Hot on the heals of the last version, Spiceworks 3 has been released. You can see a list of the new features at http://spiceworks.com/3.0/ and download it at www.spiceworks.com

Here’s a list of some of the new features that interested me

• The interface has been cleaned up quite a bit from the previous version. There are also a couple of new features such as the ‘Glide’ function, it’s kind of like the iPod artwork browser.
• The network scanning has speed has been improved (see my test results below)
• The detection of devices has been improved.
• Exchange server monitoring. (i think this is particularity cool)
• Whole Environment event charts
• Loads of bug fixes

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When I first started to use Spiceworks, one of my main complaints was that you couldn’t access the data outside of the Spiceworks desktop interface. Well, turns out I was wrong.

I first had my eye’s opened from this thread on the Spiceworks forums. It informed me that it uses a SQLite database to store all its information. So, I asumed getting at the data would be easy. As with most things I was mistaken.

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Last week a new version of Spiceworks (2.1) was released. You can see the official release note at http://www.spiceworks.com/2.1/, it mainly seems to me like a bug fix release, but there are a couple of new features. Once you run up the console it should download the update for you (as long as you are online of course)

One thing that has caught my attention is they are using feedback from the community to drive the product forwards. According to the press release email, they visited an office in New York and acted on there suggestions. You can also request a feature be added through the feature request forum at http://community.spiceworks.com/forum/1

If you feel like there is something missing from the product get on here and let them know. I am going to log a request now that they open up there database a bit more so you can use external products (Reporting Services, Crystal etc) to pull data out.

One of the new features in version 2.0 of spiceworks is the ability to monitor for certain events in machines event logs, or to check for certain machine software configs, such as 2 different anti-virus products installed. There are other products out that will do a similar job but this article is about what the new Spiceworks brings to the party.

All the options can be configured from the Settings tab in the main Spiceworks window, and we are interested in 3 of these sections:

• Monitors and Alerts
• Email Notifications
• Event Logging

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