5 tips for keeping your kids safe online

A reading reco for you today.

* Keep your children safe online

“No parent wants their child to fall prey to the dangers online, but it’s hard to know exactly how to protect young ones today. From malware to video game addiction, it can seem like the Internet is a vast sea of dangers.

We’ve mapped out the most important online threats for kids today, as well as laid out our top five tips on how to help your little one safely navigate the web. Address the issue of online safety now and help your child develop the digital smarts they need to stay out of harm’s way.” Read more..

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Today’s quote: “Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.” ~ Henri Nouwen

Copyright 2007-2015 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All weq really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

For Your Saturday

I have two items for you today, Folks.

First up, in case you missed it: Help Protect Your Kids On The Internet With DNS Angel

“Keeping our kids from being exposed to the bad sites on the internet, such as pornography, is a real challenge. There are numerous software options that a parent can install to protect their kids, but knowing what I know about software, computers and parenting; the software option often falls through the cracks. Besides, most people […]” Read more..

.. and then one more “fun” video.

Hope you’re having a wonderful weekend!

Today’s quote: “Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Copyright 2007-2013 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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All we really have, in the end, are our stories.
Make yours great ones. Ones to be proud of.

Father shoots teen’s laptop after ‘disrespectful’ Facebook post

This happened a month ago.. and I somehow missed it, and didn’t “hear anyone talking” until just now.

Video goes viral on YouTube

A video of an angry American father pumping nine slugs from a handgun into his daughter’s laptop has gone viral on YouTube and sparked an impassioned online debate over his parenting skills.

Watch the video below, then continue on to the story.

“Tommy Jordan, of North Carolina, explains in the video, which he titled “Facebook Parenting: for the troubled teen,” that he was upset by a Facebook post by his 15-year-old daughter in which she complained about her parents.

“This is for my daughter, Hannah, and more importantly for all her friends on Facebook who thought her little rebellious post was cute,” Read more..

What I thought was interesting was the daughter thought her Settings choices would keep her writings private…

On the Internet…

Maybe she thought she could just “delete” it if she every changed her mind about it, too.. (No. You cannot “delete” things from the Internet. And if there’s a chance you might not want others to see it? Don’t post it.)

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Related reading: Here’s Why I Do Not Do Facebook…

“Thought I would throw this article out there from MSNBC – The Redtape Chronicles , titled: Govt. agencies, colleges demand applicants’ Facebook passwords If you think privacy settings on your Facebook and Twitter accounts guarantee future employers or schools can’t see your private posts, guess again. Employers and colleges find the treasure-trove of personal information” […] Read more..

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Not related: A Windows veteran looks at Win8 Consumer Preview
By Woody Leonhard

“If you download and install Windows 8 Consumer Preview, released late last week, I can almost guarantee that you won’t like it.

I know only a handful of experienced Windows users (who don’t work for or with Microsoft) who say they like Windows 8. But it’s the future, eh?” Read more..

(Maybe the best read on Windows 8 I’ve seen so far..)

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Today’s quote: “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” ~ Dr. Seuss

Yeah. Right.

Gotta run. I do hope to get back here.. but if I don’t, I hope you have a great day!

Copyright 2007-2012 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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A Quick Reco For Parents (and a bonus)

If you are a parent, or teacher, you may want to know about a “video tutorial” resource. This is not something you ask your kids to watch – it’s for you.

CyberSafe with Steve Dotto

“The new videos focus on social media and provide teachers and parents with a better understanding of what to look for and how to protect children in the digital age.

They are short and concise and help adults quickly understand the dangers and how to avoid them.”

I highly recommend you take a look at the intro video, and then explore..! Check it out, here.

Also (aka “the ‘bonus’): Launch of Google’s Emergency Public Alert Service

“Today’s post is an important one that ultimately and literally could be a lifesaver. Google, in conjunction with their mapping technology, has launched a platform service called Google Public Alerts that is designed to help you find critical emergency information during a crisis.” Read more..

