Another IT type questions

[Russell]

I work in a small office that has 15 computers and we want a way to limit the internet access on our front of office computers (used for sales etc). We want to limit access to websites like facebook and myspace. Is there an easy way to do this on Windows XP?

[R_Ethug]

Re: Another IT type questions

well you can simply change the host file to refernce facebook.com as localhost 127.0.0.1 or back to google even

so when they visit facebook they get page cannot be displayed or it simply goes to google instead



that will do the trick.. if they are somewhat savy they could know how to fix it of course

[Kor]

Re: Another IT type questions

Your network router may have a feature to block or redirect specific hosts. Read the manual.

Is this employees or customers accessing these sites? If you do this for employees people just find another site to waste their time on, and have less respect for the business. Why not just talk to employees and tell them not to waste so much time on the internet instead of working? Thats your real problem, management not computers.

If its for customers, do they need internet access at all? Why?

[Russell]

Re: Another IT type questions

well you can simply change the host file to refernce facebook.com as localhost 127.0.0.1 or back to google even

so when they visit facebook they get page cannot be displayed or it simply goes to google instead



that will do the trick.. if they are somewhat savy they could know how to fix it of course

I will give this a try as i don't think anyone will dig that deep to fix the problem. Thanks!

Is this employees or customers accessing these sites? If you do this for employees people just find another site to waste their time on, and have less respect for the business. Why not just talk to employees and tell them not to waste so much time on the internet instead of working? Thats your real problem, management not computers.

Wow thanks for the management tip haha.

We have a computer that is out in the open for people to view our website from (ZYN.ca), we would like to limit the websites that can be accessed on this computer as it is not for people checking there facebook etc its to compare pricing and product information. We also have computers that run as POS tills, people are welcome to use there desktop computers for checking gmail etc but the tills should not be used for this.

[timdog]

Re: Another IT type questions

if they only need access to a few specific sites for price comparison and product information maybe you can do it the other way around, and only allow the computer to access specific IP address and block all others. what model of router do you have? Is the machine a Windows box? there are probably free software options for all formats. A savvy user could work around it but should do the trick.

I do agree with Kor however that if it is employees that are the problem, no software or blocking will fix the real issue. I know this from experience.

[R_Ethug]

Re: Another IT type questions

opendns.org does a free way if you want to do the whole site.. i use it for some clients

[RobG]

Re: Another IT type questions

Is this employees or customers accessing these sites? If you do this for employees people just find another site to waste their time on, and have less respect for the business. Why not just talk to employees and tell them not to waste so much time on the internet instead of working? Thats your real problem, management not computers.

I worked somewhere that had blocked sites, I would spend more time trying to find a work around rather than on the actual site. just tell them to be respectful to the bandwidth.