High-class from high-tech

Unique products of Russian programmers

In April, two radically updated versions of domestic software products appeared on the market, each of which claims to be a world leader in its class and can be useful to any user.

The first of them is called Radmin (from the English remote administrator, remote administrator), its third version was released by Famatech. This software allows you to control a remote computer as if its monitor was on your desktop, and the keyboard and mouse were under your fingers. Radmin consists of two functional parts. The server part is installed on the computer that you want to reach from a distance, and the client part is installed on the computer from which you are accessing (this could be, for example, a laptop that is always with you). If both machines are running Windows, connected to the Internet, and if you know the IP address (a series of numbers that identifies a computer on the Internet) of the remote PC, then Radmin will allow you to carry out a complete transformation - the spirit of the remote one will enter your computer. You will be able to work with it without feeling the distance. In this case, neither the connection speed nor the version of Windows matters much; you can work with both 98 and Vista. Some operations (for example, pressing the key combination Alt+Ctrl+Del cannot be transmitted directly to the remote machine) are executed in a special way, but there are very few such exceptions. As for the IP address, it can be easily found out using the same Radmin.

Despite its apparent simplicity, this software required great ingenuity and many tens of man-years of painstaking, skilled work from the developers. There are many possibilities for the practical use of Radmin - from technical support for users to the operation of programs that are prohibited in the office, but are available at home. Radmin, we note, is insecure - the rules for choosing and storing a password for accessing a remote computer must be strictly followed.

Another software product is the eighth version of PROMT, an automatic text translation system produced by the St. Petersburg company of the same name. In addition to significantly improved functionality, the new version is compatible with Windows Vista and MS Office 2007.

The programming technique for PROMT is secondary in contrast to Radmin. This does not mean that PROMT was easier to manufacture. Vice versa. Strictly speaking, machine translation is an insoluble problem, from the analysis of which Stanislav Lem in his “Sum of Technology” even deduced the fundamental impossibility of creating artificial intelligence. Nevertheless, with PROMT the computer translates quite well from English into Russian, and not only that. He also knows other European languages.

The company has been polishing its product for 16 years now, and the progress made in the current version is impressive. There is no comparison with the free English-Russian translation service provided by the ubiquitous Google. Even for those who know English, PROMT, in their own words, saves reading time.

Anna MAYOROVA