Tag Archives: monitor

Kurupira: Block Websites & Programs, Disable Internet And Track Usage

by on
1
Are you worried that your kids are wasting their time on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube? They spend more time playing video games and less in School? With Kurupira Web Filter installed on your PC, you won’t need to be concerned any more. It is an application and website blocking tool that lets you easily blacklist certain URLs and your computer programs, so nobody can access them. In addition, you can control how much time your kids are allowed to spend on the internet via blocking it for a particular period of time in a day or on certain days. The application is quite handy to keep an eye on your children, so they don’t lurk around on various harmful websites, containing material about violence, pornography, profanity, online games and so on. This also prevents a number of viruses and worms from entering your PC, as such websites usually contain various malicious threats. In addition, you may also seize access to selected software on your PC, for say, applications containing your important projects, media players, games etc. Kurupira comprises straightforward usage and is quite easy to configure, too. Furthermore, it can track and show a complete history log, as well as graphical reports regarding application and domain usage. Read More

Monitor Up To 4 Different Websites In An Ad-Free Interface [Mac]

by on
Leave a comment
A web browser, at its core, is a feature rich app for viewing websites. It is, however, meant for more than just viewing websites and browsing cat pictures. Modern browsers are smart, support add-ons and extensions, provide developers tools for creating web portals and many now exist for both desktop and mobile platforms (Safari, Inter Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and Opera). For simpler web viewing needs - ones that might not require multi-tab browsing and are more focused on monitoring a site - smartView is a free Mac app that can step in. Free throughout July and available in the Mac App Store, smartView normally costs $0.99. The app is meant for segregated viewing of up to four websites. Each site appears in its own window and is free of ads. At its core, smartView is a web viewer; however, it is suitable for monitoring web pages, for opening your frequently visited websites, keeping them separate from your browser and easily switching between them. Read More

EmproNetUsgAlert Alerts You When Daily Allowed Bandwidth Is Exceeded

by on
1
Internet Service Providers offer various internet packages to their customers. Some comprise of unlimited bandwidth, which means you're not bordered with any kind of monthly volume. Others come with data caps and you're not allowed to go past that cap, depending upon your ISPs terms and polices. If your internet subscription package allows you to use unlimited bandwidth, then you probably don’t need any bandwidth usage monitoring tool, however, in case your internet connection has a data bandwidth cap, you should keep a track of how much data is being uploaded and downloaded in order to avoid extra usage. Although I own a package with unlimited bandwidth, I still like to keep an eye on how much data I upload and download. This gives me glace over how much data is being transferred to and from my PC. For this purpose, I use NetSpeedMonitor, a network monitoring application that displays the current upload and download rate and maintains a record of the total data transferred during a day. Recently, i found another such tool labelled as EmproNetUsgAlert. The application is designed to monitor bandwidth usage and alert you when a specified limit is crossed. Keep reading for more details. Read More

MailChecker: Get System Tray Notification Pop-Ups For New Email

by on
Leave a comment
There are some emails that require your immediate attention, and a prompt response is the key to making or breaking a deal. If you have your email account open in your browser, you will receive a notification whenever a new email arrives in your inbox. However, if you do not have it open in any browser, it is very easy to miss the new email (unless you use a desktop email client, of course), and we all know how bad that can turn out to be. So, what do you do? Keep a browser open at all times? Users of Firefox know how costly it is on the system resources even if you have only one tab open. Instead, give MailChecker a try. It is an open source email monitoring application that notifies you every time you receive a new email in your inbox. The application alerts you through a visual notification, as well as sounding an alarm. Currently, it only supports Gmail accounts in our experience. Learn how to setup MailChecker after the break. Read More

Verity: Protect Your Kids By Blocking Harmful Websites & Applications

by on
Leave a comment
Monitoring the internet use of children has become almost a necessity for parents if they want to ensure that their child is not being exposed to adult or harmful material. Internet is now filled with so much time wasting and potentially harmful content that you can easily lose focus whether your child is doing his school work or browsing around the YouTube or other streaming sites. How much monitoring and control there should be, is, however, a debatable topic. And depends on the country and culture you're part of. Previously, we have covered some nice parental control and monitoring software, such as Qustodio, Weblock For Kids, The Web Blocker, Activity Monitor and Cyberoids Web Blocker. All these aforementioned tools are quite handy to keep your children safe from various forbidden activities on the internet. Verity is another such parental control software that allows you to monitor and track the computer and internet activity of your child. You can block websites and applications with parental controls and track activity by user, program, keystrokes, mouse clicks and screenshots. It lets you view what you kids are doing on the computer and online in an easy, non-invasive manner. More on Verity after the break. Read More

