Printing Internet History Easily

[adamcbest]

My Boss has asked that I keep track of where our employees are going on the net. We want to check this every week. I need to make a printout of the internet history for each computer and give the whole list to him. Is there a way i can do this easily? I don't want to take the whole day trying to do screenprints of the history box in IE, and I don't have time right now to try to figure out how to do it more easily. I am hoping someone here knows a simple 2 minute way to do it for each computer. Thanks

 

[smah]

You'll need to tell us more about what you have available. If these are stand-alone machines, with no proxy server, & no additional software then yes - you'll need to do screen shots from each machine.

Steve

http://www.advancedheaters.com

 

[sleipnir214]

Are we talking about the same browser histories that can be cleared by a user at any time? It seems to me that you're not going to get very good data on this subject without tracking this at the network level, either through a content-filter or a logging proxy.



Want the best answers? Ask the best questions! TANSTAAFL!

 

[smah]

If you want to quickly add some software to facilitate this process, something like

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/iehv.html

might help.

Steve

http://www.advancedheaters.com

 

[smah]

But sleipnir214 is correct - your users could easily clear their history.

Steve

http://www.advancedheaters.com

 

[adamcbest]

these are stand-alones. the servers here are pretty basic.. they are mostly just data storage and website hosting. no proxy settings or anything like that to my knowledge. i don't know much about them, becuase i didn't set them up. we have a server guy who comes in occassionally for that. But to set up a new user computer, all you have to do is give them a username and password on the server, match it on the user computer, and plug in the internet and it has full connectivity. You don't have to configure any proxy settings on each user computer. Does that help? I'm guessing i have to do print screens

 

[adamcbest]

i realize that it can be cleared, but luckily for me our employees aren't too computer literate. And if I go through the history and notice that it has been cleared, then that person automatically get repremanded. I know it's not the greatest way to do things, but for the way the servers are set up, i don't think there is much other choice. I don't think there is a way to check on our servers. I'm not a server guy by any means, so i'm not sure how to set it up to do any tracking of that nature.

 

[BabyJeffy]

Why don't you get a proxy server set up and route all your "stand alone" internet browsing traffic through that? It will cost for the server, the setup time and the software license... but it will give your boss a complete means to monitor traffic on each machine (and restrict access to certain domains etc). It won't matter if the users clear their history then.

Once installed and running, all users would need to modify their browser settings to use the proxy server. This takes but a moment... and then they are away again.

Cheers,
Jeff

[tt]Jeff's Page @ Code Couch

http://www.codecouch.com/jeff/

http://www.codecouch.com/jeff/blog/

[/tt]

What is Javascript? FAQ216-6094

 

[BillyRayPreachersSon]

Check out the thread about 20 down from this one, titled "Print IE History?": thread608-1189343

Dan



[tt]Dan's Page [blue]@[/blue] Code Couch

http://www.codecouch.com/dan/

[/tt]

 

[sleipnir214]

And if I go through the history and notice that it has been cleared, then that person automatically get repremanded.

Man, that's high-handed, particularly in light of:

i realize that it can be cleared, but luckily for me our employees aren't too computer literate.

Best of luck to you when your employees start suing your company.



Want the best answers? Ask the best questions! TANSTAAFL!

 

[adamcbest]

how is getting in trouble for clearing history going to cause for lawsuits, when it's clearly stated when you are hired that if you clear history, you will get in trouble?

As far as my other statement you quoted, I used a bad choice of words. But it is just a fact that the employees here don't know all that much about computers. That's not an insult to them, just a fact.

Explain where you think the lawsuits would come into, because if there are chances of that happening, i will take a different route with this situation

 

[BabyJeffy]

I would be worried that the history etc could be cleared as the side-effect of some other action.

For instance... a tool issued by MS to fix IE (when it doesn't launch) also clears cache, history and download cache. An uneducated user may run this tool without being aware of the secondary effects... and run afoul of your employment rule.

Another example - employeeA leaves their desk for a break and doesn't lock their PC. EmployeeB sits at the desk... surfs for a bit and then clears the history before leaving. EmployeeA is innocent of clearing the history (may be guilty of leaving their computer insecure) but may well be punished by the employment rule you have.

I strongly recommend you invest in a proxy server and use that. It's much much much more reliable (than relying on the level of the user's computer knowledge).

Cheers,
Jeff

[tt]Jeff's Page @ Code Couch

http://www.codecouch.com/jeff/

http://www.codecouch.com/jeff/blog/

[/tt]

What is Javascript? FAQ216-6094

 

[sleipnir214]

Because you are basing employee decisions on things over which the employees do not necessarily have control.

I assume that these reprimands will have a negative effect on your employees' tenure with the company. All it would take is for one unhappy person to talk to a lawyer to find out that it may not be kosher to base employee decisions on data that can be so easily tampered-with.

The history of IE can be tampered-with programmatically by script code on websites. One employee could kill the history of an employee whose workstation is unguarded.

The data in question is ephemeral. It was never intended to be used as anything but a convenience to a user. Basing employee decisions on this information has the potential for causing more grief than it's worth.

If you need this information, set up a limited-access mechanism where you can collect this data at the network level and have high confidence in its value.



Want the best answers? Ask the best questions! TANSTAAFL!

 

[adamcbest]

Both good points. I will get in touch with our server guy and see what a proxy server involves. thanks for your input

 

[smah]

Additionally, individual items can be cleared from the history which could be used to remove only the 'bad sites' & you'd never know. Let me ask another question that might lead to another approach: How are these machines connected to the internet? Even a low end, personal router has some logging capabilites built in. That might be the point to monitor.

Steve

http://www.advancedheaters.com