HomeComputerGuide.com

Pew Internet & American Life Project (http://www.pewinternet.org) published some new statistics in December of 2007 regarding teens and the Internet:

• 32% of online teens have been contacted online by a complete stranger.
• Of teens who have been contacted, 23% say they were made scared or uncomfortable by the stranger contact.
• 32% of online teens have experienced online harassment, also called “cyberbullying”
• 42% of online youth 10-17 have been exposed to online pornography (Wolak et al, 2007)

Some steps families take:

• 74% of families have their computers in a public location
• 65% of parents say they check up on their teens after they go online
• 53% of families filter
• 45% of families have monitoring software on the computer that their child uses

In my last post I discussed the importance of using a content filter, especially for younger children who can easily stumble upon inappropriate content on the Internet.

I also mentioned communication as the number one priority for parents. Talking with your children about the Internet falls within the same realm as talking with them about illegal drugs and sex. Unfortunately, many of us shy away from talking with our kids about any of the above and just hope for the best.

If your child is young it’s pretty easy to talk to them and have a list of Internet guidelines or rules like these at safekids.com. http://safekids.com/kids-rules-for-online-safety/

If your children are older and more tech savvy, you can start just by asking them to teach you about the Internet. Ask them to show you the cool sites they visit or explain instant messaging to you. By opening up the dialogue in this way it can often open the door to discuss things like safety and what’s appropriate.

Talk with your children, and use either a free web filter (K9) or a paid service to filter and monitor Internet use.

The Internet has opened wide the doors to communication and information but it’s our responsibility to teach our children to use it wisely.

Regards,

-Bert

A good friend of mine told me a story not long ago. His 10-year-old daughter was doing a school report about baby chickens. Turning to the Internet for help with her report, she innocently typed “chicks” in the search engine. My friend was shocked when his daughter yelled, “what are all these naked ladies doing on the screen?”.

If you have kids on the Internet at your house, and especially young children, you need to know how easy it is for them to find inappropriate content & pictures. Just like my friend’s daughter, a child doesn’t even have to go looking for it, it will find them. Something as simple as an Internet search or misspelling a web address can expose your child to things even you wouldn’t look at.

I don’t believe that choosing to do nothing to protect children online is an option. The most important thing we can do as parents is to start talking and teaching our children about the good parts and the bad parts of the Internet while they’re young.  Even if they’re older and know more about the computer than you, it’s never to late.

A really close second to communication is putting a web filter on your computer to filter out things like pornography, violence/hate/racism, illegal drugs, etc..

If your kids are a little older and you can afford it, I’d suggest you spend $39/yr for Net Nanny. PC Magazine awarded Net Nanny its Editors Choice Award in Feb 2008. Net Nanny can be configured differently for each user who logs into the computer. Also, besides just Internet content filtering Net Nanny includes Instant Message monitoring, time scheduling, remote management and some other neat bells and whistles.

If your kids are younger or you don’t want to spend the $39 for a yearly subscription I highly recommend a free Internet content filter called K9, which was created by BlueCoat. BlueCoat has been providing world class filtering products to fortune 500 companies for several years. They created K9 as a way to give back to the community.

I’ve been using K9 on our home computers for a couple of years and am extremely impressed with the quality of the filtering, the simplicity of the program, and that it doesn’t slow down your computer or internet searches. You can choose to block or just track up to 60 different categories of websites. And, you can set time limits on Internet use. You can’t modify the settings for different users, but as the Admin, you can easily make any necessary adjustments.

This is one area I don’t believe any parent should ignore so I’ve made a free 10-minute video that walks you step-by-step how to install and configure the free K9 web content filter.

It’s nice not having to worry if our 9-year-old daughter will see or read something inappropriate on the Internet. Don’t wait on this one. Get some “peace of mind” today!

Regards,

Bert

Since I’m often asked about how to speed up a slow computer I created a 30 minute video that walks you through exactly how I do it. In the video you’ll be looking over my shoulder as I walk you step-by-step through the process.

Here’s the URL: http://fix-my-slow-pc.com

Regards,

-Bert

You can find free software on the internet to do nearly anything. From cool free screensavers to free games to free antivirus software and just about anything else you can think of.

