The Condrey Corp. Blog

Eliminating Email Attachments Altogether

A major discussion point with every DocXchanger demonstration given at BrainShare last week, was the product’s ability to eliminate email attachments altogether. A principal feature of DocXchanger is its ability to allow users to share files and folders by granting access to specific individuals to the files and folders themselves on the server where these files and folders reside. This is done by creating a “sharing link” to the file or folder.

This differs dramatically from email file sharing which duplicates the file or folder when it is attached to the email and consequently, impacts both internal and external email systems by storing these duplicate files. The results of this method of file sharing are mail server storage strain, attachment management issues, file version control, and security issues.

Solving the “file sharing through email attachment” problem is easy with DocXchanger, and anyone can make the transition from the old method to the new.

Here’s how it’s done:

On the network-stored file or folder you wish to share, right click and select Send To > DocXchanger Sharing Recipient.

 

This launches a wizard that lets you enter the name of the recipients, the type of access you wish to grant (read-only or read/write), the lifespan of the sharing link, and a message you can type to the recipients in the email notification.

The email arrives with an embedded hyperlink to the sharing link.

 

That’s pretty much it. For a more detailed version of this, including screen shots of the wizard, refer to the DocXchanger User Guide located here.

Of course, you can always try this out yourself by having us set you up with a 30-day trial version of the product.

Buck Gashler
Strategic Marketing Manager

BrainShare Wrap-up

We spent our last day of BrainShare attending sessions and helping out at the Novell Storage Manager table of the Technology Lab. Friday traffic at the Technology Lab is traditionally slow, and this year was no exception. One of us was able to sneak away and participate as a contestant in a Novell version of “Jeopardy.”

Here you can see Matt responding to one of the many Linux and UNIX questions – or since it was “Jeopardy,” it would be “answers”. Matt remained in second place throughout the game but had the wrong “question” for “Final Jeopardy.” He ended up with a small Novell penlight as a parting gift.

Many of us now have follow-up tasks from BrainShare including signing up new partners, signing up beta sites, responding to technical questions, establishing some training dates with partners, and arranging to speak at a NUI group.

Buck Gashler

Strategic Marketing Manager

BrainShare Day 5 Report

With the exhibitor area closed down, we spent the day attending sessions, in meetings with engineers, customers, and partners, and working at the Novell Storage Manager table of the Novell Technology Lab. Here you can see Rich Lagger giving a product demo.

Throughout the week, I have been working at the Novell Storage Manager table during lunch breaks but yesterday I was able to spend a few hours there and met a lot of customers. Many of them were interested in seeing the Linux Event Monitor running on OES2.

Last night was “Meet the Experts” night and I have been told that our staff was busy most of the night talking to customers and others showing interest in Novell Storage Manager.

BrainShare concludes today at 2:30 p.m. following the last General Session.

Buck Gashler

Strategic Marketing Manager

BrainShare Day 4 Report

Yesterday was the last day of the exhibitor area so there were many BrainShare attendees trying to make a visit at our booth before the end of the day. Some of these were representatives from other companies that were hoping to talk to our CEO, David Condrey. It was very good to have the small conference table in our booth because David was utilizing it quite a bit for meetings.

At one point in the day I saw David leaving towards an appointment and I asked him if there was anything he needed. He responded that he needed a clone of himself to make all of his appointments.

David did have a little bit of time to do some product demos at the booth so I made sure I got a picture of one of those instances.

I should mention that someone from our Support department has been working at the Novell Storage Manager area of the Novell Technology Lab all week. I have been filling in for him while he goes to lunch and I’ve been impressed with the customers that have come by to talk about the product. Many are interested in seeing the OES Linux Event Monitor that is being demonstrated. We have also been signing beta sites for version 2.1, which should be available sometime mid-year. We already have some great beta prospects, but if you’re interested in participating in the beta, please get back to me at bgashler@condreycorp.com.

Before concluding today, I need to recognize the many Condrey Corporation partners here at the show that encouraged people to stop by our booth. We have some outstanding partners, and we owe a lot of the success we’ve had here at the show to them.

Buck Gashler

Strategic Marketing Manager

 

BrainShare Day 3 Report

After a busy day of product demos at the booth, all of the exhibitors shut down at 4:00 p.m. to ready their booths for the partner party that was to run from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. The theme this year was “World of Novellcraft” which was a takeoff on the popular “World of Warcraft” game. All of the partners were encouraged to do something interesting for the BrainShare attendees that would be roaming the exhibitor area that evening.

We chose to have “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” playing at our booth with an opportunity to shoot the “Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog” and win a Condrey Corporation hat.

