There used to be a refrain the kids used when others would call them names. They used to say “sticks and stones can break my bones but names can never hurt me”. This seemed to be a good defense for nasty names and such.

A female Yale law student believes that she is a victim of reputation maligning from derogatory chats on a law school website, and that prevented her from getting a law firm offer for the summer. The chats included images taken from women’s Facebook pages. Another participant acted as her making it seem that she was taking part in the discussion. The woman e-mailed the site’s administrators and asked them to remove the material and received no response. Google told her to go to the main website causing the problem. When the material was requested to be removed on moral grounds the response was:  “We’re lawyers and lawyers-in-training, dude. Of course we follow the law, not morals.”

The truth is that in this world of high speed Internet and Googling of people and companies, your reputation is who you are to those that look for you. If they get hits for ugly lies about you, it can hurt you, your family and your business. Many find that they need a reputation defender so that they come up smelling like roses.

You can lose many valuable opportunities and much money if your name is smeared. You need high powered and experienced help to stop the malicious spread of lies about you and to cause the search engines to provide glowing and positive information about you.

Who are you?

To the world and especially those that don’t know you, you are what the world says about you. The Internet is a vastly powerful bulletin board that can blast information about you to the far corners of the Earth. That is why branding is so important to many. The name Toyota means reliability and worry free driving. Imaging how much they are being damaged by the current furor about their stuck accelerator problem.

If you are looking to form a serious relationship, to advance in your education or career or to grow your business you need people to think well of you.

You need to be sure that the best is being broadcast and any negative or defamatory information is suppressed.

When do you need a reputation defender

If you search for yourself and/or your business and find negative information, you need to get the best to save yourself from letting the damaging information spread.

Reputation defender has the experience, methods and tools to turn the tide.

They have developed methods to stop the source of the information through communication and legal means.

They also have tools to elevate good press about you  to the top of the search engines. They have the refined SEO (search engine optimization) and powerful computers to broadcast your message and brand.

Reputation defender services for you

The main reputation defender package provides:

A comprehensive monthly report
This report is driven by leading edge technology and human analysis that keeps you in touch with your online reputation.
Personalized support
A personal Reputation Advisor leads the search, analyzes the status and works with you on your online identity.
Remove negative references
Specific damaging reports can be destroyed for around $30 per report

The company offers a general package and also one tailored for children and teens.

MyPrivacy is a service that scours the web to remove and private information about the users.

MyEdge is a special service that  pushes good information about the owner but it does not come cheap.

For more information, see this informative Reputation Management article.

I am an affiliate for reputation defender because I believe they can help and they are sorely needed in today’s society.

Related Blogs

• Andy Beal Brings His Reputation Management Workshop to Auckland & Sydney in May!
• Online Reputation Management – Creating A Good First Impression! | Today Articles
• Reputation Management for Improving your Business | Webmaster Area

Virtumonde is the equivalent of adware artificial intelligence – it knows when it’s being threatened, and it can fix itself in order to prevent being uninstalled. Scary, no?

Most adware causes problems, although not terribly serious. It’s more of a nuisance. Anyone addicted to free software is certainly going to be infected with all sorts of adware that will wreak havoc on his computer and its performance. Next time you want to download something, read the user agreement and you’ll see they even admit that they are going to load you up with spyware and adware in exchange for this free program.

Once the adware is installed with your free download, the first issues you’ll be dealing with are tons of pop ups. You might even see emails relating to some recent web search. This is a bit scary, but they say all they want to do is personalize your browsing experience. What they are really doing is some heavy duty spying on your internet and computer habits.

Computer users all over have banded together to try to find fixes and talk about effective removal options.

Of course, the best course of action is prevention. Any time you download something free – and this includes even innocuous things like smiley faces and ring tones – you’re going to get spyware and adware. That’s the reason you are getting your download for free – they want to plant this adware on your computer to track what you do, and advertise to you specifically. Stay away from free downloads!

When you search for something on the internet, if you have adware installed, you will begin not only getting popups, you’ll start getting emails. Junk mail talking about whatever you were looking for – digital cameras, dating sites, diapers on sale.

Find a removal tool that guarantees the removal of Virtumonde. That means it has the code necessary to find and remove the files needed for it to run. If this fails, have a computer geek check it out. It might take some reprogramming to get things back to normal.

Remove Virtumonde trojan is one of the most important things to keep your computer running well.

