News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

August 7, 2007

software

Shimo takes the pain out of VPN

Posted Aug. 7, ’07, 9:18 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Software

ShimoIf you’re a corporate user, or someone who just prefers to have as much security around their Internet connection as possible, you’re probably a VPN user. OS X has built in VPN capability, but in my experience, it can require kid-glove handling or else it has the potential to hang your entire machine.

Cisco’s VPN client is definitely better on the stability side, but, let’s speak plainly: it looks like the offspring of a Windows app and Pauly Shore. Fortunately, our good buddy and colleague Dan Frakes has unearthed a fantastic app called Shimo that brings an alternative interface to Cisco’s VPN client (where does he get those wonderful toys?). I’ve only had it installed for about ten minutes, and it’s already earned a permanent space in my increasingly crowded menubar.

Shimo is packed with features. Besides giving you menubar access to your VPN connections, it lets you define system wide keyboard shortcuts for connecting/disconnecting, allows you to run AppleScripts when connecting or disconnecting, and optionally displays Growl notifications. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a VPN client and more.


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