Protect Your Child on the Internet

Parental Peace of Mind The advent of the Internet, in some respects, made the job of parenting a little harder. We want our children to experience the vast wealth of knowledge available on the Internet and communicate with their friends online (frees up the telephone). Unfortunately, it also exposes our children to potentially inappropriate material, obscene pop-up ads, and even sexual predators. In fact, research indicates that 1 in 5 children aged 10 to 17 have received a sexual solicitation over the Internet. This is definitely not something any parent wants to hear. But every parent is forced to face this new reality. We need a little assurance that when our children access the web, they can do so safely. Internet filters are crucial to protect your children. One tool that can assist us in this goal is Internet Parental Control software. One of the top names in parental control software is ContentWatch, makers of NetNanny. Since the Big Mouse himself recommends this product, then it has to be good. If Disney feels good enough to install three of the ContentWatch products in their Disney Dream Desk PC, it has to be worthy. After all, they are willing to stake their reputation on it. Internetfilterreviews.com rated Net Nanny 6.0 the #1 Internet filtering software. It is easy to install, configure, and customize. If you do have any problems, ContentWatch provides unlimited toll-free technical support. Net Nanny 6.0 blocks pornography, hate sites, questionable chat rooms, and other known dangers of the Internet. You can even configure the program to block online game and gambling sites, and make it so your children can only install and play computer games with parental ratings that you deem appropriate. Other features include: · Integration with Safe Search features in popular search engines · Reports of your children's internet activity · Logs of your child's chat room and instant messages · Reports if your child tries to remove or disable protection · Filters bad content on Peer-to-Peer networks and other areas · Password protected access for parents · Customizable restrictions for each family member. · Automatic software updates at no additional cost. If you need to install the product on multiple computers, the software allows you to carry over customized settings to each of your computers thus saving time and creating consistency. ContentWatch provides a two-week, no-obligation free trial of the full version. The product costs $28.99. This is a one time purchase price which will give you unlimited use of the service. You never have to renew a subscription or pay any additional membership fees for use of the program. It seems like a reasonable price for a little parental peace of mind.

Fighting Spam

How prevalent is Spam? According to Scott McAdams, OMA Public Affairs and Communications Department (www.oma.org):

“Studies show unsolicited or “junk” e-mail, known as spam, accounts for roughly half of all e-mail messages received. Although once regarded as little more than a nuisance, the prevalence of spam has increased to the point where many users have begun to express a general lack of confidence in the effectiveness of e-mail transmissions, and increased concern over the spread of computer viruses via unsolicited messages.”

In December of 2003, President Bush signed the “Can Spam” bill, in which is the first national standards around bulk unsolicited commercial e-mail. The bill, approved by the Senate by a vote of 97 to 0, prohibits senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail from using false return addresses to disguise their identity (spoofing) and the use of dictionaries to generate such mailers. In addition, it prohibits the use of misleading subject lines and requires that emails include an opt-out mechanism. The legislation also prohibits senders from harvesting addresses off of websites. Violations constitute a misdemeanor crime subject to up to one year in jail. One major point that needs to be discussed about this is that spam is now coming from other countries in ever-greater numbers. These emails are harder to fight, because they come from outside our country’s laws and regulations. Because the Internet crosses borders and thinks globally, these laws are fine and good, but do not stop the problem. So what do you do about this? Here are the top 5 Rules to protect from spam. Number 1: Do what you can to avoid having your email address out on the net.

There are products called “spam spiders” that search the Internet for email addresses to send email to. If you are interested, do a search on “spam spider” and you will be amazed at what you get back. Interestingly, there is a site, WebPoison.org, which is an open source project geared to fight Internet "spambots" and "spam spiders", by giving them bogus HTML web pages, which contain bogus email addresses. A couple suggestions for you: a) use form emails, which can hide addresses or also b) use addresses like sales@company.com instead of your full address to help battle the problem. c) There are also programs that encode your email, like jsGuard, which encodes your email address on web pages so that spam spiders find it difficult or impossible to read your email address.

Number 2: Get spam blocking software.

There are many programs out there for this. (go to http://www.cloudmark.com/ or http://www.mailwasher.net/ for example). You may also buy a professional version. Whatever you do, get the software. It will save you time. The software is not foolproof, but they really do help. You usually have to do some manual set up to block certain types of email.

Number 3: Use the multiple email address approach.

There are a lot of free email addresses to be had. If you must subscribe to newsletters, then have a “back-up” email address. It would be like giving your cell phone number to your best friends and the business number to everyone else.

Number 4: Attachments from people you don’t know are BAD, BAD, BAD.

A common problem with spam is that they have attachments and attachments can have viruses. Corporations often have filters that don’t let such things pass to you. Personal email is far more “open country” for spammers. General rule of thumb: if you do not know who is sending you something, DO NOT OPEN THE ATTACHMENT. Secondly, look for services that offer filtering. Firewall vendors offer this type of service as well.

Number 5: Use your E-mail service's “bulk-mail” baskets.

If what you use currently does not support this, think about moving to a new vendor. The concept is simple. If you know someone, they can send you emails. If you don’t know them, put them in the bulk email pile and then “choose” to allow them into your circle. Spam Blocking software has this concept as well, but having extra layers seems critical these days, so it is worth looking into.

Put as many of these safeguards into practice as you possibly can, and your spam problems wll be greatly diminished.

Mind Mapping Software

I have found something that may interest you. If you ever try to organize your thoughts--whether from a simple grocery-shopping trip to writing the Great American Novel--then you might want to try this absolutely FREE product. It is called FreeMind and is designed for mind mapping. If you are not familiar with the term "mind mapping," it is basically a way to gather all those random thoughts that flit through your mind when you are thinking about something. Or, like me, if you are trying to put together some organized theme, it helps to organize the various threads of thought. For a more complete explanation of the concept click here. The software is a free download--you don't even have to register. It is available for Windows and Mac, and at different levels of usability. I've only been using it a few days now, and have found it to be beneficial. Although not necessarily intuitive, the learning curve is not steep, which for me is important. I've not explored all its capabilities, but what I have seen is powerful.

When I've tried mind-mapping with paper and pencil, I always end up with a mess; or I run out of space on the paper.

When I am working on putting my thoughts together, they are coming at me from many different places. Then, as I try to add the sub-sub-thoughts to the sub-thoughts of the main thought, I have no space left. Or, I must draw long lines to another section of the page in order to continue.

Not so with this tool.

You begin with the main thought and add thoughts to it. The software keeps your page balanced by starting a new sub-thought opposite the last one--across from the main thought box. If it begins to get too crowded, a simple click and drag is all that is necessary to move an entire group to a different area. The lines stretch and stay connected during this process. So far, I have not found a limit to the depth of sub-thoughts one can go. The sidebar has a long selection of various icons that can be embedded next to a thought, including numbers, flags, emoticons, arrows, etc. This tool can also be used for planning your day, scheduling aspects of a project you are working on, thinking through the essay or book you want to write, planning a sermon or Sunday-School lesson, or whatever. The possibilities are probably endless. Saving whatever you are working on is easy--almost mindless. This eliminates having a legal pad nearby that I have to thumb through to get to my last mind-mapping; or having papers scattered around with my thoughts randomly scratched in different places. Having this tool with its icon on my desktop for ready use may just solve some of my scattered thinking that sometimes goes nowhere. Grab your own copy of FreeMind here.

Thanks to Glenn Brooke of Teach The Bible To Change Lives for turning me on to this new software.