Today’s quote: “History shows that there is nothing so easy to enslave and nothing so hard to emancipate as ignorance, hence it becomes the double enemy of civilization. By its servility it is the prey of tyranny, and by its credulity it is the foe of enlightenment.” ~ Lemuel K. Washburn

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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Keeping Your Child Safe Online

Folks, rogue antivirus infections have me doing non-stop repairs, as the hackers are “poisoning” more websites (please see [and refer friends and family to] Your Computer Is Lying To You… The Epidemic Of Rogues).

I only have time to suggest two quick recommendations, which contain much good information for parents. (.. Maybe, must know information..)

Neil J. Rubenking’s:

• Keep Your Child Safe Online

“From online bullies to perverts to the lure of time-wasters like YouTube, there are far too many ways unsupervised kids of any age can get into trouble on the Internet. We look at a baker’s dozen ways to keep your kids out of trouble online—whether they’re toddlers or teens or thirty-something return-to-the-nesters.”

• Child Safe Browsers

“How do you keep you kids on child-safe sites when you can’t watch over their shoulders as they surf? With a child-safe browser.“

Today’s free download: Download Over 5000 National Geographic Wallpapers with One Click

Today’s quote: “My riches consist not in the extent of my possessions, but in the fewness of my wants.” ~ J. Brotherton

Bonus:
• A reader wrote in and told me that Smashing Magazine was offering a free eBook, as a way of celebrating their 5th anniversary. The book contains their “Best Of” the past 5 years. For more, and to get your book, click here. And thank you, Dear Reader (you know who you are).

• Watch Out, Pandora – iHeartRadio Launches Upgraded Service

“Office cube-dwellers rejoice: there is now a much better alternative to Pandora that not only offers more music, but unlimited listening. With the upgraded version of Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio service — still in beta — music listeners can enjoy unlimited music with no ads until the end of the year. Even better is an upcoming iHeartRadio app, which will launch next week for the iPhone and soon for Android.“

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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Computer Gaming Concerns

Recent events have caused me to have “video games” front and center in my attention – and by that, of course, I mean computer games (and gaming). I play games on my computer: chess and spider solitaire (and occasionally mah jong) daily (I like to think it keeps my mind sharp); but I also – being a big kid at heart, I guess – also sometimes play those “violent video games” you hear about.

Because computer gaming has been on my mind, I decided to go back and look at what I have written on the subject. Below is the very first article I wrote on this topic. Written 4 years ago, I think it is just as appropriate for today (maybe.. more so?) and I suspect you may have missed it, so …

Gaming: a confession, a warning

When I first started writing Tech–for Everyone way back on the 8th of June (56 1,461 articles ago), I wondered how long I could go before I talked about computer gaming. I think I did fairly well at delaying the inevitable. Two things triggered this post: a user with a pre-teen boy, and my mood. I’ll look at the latter first.

This week I got into a foul mood. I became short-tempered, irritated, antsy. I was definitely ‘out of sorts’. I was not a Happy Camper. Part of this was due to the fact that I had several back-to-back days of too-much-to-do/too-little-time (can anyone relate?). I felt a bit less than “in control”.
I managed to keep up with demands, and my time-spent was successful. I not only kept afloat, but I succeeded. However, this didn’t lighten my mood.
Finally, by staying up a little longer than I should, I was able to take a break and play a conquest map of Age of Empires III, The Warchiefs (naturally, I won). Amazingly, I was calm, refreshed, and happy. I was a Happy Camper again.
Why? I realized that it had been several days since I had played a game, and I had subconsciously “missed it”, like a smoker during a long flight, or a dieter walking past the bakery. And that once I got my “fix”, I was returned to a normal psychological state. This realization has caused me to wonder if I (me! myself!) wasn’t developing a gaming “addiction”. Wow.

There have been several news stories about computer gaming; ranging from the couple who suffered financial ruin by devoting their lives completely to the online game World of Warcraft (a couple of nut-jobs, if you ask me), to the medical ramifications (carpal-tunnel) of too much controller/mouse/keyboard use … especially in children.