The Crucial Need For Backup

If you are a serious computer user or just someone that uses their computer a significant amount of time, you want to make sure that you don’t lose your programs and data. The best way to protect yourself is to have a good backup plan.

If your computer or property ever experience a severe physical problem such as a fire or theft or breakdown of your hard drive, you could lose all your pictures, media, important papers and information and lose access to the Internet and your email contacts. If you made a change to a program that you don’t like and want to go back or get your system back to the way it was before a virus attack, restore from a backup is the way to do it. If you spent 50 hours doing a report and accidentally erased or wrote over it, a quick restore will bring it back from the abyss.

General Backup Strategy

There are a number of features that  a good backup plan should contain:

• Backing up should be easy and automatic
• It should be quick and easy to find the data that you want to restore
• It should handle a total wipe out of your hard drive and be able to do a bare metal restore (restore everything from scratch)
• It should provide maximum safety for your data
• It should provide high availability features like those found in a standard disaster recovery plan

Overall Approach

All of these goals can be met by doing the following. Get a top level local backup program such as Acronis backup and back up your system to an external drive on a regular, automated basis. Get an extra external drive to which you will do a full image backup of your entire system and keep the drive somewhere safe off of your premises. Subscribe to an online backup service for your most important data whch will capture changes as they happen and save them in the background while your work on other things.

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For details of the local backup see Computer Backups

Easy and Automatic

A good backup program such as Acronis True Image Home 2010 can be easily set up to automatically do a full backup followed by daily incremental backups automatically. Most online backup programs will also work automatically in the background. The automatic features guarantee that the backup will get done since you don’t have to get involved once it’s set up.

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The backup program should make it easy to navigate files and directories to find the files that you want to restore and allow you to specify where you want it to copy to. You don’t want confusing or complex methods of finding and restoring your data frustrating you while you are sweating to get your info back or even causing you to fail to restore properly.

Full Restore

Acronis and other high quality backup programs will allow you to make a full image backup of your system onto your extra hard drive that you will store somewhere else so that if disaster strikes, you will be able to recover your entire system quickly and easily.

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Maximum Safety and High Availability

Maximum safety for your data is provided by having multiple copies of it. Your data will reside in 3 places. It will be on your hard drive, your external back up drive and on the servers of your online backup company.  Redundancy is the key to safety. If any 1 or 2 fail, you still have the 3rd for recovery. If your online backup company goes out of business or their servers get hosed, you still have your own data.

High availability is provided by having your data in multiple places so that if a cataclysmic event occurs in one site, the other is still safe.

The Role of Online Backup

Online backup is not really intended for very large file backups and restores or for massive backups and restores. It takes an hour or more per gigabyte depending on your bandwidth

Therefore, online backup is not really intended for a full or bare metal restore of your system. It takes much too long to backup all your data and to restore it. Additionally, considering the expense of online backup systems with the cheapest being $50 for 150 GB and that current systems typically come with a 350 GB drive, the cost would be prohibitive.

Online backup is useful for the following capabilities:

• a very high level of data safety
• backup when you are away from your backup equipment
• continuous data protection

A good company will insure that any data transferred to them is absolutely safe and redundant. The online backup companies use Raid storage. This is a sytem where the data is spread and duplicated across multiple hard drives at the same time. This means 1 or 2 full drives can fail and the data is still untouched.  Data loss would only occur in the very low probability event of several drives failing in the same array.

Besides this it is impossible for these companies to survive without full disaster recovery capabilities. In order to achieve this they would have to have at least 2 full sets of server systems in different places.

Online backup is also ideal for those who travel and can’t always get to a backup system. All you need is an Internet connection and your backup continues.

Those services that backup in the background and are always on provide continuous data protection. Any change that is made is saved shortly after it happens. Coupled with archiving, where every version of a file is kept, you get total data protection.

Online backup is needed for extra insurance for your most important data. You can also safely offload files that you don’t want to keep on your active system with full confidence that the data will be available on the super safe online backup servers.

Idrive meets the challenge and provides superior online backup. It can also handle a full system as well  for those who want to do this despite the issues involved.

What to Look for

The backup should not get in your way or slow you down. There are programs that work only in the background and others that only work on a schedule and others that can work either way.

It should be automatic. It can either run in the background all the time if it doesn’t affect your speed and it should be possible to schedule it for idle times if you want to or it gets in the way.