Windows Explorer Tracker Logs User Activity & USB Connection In PC

by on
1
Ever wondered where does all the data that is automatically downloaded from the internet during browsing goes? Windows creates temporary folders and stores relevant files in them for saving the text, images, audio and video content found on a web page. At the end of the session or upon system restart, these files and folders are deleted and space is made available for new data. However, all of this happens in the background and there is no visual indicator of a temporary files being created, edited, moved or deleted from your system. If you want to monitor the activity in your hard drive regarding operations such as creation and deletion of files and folders, try Windows Explorer Tracker. It is an application for Windows that lets you monitor and automatically record operations done in Windows Explorer, such as Delete, Rename, Create, Insert, Add and Remove action of files and folders. Other that that, it also detects and stores the date and time when a USB flash drive was inserted or removed from the system. Windows Explorer Tracker can also be used to track and record operations on remote host via the mapped network drives. The date and time information is stored in log files which are named according to date for easy retrieval. Keep reading to find out more about Windows Explorer Tracker. Read More

Monitor File Creation Activity Across Disk Volumes Using File Extension Monitor

by on
2
You may know that when you uninstall an application, it doesn’t remove all those files and folders which were created during the execution of the application. The applications’ left over data has to be manually removed to save precious disk space, but what if you can’t find the locations where files and folders created by uninstalled applications are residing? File Extension Monitor is a small application that lets you monitor files that are being created by both system and user applications’ processes. The utility may come useful in situations where one needs to monitor activity of any application’s thread. It also helps you identify thread(s) of uninstalled application, which is surreptitiously creating files on the disk. By default, the application monitors all types of files, but you can specify the file formats which are to be monitored. The application silently monitors file creation activity from system tray. You can choose to disable the monitoring process from system tray menu. Read More

DHE Drive Info: Portable Tool To View Detailed Hard Drive Statistics

by on
Leave a comment
Preventing hard drives from failures and crashes can avert the loss of important data, but assessing the health of your hard disk manually can be time consuming. When a hard disk is working, temperatures increase during processing and read/write operations. Heavy applications, such as virtual machines, put a lot of stress on the hard disk. In order to keep the hard disk working fine and making sure that it does not crash, you have to keep an eye on how it is performing. DHE Drive Info is a portable application for Windows that lets you view the detailed information about connected hard disks according to their partitions. The application has options to view the basic information, S.M.A.R.T. data, S.M.A.R.T. Logs, Control different settings of the hard disk, view Hidden Areas and access the Sector Browser. Moreover, the system tray of DHE Drive Info shows the current temperature of the hard disk. Read on to find out more about DHE Drive Info. Read More

Care4Teen: Parental Control Tool That Automatically Creates Screencasts Upon Detection Of Inappropriate Content

by on
2
There has always been a debate on whether the internet does more bad than good for the young users. On one hand, the free availability of everything allows kids to research and study articles and news, but on the other, the number of inappropriate websites increasing day by day can really corrupt those young minds. Protecting their children from these websites as they browse through the internet is the responsibility of parents, but to protect them, first they have to know if their curious kids are accessing any inappropriate content or not. Parental control applications are a great way to keep tabs on your kids and restrict what they can access and view online. Care4Teen is an application for Windows that allows you to monitor, control and block the content viewed by your children, even remotely. Read More

Monitor & Export Registry Changes Made By A Process Using RegFromApp

by on
Leave a comment
Windows Registry is an operating system database that stores the configuration settings in Windows. It contains settings for operating system components, as well as information about hardware. In fact, every application you install on your PC, gets registered in the registry. Just like you'd keep a written record of your finances on a physical register, Windows registry works pretty much the same. Sometimes, you need check certain changes they may have been made to the registry, such as an infected file or a malfunctioning file.  RegFromApp is a portable application for Windows that may help you in this very task. Developed by NirSoft, the application monitors the changes made to registry by any selected application. Should you unaware of NirSoft, the company originated from its original developer Nir Sofer, an active Windows developer.  RegFromApp allows you to create a standard RegEdit registration file that includes all the changes made by the chosen application. The changes are saved in a standard Window Registry File (REG), that can be used to import/export the changes to another system. Read past the jump for more details and screenshots. Read More