There is a real belief in “gaming addiction”, and there’s a doctor who’s gone so far as publicly stating that as much as 40% of all WoW players are clinically addicted to it. (Read the article) Consider that there’s at least six and-a half 11.4 million people subscribing, and you realize that that’s a LOT of people … and that’s just one game. It is my belief that these news stories will only increase in number; that as our society becomes more and more of a shut-in society, and more of our interactions take place online, topics along this line will only grow. Google “World of Warcraft+divorce” and you’ll see 747,000 6,450,000 results. WoW!
If your friends are telling you you’re an addict, please … don’t take it as a compliment. Take a serious look at yourself, before you lose everything.
[Update: I understand the ‘hot new thing’ is a yet-to-be-released Guild Wars 2..]

That said, I do play computer games; and if you’re curious, I like the WW II FPS titles (Call of Duty, Medal of Honor), air combat simulators (Lock On, Il-2, Microsoft), and civilization games  [update: for some reason, I haven’t played any of those last in years] And good-old Solitaire. I play a couple of games a day, to “unwind”. I think I’m alright… I haven’t, as yet, spent real money on ‘magic armor’.

The second topic I mentioned was the lady with the pre-teen son. She keeps having “weird pop ups”, and her machine is “always so slow.” I had installed a security suite, and the full gamut of protections onto her machine, and yet she keeps having these issues. She asked me, “why does this keep happening?”
I asked her several questions and looked over her logs and histories. She told me she has a 12 year-old son, and that as soon as he gets home from school he goes straight to the computer to “do homework” … that he spends quit a bit of time on the PC. Well! I was once a 12 year-old boy, and I remember well how much time in the afternoon — freshly released from scholarly confinement — I spent on homework. None. Zero. Nada. (At least, not willingly.)
Sure enough, a look at IE’s browsing history (read how to do this here) did not reveal any instances of National Geographic, The History Explorer, Encyclopedia Brittanica, or “math help” (or anything else even vaguely homework-related), but revealed endless explorations of Flash games, online games, and “cheat codes”.
I looked at his download history and found plenty of “demo games”, magic swords and shields, and other “bonuses” he’d earned playing his online games. Could one of those ‘magic swords’ (or demo-games) have contained spyware??? Does spyware slow down your machine? Cause pop ups? Well … (duh) YES!

Tip of the day: Here’s the thing most folks fail to fully grasp — when you let your child run under your User Account, he’s running with full administrator privileges and can install programs unrestricted and when you click on “download this file”, you’re bypassing your protection. (It has to be this way, or you’d never get anything done) You are telling your anti-malware apps, “it’s OK. I know what I’m doing.” A 12 year-old boy, caught up in the excitement at having just “triumphed” and earning himself a +2 Sword of Sharpness, probably doesn’t know what he’s doing, and he will click “download your prize now!”
98% of the time, it’s harmless fun. How can you tell which demo game or ‘magic shield’ is safe, and which one’s contain spyware? You can’t. Sorry. Like I said, 98% of them are safe.

If you missed my series on protecting your kids on the Internet, you can learn how to remedy this — creating a Limited User Account, and cranking up IE’s security, etc. — by clicking here.

Internet News: Massive Phishing Attack Hits Tumblr

Users of the Tumblr microblogging service have been hit hard over the last few days with a phishing attack that steals user credentials.

Other gaming news: If you have a Steam account, you can now get Team Fortress for free.

And, oh, yeah. There is a $1,000,000 Call of Duty tournament …

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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Safer Internet Day

Safer Internet Day: 8 February 2011

It’s more than a game, it’s your life

Safer Internet Day is organised by Insafe each year in February to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, especially amongst children and young people across the world.

Parents, click the link.. check it out.

Also, take a look at Google’s Family Safety Center

“We know how important it is to protect and educate young people on using the Internet and want to provide all of our users with a safe experience.

When it comes to family safety, we aim to:

• Provide parents and teachers with tools to help them choose what content their children see online
• Offer tips and advice to families about how to stay safe online
• Work closely with organizations such as charities, others in our industry and government bodies dedicated to protecting young people”

Related: To see my many articles on kids and the Internet, click here.

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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