You probably want to send highly sensitive data to the online backup company. You don’t want anyone including the employees of the backup company getting at your stuff. This is accomplished by encrypting your data. It’s scrambled and unreadable without being decoded. Some companies have a standard encryption key that they use. Others let you make up your own key so that only you can ever see it. When you restore the data to your system it’s scrambled and you have to decode it using your key. Be very careful in this case. If you ever lose this key, no one can get this data back for you.

It should provide for open file backup. This means that your data can be backed up even when you’re working with it. If you don’t have this feature, data like Outlook email won’t make it to your online backup.

It should be friendly and easy to use.

It should allow for resumption of interrupted uploads and downloads. This is especially important if you have a flaky Internet connection.

Nice to haves

Some programs add a new piece of information to your Windows Explorer to show which files have been backed up.

Some provide the ability to immediately back up files that are waiting to be backed up.

Archiving is a feature that every version of a file that was ever created is retained until the user indicates that he/she only wants to save the latest version. This can really help if you made unintentional changes to a document or spreadsheet and you really want the version from 3 revisions ago.

Being able to share your files with others can be useful.

My Favorite Online Backup Program

I have found that to get a real picture of the value of a program, you very often can’t trust the review. They are out to make a sale. (To be honest, so am I but I will never recommend something that I don’t believe is true quality and if you ever find that I do, please bring it to my attention and I will correct the situation as soon as possible.)

Additionally, they don’t check for reports of problems. One should always do a search for <program> sucks, <program> complaints and <program> problems. This was my experience with BitDefender. I used to recommend it but I ran into some serious problems when I used it myself and a search of the web came up with all sorts of problems. You can get the details in my Bitdefender Problems post.

The most popular programs have some serious problems. This Carbonite review is chock full of strong complaints. The problems reported include BSOD’s in Vista, lack of response from customer support, failure to restore crucial files when needed, and being unavailable for restore for long periods.

Please note that I have been contacted by David Friend, CEO of Carbonite,  who indicates that the unfavorable review is over 2 years old and the reported issues have been corrected. While it is true that the article is from 2007, some of the complaints are from comments that are very recent. Hopefully, the bulk of the problems have been corrected.

Mozy also got rapped pretty hard in the blogosphere. A search of Mozy sucks will bring up a bunch of problem reports.

SOS was selected as an editor’s choice by PC Magazine. I also didn’t find any serious complaints about it. However, it’s quite expensive. The largest capacity that they offer for home users is 15 GB for about $50 a year. Their business offerings are much more expensive.

Idrive seems to be the best deal at this point. It was top rated in a number of reviews. I didn’t find any serious complaints about it. Although, it could use a bit more user friendliness but  you get 150 gigs for $50 a year.   Idrive is the best online backup solution.

You may already be aware of the problems that a piece of malware can cause to your computer. Your computer will have shown any of the following and more, weird browser behaviour, slow computer responsiveness, security problems, strange pop ups and worse still a computer that won’t even start up.

Probably the single most annoying thing is when you have antivirus software installed but it doesn’t pick up on a virus on your PC.

I hope this article will be able to highlight all of the important steps involved in securing your windows computer from all the threats out there from viruses, phishing and trojans through to adware, spyware and other security problems. The aim of the information in this article is to point you in the right direction to securing your computer from such threats. Finally, the aim is to make sure you have a very effective and secure firewall in place to stop any unwanted intrusions.

If this article helps to make your computer impenetrable from any security threat then I will be happy.

To build an effective security system and firewall for your computer it need not cost you an absolute arm and a leg and thankfully it can be fairly quick and easy to do also. Also, don’t worry about not having the computer skills to achieve a secure computer as the steps are very easy even for a relative novice.

Here follows all the necessary steps that you need to take to build your security system..

1. Probably the most essential step is to install a really good antivirus software package from someone like Norton, ESet, Kaspersky or McAfee to name but a few brands. There are plenty of good comparison websites that offer some good reviews to help you make up your mind.

2. To prevent trojan horses, rootkits, backdoors, keystroke loggers and other sorts of malware you need to install a really good anti malware software like spydoctor or malwarebytes anti malware. This should work in conjunction with your main antivirus package to prevent any malware from being missed.

3. It is essential to having a top notch Internet security system on your PC to have a really effective firewall. The windows firewall is okay and does a reasonable job of blocking unwanted traffic but I would recommend a more robust and powerful software firewall for extra security. Zonealarm is a good brand but there are plenty of good reviews and comparisons available online for your perusal.

