Seeing as the theme behind this issue is disaster recovery, my PC is only too willing to play along. We use a group of shuttle drives to take our CD data to the other departments in the company, the idea being that they are portable and resilient. In reality, I took mine out of my machine the other day, walked for about a minute to our support dept and when I got there it refused to work. Then I brought it back to my machine, same story. It was an ex-harddrive and the last time I’d backed up was a few days ago. But we got back on track, and it’s taught me a valuable lesson. And with the amount of backup and recovery software on the CD this month, you (and I ) have no excuse!

Apart from all that, what else do we have. Well we have PizzaBox Fileserver 2.11 Rather than a single application program, the PizzaBox Fileserver is a complete Network Attached Storage appliance which you can have up and running in minutes. The software installs onto a blank hard disk and includes a complete Linux distribution designed especially for network appliances, as well as the application and utility software required to make a working network File server and a complete web administration system incorporating fully context sensitive on-line help.

We’ve also got one of the latest AI crazes to hit the net, Creatures Docking Station. Just when you thought it was all work and no play on Linux Format too. Creatures Docking Station is the latest offering from UK-based Creature Labs, developers of the well-received Creatures and Creatures 2. The previous Creatures games were effectively single-player games centred around the raising and teaching of a highly advanced, digital tamagotchi of sorts. Like previous Creatures titles the stars of the show are the quirky but endearing Norns, which you can raise just like you would any small furry pet! Care for them, breed them and send them on voyages around the world to other users without even leaving the game!

EnGarde is a secure distribution of Linux engineered from the ground up to provide organisations with the level of security required to create a corporate Web presence or even conduct e-business on the Web. It can be used as a Web, DNS, e-mail, database, e-commerce, and general Internet server where security is a primary concern. tomsrtbt 1.7.339 is tiny Linux distro created solely for emergencies only. You can slap this onto a floppy disc and you’ll have a very powerful rescue utility. This offers the most Linux on one floppy disk for rescue recovery panic and emergencies.

And of course by scouring the rest of the disc, you’ll find our usual selection of HotPicks, the continuation of our Emulators feature (it’s Amstrads turn this month) and the latest kernel updates as well as much more quality software.

As usual, we welcome your suggestions for software. Please feel free to send them in to us at paul.ravening@futurenet.co.uk, with the subject “Software Suggestions”

Until next month

Paul Ravening

New Media Editor