We had a great turnout at the booth, and there were many who stopped by to actually learn about our products, rather than win a hat.

Doug Novak, with DK-E-Solutions, Inc. saw  a Kanaka flyer while walking by our booth and said that he had been looking for such a solution for more than a year. He spent a considerable amount of time talking to our CEO, David Condrey, who also introduced him to DocXchanger.

Doug said “If the only thing I learn at BrainShare this year is the existence of Kanaka and DocXchanger, than coming to BrainShare will be worth the trip.” (quote used by permission)

Buck Gashler
Strategic Marketing Manager

 

BrainShare Day 2 Report

The biggest event of the day for us was the official release of DocXchanger. The press release went out at 10:00 Mountain Time.

DocXchanger delivers

• Identity-based discovery of storage resources

• The means of accessing network storage without login scripts or drive mappings

• Secure access – including remote access, to storage

• “Sharing links” to network content eliminating the need for email attachments

• Shared folders for interactive development of projects

Our two DocXchanger stations got a lot of traffic yesterday, this included some people from two of our DocXchanger beta sites. Both of theses sites are doing all they can now to get approval to purchase the product.

The Kanaka station seems to be getting steady traffic. Kanaka's eDirectory-based single sing-on access to individual and shared storage resources is a very compelling offering to attendees. After an Apple Macintosh oriented session yesterday afternoon in which Kanaka was discussed, there was a small stampede of attendees that went from that session straight to our booth.

We anticipate that our Novell Storage Manager station traffic will be just as dramatic today following our session on integration with Novell Identity Manager.

Buck Gashler

Strategic Marketing Manager

 

 

BrainShare Sunday Afternoon

We have a 20' x 20' booth (click on the thumbnail to see a larger view of the photo) this year at BrainShare with a booth staff of eight, and with the traffic we got last night, we needed everyone. We're showing Kanaka, DocXchanger (which is being released today), and Novell Storage Manager integrated with Novell Identity Manager.

A lot of our partners have booths at BrainShare and many of these partners are sending people over to our booths for product demos.

Once they've seen a demo, they are entered for a Vudu box. Interestingly enough, we spend almost as much time explaining what a Vudu box is as we demonstrating the product.

Buck Gashler

Strategic Marketing Manager

IUAdmin Powering Network Administration at Schools throughout U.S.

A few days ago I was asked to review some web page layouts that we had in a staging area on one of our servers in South Carolina. Being outside the firewall, I was given instructions on how to access the staging area using IUAdmin, a Condrey Corp. product that I had never used up to that point. From what I could see, IUAdmin looked like it offered a little bit of everything … SSL portal access to Novell network resources, a variety of user self-help features, problem indicators, and a lot more.

I reviewed the staged web pages, suggested some small changes, and then spent a few of my spare moments that week learning as much as I could about IUAdmin. 

In asking around I found out that IUAdmin was a something our CEO, David Condrey introduced in 2002 with the objective of making administrative tasks for users, admins, and help desk workers easier through a portal that could be customized based on and organization’s needs. He set somewhat of a precedent for future Condrey Corp. products by adding more and more cool features. With very limited marketing, the product became a big hit, especially with Novell academic customers.

A Google search gave me well over 700 hits on “IUAdmin,” many of which are links to administrative portals to school districts and universities all over the U.S.  One link I especially enjoyed was a mention of Madison Area Technical College’s IUAdmin portal in a discussion forum of “Products You Cannot Live Without.”

Buck Gashler

Strategic Marketing Manager

Remote Access and DocXchanger

This morning I had enough of the growing pile of to-be-read trade magazines on my desk and put my Novell BrainShare planning activities on hold while I quickly glanced through the article titles.  With news stories being more than a month old, my perusal was pretty faced faced. But I did take more than a glance at a January 21rst eWeek commentary by Eric Lundquist entitled “Working in the Cloud.” His commentary mentions two major snowstorms in Boston and the resulting large scale emergency telecommuting that took place. Lundquist writes that “… the ability to distribute your work force on a planned—rather than an emergency—basis will be the hallmark of forward-looking companies in 2008.”

This got me thinking about my own situation at Condrey Corporation. Since being hired last October, I have been to our corporate offices a grand total of two times. Yet, I have had secure remote access to my network home and shared folders every day since the day I was hired. All of my remote access is done through my DocXchanger Client.

DocXchanger’s two main value propositions are:

1) 1. Remote access to network storage

2) 2. Elimination of email attachments

We’re really looking forward to introducing Novell customers to DocXchanger at BrainShare in just over a week. Which reminds me, I better get back to some of those planning activities.

Buck Gashler

Strategic Marketing Manager