4. I recommend a good secure browser also. Firefox is a really good choice because of all the great addons available that help with security and blocking of unwanted spyware and ads.

5. Take a close look at your browser’s security settings and in particular at the active X controls that are enabled. Also look at your computer’s hosts file to see that all is in order. There is quite a lot of good information available online to help you with your hosts file.

To summarize, it is important to have a good antivirus package installed alongside a good firewall and anti malware package. You should also pay close attention to your browser and it’s settings. Take action on these steps and you need not worry about your security online.

Computer Doc Comments

Click here to find out all about computer Internet security in general and why I recommend an Internet security suite over a collection of different programs.

I have recently found the best Internet Security Suites to be Norton’s security products.

I personally use Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 and I have installed Kaspersky for some of my clients.Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 is basically a good product which doesn’t adversely impact system performance. It also has very good virus checking capabilities.

However, it has some weaknesses that need to be addressed. See my computer Internet security article for details.

Save $30 via mail-in rebate PLUS get Norton Expert Installation Service FREE (a $40 value)!**

Norton Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals

I have also installed Norton for some of my clients. Norton provides 2 major products for the PC public, Norton Internet Security 2009 and Norton 360 v3.0. Both of these products have undergone major upgrades. The virus scan learns as it scans so that it only scan items that haven’t been scanned before which speeds up virus scanning time tremendously. Norton used to be notorious for their heavy impact on system performance and their complex and difficult installations. Both of these problems have been totally erased and both Norton Internet Security 2009 and Norton 360 v3.0 are light on the system and very fast and easy to install.

Norton Internet Security 2009 is intended for those who are more technically oriented and want the ability to tweak some settings of their security protection. Norton 360 v3.0 is set and forget software for those who just want excellent protection and don’t want to worry about it. Norton 360 v3.0 also has built in backup and PC speed optimization.

As much as we like to think that we are immune to influences of the outside world and our environment, we are all affected by information and sensory impressions that the world provides us with. Our eyes probably have the quickest and most powerful impact on our views and feelings. Young people who have not fully mastered their impulses are especially vulnerable. The Internet can introduce us to sights and images that we would not normally see that can be very appealing and damaging. They can stoke urges and desires for inappropriate things beyond some people’s control.

The Internet also introduces us to people of all sorts. These people can entice the innocent among us to do things or form relationships that are very damaging to them.

There are also things that all of us don’t wish to see or be burdened with.

Safe Eyes software provides tools to set up powerful protection for our eyes and all our other senses. Protect your children and all the members of your family from all the evils lurking under the cover page of that appealing website or chat tool.

Safe Eyes is fast, effective and affordable. It has been top rated and was editor’s choice of Laptop magazine and PC Magazine. It also received a top rating from MacFan magazine. Safe Eyes is one of the few programs that provide parental controls for the Mac.

24/7/365 telephone support and email support make sure that your are getting the most from your purchase at all times.

Effectiveness of the Protection and Control

Customizable

Children need different kinds of protection than adults.Youngsters need more control than older siblings. Time control may be the major issue with some while others may require protection from cunning con men with larceny or worse in their hearts. Safe Eyes allows you to configure computer usage for every user. This can be a minor annoyance in that a user has to log in twice, once to Windows and once to Safe Eyes but it is a minor price to pay for the power it provides.

The administrator sets up Safe Eyes user accounts according to the needs of the user. The user logs into the Safe Eyes system which administered from the Safe Eyes server so that the set up applies to the user on whichever of the Safe Eyes computers he/she uses.

Affordable Pricing

Safe Eyes costs 49.95 for world class protection. The subscription covers 3 computers. The yearly subscription is necessary to provide funding to Safe Eyes to keep up with the explosively changing computer world to provide you with the best shielding that money can buy.

Safe Eyes provides a 30 day guarantee. If you are dissatisfied for any reason, you can get a refund in that time.

Management of instant messaging and social networking sites

The minimal level of restriction that the program should provide is the ability to block any instant messaging or involvement in social networking sites at all. Safe Eyes also allows IM (instant messaging) to proceed while capturing the conversation to proceed. This allows the administrator to review conversations and prompt a cozy little chat with the user about the birds and the bees or some other hot topic.

