Tuesday, August 25, 2009
A Better Way to Defrag
Windows includes a copy of Microsoft's venerable utility to consolidated fragmented files on a hard drive. The problems are that it is slow and it has very few options. A better option is Defraggler by Piriform. The same group that brought us Ccleaner.
The best part is that Defraggler is free for personal and business use. The other great features are speed and options. You can choose between a quick defrag or a full treatment. You can even look at the fragmentattion of particular files and defrag only the ones that you choose.
There are many arguments about defragging a hard drive. Some say that if you see a speed enhancement on your computer when you defrag then you probably have other problems. I like to think that it is just a portion of a good maintenance program. You install the latest patches, update software, confirm virus protection, and check disk fragmentation. I like to check computers that mainly serve as workstations every three to six months. If a computer actually stores a lot of data a monthly check might be a good idea. I like to defrag when I see more than 12 to 15 percent fragmentation.
The best part is that Defraggler is free for personal and business use. The other great features are speed and options. You can choose between a quick defrag or a full treatment. You can even look at the fragmentattion of particular files and defrag only the ones that you choose.
There are many arguments about defragging a hard drive. Some say that if you see a speed enhancement on your computer when you defrag then you probably have other problems. I like to think that it is just a portion of a good maintenance program. You install the latest patches, update software, confirm virus protection, and check disk fragmentation. I like to check computers that mainly serve as workstations every three to six months. If a computer actually stores a lot of data a monthly check might be a good idea. I like to defrag when I see more than 12 to 15 percent fragmentation.
Labels: Defrag, Fragmentation, hard drive, Windows
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Tracking Internet Browsing History
In this business climate it is important that your employees are as productive as possible. It is also no secret that a limited number of employees might spend a lot of time surfing the web. Many businesses are not in a position to setup a web monitoring system, and most do not want to become an electronic nanny. A quick solution to view employees surfing history if they have not deleted it is to use a couple of great utilities.
These utilities come from NirSoft which offer a multitude of computer utilities in addition to these two. Any of the utilities that I have used do not need to be installed so you can run them from a network share or a USB flash drive.
The utilities for listing browsing history are IEHistoryView and MozillaHistoryView. Each are downloaded as a small ZIP file. Uncompress the folders and then take them to the machine of the employee. You will not need to install either application, and you will be able to view the browsing history even if you are not logged in as the user.
The way that you switch user views does differ for each utility. In IEHistoryView for Internet Explorer you simply click on the head icon in the upper left hand corner. You can then choose the profile of your computer user. The MozillaHistoryView for the Firefox browser is not so straightforward. You will need to drill down to the history file location. The easiest way to do this is that when you change the history file location under the File menu be sure to note the original location. Your target location is probably the same except for the different user name.
These utilities come from NirSoft which offer a multitude of computer utilities in addition to these two. Any of the utilities that I have used do not need to be installed so you can run them from a network share or a USB flash drive.
The utilities for listing browsing history are IEHistoryView and MozillaHistoryView. Each are downloaded as a small ZIP file. Uncompress the folders and then take them to the machine of the employee. You will not need to install either application, and you will be able to view the browsing history even if you are not logged in as the user.
The way that you switch user views does differ for each utility. In IEHistoryView for Internet Explorer you simply click on the head icon in the upper left hand corner. You can then choose the profile of your computer user. The MozillaHistoryView for the Firefox browser is not so straightforward. You will need to drill down to the history file location. The easiest way to do this is that when you change the history file location under the File menu be sure to note the original location. Your target location is probably the same except for the different user name.
Labels: browser, Firefox, Internet Explorer, security
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