HTTP is *TP,
not NNTP! Doh!
http://www.pcweek.com/reviews/0324/24netop.html
> The application, which Farallon Communications Inc. released this month
> for $69.95 ($49.95 if downloaded from the company's Web site), lets
> users incorporate an electronic reception area in their desktop PCs, set
> up in-boxes and out-boxes, hold conferences, and specify who can
> "visit" their virtual office and what can be seen there.
http://www.pcweek.com/reviews/0324/24news.html
> NewsChannel's adherence to the NNTP (Network News Transport Protocol)
> standard makes it a good platform for both Internet and intranet
> deployments. By tapping into a Usenet feed via NNTP, NewsChannel can
> serve up thousands of discussions on a myriad of subjects. More
> importantly, support for a recognized standard makes it easy for
> companies to set up their own newsgroups for holding discussions among
> customers, suppliers and others.
Snippets included below...
------------------------ 8< --------------------------------------------
http://www.pcweek.com/reviews/0324/24prot.html
Speaking the same language
Which messaging protocol will wind up becoming the
standard for providing links between servers and for
clients talking to servers?
By Matt Kramer
Internet messaging standards are opening up E-mail and groupware
applications to the easy--read: standardized--exchange of data between
products from competing manufacturers.
This new openness has the potential to provide more and better
communications options for organizations, ranging from choosing whatever
client they wish to use for accessing their mail or discussions to
tighter collaboration among sites through linked E-mail and discussion
systems.
Organizations will even be able to let customers, suppliers and others
into their messaging systems without requiring them all to have the same
proprietary messaging system.
The problem facing corporate administrators, of course, is to figure out
which of the handful of messaging protocols will evolve into the
standard.
Right now, the messaging market is shifting away from fencing off
Internet access behind a gateway to opening up their systems with native
support for such Internet message protocols as POP (Post Office
Protocol) 3 and IMAP (Internet Messaging Access Protocol) 4, or
discussion group standards such as NNTP (Network News Transport
Protocol).
A growing number of collaborative servers are entering the market with
support for a variety of protocols, including HTTP, POP3, IMAP and NNTP.
Most of the proprietary messaging systems, such as Lotus Development
Corp.'s Notes and Microsoft Corp.'s Exchange, are making the transition
to these open standards by opening up their message stores to access by
a variety of clients that use several different protocols.
This may bring about deeper links between messaging systems as well as
give discussion systems the same interoperability found in E-mail. The
question is what protocol will provide the common language, both for
links between servers and for clients talking to servers.
Some vendors, such as Netscape Communications Corp., are promoting the
use of NNTP beyond its original purview of merely taking in Usenet
discussion feeds to providing the mechanism for internal corporate
discussion groups. (See our related review.)
For instance, an architectural company that needed to coordinate plans
with suppliers could use NNTP to link its servers even though the
architectural company may have installed Netscape's Collabra discussion
server while its suppliers were using the public folders in Microsoft's
Exchange or some other NNTP-compatible server.
Other messaging vendors, including Microsoft, have their doubts about
NNTP, even though they are including it within their products.
Contending that IMAP already has acceptable tools for search functions,
flexible message downloading and other navigational niceties, many
vendors prefer to use IMAP for client access to discussions.
For instance, a marketing consultant who wants to participate in
planning a new campaign with a client could use his or her IMAP client
to retrieve messages from the client's discussion folders, in addition
to retrieving any waiting E-mail.
No matter which protocol is chosen, proprietary systems will remain and
will distinguish themselves in other ways. Exchange and Notes still
allow for more customization using script languages. The Microsoft MAPI
(Messaging API) permits the use of customized forms and fields in
messaging, which lets developers build applications on top of the
existing messaging infrastructure.
Proprietary systems also may provide more efficient operation where
openness is not needed. The replication mechanism specified in such
standards as NNTP doesn't have the fine degree of control found in some
proprietary offerings.
For instance, Notes offers field-level replication where only the data
that is changed needs to be replicated. In contrast, NNTP doesn't
provide for any field-level replication: If any portion of a message is
changed, the entire message is replicated. This can cause some data
traffic to be unnecessarily sent more than once.
Of course, Internet standards are constantly being upgraded, so
improvements can be expected.
No one standard may emerge. Perhaps the best solution would be a
combination of protocols, each best suited to the tasks needed. IMAP
could be used for client access to E-mail and discussion material, while
NNTP may serve as the glue for server-to-server communications.
------------------------ 8< --------------------------------------------
http://www.pcweek.com/reviews/0324/24netop.html
Workers don't have to stay at their desk or even in the office to stay
in touch with co-workers with Netopia Virtual Office, a program that
allows collaboration over the Internet without using a Web server or
having a permanent Internet connection.
The application, which Farallon Communications Inc. released this month
for $69.95 ($49.95 if downloaded from the company's Web site), lets
users incorporate an electronic reception area in their desktop PCs, set
up in-boxes and out-boxes, hold conferences, and specify who can
"visit" their virtual office and what can be seen there.
The first package PC Week Labs has seen that combines Internet
collaboration and remote control capabilities in a virtual office
interface, Farallon's product is intended for small offices. However, we
found it was also useful for collaboration over an intranet or from
remote locations using a Web browser. The program's more advanced
features, including remote control of a desktop PC, can be implemented
using a browser with Microsoft Corp.'s ActiveX controls or a plug-in for
Netscape Communications Corp.'s Navigator.
