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Back in the days of MLD, we used a little lifesaver of a product called "Rebound!" that saved our collective asses time and time again when the overworked Performa 6200 we had colocated as a server would crash. Yes, by the way, you can use a little 75MHz Performa as a server. ...you just wouldn't want to. To digress further, I used to work for a place that used a Performa 630 to serve their accounting package and back things up to a bernoulli drive not all that long ago. After MLD started to get some cash flow from advertising, we got a nice lime iMac to replace the old war-horse. Our dilemma was that there was no server rebooter for a USB Machine, a fter the first crash, we were forced to go right back to the 6200 with Rebound! attached. Fast forward to the present and we have a mostly new team working on a whole new site, though this time we aren't co-locating on a Mac anymore (hey, gimme a chance to make the money first, huh?). We're also not working with |trev anymore, but he was nice enough to forward an email to us from the fine folks at Sophisticated Circuits saying that they had finally released what we were looking for way back when, and she'd send us a review unit right out. Kick-off! is generally not for a home machine--let me make that perfectly clear. This is a device you want to use on some kind of server that needs to remain running when there is no one there to maintain it. Any USB Mac server used as an AppleShare server, WebStar server, or Hotline server that needs to stay up 24/7 will benefit from this product. I have to say that for once I had a hard time crashing my iMac, a joy I'm attributing to it's newfound coolness afforded it by another fine product you'll see reviewed here soon. But once I finally did make it crash, Kick-off! rebooted it almost immediately. Kick-off! will also restart your server apps for you, and not only after a full system crash, I'm saying that if your server app or any other app you have open locks up and you have Kick-off! set up to do so, it'll attempt to restart that app for you without resorting to a full restart. Kick-off! also includes iLog (sure, vCvc names are silly at this point, but what the hell?), a full service logging app whose functionality almost rivals Big Brother's. Want to know what's been going on while you were away? Just check the logs when you get back. What? That's not soon enough? Okay fine, you're covered. Just set up iLog to email you where you can get it anywhere. I'm assuming of course that anyone charged with the maintenance of a server important enough to need an auto-rebooter will also have the means to receive text messages on his phone or pda. "Sounds great," I hear you saying, "but what are the cons?" Well, the only time I was able to foil it (it may have foiled both of us really, the jury is still out) was when I was burning a CD with Toast while logged into a normal user account under OS 9's Multiple Users. It looked like Kick-off! was able to shut the computer down, but did not restart it again when it found that the Finder was not responding. There was no log entry for this, and I was not able to replicate it. Aside from that, it won't work on an iBook, as the iBook won't accept a restart command over USB. But why would you be running a server on an iBook anyway? It was suggested to me that you could have iLog run an AppleScript that controlled an x10 or other home automation device to push the restart button on the iBook, but isn't resorting to robotics going a little too far? Perhaps not for the ha><or 3|33t who read this site, but for the average user who is strangely not looking for a Frankenstein solution, it's a little overboard. The Bottom Line: Anyone running a serious Mac server needs a Kick-off! get one of your own. Kick-off! |
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