[WEB4LIB] Public Browser from Team Soft

[Howard Pringle]

We are currently deploying the "Public Browser" on a Win2K Terminal Server with attached thin clients accessing our Web-based catalog. We are running it in kiosk mode with a number of additional features in place and it works great. Installation and setup are a piece of cake. The INI file configuration choices are clear, concise and they work as advertised. No mussing with the registry is necessary.

This is one NICE piece of work and has saved us having to layer multiple security products on top of IE on the server.

I worked through around 5 releases of the product with Scott Vermeersch at the Mayo Medical Library (who wrote it) and the it was a great experience. Any suggested changes or tweaks in the early versions were implemented quickly - and the changes worked (!). What a pleasure and what a great product.



J. Howard Pringle                  hpringle at waukesha.lib.wi.us
Library Systems Manager      phone: (262) 524-3688
Waukesha Public Library      <http://www.waukesha.lib.wi.us/>
321 Wisconsin Avenue         The opinions expressed are
Waukesha, WI   53186         mine, Mine, ALL MINE!!

>>> "Drew, Bill" <drewwe at MORRISVILLE.EDU> 01/17/2001 2:41:01 PM >>>
I downloaded the Public Browser from Team Soft at:
http://teamsoft.webjump.com/ 

According to its About file, they used Visual Basic to create this "skin"
for IE 5.5.  It works great from my playing around with it and its
configuration file for the last hour or so.  Documentation is bare bones to
non-existent but the INI file is well commented.  Is anyone using this in an
academic library environment?   I have talked to our computer people and
they think it could be implemented via our network onto our public machines
in the library.  Are there any security concerns?  Does it do anything that
can't be done using the policy editor along with user profiles via an NT
network?

___________________ 
Bill Drew ; Associate Librarian, Systems and Reference 
SUNY Morrisville College Library 
drewwe at morrisville.edu <mailto:drewwe at morrisville.edu>  
"The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese!" --
Author Unknown