14 08, 2009

Increase importing speed by utilizing dates in log file names

By | 2009-08-14T06:21:10+00:00 August 14th, 2009|How To, Log File Analysis, Uncategorized, Vantage, WebSpy|0 Comments

Using Date Modifiers in file masks are a great way to increase the speed of your imports as they remove all the logs you don’t care about from the import list. If you're using WebSpy Vantage, you are probably interested in filtering your log file imports by date (only import files from the month of June for example). The obvious way to do this is to specify a date filter using the filters page in the Input Wizard. The problem is Vantage will still check every record in every log file being imported to see if it matches the date filter. If you have months or years worth of logs in the folder being imported, that's a lot of data that Vantage has to pointlessly sift through. The good news is, if your log files contain the date in their file name, then you can use file masks to instruct Vantage to never touch these unwanted files.

11 08, 2009

Video: Setup a complete Internet monitoring solution in less than 15 minutes!

By | 2009-08-11T07:59:31+00:00 August 11th, 2009|Analyzer, How To, Live, Log File Analysis, Sentinel, Uncategorized, Web Browsing Analysis, WebSpy|0 Comments

Here's a video I put together demonstrating how to get up and running with a complete monitoring and reporting solution in less than 15 minutes. The video demonstrates three products: WebSpy Sentinel, for complete data capture, WebSpy Live for real time alerts, and WebSpy Analyzer Standard for analysis and reporting.

20 07, 2009

Convert Microsoft ISA 2006 MSDE logs to WebSpy compatible text logs

By | 2009-07-20T04:23:25+00:00 July 20th, 2009|Analyzer, Firewall Analysis, How To, Loaders, Log File Analysis, Microsoft ISA Server, Third Party, Uncategorized, Vantage, Web Browsing Analysis, WebSpy|2 Comments

A few customers have experienced some issues converting their ISA MSDE logs to text format using Microsofts MSDEToText.vbs script for ISA 2006. We've therefore created a modified version of the script that creates compatible log files for WebSpy software.

16 07, 2009

Video: How To Remove Clutter From Your Web Reports

By | 2009-07-16T09:10:02+00:00 July 16th, 2009|How To, Log File Analysis, Uncategorized, Vantage, Web Browsing Analysis, WebSpy|0 Comments

I was conducting a demonstration the other day on how to use a few tricks in WebSpy Vantage to filter out noise and clutter from web reports. If you have ever looked through the raw list of web sites visited by people in your organization, I'm sure you know what I mean. Watching a single video on YouTube will probably generate a list of about three to five sites such as lax-v41.lax.youtube.com, www.youtube.com, img.youtube.com, and so on. Your list of top sites also probably contains hits to ad servers and tracking servers, such as doubleclick.net, google-analytics.com and imrworldwide.com. All this clutter gets in the way of determining what sites were 'intentionally' visited.

15 07, 2009

Business benefits from monitoring and reporting on Internet, email and network log files

By | 2009-07-15T04:21:42+00:00 July 15th, 2009|Articles, Email Analysis, Firewall Analysis, Log File Analysis, Sales and Marketing, Uncategorized, Web Browsing Analysis, Windows Event Logs|0 Comments

In previous blogs I have covered why internet access is so important in the workplace, why blocking and filtering should be minimized, and why monitoring is preferred. Today I thought I’d focus on the specific benefits of monitoring and reporting on log files. To some it might be obvious, but plenty of search queries used [...]

9 07, 2009

Unlocking the Value of your Log Data. 10 tips to help you get started

By | 2009-07-09T03:40:58+00:00 July 9th, 2009|Articles, Uncategorized|0 Comments

This is a popular WebSpy article that we decided to re-post. Click here to download pdf version. What can log data do for you? Organisations today are deploying a variety of security solutions to counter the ever increasing threat to their email and Internet investments. Often, the emergence of new threats spawns solutions by different [...]

26 06, 2009

Vantage 2.2 now available!

By | 2009-06-26T03:55:14+00:00 June 26th, 2009|Software Updates, Uncategorized, Vantage, WebSpy, WebSpy News Update|0 Comments

I'm happy to announce the release of Vantage 2.2! All three products in the Vantage range (Premium, Giga and Ultimate) have been update with the following features: Multi-processing, Improved report styles, Updated Aliases and Profiles, Storage Repair Utility, Save / Open Tasks. Obviously, the multi-processing feature is the big one! Many of you (Vantage customers) have been running Vantage on multi-core or multi-cpu machines and just dying for Vantage to grab hold of the CPUs and make them work. You should be happy with this new build.

23 06, 2009

How to Benefit from Monitoring Good Web Activity

By | 2009-06-23T03:37:51+00:00 June 23rd, 2009|Uncategorized, WebSpy News Update|0 Comments

When talking about monitoring and reporting organizational Internet usage it is often automatically assumed that bad behaviour, security concerns and acute issues are the focus of attention. You want to find out exactly why your bandwidth costs have increased enormously, who is taking advantage of your online resources, what activity can pose a security threat [...]

15 06, 2009

U.S Army End Ban on Social Media Sites

By | 2009-06-15T05:44:22+00:00 June 15th, 2009|Uncategorized, WebSpy, WebSpy News Update|0 Comments

After blogging about an increase in Australian employers blocking social network access it is refreshing to see a more positive trend. Certain U.S. Army bases, that formerly blocked access to Web 2.0 sites, now permit users to surf to sites such as Facebook and Flickr. The Army has ordered its network managers to give soldiers [...]