Sophisticated Circuits Ships Kick-off! at Macworld

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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Sophisticated Circuits Ships Kick-off! at Macworld

-- First Macintosh USB Auto-Restart Device Ensures Server Availability. Special Macworld Expo Show Introductory Pricing --

NEW YORK, New York., July 19, 2000 -- at Macworld Expo Booth #1648 -- Sophisticated Circuits, Inc. today announced it is now shipping Kick-off!^TM, the first USB member of its PowerKey® family of server availability and automation products for the Mac OS^TM. A fully automated, highly integrated hardware/software solution, Kick-off! ensures the optimal up-time for unattended USB Macintoshes worldwide. Available today directly from www.sophisticated.com, Kick-off! has an estimated street price of US$179. Macworld Expo attendees can see Kick-off! demonstrated and save with a special Macworld Expo show price at Booth #1648 today through the end of the show.
Kick-off! continuously monitors unattended computers for problems and, if necessary, automatically relaunches applications, cleanly restarts the system, or reboots the system by briefly switching off its AC power. Kick-off! has advanced logging, event messaging, automatic crash detection, recovery and prevention. Kick-off! can relaunch individual applications, keep detailed logs and automatically notify remote administrators when priority events occur. Kick-off! sports the same feature set to Sophisticated Circuits' popular Rebound! 2.0 product except Kick-off! utilizes a USB interface instead of ADB and resets the CPU by cycling its power rather than by sending the keyboard reset sequence.
"Kick-off! is our next-generation auto-restart device, which incorporates the best features of our Rebound! and PowerKey Pro! products in an entirely new, world-ready design for USB Macs," said Jonathan Feinstein of Sophisticated Circuits. "We've combined the ease-of use of Rebound!, the robustness of PowerKey Pro's power-cycling, and a beautiful new industrial design into a powerful new product, with full international voltage support. We've gone the extra mile to ensure Kick-off! has international safety approvals."
Advanced Logging Gives Admins Details

Kick-off!'s sophisticated logging facility tracks both system and application activities. System administrators can view a detailed log including the date, time, priority, source and nature of activity, choosing from activities such as: when an application was launched; when it was quit or automatically restarted due to a problem; and when the system crashed and was rebooted. Administrators can make their logs as simple or complex as they desire by custom specifying activities included in the log. Applications can also write to the log, allowing administrators to centralize both system and application monitoring. In addition, Kick-off! includes a WebSTAR API plug-in module to allow remote viewing of up-to-the-second log data from any web browser.
Remote Notification Keeps Admins Informed

Administrators responsible for unattended servers at remote locations can receive automatic notification of a problem. Kick-off! logs messages locally, and can immediately forward high-priority alerts to an e-mail address. Remote notification features can be easily incorporated with PageNow! from Mark/Space Softworks to instantly forward email alerts to a pager. Receiving messages in one central location is a tremendous benefit for administrators responsible for machines at multiple sites. Log messages can also invoke AppleScripts, allowing users complete, automated control over error handling.
Powerful Application Monitoring

Kick-off!'s comprehensive crash detection for applications uses a unique, two-level approach -- simple monitoring and Application Watchdog Timer monitoring. Simple monitoring, which requires no developer support or system overhead, intercepts application crashes that typically result in the infamous "Application Unexpectedly Quit" error message. Application Watchdog Timer monitoring goes far beyond simple monitoring, using patent-pending "Application Watchdog Timers" to detect several additional error conditions which can cause an application to fail without actually quitting. Developers add a few simple "hooks" to their programs to let Kick-off! monitor their internal workings. A free, open source PowerKey Tickler WebServer Plug-in is available that adds this support to any WebSTAR API-compatible application.
Most major Mac server-related software vendors already support Sophisticated Circuits' Application Watchdog Timer technology in their products, including: Apple Computer, Inc.; 4D, Inc.; Maxum Development Corp.; Imagina, Inc.; Purity Software, Inc.; Tenon Intersystems; Stalker Software, Inc.; Spider Island Software; MDG Computer Services, Inc.; Social Engineering Inc.; and Fog City Software.
"Developers continue to find the powerful logic of supporting our Application Watchdog Timer technology compelling," Feinstein explained. "An application's author knows the inner workings of their own software better than anyone on the outside ever could. By providing us with critical status information from within their running applications, our products are able to automatically detect and correct many problems which would otherwise require manual intervention."
Advanced Crash Recovery

Sophisticated Circuits' patent-pending Application Watchdog Timer technology enables Kick-off! to respond to problems it detects using a three-level, fall-back mechanism. Kick-off! has the ability to automatically relaunch a single failed application that otherwise leaves the operating system and other applications running. If the application fails to relaunch, or fails again more that a user-set number of times within a specified period (such as "3 times within the past 8 hours"), Kick-off! will then progress to initiate a "clean" Finder restart. If the Finder restart fails, or if the system crashes, Kick-off! resorts to hard-resetting the computer by briefly interrupting its AC power. Kick-off!'s bookmark feature can automatically relaunch all applications in order which were running on the computer when it crashed.
Crash Avoidance

Kick-off! allows administrators to schedule periodic restarts of the computer, to prevent critical problems before they occur. Automatic restarting of the system provides regular "house cleaning" and helps eliminate common problems and performance degradation caused by gradual memory leaks or fragmentation from long, uninterrupted software usage. Whether the result of a scheduled restart or failure recovery, all applications running at the time the computer is restarted are bookmarked and automatically restored.
Pricing and Availability
Kick-off! has an estimated street price of US$179, with quantity discounts available for bulk buyers. Special Macworld Expo pricing is available at Booth #1648. Kick-off! is available immediately from Sophisticated Circuits, Inc. at <http://www.sophisticated.com/>. Information about Kick-off! and other Sophisticated Circuits' products can be found at <http://www.sophisticated.com/>.
About Sophisticated Circuits

Founded in 1984, Sophisticated Circuits, Inc. is a privately held corporation located in Woodinville, WA. Sophisticated Circuits, Inc. develops elegant, highly integrated hardware/software tools which make the lives of computer professionals easier by enhancing the reliability, remote access and automation capabilities of servers and personal computers. Further information on Sophisticated Circuits may be obtained by accessing <http://www.sophisticated.com/>, calling 800/769-3773, or sending e-mail to . International inquiries can also reach Sophisticated Circuits by calling +425/485-7979, or by sending a fax to +425/485-7172.
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Kick-off! and Rebound! are trademarks and PowerKey is a registered trademark of Sophisticated Circuits, Inc. All other brands and products referenced herein are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.