ServiceCommander: Manage & Monitor Windows Services On Networked PCs

by on
Leave a comment
The best thing about Windows users society is that you can find almost any kind of software containing features not available in out of the box Windows experience. For instance, some days ago we covered Windows Service Monitor, an open source utility that lets you monitor, start and stop user-specified services directly from the system tray without having to open the Windows Task Manager or Service Control Manager. This makes it a tad bit easier to control or halt the behavior of those services with out going through a few additional clicks. Today, we have another tool, ServiceCommander, that allows you to Start, Stop, Pause, Resume or Restart selected services on any computer on your network from the system tray. What sets ServiceCommander apart from the formerly-reviewed tool, is its ability to control and manipulate services on networked PCs, a highly useful feature for many system/network administrators. The program lets you easily add services to the monitoring list, and displays the control functions of each service in the system tray. It also enables you to start, stop or restart all added services at once, as well as direct access to the default Windows applications of Service, Event Viewer and Task Manager. Read More

Windows Service Monitor: Lightweight Windows Process Monitoring Tool

by on
Leave a comment
System administrators need to constantly monitor some services on their machines in order to perform the defined tasks without any glitches. These services need to kept running at all times, so that their respective applications can work flawlessly. For instance, a service that automatically restarts itself after every few minutes might sometimes fail to do so, and important information might be lost because of its unavailability. If you need to monitor a service, or frequently start/stop certain Windows or third party services, Windows Service Monitor is exactly what you need. It is an open source application that lets you monitor, start and stop user-specified services from the system tray. Read more about this utility after the break. Read More

DisplayFusion Is A Complete Dual Monitor Manager For Windows

by on
2
We all started working on our PCs on a single screen. Time went past pretty quite and now many of us love working with multiple screens placed on our desktop. Although Windows let you connect you multiple displays at the same time to extend real estate, its doesn't let you control what's being displayed on each screen separately. For instance, you cannot use different wallpapers on a dual or triple screen setup. Various third-party tools let you do just that, and one such of those is DisplayFusion. It is a multi-display desktop window manager that lets you adjust Resolution, Refresh Rate and Color Depth of each monitor separately. It allows you to set primary monitor, manage its position and change wallpapers of both monitors independent of each other. It enables snapping of windows to both edges of each monitor screen, and installs a button to quickly switch application windows between multiple monitors. All the tasks can be performed by user-customizable hotkeys such as Maximize/Minimize Window, Send Window To Back, Move Window To Next Monitor etc. Even though the Pro version of DisplayFusion hosts a lot of extended functions, the free version is enough for basic multi-display management. Read More

Bear: View All GDI & User Objects Of Applications To Identify Memory Leaks

by on
Leave a comment
You may know that Windows native Application Program Interface, namely GDI (Graphics Device Interface), handles and represents all graphics-related objects and transmit these objects to output devices such as display monitor, multimedia projectors, printers etc. Not only does it keep all graphical objects present in running processes including Explorer, DWM (Desktop Windows Manager ), Client Server Runtime Processes etc stable, it also enables user and system processes to draw graphical objects on multiple output devices (display monitors, printers, etc). If you're a software developer who likes to check GDI objects memory footprint for your developed applications, Bear is probably just what you need. It's a portable application that is developed to show resource usage of all GDI objects & user objects, and handle count. You can check how many bitmaps, palette, Font, DC, Brush and other graphical objects are used by each application and process. Since it displays usage of all graphical objects that are being used by applications,  you can easily identify objects of those apps and processes, which are causing memory leak problems. Read More

