How to use your PICstick

Viewing Logs

From the moment your PICstick is enabled, it will log all computer activity, whether the stick is inserted or not. This section will explain how to view the logs.

You will be able to:

  • discover which websites have been visited
  • read the content of instant messaging conversations (IMS)
  • view any violations made (for example, if a child has attempted to visit a banned website).

To View Websites Logs:

  1. Click on the green ‘pic’ logo at the bottom right hand side of your screen. (This can be found next to the time display)
  2. Enter your password and click ‘OK’
  3. Simply click on the violations/ websites/ applications/ chat area of the PICstick you wish to view.  (You can choose whether you wish to view logs from when the PICstick was not inserted, or from when the named PICstick was inserted.)
  4. A list of the websites that have been visited will be listed.

Website logs

  1. Usually a huge number of websites will be recorded, which may appear quite daunting. Using the green arrows at the top of the screen, you can select whether you view details from today, the last 2,3,7,14 or 30 days, or even from the last year.
  2. If you wish to investigate the nature of the sites, you can do so by right-clicking on the name of the website. You then select visit this site from the menu displayed. (In certain cases web pages will not display correctly. This is most likely to be because they are not "real" web sites as such, but PICstick has still logged the fact that the browser has sent data to these pages.)

If you decide that a site is inappropriate you may wish to block it. Simply return to the log (shown above) and right click on the undesirable web page. Select block and left click.

To View Instant Messaging Logs:

  1. Click on the green pic logo at the bottom right hand side of your screen.
  2. Enter your password and click OK
  3. Simply click on violations/ websites/ chat/ applications area of the PICstick you wish to view. (You can choose whether to view logs from when the PICstick was not inserted, or from when the named PICstick was inserted.)
  4. Click on the red chat icon located at the top of the screen.
  5. You will now see MSN messenger, AOL messenger and Yahoo messenger displayed. Any activity on these programmes can be viewed by clicking the small + symbol directly to the left of these.
  6. A list of the people who have chatted will now appear. To view these conversations, click on the small + symbol directly to the left of the name.

To View Violations

  1. Click on the green pic logo at the bottom right hand side of your screen.
  2. Enter your password and click OK
  3. Simply click on violations/ websites/ applications/ chat area of the PICstick you wish to view. (You can choose whether you wish to view logs from when the PICstick was not inserted, or from when the named PICstick was inserted.)
  4. Click on the blue violations icon located at the top of the screen.
  5. You will now see a list of the violations. An explanation of the violation is also recorded next to each listing.
    In many cases a screen shot is available. (Attempts to access blocked websites will not have a screen shot attachment).
    A full size screen shot can be accessed by left clicking on the small screen shot. (Another left click removes it).

Keep Your Software Up To Date

To ensure that you are using the very latest version of the PICStick software please remember to update your software regularly. 

To update your package:

  1. Click on the green pic logo at the bottom right hand side of your screen.
  2. Enter your password and click OK
  3. Select options from the control panel and click on check for updates.
  4. A window will automatically appear. Click on the icon to the left hand side of the window.
  5. Once your update has been successful, the following screen will be displayed.

Next: Technical support

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