user/useage monitoring

Question

Level 1

30 points

user/useage monitoring

I'm not easily finding an answer to this on search, but I'm sure it's been asked before. I'm having issues with my staff goofing off at work with too much time on Facebook, etc. In the process of figuring out how to monitor their activity and before I spend $1900 for a package like "Spector 360", I'm looking for simple ways to see when they log in and what kinds of activities they are engaged in.

I have emptied the cookies file in Safari, so I will be able to see when they have visited Facebook (they barely know how to do anything other than use Safari and our office software, so I'm not worried about them learning how to hide their tracks, other than clearing their history on Safari.) But I imagine there is something built in to OS X or available after market that tracks user logins and time spent on the computer, at least. Somehow, that might be helpful, as well. Is there a basic tracking mechanism that follows simple user logins and runtime for the computer, including date and time?

Thanks.

27" Dual Core iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Oct 13, 2010 7:59 AM

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Answer 1

Oct 13, 2010 8:09 AM in response to yebdox

yebdox wrote:
I imagine there is something built in to OS X or available after market that tracks user logins and time spent on the computer

Welcome to Apple's discussion groups.

If their work routinely involves use of a computer, I don't see how those things would help you. If you want to block access to things like Facebook, I'd consider a DNS approach such as the one offered by these people:

http://www.opendns.com/solutions/overview/

I have no experience or relationship with OpenDNS.

For more options, do a Web search for "DNS block" (without the quotes).

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Answer 2

k.panic

Level 3

605 points

Oct 13, 2010 8:13 AM in response to yebdox

If it's snow leopard, you can also set up each user as a managed account and use the built in parental controls to look at their web history and block certain webpages.

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Answer 3

Oct 13, 2010 8:14 AM in response to k.panic

asweets@me.com wrote:
If it's snow leopard, you can also set up each user as a managed account and use the built in parental controls to look at their web history and block certain webpages.

That option is also available in Leopard (OS X 10.5).

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Answer 4

macjack

Level 10

111,242 points

Oct 13, 2010 8:15 AM in response to yebdox

Launch Applications/Utilities/Terminal and at the prompt enter last, then press return.

-mj

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Answer 5

k.panic

Level 3

605 points

Oct 13, 2010 8:17 AM in response to William-Boyd-Jr

Yeah, I guess I just figured we were in the SL forum and I'd confirm the OS version, lol.

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Answer 6

thomas_r.

Level 7

32,031 points

Oct 13, 2010 8:37 AM in response to yebdox

As macjack says, it's easy to find out what users were logged on when on a particular computer. This may not be particularly helpful, though, as it does not tell you what they were doing.

Mr. Boyd's solution is the one I would recommend, as you can take the control of it completely out of their reach. Using OpenDNS, it is possible to make changes to your router(s) so that any computers connecting through those routers cannot access sites that you block through OpenDNS. There is no need to mess with the settings on each individual computer. Just block any kind of site you don't want them using.

As for the whole "watching what they're doing" thing... this is a very complex issue full of legal and ethical potholes. It is certainly easy, if you are the admin on all the computers and the users don't have admin privileges, to simply turn on screen sharing (in System Preferences -> Sharing) and then spy on them at random times during the day. However, you would have to inform them that this would be happening, and an icon will appear in the menu bar to indicate when the screen is being viewed remotely. This would, IMHO, cause more problems with your staff than it would solve. Blocking inappropriate sites completely is a much better, and less Big Brother-like, solution.

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