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PROGRAM KEEPS TABS ON YOUR COMPUTER'S USERS

Do you know where your children have been online? Do you know what your spouse has been doing on your computer? Are your employees tending to business or monkey business? The answers to these and other burning questions can be found with one word. Spector. No, it's not a real word but rather it's is a real program from Spectorsoft. Once Spector is installed in only a few minutes on your PC, you will be able to track every activity performed and every screen that's seen on your computer. Every email read and written, chat room visited, web site surfed, literally everything is captured by Spector and surreptitiously saved into a secret hidden file that only the Spector installer can access.

Spector defaults to taking a screen snapshot every 30 seconds. Using a proprietary form of compression, Spector takes up only a scant 10 megabytes of storage to hold a full day's worth of activity at this rate. You can change this parameter to be longer than the default or as frequent as every second. When you wish to see what's been happening on the computer while you were away, pressing a predefined sequence of keys will bring forth the hidden access screen. But even if this were accidentally evoked by someone other than yourself, they would still need the password before accessing the hidden activity files. Review of the activities is as easy as watching a movie on the computer's screen. Captured screens can be watched in real time or advanced and rewound at a pace of ones choosing.

According to Spectorsoft, Spector's use is perfectly legal by employers looking to check up on employees as well as parents checking on their children's activities. Where it becomes gray is its use on a spouse. And again according to Spectorsoft, it would seem that Spector is used mostly by significant others checking up on each other.

When activated, Spector's "stealth" mode will record at even the highest rate without causing a lot of hard disk activity that could lead to the raising of suspicions by unwary users. When asked why bother to have a stealth mode in the first place, it seems that many companies using the program want their work force to know it's being used. A small red square is displayed in the Windows system tray depicting Spector's presence. Companies reason that employees will behave if they know their work is being tracked. It seems that most companies don't want to give their employees the rope to hang themselves.

Spectorsoft also makes eBlaster, a companion program that will email you the results and alert you to the activities taking place on your computer from a remote location.

Spector ($69.95) works with Windows 95 or higher. A Macintosh version should be available in a few weeks.

Spectorsoft www.spectorsoft.com (888) 598-2788

I can see the light!

If you haven't seen the light, Kensington can help when it comes to your portable computer. The FlyLight is a small bulb-free LED lamp with a flexible neck that gets its power from your computer's USB port. Using less than 90 seconds per hour of your battery's charge, it provides a clean white light that makes documents easy to see in the dark as well as providing extra light to your keyboard. Kensington says the light will never wear out and is fully operational with any USB port on a PC or Macintosh. $19.95.

www.kensington.com 800-235-6708