Protecting our kids online is getting harder and harder, with to many chats, and social networks it is difficult to keep track of our children’s. The problem with social networking is that young kids tend to leave to much information, and that it’s a problem. We have heard cases of missing child’s because of this, so to resolve this problem I will provide you 2 easy ways to restrict Internet usage to your kids.
The first option is creating an account for your child in Windows Vista, and the second option is buying a software called “CyberPatrol” which can protect up to 3 computers with one single license. This software will do the same job as if were protecting your computer with Windows Vista.
Did you know you can create a limited account to your kids with parental control? Well Windows XP, and Vista offers this solution.
Solution #1: Create Limited account with parental control in Windows Vista
- Go to Start, Control Panel, Under Accounts and Family Safety click on “Add or remove user accounts“
- Click on “Create a new account” Select your kid name and click create account
Once you have set-up your kid account in this case I’m using “Jayden” it will appear in the account lists like the picture below. Make sure you have selected “standard account” for your kid.
Once your kid account has been created you will see under the list of accounts “Additional things you can do” click on “Set-up Parental Control” Click on your kid account to set-up parental control.
Note: To Parental Control work the administrator account has to have a password. Once you have selected your kid account you should see a similar page like the one below.
Under Parental Control option click “On, enforce current settings” Remember your administrator account has to have a password otherwise your savvy kid can disable the parental control.
Under Windows Settings you will have the ability to block website content by restrictions levels, medium is the default but you can set it in high if you want. Also you have the ability to block all downloads to the computer.
Also you can control the time your kids stays online, under Windows Settings click in “Time Limits” and select the time you will allow your kid to use the computer and stay online.
With this time chart you will restrict your kid the ability to access the computer, to select the time and days click on the first block and hold the mouse to drag the days and hours. The computer will be blocked for the user “Jayden“. Also you can select a specific day or hour by clicking on the box. Once you had selected the days and hours click OK to finish.
Also if you don’t want your kid to play games online or play games by ratings, click on “Games” in that section you will specify if you want your kid to play games or play by ratings.
Once you had selected the rule click ok to finish.
Also you have the ability to control what programs your kid should run, you can select the programs by clicking on the boxes. By default all programs are accessible to your kid. To access this rule click on “Allow and block specific programs” select the programs and click on to finish.
Now the computer is more protected and your kid will only access the Internet on the hours specified by you, also you will be able to view reports of your kid online activity. Commercial softwares are available too, if you feel you need more protection a company called
CyberPatrol has a really good software that gives you more power to block instant messaging easy. To visit this company click
here
Note: Before you buy additional programs you can block access to instant messengers by blocking the programs under “Allow and block specific programs“.
Tell us if your computer is already protected, or did you follow the steps explained in this post. Feel free to drop a comment!
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- Run Windows Advisor before upgrading to Vista!
- Restart Windows faster with warm boot!
