PAYPAL STUDENT ACCOUNT

I've been using my PayPal account more frequently to buy things online. It's connected to my checking account, so a payment made with PayPal is withdrawn directly from the bank account. Typically the payment requires a transfer to a different browser window for the PayPal authentication, then back to the merchant's web site, which in the past had sometimes been a tricky dance for Internet Explorer to handle. Lately all the transactions have gone smoothly. The merchant gets all the name and address information from PayPal so it's frequently faster to finish a transaction.

It's a little harder to use Quicken to reconcile payments from the checking account that go through PayPal. If you download transactions directly into Quicken from the bank, the check register shows a PayPal transaction but doesn't get the name of the actual merchant. (Recent versions of Quicken are supposed to integrate with PayPal to download transactions directly from PayPal online but I haven't been brave enough to try it - the reports aren't very encouraging.)

Many of you are moving more and more of your purchases online, and buying online will come even more naturally to our kids. PayPal is testing an interesting service, the "PayPal Student Account." You can't try it yet - it's being tested by an invitation-only group.

The goal is to give teenagers some financial independence but let the parents keep some control. Parents with a PayPal account set up a sub-account for each teenage child and put in some money (a single chunk or a recurring amount like an allowance). The child can spend the money anywhere that PayPal is accepted online, or (optionally) can be given a MasterCard debit card.

Parents can set alerts to monitor the account and can disable the account any time. And my favorite feature - if a teen needs money unexpectedly, he or she can send a text message to PayPal ("Get $50), and PayPal in turn will send a text message to the parent, who can approve it and transfer the money with a reply text message.

The New York Times noticed this a few days ago. No word on when it will go into broader testing or get a full release.

Labels: business, parents, web_services

posted by bruceb at 12/09/2008 12:25:00 AM | permalink

LITTLE BROTHER

Cory Doctorow is one of the most interesting science fiction authors working today, as well as an editor and frequent contributor to Boing Boing, one of the most popular blogs in the world.

His new book, Little Brother, is a young adult novel about a high school student caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco.

"In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they?re mercilessly interrogated for days.

"When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself."

It is smart and funny and important. It makes technology look like fun and it explains clearly and convincingly why our freedoms matter and why our government's obsessive secrecy and wiretapping and paranoia are not making us safer.

I'll be buying copies and pressing them on high schoolers. You should read it. It's not just for kids.

Neal Gaiman's quote sums up my feelings:

"I'd recommend Little Brother over pretty much any book I've read this year, and I'd want to get it into the hands of as many smart 13 year olds, male and female, as I can.

"Because I think it'll change lives. Because some kids, maybe just a few, won't be the same after they've read it. Maybe they'll change politically, maybe technologically. Maybe it'll just be the first book they loved or that spoke to their inner geek. Maybe they'll want to argue about it and disagree with it. Maybe they'll want to open their computer and see what's in there. I don't know. It made me want to be 13 again right now and reading it for the first time, and then go out and make the world better or stranger or odder. It's a wonderful, important book, in a way that renders its flaws pretty much meaningless."

Labels: parents, security

posted by bruceb at 5/30/2008 11:09:00 AM | permalink

COSTCO DEAL ON ONECARE
Costco doesn't always have great deals on software any more, but occasionally something turns up. If for some reason you haven't bought your copy of Windows Live OneCare yet, you can buy it at Costco through Sunday for $4.99. No rebate - that's the price at the register.

While you're at Costco, parents might want to take a look at Microsoft Student 2008, which includes the entire content of Encarta Premium plus homework tools, report templates, research aids, strong math and foreign language tools, and more. (Here's some comments I wrote about the 2006 version of Student; with luck the current version has fewer bugs.)

Encarta is a bit less relevant when the rich online world is a click away, but it's still quite helpful to get started on a homework assignment. You can get Microsoft Student 2008 at Costco this weekend for $12.99, which makes it pretty lovable even if your kids make a face when you show it to them.

Labels: parents, security, software

posted by bruceb at 9/22/2007 12:05:00 AM | permalink

PARENTAL CONTROLS & TIME LIMITS
Vista has built-in parental controls that do certain chores very well. Parents can filter web sites, monitor web surfing and other computer activity, and limit what programs and games can be run. Vista also makes it easy to limit a child's use of the computer to certain times of the day; the computer will only allow the child to log in between noon and 8pm, say, and locks up for the night at the end of the assigned time.

It's surprisingly difficult to add the feature that I would expect to find at the top of a parent's list: the ability to limit a child's use of the computer to a certain number of hours per day. "You can sit at the computer for two hours a day during the summer, but that's it!"

The best software I can find is ComputerTime, $30 for one computer, $40 for multiple computers. It's straightforward and effective. The computer is locked, displaying a mildly unattractive screen, until someone logs in to ComputerTime. A timer starts counting down the assigned time; the timer pauses if the child logs out or the screen saver starts. When the child has accumulated the allowed amount of time, the ComputerTime screen returns and the computer is locked until the next day. It's possible to set daily, weekly or monthly time limits; each computer can be set up for multiple users. It also can enforce time-of-day restrictions.

There's one extra trick that's cute - the program allows a list of codes to be printed out, each one a "token" representing extra time to use the computer. Tokens can then be used as incentives or gifts.

That's all ComputerTime does. It ignores Windows login names and passwords and has no networking ability to prevent kids from moving from one computer to another for more time. In many homes, though, it may be enough for many parents to make their monitoring go a little more smoothly.

Labels: parents, Vista

posted by bruceb at 6/05/2007 01:23:00 PM | permalink

VISTA PARENTAL CONTROLS
Vista has many new features - so many that it will be difficult to decide which ones to call attention to. For home users and families, the built-in parental controls will be a key selling point. Here's a good summary of those features - there's easy to use tools to monitor Internet usage and handle web filtering, to control time spent on the computer, to limit games or applications, and more. If parents use those controls and keep their kids on limited user accounts, there's a chance that computers will be able to survive being used by kids and teenagers.

