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Thread: Internet Blues.

  1. #1
    Diamond Member tec0's Avatar
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    Internet Blues.

    I am sure that everyone is familiar with the “Internet Blues”. So I did a bit of investigation and found that a lot of companies have the internet. It is also true that the internet do cost them a lot of money. But I wonder how many of them considered actually why they have the internet?

    Fact is not every company do market research on the net. But there cost of their internet is phenomenal! So what is the deal? Well a customer of mine asked me to investigate why his internet was costing him an arm and a leg.

    So I did my investigation and found that 20% of his cap is E-mail and Antivirus updates. 80% was downloading screensavers, online videos, music, and other crap that I would rather not mention. Now I have installed a bit of kit and set a few policies on it. The office wanted to kill me but the boss was a happy man he was saving A LOT OF MONEY!

    So I thought I would give you a small yes or no list.

    Do you allow your employees unlimited internet access?
    Do you allow your employees to install software for their own use?
    Do you allow your employees to use their e-mail for personal use?

    If you answered yes then the changes are that your internet is being abused. A simple yes to just two of these questions and YOU might be losing money. In all honesty you don’t need a special hardware to take care of the problem. Simple office discipline will do wonders.

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    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by tec0 View Post
    In all honesty you don’t need a special hardware to take care of the problem. Simple office discipline will do wonders.
    I'm all ears. How exactly do you go about this?

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    Email problem daveob's Avatar
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    I imagine this would involve drafting and implementing a set of RULES and include detailed disciplinary procedures for breaking the rules.

    Bottom line is : you're paying the employee to work ( on your work ). Internet access should be limited to company work. You don't pay them to browse and chit chat.

    Yes, it may be difficult to police ( initially until an example is made of the first poor sod you catch ) and you may want to look at screen capture software that takes random screen shots of the users PC screen. A quick browse through these screen shots will soon show you any non work related activity.

    Do you have the right to do this ? Damn right you do - it's your PC, your Network, your premises, and your time they are using / wasting !!

    Dave_A's list of "great employee benefits" ( previous post ) that he "gives" to employees did not include internet access and time wasting.
    Watching the ships passing by.

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    Our network has stops in place that will not allow access to e.g. Facebook & Twitter and the likes between 09h00 AM and 17h00 PM.(management promotes the use of Facebook however "to meet our global colleagues" - hell no, I'm NOT staying late simply to chat to a colleague that I've never laid eyes on!!!)

    In addition, it also blocks sites where one applies for personal e-mail address, e.g. gmail, hotmail.

    "Download" sites (uTube, etc) blocked altogether.

    Moral of the story? Pay your own way, which I suppose is what they intended in the first place?

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    Diamond Member tec0's Avatar
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    Well the discipline things sounds a bit strange but it works.

    First you let your staff know that the internet bill is getting a bit high and just ask them to take it easy. Secondly you clean the computers and set a simple policy that will make sure that other software cannot be installed on it without the Administrators approval.

    Leave it for a month or two and see if the internet cost goes down. If not step two; you activate the restricted sights capability build into Internet Explorer and start to systematically block sights that you don’t approve of. Then you implement a second policy so that the user cannot reset the Internet Explorer.

    Normally by now you will see an improvement on your bill. If not then disable the internet via a policy and no more internet, just mail. Fact is you can do a lot with policies if you know how.

    If you are new with policies just Google it! You will see there is a lot of help available to you. I suggest that you set up a “workshop” computer and test-drive your policies before implementing them It is really easy and like I said just Google if you don’t understand something I promise you it is the best way to learn this type of thing.

    Just remember you CAN end up locking yourself out of your own system so play with it first on an old pc. If you have a domain controller I suggest you get a MS professional in to help. Domain-controllers is unforgiving!

    Hope it helps

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    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by daveob View Post
    Dave_A's list of "great employee benefits" ( previous post ) that he "gives" to employees did not include internet access and time wasting.
    I remember the rant - damned if I can find it though

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    Diamond Member tec0's Avatar
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    That is why I hate my job. I am always a witch-hunter.

    I hate it! In honesty let you people use the net on lunchtime and stuff. It helps getting the stress down and stuff like that. I really don’t want to see people getting fired. That is why I want to point out that you can control your net use without expensive hardware. A good framework and a bit of discipline will help.

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    Gold Member twinscythe12332's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by tec0 View Post
    That is why I hate my job. I am always a witch-hunter.

    I hate it! In honesty let you people use the net on lunchtime and stuff. It helps getting the stress down and stuff like that. I really don’t want to see people getting fired. That is why I want to point out that you can control your net use without expensive hardware. A good framework and a bit of discipline will help.
    That's a good way to look at it to be honest. Enforcing policies can inadvertently cause your employees to start getting grumbly. As much as it can be seen as abuse, the sudden loss of trust/priveleges is like cutting off vehicle allowance. if you're a small company, it's easy enough to just tell everyone to go easy, give them some sites to steer clear of or visit very occasionally, and just monitor. With big companies, look at uncapped deals. they're getting cheaper.

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