Social networking is the way to meet and keep up with friends in these electronic times. Facebook, MySpace and Xanga are THE way to communicate and keep up in today’s plugged in world. However, the predators and criminals out there know this and just waiting for the opportunity to pounce on unsuspecting innocents to rob them blind and induce them to engage in all sorts of harmful and illicit activities. Safe Eyes can record all activity on these sites and can also provide alerts for release of sensitive information such as address, phone number, credit card number and other financial or compromising data.

Ease of Use

The user settings are easy to set up and tailor to each user. Setting up a new user is a simple and straightforward process.

With clear controls and logically designed pages, taking advantage of the program’s features is a breeze. Safe Eyes also allows remote control which takes effect immediately.

Summary

It can be a dangerous world out there. Let Safe Eyes provide you with the tools to make your computing a safe and enjoyable experience.

History

I did a search for the best Internet security software and I visited various sites that rated different packages. Bitdefender came up as a winner in a number of reports and reviews. I purchased it and used it and was an affiliate for it on my website http://www.ask-the-computer-doc.com The 2008 version worked fine with few problems.

I recently “upgraded” to Bitdefender Internet Security 2009 and that’s when the trouble began. I’ve discovered that you can’t fully trust online reviews. You need to read the forums and search the web for comments about a product. It especially pays to enter <product name> problems and see what comes up. See the comments in this Bitdefender forum posting to get a sense of the current problems.

Save $30 via mail-in rebate PLUS get Norton Expert Installation Service FREE (a $40 value)!**

Norton Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals

After dropping Bitdefender, I tried others and have come to the conclusion that Norton has the best products on the market currently. They have made some mistakes in the past, but they have overcome them. I will provide more detail later in the article.

Problems

In using the Internet Security 2009 version I came across the following problems;

Protection Weaknesses

The program often dies with no reason. All of a sudden the system tray icon (the symbols on the bottom right of your screen) turns gray and says that Bitdefender services are not responding, please reboot. I wait a while and the color changes back.

Sometimes you get a message that the program has died and they request that you send a report to Bitdefender.

The Bitdefender free online scan doesn’t handle the notorious fake antivirus 2009 virus. Its virus scan did not rate the advanced+ level.  The scan is slow and does not take into account that some files never changed and do not require to be rescanned.

Performance Issues

The program leaves a heavy footprint on the system. There are frequent lengthy slow downs as the online scan analyzed files or messages. It also uses a great deal of memory.

Support Problems

Bitdefender support used to be great. The online chat got you to an agent very quickly and they were very knowledgeable. However, recently, even though the agents come on board quickly, some of them are quite weak.

If you have a serious issue, they will have you capture date using programs that they provide. However, once you provide the results, you won’t hear from them again.

Don’t connect to them close to closing or holiday time. Your chat session will end abruptly in the middle of a sentence.

Be sure not to have any problems around holidays. The support is not available by any means for the holiday period. Around Xmas and New Years, this means nobody home for 4 days.

Installation Issues

My problem contacting them around a holiday happened when they wanted me to uninstall my version and reinstall a new version. The uninstall failed and I couldn’t reinstall the new version which claimed that the old version was still there. Nothing that I could do with any manipulation of the uninstall utility or using registry editors could put Humpty Dumpty together again. I had to install free anti virus until I found an old install and used that to get it back.I ultimately replaced it with Kaspersky Internet Security which is much better.

Errors

Recently I started receiving invalid messages. It claimed I was not registered after being registered for around a year. It told me that and email was sent and it wasn’t.

Interface Unfriendliness

The interface does not conform to a standard Windows interface. It is sometimes hard to figure out where you should click. The various features are not easily apparent.

Summary

The bottom line is caveat emptor, buyer beware. You can’t trust the reviews fully. You have to search the web for the real lowdown. Bitdefender used to be good. Let’s hope that they clean up their act.

Click here to find out all about computer Internet security in general and why I recommend an Internet security suite over a collection of different programs.

I have recently found the best Internet Security Suites to be Norton’s security products.

I personally use Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 and I have installed Kaspersky for some of my clients.Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 is basically a good product which doesn’t adversely impact system performance. It also has very good virus checking capabilities.

However, it has some weaknesses that need to be addressed. See my computer Internet security article for details.

