Network Magic 4: Network Management Made Simple Network Management Made Simple Joseph Moran
It was physicist and author Arthur C. Clarke who once wrote, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." This may help explain the design rationale behind Network Magic, a utility that aims to help users monitor, manage, and get the most out of their home and small office networks. Prior releases of Network Magic were useful, but the latest iterations have added several worthwhile features to the mix, making the app even more essential for managing networks.
Network Magic has three main facets — to provide information about the network and help facilitate mundane tasks such as sharing of folders or printers, to act as an easy-to-use interface for your router's security-related features, and to provide access to the network when you're away from home or office.
The latter two require that you use a router specifically supported by Network Magic. The list of supported devices was a bit thin in the past, limited mainly to a handful of the most popular (read: inexpensive and vanilla) models. Fortunately, the list has become more extensive and now includes many advanced routers (like MIMO devices from D-Link and Netgear), so chances are high that you'll find yours on the list.
Installation
Getting Network Magic up and running on a PC isn't difficult and doesn't take very long. You can install the software on up to three systems with the standard license.
As we proceeded through the installation wizard, the software deftly detected the presence of Symantec's Norton Internet Security software and proceeded to outline a series of simple configuration steps to ensure the firewall wouldn't inhibit Network Magic's function or prevent file and printer sharing over the network. Network Magic also successfully identified our (relatively) high-end Netgear RangeMax WPN824 wireless router and prompted for the unit's username and password so it could interact with directly with the device.
Features
Network Magic uses a tabbed interface that's well designed and easy to use. You can share system resources like folders and printers directly from within it, and it provides sharing wizards that are much more streamlined than the ones that come with Windows. Through the Network Map, you can check the status of your Internet connection as well as see a graphical representation of all the devices detected on the network.
Network Magic successfully detected the presence of and identified a variety of devices on our network including multiple computers, a TiVo DVR, Xbox 360 game console, and a wireless print server. And in cases where Network Magic couldn't ID the device, we were able to specify our own label and icon.
Clicking on a particular device lets you view its IP configuration data, and right-clicking calls up a context menu of tasks and information appropriate to the specific device. For example, you may be able to log into the device (i.e. a router), or check the queue of a shared printer.
In the case of another computer running Network Magic, you can view more detailed hardware and software info such as the amount of memory, type of CPU, or Windows OS version. More importantly, you can share a folder or printer from a remote system and verify whether a firewall is turned on as well as if things like security patches and anti-virus definitions are up to date.
Network Magic maintains an alert log to notify you of any important network events, such as when a system running the software is not configured to automatically download new Windows vulnerability patches. There's also a separate log to track more mundane activity like when devices join or leave the network.
Security
A major concern of many people using a network — particularly people with wireless networks — is keeping unauthorized users away. Like the previous version, Network Magic will let you know when a device joins the network and let you track it as an intruder, but version 4.0's Wireless Protection Center actually lets you send interlopers packing.
It helps you configure your router's security features, specifically SSID broadcast and MAC filtering. It only works with select routers, and we did need to make sure we were running a particular version of the router firmware before this feature would work — Network Magic includes firmware versions in its compatibility list.
It doesn't set up Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) or wired equivalent privacy (WEP) encryption keys on your router, nor on your client systems. You'll have to do that on your own. Network Magic does give you some generic instructions, but that's it. Hopefully future versions will give you assistance here, much like the one-button encryption setup found on many routers today.
The features the software does help with can, of course, be accessed by logging into the router directly, but doing it through Network Magic is easier for people who don't care to wade through the morass of Web-based administration pages.
This access can be had from any copy of Network Magic that's been configured to access the router. However, that makes it possible for anyone in your household to accidentally or intentionally modify security settings. The company says it is planning to rectify this issue in a future update.
