FAQs
1. Is there any limitation on Licence term?
> NO, licences are issued for life of product
2. Can I review data collected from my PC on another PC?
> Yes you can review the data recorded on any number of PCs, however you can only record or collect activity on more than one PC if you have purchased a Checkstick with more than one licence.
3. The recent Computer Active magazine article gave you a 3 star rating which is good but commented on limitations on monitoring all webmail activity, why was this?
> The article incorrectly stated the ability of Checkstick to monitor webmail. All webmail activity such as Hotmail, Google mail. AOL mail etc. is recorded as snapshots and can be viewed from within the snapshot history section. We believe we would have achieved a 4 star rating by Computer Active if this had been understood.
4. How do I collect and view the user’s activity?
> You can view two types of data. Data collected via a Quick Scan and data collected as part of the recording process.
When you highlight a user name and select Quick Scan, the CheckStick will only collect the history already written to the PC, i.e. Internet Records, Email and some Instant messaging conversations. CheckStick searches across the PC for this history and then collects and presents this to you. There are no screen snapshots taken of activity during this historical period as the CheckStick software was not recording at that time.
When you “Start Recording” and later review the data collected afterwards by highlighting a user name and selecting “View History”, you will see Internet Records, Email, Instant messaging conversations and Snapshots. When the CheckStick starts recording, all internet activity and chat is also recorded via the snapshots.
5. Why can I not see activity in the internet history section?
> This would be an extremely rare occurrence but certain web browsers have a facility to clear the history of visited sites when they are closed. By doing this they remove the records that are normally interpreted by CheckStick. To overcome this CheckStick records the activity by taking snapshots of the browser window. For example, if the monitored user has Mozilla Firefox installed and uses this as the primary web browser; they could then remove their history at the end of each session. If no data was being seen in the Internet history section of Checkstick, then the data would still be seen in the snapshot history section. The snapshot film roll indicates the type of browser that was used when the snapshot took place.
> This can also occur if you are not running Checkstick as a user with Admin rights on the PC. If you are using Microsoft Vista for your operating system you need to start Checkstick by browsing the files on the stick, right clicking on the ‘Checkstick.exe’ file, and selecting ‘Run as Administrator’. You can see your access level in the top right hand corner of the main Checkstick screen.
6. I have searched for text in the “Text Search” section and it has not found a word which I know is contained in a screen snapshot?
> The text search function searches across all the history sections, including the title of the screen snapshots. However as the snapshot is an image file (photo) it cannot search for text which can be seen within the image.
7. My help file seems to have disappeared?
> It is possible but very rare that if you have certain Anti-Virus software installed that it has detected the presence of a file with the extension .exe on the memory stick and either deleted this file or moved it to a quarantine folder. Please check your anti-virus software settings. If you need to download a new copy of the help file you can do so by using a right click on the link below and select 'Save file as' from the menu.
Download help file (5.4 Mb)
8. I cannot carry out a ‘Quick Scan’ after I have started recording user activity?
> The quick scan function is disabled once you have started Checkstick recording, if you were to stop recording very shortly after starting and selected the history button this would have the same effect as a quick scan.
9. What is a "Quick Scan" and what information is collected?
> One of the unique features of Checkstick is the ability to collect web browsing and email history which may already be on the machine prior to first inserting Checkstick. The quick scan feature extracts any available history from Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Safari together with available contents of Outlook express, Windows Mail, and Windows Live mail. The details collected can then be viewed and searched using Checkstick. The legacy data collected from a quick scan will not include any snapshots as Checkstick had not been installed and was not recording at the time this activity took place.
10. Will Checkstick continue to record once the machine has been restarted?
> Yes, turning the machine on or off, or logging in or out will not impact the recording of data which will continue until the stick has been placed back into the machine and you have told it to stop recording using the 'Stop Recording' button.
11. I find it difficult to read the detail in a screen snapshot / the snapshot is not very clear?
> Double click on the snapshot image and you will see the image in its original size which will be easier to read.
12. When I select “Start Recording” the process seems to take some time to complete?
> Recording time is usually very quick but is dependent on the processing power of the PC and the number of background activities running on the PC so this can affect the time taken to load the software. At all times during the process you will see a small window with a progress bar informing you of the progress.
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