Save $30 via mail-in rebate PLUS get Norton Expert Installation Service FREE (a $40 value)!**

Norton Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals

I have also installed Norton for some of my clients. Norton provides 2 major products for the PC public, Norton Internet Security 2009 and Norton 360 v3.0. Both of these products have undergone major upgrades. The virus scan learns as it scans so that it only scan items that haven’t been scanned before which speeds up virus scanning time tremendously. Norton used to be notorious for their heavy impact on system performance and their complex and difficult installations. Both of these problems have been totally erased and both Norton Internet Security 2009 and Norton 360 v3.0 are light on the system and very fast and easy to install.

Norton Internet Security 2009 is intended for those who are more technically oriented and want the ability to tweak some settings of their security protection. Norton 360 v3.0 is set and forget software for those who just want excellent protection and don’t want to worry about it. Norton 360 v3.0 also has built in backup and PC speed optimization.

Overview

Computers are a great tool with tremendous power. However, along with this awesome capability and global reach comes significant danger and potential for misuse. There are many predators and evil influences lurking just outside your computer screen waiting to pounce on unsuspecting children and careless adults. People want the tools to know what is going on with their near and dear.

Additionally, employers who supply computing resources want to make sure their computers are used for their business and not against it. Monitoring software provides the essential information necessary to prevent any misuse.

Another type of tool to control your computer is Internet filtering or parental control software that proactively limits certain activities and access on the computer. Find out more about it in the Best Parental Controls article.

Who Uses This Kind Of Software?

The following groups use tracking software:

• Parents – The primary concern of parents is that their children do not become the target of predators and pedophiles. Social sites and chat rooms can present a significant danger. They also don’t want their kids’ morals and ethical standards corrupted by damaging relationships or involvement in pornographic, violent or corrupt web sites. Overuse and addiction to games or online activities is another area of concern. Another serious issue is that the children may be revealing confidential financial or family private information to strangers.

• Employers – In this age of litigation and viral videos, businesses are concerned that no activity should go on that puts them at risk or reflects badly on their company. Loss of company assets due to export of company confidential information or customer lists needs to be prevented. Employee productivity is also a non trivial concern. Employees can waste hours on shopping sites or blogs or pornography. Some sites and chat engines also pose the danger of allowing viruses or spyware to gain access to corporate systems. All of these activities need to be monitored and controlled to ensure the safe and efficient conduct of business.

• Schools – have similar needs to businesses. Additionally, schools monitor to insure that no hateful or intolerant views are promulgated.

• Governments – Where access to confidential or secret information is allowed, special monitoring is needed to see that no leak or misuse of information occurs. They may also monitor systems to ensure that laws and standards are adhered to.

• Members of a relationship with suspicions – When someone suspects that their romantic or business partner is up to no good, they will want to know if they really have something to worry about. If they do, they want to capture information that can be used to protect their interests, initiate action against the abuser or cause them to cease the harmful activity.

Monitoring Features

Capture of significant activities

Good monitoring programs will capture the following;

• Sites Visited -See a replay of the sites visited. Get a report of the sites and the time spent on them. Note attempted approaches and contacts by strangers.
• Keystrokes Typed – This is especially useful for capturing user names and passwords.
• IM’s and Chats – Review the conversations at your leisure
• Emails – Monitor all types of email communications
• Social sites such as MySpace and Facebook -See who they are associating with and what they are displaying of themselves.
• Searches -What are they looking for?
• Programs being run -Are the kids playing games or doing homework?  What is that employee doing running confidential customer service searches in your database?

Alerts and Blocking

• Keyword Based Responses – Get an alert or block activity triggered by sensitive keywords or keyword combinations. For example, block sites when the phrase “build a home made bomb” is entered.
• Website Blacklist – Prevent visits to harmful or inappropriate websites.

Monitoring Features
The program should provide snapshots of the screens being used. If the program has a DVD recorder type of control that allows rerun of screen sequences at normal or altered speeds that provides a superior review capability. The capture can be time based at fixed intervals or based on predefined events such as new program starts, mouse clicks, enter key entry or window changes.

The program should also provide a variety of summary reports of the different types of activities. It should provide a list of websites visited by user and the time spent on each. A similar report should be provided for programs run. Drill down and direct access to controls to respond to report information are a quality feature.

Monitor Invisibility and Self Protection

The monitoring program should run in the background and be invisible to the monitored user if necessary. It should be protected from being turned off or disabled if discovered. It should not appear in the task manager, system tray, add and remove programs section of the control panel.

Quality Support

Responsive phone, chat and email support should be provided.