Internet Usage Highest While At Work
Posted by Administrator on Feb 19, 2006
I’ve been looking at web statistics for years and I don’t think I’ve ever seen an article that addresses the use of using the Internet for personal use while employees are at work. The image below represents a typical graph from any one of my customers. Over and over the stats always look the same. Internet usage is highest during normal business hours.
I know some of this usage is for legitimate business purposes, but I bet most employers would be shocked to see the percentage of Internet usage for business vs. Internet usage for personal use. When you translate this into productivity….Are employees being as productive as they could be if they didn’t have Internet access in the work place.
In looking at a wide spectrum of sites that I host for customers some are b2b sites, but many are not. The stats always look roughly the same. Non-business related sites have the same usage pattern as non-business related web sites.
Are you a Dallas Fort Worth business that has done any Internet usage studies on employee Internet usage? Share your data with our visitors.
Press Release Blog
Posted by Administrator on Jan 1, 2006
eSolution Enterprises is pleased to announce the launch of a new online press release site called Press Release Blog
Press Release Blog is a free press release service for businesses and non-profits looking to gain exposure for their hard copy or soft copy press releases.
How to Stop Spam
Posted by Administrator on Dec 16, 2005
Want to know how to stop spam? This might seem too simplistic, but here it goes; Eliminate free email accounts from Google (Gmail), MSN (hotmail), Yahoo Email, and all the other free email accounts offered by the big search engines, portal sites or other free email providers.
Why do I say this? If you look at Spam statistics and where in general most spam email originates from you’ll quickly see that majority of spam originates from a free email account. These are often referred to as throw-away or disposable email accounts. If this is the case, why do the major search engines, portals, or community sites offer free email? They want to entice and keep users coming back to their sites. Get something for nothing.
If you get right down to it, all the major players offering free email accounts are the entities that are most responsible for the spam issues facing Internet users today. So on one side, MSN, Yahoo, and Google provide some great services, but they also contribute greatly to the spam issue today.
This is certainly a huge topic for debate with many nuances that make for heated discussion, but when you get to the core of where spam primarily originates from, it is free email accounts.
What are your thoughts on stopping spam? Please share with our readers.
AOL Blocking Form Email
Posted by Administrator on Dec 16, 2005
Today I received word from my server admin that AOL is now blocking all form driven emails unless server owners / administrators bring servers and software into compliance with AOL standards.
For UNIX / Linux server owners, this requires in some cases major server reconfiguration which is not practical to your web server and software you may be running.
AOL is providing a white list service in which a server owner / administrator must meet certain requirements to be allowed to send newsletters and other mail through AOL’s network. Again, this is not practical in most cases.
This brings me to another point for small business owners that might use AOL for business purposes. DON’T USE AOL. If you own a domain name, use email addresses associated with your domain. It looks more professional and you’ll avoid in many cases bounced or dropped email issues you might have with an AOL account. If you don’t own a domain name, purchase one and use a commercial email address or account.
This brings me to another soap-box point; Want to get rid of SPAM? Go complain to Google, Yahoo, MSN and all the other providers of FREE email accounts. I’ll cover this in my next post.
Corporate and Business Email Use
Posted by Administrator on Oct 31, 2005
What is the proper use of business or corporate email today?
The other day I spoke with an employee of one of my corporate customers. The person I spoke with was a little indignant that a personal email message from a family member did not come through and it was really important.
It has become common place for employees to use their business email account(s) to accept personal email from family, friends, and even personal mailing lists that they subscribe too. In my opinion this is a practice that small businesses and even corporations need to address.
While I haven’t personally seen any statistics on what percentage of email that runs through a corporate network is personal vs. business, I’m guessing that stats would be fairly high.
As part of the service I provide to my business customers, I work diligently to ensure that all business email gets to its intended recipient(s) and will troubleshoot specific accounts when an issue might arrive from time to time.
As the Internet and email continue to evolve, it is becoming more and more important for email servers to be RFC compliant. This helps to minimize SPAM loop-holes and ensures that email servers are configured to standards for communicating with one another.
With all that being said, businesses need to take a closer look at how employees use corporate email. With the proliferation of Gmail, Yahoo Mail, MSN Mail, HotMail, and all the other free email services, there is really no need for an employee to use a corporate email account for personal use.
Here are some things to consider with regard to the use of corporate email accounts and personal use:
• Network Bandwidth – While this is probably minimal, personal use of corporate email uses network bandwidth and other network resources.
• SPAM – Personal use of a corporate email account could get a corporate domain name blocked for spamming. If this occurred, email for an entire company could be disrupted. (I’ve seen this happen on several occasions)
• Technical Issues – Should a company spend time / resources troubleshooting personal email issues? This happens just as I mentioned above.
• Viruses – The personal use of corporate email only increases the likelihood of viruses and other web initiated PC and network attacks.
• Personal Information – While many employees might not consider this one. Personal information or email correspondence could be exposed in the event of a network audit. I’ve seen cases where servers and email communication for an entire company were subpoenaed by a court.
While this is just scratching the surface of this issue, it’s an issue small businesses and corporations should take another look at.