Monitoring Your Home or Office Computer with Computer Monitoring Software

If you think you could benefit from knowing what happens on your home or office computer while you’re away from it then computer monitoring software could be for you. What reasons could you have for wanting to know what happens? You may have children who you think are playing to many PC games when they should be doing home work. You may have a husband who you suspect of online gambling when you’re out the house. Or you may have employees who you think are looking at Facebook and Twitter all day, rather than doing work!

Whatever the reason, there is a solution. There are a wide range of computer monitoring applications, available in abundance online, all of which designed to suit a specific need. The software comes in many forms: computer monitoring software, classroom monitoring software, employee monitoring software. All of these essentially do the same job, but have some minor alterations to make it more suitable for the environment it’s installed in.

That being said, most monitoring applications will have the same basic set of features. For example, most will work in stealth, so that once the program is installed it will not be seen by users of the PC, and will not be findable in places like the start menu or program files directory. The only way to open monitoring software is to enter a secret combination of keys (usually something like control+alt+F6) and then your password. You’ll then be able to control the software and take a look at the results.

Computer Monitoring Software

The results will vary depending on the developer and the type of software you have. Normal computer monitoring software is what you’d install on a single to computer and is what we’ll focus on in this article. With your average monitoring software you’ll be able to monitor the following:

• Any website visited, along with anything typed into that site.
• Any program used, along with anything typed into that program.
• Any file activity, including deleted, moved or created files.
• Anything printed.
• Anything copied and pasted to and from the clipboard.

All of this will usually be shown in the results along with the date and time of the said activity. ‘Anything typed’ will also include passwords, emails and instant messages along with any documents typed into applications like Microsoft Word. Another feature that most users find helpful is the email reports feature. This allows you to have the results emailed to your inbox every X minutes or hours, to save you having to log back into the target computer every time you want to sift through the logs. Some monitoring programs also have the ability to log into your account via their website, and to look through logs there; programs that have this feature tend to be more expensive though, or have a monthly subscription.

As mentioned before, this is a standardized set of features that you’ll find in most monitoring applications. Although, some will slightly different features, and some will have more. Advanced monitoring software can include extra features like web cam and microphone monitoring, self uninstall on a certain date, and the ability to watch the computer in real-time, but again, the price of the software will reflect this.

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Variations in monitoring software will reflect what the software is for. As mentioned above, employee and classroom monitoring software are different types that will have the same features as the ones mentioned above, plus some that makes the lives of employers and teachers slightly easier.

For example, some employee and classroom monitoring software (these types are separate but are mentioned together for their similarities) have the ability to monitor all employees screens at once from the single ‘boss or teacher’ computer, to control those screens remotely, to block or activate certain websites or applications, and to see productivity reports for each targeted computer. Once again, the price for employee or classroom monitoring can be a lot more expensive than single computer monitoring software, and can sometimes be priced according to the number of computers you want to monitor.

Monitoring applications of all types can be found pretty easily online, and most will have a free trial so that you can test before you buy. Gecko Monitor is a well known, standard computer monitoring solution, and is available with a free trial from their website at  http://www.geckomonitor.com