Control Screen Brightness And Turn Off Monitor With iBrightness

by on
10
Picture clarity in modern displays depend on the difference between brightness and contrast ratio. The farther these two are to each other, the better your image or video would look. Surely, keeping your LCD brightness high during gaming sessions or while watching a movie does make sense, as the picture becomes more vivid and bright. But when you're using your PC at night with the lights turned off, doesn’t the screen seem a bit too bright? It puts strain on your eyes, and in the worst case scenario, can also harm your eyesight. Furthermore, when you're surfing the web or doing some writing stuff on MS Word or writing an important email to your boss, you don't want to keep the brightness level to the full. Whether you know it or not, more brightness also squeezes out more electricity, thus hefty bills to be paid at the end of the month. Although, you can change brightness level from within your LCD's OSD, with iBrightness, a brightness control tool for Windows, you'd keep monitor power and display brightness controls at your fingertips. Whilst you can change the screen brightness from native display options available in Control Panel, iBrightness provides you a unified interface to change brightness. What's more, it also enables to turn off monitor and activate desktop screensaver. More details after the break. Read More

Monitor Multiple Computers From A Single PC Using Computer Monitor

by on
Leave a comment
When i first entered the world of PC overclocking, i would always run extensive stability tests, to maintain a perfect balance between CPU temperature and performance. Stability tests such as 24 hour our session of Prime95 burn-in test would require constant monitoring. When running such processes on multiple computers at the same time, it is both time consuming and inefficient to check if it encountered any errors. For instance, when you leave for work and you also need to keep an eye on if the stability test failed in between or not. With the advancements in technology, most of our tasks have been made easier, and nuisances, almost vanished. If you needed to keep a watch on running processes on a remote PC, such as the one i started earlier, then Computer Monitor might lend a helping hand. It is a Java based application that can remotely monitor computers on a network from a single PC. The application lets you set a password for your server to prevent unauthorized access to its screen and you can refresh the screen to view the current status of running apps and processes. It has two components; a Server and Client. You have to run the Server on the PC (server PC) which needs to be monitored from Client PC (secondary PC). Read More

Websites Cop: Monitor, Repair & Get Notifications For Webpage Changes

by on
Leave a comment
Keeping an eye on your website is more important than focusing solely on its cosmetics. Although an elegant looking website generates more traffic, people would definitely avoid it if it's infected with viral and malicious codes. Hackers always try to target popular and good looking websites, so owners of such web services always provide utmost security to its users. Websites Cop is a lightweight tool that is able to monitor specified files on your website. If any changes are made on your webpage without your permission (for instance, if a hacker infects your webpage with a malicious code), Websites Cop will send you an email alert and automatically repair the damage by restoring original files. This is quite important in that if the infected files are not repaired, they can affect your webpage’s visitors. The application sends real-time email notifications if someone tries to modify your webpage, and lets you edit set remote directory for each single file and creates logs for errors. Set the application to start with Windows, and it will run quietly in the system tray without cluttering your taskbar. More on Websites Cop just ahead. Read More

Monitor Network Bandwidth Usage In Ubuntu Linux With NTM

by on
1
NTM (Network Traffic Monitor) is an open source network traffic monitoring application for Linux-based operating systems, which displays network bandwidth usage by integrating with the default Network Monitor. It does not require root privileges to function, and can be configured to disconnect when a user-defined threshold is reached. NTM is useful for users who may have an internet connection with bandwidth limit imposed by their ISP. Read More

Find Out Website Status In Chrome With Server Monitor

by on
Leave a comment
A while ago we reviewed EasyNetMonitor which is a portable network and website monitoring tool that allows you to check if a specified website or network computer is down. Unfortunately, the free version of this app (which we reviewed), only allows adding two websites or network systems to be monitored. In order to monitor more hosts, users are required buying the full version. Server Monitor is a Google Chrome extension that enables you to monitor unlimited number of specified URLs to check if a website is down.  It can also be used to monitor a personal blog or associated website status. Read More

Monitor Health Of Upto 10 Servers In Network With Windows Health Monitor

by on
2
Windows Health Monitor is a powerful monitoring utility which is developed by ManageEngine - famous for developing Enterprise IT Management Software. The free application is designed for large-scale network models, where system administrators are dealing with more than 100 nodes with around 10 servers working simultaneously. While it is compatible with both commonly used Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008, it can be used in a small LAN as well, where systems are running Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.  As far as inspection is concerned, it is designed to monitor bandwidth and disks utilization, including disc space, read & write functions, and network traffic with an option to define a threshold in order to consistently observe CPU and memory utilization of running servers. The application monitors all the elements in real-time, however, you can specify refresh time according to your requirements. Read More