When you only have a handful of Macs in an office or household to upgrade to a new operating system, it's no great problem to run around with the installation DVD and upgrade one machine at a time. But when you're supporting a large office or school environment, it's impossible to take the time to manually upgrade each machine. That's where tools like Apple Remote Desktop and LANrev come in handy.

LANrev 5.2 has been released today, with full compatibility with Mac OS X 10.6.1 Snow Leopard. LANrev uses a proprietary imaging process that saves the home directory and OS settings of each machine during an automated OS deployment, so that the users are back up and running as quickly as possible afterwards.

IT professionals can not only roll out Snow Leopard faster using LANrev, but the application also tracks Snow Leopard machines for asset inventory and provides for remote management of Macs. LANrev has an asset inventory for storing license numbers and purchasing information, which is critical for audits. LANrev can track the location of stolen Macs and provide law enforcement officials with information to locate and recover the machines. For those who are concerned about power usage, LANrev does automated power management of large Mac installations, putting Macs to sleep or shutting them down when they're idle.

Unlike Apple Remote Desktop, LANrev works in cross-platform environments, so it's useful for situations where a small group of Mac users may exist in a Windows world -- or vice versa. No pricing info is available on the LANrev Web site, so be sure to contact one of their distribution partners if you're interested in this professional administration tool.

Apple has released version 3.3 of its remote administration tool, Apple Remote Desktop (ARD). The update is available both via Software Update, and from the Apple website.

According to the release notes, the update comes with a number of improvements, including the long-desired ability to send function keys and system shortcuts (Force Quit, cmd-Tab for application switching, cmd-shift-Q to log out) to the remote Mac; previously those commands would execute on the administrator's machine, which could cause undesired behavior. Also included are support for wide-area Bonjour connections and improved performance when using a shared screen.

If you're just starting out with ARD, be sure to check out some of the great tutorials Apple has posted online. From getting set up, to providing remote assistance to users, to automating routine tasks; as Apple might say, "there's a tutorial for that."

Thanks to TUAW reader Jim for giving us the heads up!

Managing the power consumption of your Macs just got a little easier with the latest version of the LANrev cross-platform client management tool. In the new 5.0 build, the headline feature is bright green: you can assign power saving preferences to machines, including toggles based on whether a user is logged in and new reporting fields to monitor energy savings. For government users, the new FDCC SCAP component helps Windows clients meet Federal Desktop Core Configuration standards for 300-odd security settings on XP and Vista (yee-ikes).

LANrev's sometimes-confusing UI has been simplified, bringing many of the server-oriented functions (software distribution, license monitoring, etc.) under a single window; machines can now be categorized for ease of searching and organization. Software deployment has been jazzed up with new metapackage/multi-payload options and Adobe Creative Suite CS3 direct deployment for installers and updaters (no word yet on CS4 support). LANrev still offers one-click Mac reimaging without setting up a Netboot server, which is a big plus in large deployments.

Pricing for LANrev starts at about $50 per seat for corporate buyers ($40 for education markets) with tiered discounts for larger installations.

This month's MacTech magazine offers a feature article by Edward Marczak on using dsh, the "dancer's shell" or distributed shell utility, to batch-administer machines in a single blast without having to hit each one, or use a pricey management tool such as ARD or LANrev. Although dsh isn't included with Mac OS X or available as a binary or port build, it does compile cleanly on the Mac and should work well out of the box.

The idea behind dsh is to take a list of targets (machines you can reach via SSH), and run a command or extended script on all of them at once. This is functionality that's wrapped up in a nice GUI in Apple Remote Desktop; it's deeply powerful and very handy. Supposing you wanted to check the uptime for a bunch of your lab boxes -- manually, you'd have to run around, or SSH to each one and run the 'uptime' command. With dsh, you make your machine list (optionally, loading your SSH public key on the machines ahead of time to avoid password prompts) and run one command:

dsh -Ma uptime

Very handy. The full article isn't online yet, but it's worth seeking out a copy of the magazine if you're interested in automation of enterprise Mac admin tasks.

In an education world where parents make all the decisions and administration knows less about teaching than the students, teachers can use all the help they get. While I wait for Assistants R Us to open in the Denver area so I can take some of the burden off my wife's high school English-teaching shoulders, educators of all kinds might be able to take some solace in Planbook from Hellmansoft. Designed and developed by Jeff Hellman, a 9th grade physics and science teacher, Planbook aims to do away with the clunky ways of writing lesson plans with paper by providing tools to plan, attach files, print, publish and search the digital way. Teachers can plan out lessons for one or multiple classes for the week, month or year, attach files the students will need for homework and publish it all to the web via FTP or to a local folder. Students, parents and administrators alike can then view the site, the daily lessons and download the files at their leisure. Still need paper versions? No sweat - Planbook can print out customized reports for students and administrators, great for handing out or posting in class.

Since I am the farthest thing from a teacher, my wife graciously offered to give this software a whirl and share her thoughts. To be honest, after a minute or two of poking around, she was absolutely thrilled. She was impressed with Planbook's feature set and how easy it was to start writing plans for multiple classes. She loved the publish-to-web idea since her school already provides some digital records for parents to check from home, but I am sad to report that there was one killer deal-breaker that took the bounce out of my wife's step - Planbook is Mac-only. Now my wife is a Mac user through and through, but her school lives in the Windows world making Planbook ineligible for consideration.

[Update: Jeff Hellman stopped by to comment that he's one step ahead of me; he actually is working on a Windows version and hopes to enter beta this weekend. This could certainly boost Planbook's appeal in Windows and mixed-OS environment and for teachers who live on both sides of that fence between the home and office.]

If you or your teaching friends are fortunate enough to work on the Mac side at school, I (via my wife) definitely recommend you take a look at Planbook. Even as a 1.0 product it sounds like Hellman has hit most of the large nails right on the head, and more interest and support can only make a good product get better over time. Check out the Planbook site for more information, including an example published Planbook, as well as IM support and a Yahoo! Groups link. Individual licenses are $30, while volume licenses begins at up to 10 teachers for $100, going all the way up to 65+ teachers for $300. As a bonus, the volume license allows teachers to use Planbook on both their home and work computers.

Well I guess we know why the Apple Store was down earlier. Today, Apple introduced Remote Desktop 3, which is now a Universal Binary and includes over 50 new features that deliver better software distribution, asset management and remote assistance. Over 30 Automator actions, remote Spotlight searching of multiple Tiger machines, a Dashboard observation widget and automatically installing software on remote machines when they return online are at the top of the new feature buzz list, which includes:

• Remote Drag and Drop files and folders between local and remote computers
  
• Remote Copy and Paste for simple transfer of text and images between local and remote computers
• Persistent Task History and Task Templates to make it easy to save and replicate repetitive task
• Curtain Mode to hide the desktop of a system while it is being controlled remotely
• Application Usage and User History Reports to track software compliance and monitor the use of unauthorized applications
• Smart Computer Lists for dynamically managing systems based on specified criteria
• AES 128-bit encryption for secure communications between Apple Remote Desktop 3 and clients

Apple Remote Desktop 3 is available immediately through the Apple Store for either $299 to manage up to 10 machines, or $499 for managing an unlimited number of machines.