My post I did some time ago on Spiceworks has recently got quite a bit of attention, so i have decided to check out the latest version (4.5).

I haven’t used Spiceworks since version 2, I was quite impressed with it back then and I know the product has developed quite a lot in that time, so I was hoping it has improved even more. As in the previous post i have done a few timings, and noted what the scanning of the network has managed to find.

This test was completed in a completely different environment than the previous tests, so its not really fair to compare this version with say version 2. Spiceworks was installed to a Dell 1850 server, running windows 2003 with 2gig ram. I scanned 6 subnets in all, containing lots of different devices (pc’s, phones, routers etc). Clients are mainly Dell optiplex’s running Win XP, printers mainly HP.

Test Results

Test Conclusions

Speed
The first thing to hit me was the scanning speed, I had given spiceworks a lot more work do to then in the previous tests, but i was still a little disapointed at the time it took to initially scan the network. There was a lot of kit to find and identify, but it took a little longer than I would have thought

That said, the initial scan is a one of event, and subsequent ones once the majority of devices have been found are nice and fast. I’m not sure if the speed is really that big an issue, I would prefer to sacrifice a bit of scan time to get more accurate results.

Hardware Results
So, did Spiceworks actually manage to identify all the hardware on the network, and work out what it was. For the most part, yes it did. Unless there was a connectivity problem with the machine, it did manage to work out what it was. I correctly identified all the workstations and servers, and managed to extract out the information on the hardware.

It does tend to class most of the network kit as ‘Other Devices’, i’m assuming this is because it cant authorise its self on the device, but i’m not sure, it just seems to see them as http devices. I was going to try and scan a test device, but there is no scanning option to pass a telnet password to a box, even if you could I’m not convinced it would be able to tell what it was

It did however, manage to recognise all the printer correctly, and in most cases it was reporting back information on the status of the device correctly

Software Result
This is one area where I found it difficult to tell if Spiceworks was working right or not, as I dont have an up-to-date list of the software on the machines. To try and test it I picked a couple of machines at random and looked at the software on them, it managed in both cases to get pretty close to what was on the actual box. I like the feature of the software list that tells you the oldest and newest versions of things, this would be very handy if you are rolling out some software and want to make sure everything has got the correct version

Interface and Features
As I have not used Spiceworks since version 2, i’m not sure what is new this version and what has been in for a while. I do like the time line function, it would be nice if it could update in real time but then you would be scanning your network all the time.

The reporting system seems a lot more customizable, as you can now not only decided what you want to see, but organise the columns on the reports as well, and filter down what you want to see. The export options are pritty standard, but I would have expected to see an xml option along with the others. It is missing some advanced reporting features (grouping, custom fields etc.) and has no support for generating graphs, but those are probably not that important.

The network map is a nice idea, but i’m not really sure what use it would be, normally you would probably only be interested in this information for your network kit, and Cisco already have some specific tools to do this.

Summing Up
While the product is not perfect by any means, for a free bit of software you cant really get much better for a small or medium size organisation. The hardware/software inventory is accurate, if a little slow and does seem to struggle with network kit.

The interface is very easy to use, and its easy to customise the dashboard so you can see the information that interests you. The adverts do get in the way a bit sometimes, but you can always pay to get them removed.

All in all this is another very good version, and if your in the market for some network auditing/reporting tools, for the (lack of) price this is one of the best.

The good people over at packt publishing recently sent me a copy of Learning SQL Server Reporting Server 2008 Reporting Services by Jayaram Krishnaswamy. So here is my first ever book review. Hope you find it interesting -

SQL reporting services has been part of the SQL Server suite for a few years now, and this book covers the latest version 2008. As stated by the back cover of the book, it is aimed at beginners, but also has plenty of useful information for old hands, with all of the topics covered in the book backed up by code examples and screen shots.

As with most books I have read on any reporting engines, a basic knowledge of SQL server, and the SQL language will always help a great deal when reading the book. Also a couple of the topics hit on using the reporting service from your own applications, so you will need some programing know how to get anything from these chapters.

The book is written in a very easy to read way, and unlike some technical books manages to seems light enough to enjoy reading, but everything is still explained in an accurate and concise manner.

There are 2 sections given over to using the new report Builder (something i have never used before), explaining how it is set out like excising Microsoft office application, and information and examples of all the other new features in this version. The section on using Crystal reports is interesting, and although i found it a little short, it is something i have never seen before in a SQL reporting services book, they never seem to touch on the subject at all.

The chapters at the end of of the book are about programing into/around the reporting engine, I found the one about Progammatically Creating a report particularly interesting, it takes you through all the necessary steps to create your own .rdl, using the XMLTextWritter class. Might not be very interesting if you just want to author reports in the builder, but if you wanted to take it to this level the information is very helpful, with full source code in the book.

As well as all the new features for 2008, all the existing one are covered (images, sub-reports, parametrised reports, datasets, formatting, graphs etc) in good detail, with examples and screen shots available for each topic.

All in all not only enjoyed reading this book, i took quite a bit of useful information out it as well, some of witch i think i would struggle to find in other publications. A good read all round.

Buy this book from Packt.com now!

Recently quite a few of our users have been asking if they can show all of the report details at runtime, instead of having to drill down all the groups, opening and closing as they see fit. Well, the answer is yes, and its very easy to implement.

Parameters are you friend

The first thing to do is create yourself a new parameter in the report, and call it something like par_expand_groups. Give it the following options:

Now, you need to make this parameter control weather or not the group is expanded as the report is ran, you do this by putting an expression into the hidden property of the row.

Normally if you have a group, when you run the report it will probably be hidden and the user has the option of showing the details, so the hidden property will be set to true. We are going to set it to the following expression:

=IIF(Parameters!par_expand_groups.Value = “True”, False, True)

This means that if the parameter is set to yes, the details will be shown, if its set to no they will remain hidden. Add this to each level of grouping on your report, and the user now has control over what they see

Slight Problem with the show/hide icons

Once you have added this to your report, you might notice a slight problem. If you run the report with the option of showing the group details, the little show/hide icon on the left used to toggle the details will be wrong. It will be showing the ‘+’ even though the details are already showing, and if you press it to hide the details it will change to a ‘-’. They are the wrong way round!

Obviously, this is going to confuse your users, and needs sorting. Well, thanks to a tip from http://www.lukehayler.com/2009/07/custom-visibility-toggling-in-ssrs its easy.

All you need to do is open up the properties of the text box that is the trigger for the show hide, and go into the Visibility tab. At the bottom is an  option to set an expression for the toggle image. just enter:

=IIF(Parameters!par_expand_groups.Value = “True”, True, False)

As before, they is just looking at your parameter and setting the value of the toggle image. Now, when you run the report with the option to display the details, they icons for toggling the details should be correct.

I while ago I wrote an artical (here)about the new Web slice feature in IE8. A few people have asked about a plugin for WordPress, and the other night I finally decided to have a go.

Head over to http://www.beakersoft.co.uk/wordslice for all the info, or to http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordslice/ for the download and the install notes.

Hopefully in the not to distant future i will be add some extra features to it (its kind of limited at the moment) so stay tuned!