14 DAY TRIAL // Although today is Friday the 13th, I'll leave the protection tools for a little later and start the day with a network monitor and manager called simply The Dude.
Dude's last version is 2.0, and I am glad to tell you that this program is completely free to use for any personal or commercial purpose. Its setup package has 1.6MB and installing it was very easy, but the interesting part is just about to start...so let's go on and check the interface and features of The Dude, shall we?
The program's interface starts up like a simple one and gets more and more complicated as you explore it, but with a little patience, everything can become clearer and easy enough to use. The main window of the program has two panels, the left one being used to select a configuration section, while the other displays the configuration window. Before moving on to discover the tools available in these areas, let's talk a little about the purpose of this program.
The Dude is an easy to use visual network monitor with management features designed to represent network structure in one or more graphical diagrams, including automatic network discovery. Services that run on the network hosts can be monitored and different alerts can be setup to trigger when certain status changes occur. Statistics and activity graphs for the items monitored can also be obtained easily. These being said, it's time to get back and continue exploring the interface and tools of this program.
This program works as a server-client solution, so when you open the client for the first time, it will start the local server and automatically connect to it. After that, you can disconnect and connect to another server, but you have to remember that the client will only work when connected to a local or remote server.
At the top of the selection panel that I was talking about earlier there are five buttons: Undo, Redo, Settings, Export and Import. At the bottom of the left pane, you can see the network mini-map that displays a scaled-down view of the active map, but the number of the windows inside the window pane can increase as you keep exploring the configuration section.
The network maps can be created automatically, when you only have to specify the IP address range it should scan, or manually. All you have to do for using successfully the network maps is read the online documentation of the program and have some basic knowledge about networking, so beginners may have a hard time while discovering this program.
Anyway, all things have a start, and The Dude is the free program that fills the gap between entry level network monitors and advanced tools that are built to be used by network administrators and advanced users. You don't have to trust me, but download, install and trust The Dude!
The Good
The Dude is a fast, well organized network tool that uses a different approach and has excellent features that can prove useful to a lot of people. This program is completely free to use and the online documentation is detailed and can prove very helpful.
The Bad
This program can be a real challenge for beginners, and some built in documentation, maybe even some contextual help, would be extremely useful.
The Truth
The Dude is a program that can be extremely useful, and with a little time spent to study it, everyone can enjoy its features. Since it's completely free to use, I strongly advise you to get it while it stays that way.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