I learned a hard lesson several years ago. I’ve always liked car racing games (yes, that should tell you something about the way I drive) so I went to my favorite search engine and typed in “free car racing game”. Today nearly 5 million results turned up when I did that search! Anyway, back then I went to the first sight I found and downloaded and installed the game.

Besides the fact that the game was lousy I got a lot more than I bargained for with that so-called “free” game. The next day my wife and daughter were on the computer and using the internet when my wife asked, “Bert, why are there pornography folders in our Bookmarks?”.  Yikes!

So after a lot of unnecessary communication with my wife and some research I realized that free software is often packaged with Adware, Spyware and Viruses. So I paid for some anti-adware/virus software and found several other malware (malicious software) programs had been installed as well. So my free program ended up costing me in my relationships, my pocketbook and my time!

After that experience you’re probably thinking I’d never install any free software ever again… but the truth is I love free software! Although most of the free programs you download off the internet are either malicious or worthless the small percent of excellent programs is well worth finding and using.

In fact, on my home PC I use free software for my:

• Antivirus
• Antispyware
• Firewall
• Internet Filter
• Picture Editor
• Internet Web Browser
• Media Player
• CD Ripper
• etc….

The best tip I can give you today is to only download free software from a reliable source! In fact, I’d recommend only downloading free software from download.com. They have thousands of free and shareware (free for a limited time, then you pay for it) programs and guarantee that you won’t be getting any malware included. Even download.com has some worthless software though so I’d also suggest looking for programs with a lot of reviews and either a 4 or 5 star user rating.

Regards,

-Bert

It seems like nearly everyone has friends and/or family in faraway places. Shoot, if you don’t own a car even 20 miles could be far away I guess..

But I wonder how many of us who have friends and relatives far away are missing out because, thanks to broadband and webcams, we could see them any time we want to!

My sister Teresa and her husband Brandon live in Arizona and just recently added a baby girl to their family. Since Grandma, Grandpa, and the rest of us all live in Minnesota seeing this new baby girl could have been quite a challenge and very expensive in days gone by.

With all the advances in digital communications I knew there had to be an inexpensive way to communicate with voice and video.  And, if we needed a solution, I figured there were probably other people who might be looking for one as well.

So I set out to find a way for our families to be able to hear and see baby Milayna. After checking out several web cams and video services I came up with an excellent combination that’s inexpensive and works great!

First, I bought a Microsoft LifeCam VX-3000 webcam from Amazon. With a 4 out of 5 rating from over 200 reviews and for only $35 it sounded like a great deal. As expected the webcam was simple to set up and has a great picture quality. It even has a built in microphone.

Next, I needed to find an online service so we could call each other and talk. This particular webcam is optimized for use with Windows Live Messenger but I decided to find a different route for folks who don’t have this particular webcam.

After looking at several free and pay services I settled on SightSpeed and am glad I did. The service is free for personal use and it’s easy to set up. Simply fill out a registration form online, download and install the software, and you’re ready to call. Of course the other party will need to get a webcam and sign up for SightSpeed as well.

Last night we had our first video conference call using the VX-3000 webcam and SightSpeed and all I can say is WOW! For my $35 investment the call was priceless.

If you have loved ones far away don’t put this off.  As long as both of you have a broadband connection for less than $50 you could be seeing and talking to each other almost like you were talking face to face…

Regards,

-Bert

The Home & Family Computer Guide was started to give tips and advice to anyone with a computer in their home. Some articles may pertain to Macs or Linux but PCs running Windows is the primary focus since that’s the majority of home computers.

Topics will cover:

• Protecting your PC from Viruses and Spyware.
• Protecting yourself from online scams.
• Keeping children safe on the internet.
• Speeding up and optimizing your PC.
• Windows tips and advice.
• Software reviews.
• How to know when to upgrade or buy a new computer.
• Where the best places are to buy computers, hardware and software.
• Video tutorials and demonstrations.

Most importantly this site was created to help you so I welcome any and all suggestions. If there’s a topic you want to know more about that’s computer related please suggest it as a comment to any post.

I’ve had the opportunity to work with computers for nearly 20 years and am currently an application developer who fixes computers on the side. I understand that computers can be a great learning tool and a lot of fun. They can also be a big headache and even dangerous if a person isn’t careful. My goal is to help you enjoy more of the former and none of the latter.

Regards,

-Bert