Netopia Virtual Office generates a set of HTML pages to create the
virtual office. Farallon also provides a Web address for the virtual
office of anyone with a dial-up Internet connection.
But Netopia Virtual Office is not open to all comers; most of its
features are inaccessible to visitors from outside a company's firewall.
And the HTML pages that create the office cannot be altered to
personalize its appearance.
Setting up Netopia Virtual Office was a snap on a Windows 95 system; it
also runs under Windows 3.x. We configured a digital business card for
visitors and set the program to display whether we were at our PC.
Visitors to our virtual office could use the message button to leave a
message or could use the knock function, which asked if we wanted to
confer with the visitor. A look feature let visitors see what was on our
screen.
The conferencing features include a standard text-based chat interface
and an Internet phone for real-time audio conferencing. For more
powerful collaboration features, such as the ability to hold multiuser
conferences, Netopia Virtual Office can easily incorporate access to
Microsoft's NetMeeting conferencing package.
could leave files or documents along with messages, and an out-basket,
where we could make files available for download. We also could create a
password-protected out-basket.
Netopia Virtual Office's remote control capabilities were very useful,
especially since we could access them over the Web. The file transfer
feature was functional, but files could not be encrypted for protection
during transfer over the Internet.
Some access rights could be granted to all visitors; additional rights
could be given to specified users.
We could configure Netopia Virtual Office to work through some firewalls
by changing the IP port used by incoming connections. However, few
features were available through a firewall. Those that would not work
included the knock feature, conferencing capabilities, remote control
and the in-basket.
------------------------ 8< --------------------------------------------
http://www.pcweek.com/reviews/0324/24news.html
Wedding the interactive strength of newsgroups to Windows NT's strong
administrative tools produces a powerful corporate collaboration tool,
as demonstrated by MetaInfo Inc.'s newly released NewsChannel news
server.
NewsChannel's adherence to the NNTP (Network News Transport Protocol)
standard makes it a good platform for both Internet and intranet
deployments. By tapping into a Usenet feed via NNTP, NewsChannel can
serve up thousands of discussions on a myriad of subjects. More
importantly, support for a recognized standard makes it easy for
companies to set up their own newsgroups for holding discussions among
customers, suppliers and others.
Unfortunately, its lack of search features could force many NewsChannel
users to wade though a flood of extraneous messages.
Priced at $795 per server, NewsChannel was released at the end of
February. Last month, NetManage Inc. began shipping a new version of its
NT-based NNTP product, IntraNet Server for NT. Meanwhile, Netscape
Communications Corp. began beta testing its NNTP-based Collabra Server,
and Microsoft Corp. has just added NNTP support to its newly released
Exchange 5.0. (See our review of the Collabra Server beta and our
review of Exchange 5.0.)
Compared to its current and upcoming competition, MetaInfo's NewsChannel
offers a good set of basic tools but lacks some features. NewsChannel
does not provide any tools for searching discussion items, for instance,
while NetManage and Netscape are including extensive search functions in
their offerings. MetaInfo officials plan to add search functions in a
future release, but no date has been given.
Any NNTP-compatible client can be used to access the NewsChannel server,
and the NewsChannel server can coordinate feeds with other NNTP servers
via NNTP's replication mechanisms. PC Week Labs tested NewsChannel with
a variety of NNTP clients, including Virtual Technology Corp.'s Virtual
Access, Netscape's Navigator 3.0 and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 3.0.
Although it lacks some navigational functions, NewsChannel's strength
lies in its manageability and security. In PC Week Labs' tests, we were
also pleased with its tight integration with Windows NT. When setting up
our test server, NewsChannel let us set up user accounts by importing
them from the server's NT user domain registry; this allows NewsChannel
to piggyback on the user authentication performed by NT itself.
We also liked the ability to control access to particular newsgroups.
For company policy announcements, we were able to restrict everyone
except managers from modifying the entries, although all users could be
allowed to enter new comments, for example. It was also easy to set up
groups of users and grant access rights to all group members.
The graphical tree display made it easy to set up NewsChannel; with all
of the server elements listed on the left side of the screen, we could
quickly zero in on the feature we wanted to manage.
When setting up the pull feed from our Usenet data source, for instance,
we were able to peruse the list of available newsgroups and select which
groups would be published. It was also a simple matter to determine how
often the newsgroups would be updated, and we were able to control
server bloat by scheduling automatic deletion of old material.
And thanks to NewsChannel's close integration with NT, a quick look at
the NT Performance Monitor told us how many messages NewsChannel was
processing.
Perhaps most importantly, NewsChannel can be viewed as a work in
progress--it's the first released component of an ambitious
collaborative server offering MetaInfo has in the works.
Code-named Enchilada, the server will eventually encompass E-mail--with
support for SMTP, Post Office Protocol 3 and IMAP (Internet Messaging
Access Protocol)--and a Web server, in addition to NewsChannel. MetaInfo
plans to make use of IMAP clients to access both mail and NNTP newsgroup
material.
All of the Enchilada components will be layered on top of a relational
database, according to MetaInfo officials. While the NNTP messages will
not be housed in the relational database, all of the administrative
information about them (such as what folders they are linked to and what
access rights users have to them) will be stored in the database.
----
adam@cs.caltech.edu
I'll be your dam guide. Take all the dam pictures you want.
-- Vegas Vacation at the Hoover Dam