Curious about what your kids are doing on their computers?
Home computers are great. They let you stay in touch with family and friends, you can purchase almost anything without having to leave your home, and they give your kids access to all kinds of information to help with schoolwork and more. Yet, your home computer can also be a direct link to unsavory information and people. You can't watch over your kids' shoulders 24/7, so let the Network Magic Network Reports help you.
Network Reports is a new feature in 4.1. It emails you a daily report of a computer's network activity for the previous day. The report includes information about what time of day the computer was used, the software applications that were used, and the websites visited.
This first release of Network Reports doesn't show the exact time of day an application was used (we're working to provide this in a future release). However, you can get a good estimate of when an application was used by looking at the Network Report's Network Traffic and Applications Usage sections together. Here's how:
The Network Traffic chart shows how much network traffic was generated by a computer each day. Its bar graph shows the network traffic generated in 4 hour segments, from midnight to midnight. Network traffic is typically generated when a computer accesses the Internet, printers, or other devices in your home network.
The Application Usage table shows each software application that was used and how long it was used.
Using the Network Traffic and Application Usage data together, you can closely estimate the time of day an application was used. For example, suppose the Application Usage shows that an Instant Messenger program was used for 4 hours, and other applications were used between a few minutes and 2 hours. The Network Activity shows a spike of activity at 12:00 a.m., while other Network Activity data more closely matches the lower amount of application usage. Then it's likely that the Messenger program was used around 12:00 a.m. for 4 hours. Busted.
The Network Reports feature gives you a place to start monitoring what happens on your home computers when you're not around. It's an easy way to see the software applications and websites that are accessed from a computer and what time of day the computer was in use. Armed with this data, you can monitor computer use in your home and see what happens when you're gone, or asleep!
To set up Network Reports
- Click the Network Tasks tab in Network Magic.
- Click Set Up Network Reports.
- Select which computer(s) you'd like to monitor.
Note: Network Magic must be running on the computer you want to monitor. You can easily install Network Magic on any computer by visiting. www.networkmagic.com/download - Enter the email address where you'd like the Network Report sent, and you're done!