Labels: parents, Vista

posted by bruceb at 1/18/2007 06:00:00 PM | permalink

PARENTAL FILTERS
I'm still looking for the right filter for parents who want some control over their children's Internet activities. I wanted to like Safe Eyes - it has a nice interface, the right features (control over Internet surfing, time online, and access to programs without being overly complicated), and many people apparently use it successfully. But it apparently conflicted with something on our computers, because it caused 3-4 minute delays just logging on to the computer and unacceptably slowed down the Internet connection. I don't see other people complaining about that online, so I'd encourage you to download the free trial if you're interested - and remove it if it appears to be troublesome.

This is a fast-growing area - here's a list of 106 programs listed in Download.com's "Parental Filters" category. I've gone back to testing Microsoft's Windows Live OneCare Family Safety program to see if it has improved from a couple of months ago.

Keep in mind that this may become moot when Windows Vista arrives, with built-in, deeply integrated parental controls.

Labels: parents, software

posted by bruceb at 10/05/2006 12:54:00 PM | permalink

WINDOWS LIVE ONECARE FAMILY SAFETY
Windows Vista will include deeply integrated parental controls to assist parents in monitoring kids' time online and preventing access to inappropriate web sites.

A more limited service for Windows XP is now available under the name Windows Live OneCare Family Safety. This is a beta release without all the features planned for the final product; at some point it will be more or less integrated into the Windows Live OneCare security service. Here's an article with more details about the beta version, and here's more info from Microsoft.

The Windows XP service prevents access to inappropriate sites but doesn't do anything else. The Vista service will add time restrictions and fine-grained control over specific programs and services - instant messaging, for example.

In a brief test today, it was a bit confusing to set up the accounts for family members but more disturbing that Internet access was glacially slow or broken. That could be opening day jitters, though, and the developers acknowledge on their blog that the setup process needs work. For the moment I've uninstalled it and gone back to testing Safe Eyes.

Labels: parents

posted by bruceb at 8/30/2006 08:18:00 PM | permalink

PARENTAL CONTROLS AND INTERNET FILTERING SOFTWARE
Over the years various programs have promised to filter Internet browsing to prevent access to inappropriate content. Net Nanny, for example, was reputed to be one of the leaders a couple of years ago, but I found it wildly confusing and abandoned it almost immediately. Norton's filter in the Internet Security suite is poorly designed and difficult to figure out. Comcast offered a security program for a while - it was just awful and Comcast eventually dropped it. I became pessimistic about the whole idea.

PC Magazine reviewed a number of new releases recently and gave high marks to Safe Eyes. (Here's the PC Magazine review, and here's the Safe Eyes web site.) It's impressive. The controls are well-designed and flexible; it's easy to configure and offers lots of options without being overwhelming.

I wound up installing another program on the kids' computer, though. K9 Web Protection is free web filtering software that works beautifully. It's simple, easy to set up, and impossible to circumvent.

K9 and Safe Eyes work similarly. All of your Internet traffic goes through those companies' servers. There's no software running on your computer for a teenager to hack and defeat. As long as the administrator password is secret, there won't be any traffic to blocked sites - period. There was no perceptible lag or slowdown caused by either program.

One size may not fit all, however. K9's simplicity may not suit your needs. K9 does not distinguish between computer users; all the Internet traffic is filtered on that computer for every user. (The filtering can be turned off but not particularly easily.) K9 doesn't include additional filters to control instant messaging, online game-playing, file sharing programs, or other Internet activities that parents may want to control. Check out Safe Eyes if you're looking for more fine-grained control.

K9 is offered by Blue Coat, a company selling security appliances to big companies for lots of money. They claim the consumer filtering for individual computers is industrial strength and that they have the capacity to offer it for free forever. For the moment it stands out as a simple and effective way to keep kids out of the worst parts of the Internet.

For what it's worth, Microsoft is working on free family safety and Internet filtering software that will be available later this year. Here's the press release. As of today it's not available anywhere outside a select group of beta testers.

Labels: parents, software, web_services

posted by bruceb at 6/08/2006 10:36:00 PM | permalink

MYSPACE.COM AND INTERNET SAFETY
MySpace.com is the largest community of teens and twenty-somethings in history. There's roughly sixty million registered users. Its growth rate is mind boggling. It's one of the most popular destinations on the Internet and it's far and away the most popular site online for social networking. It's an increasingly powerful force in the music industry, as known and unknown bands use it to communicate with fans and spread music outside of the normal channels. Here's an article from Business Week about the "MySpace Generation" and how advertisers are reacting to the site.

The growth of MySpace.com has been accompanied by online sexual predators, criminal probes, attempts by schools to block access to the site, and especially by a tidal wave of articles about the horror of it all.

Here's an article with an interesting look at the statistics. MySpace.com might create opportunities for sexual predators and precautions are necessary, but at the moment a relatively small number of incidents are being overblown in the press. "[N]ovelty makes news and new technologies tend to pick up and draw new attention to old problems that never went away." The numbers don't bear out the image of MySpace.com as a menace to be blocked.

In the last few decades, comic books, heavy metal music, and rap have horrified parents and drawn media coverage and shocked overreaction. MySpace.com requires more thought by parents, schools, and authorities - not because it's more dangerous but because it involves content created by teens and not just consumed by them.

These comments were reportedly written by Daniel Johnston of Redwood Day School in Oakland. It's a good discussion for parents and schools about how to react to MySpace.com.

"I am a seventh grade Advisor, and today I had half of the seventh grade class for a thirty-minute advisory. I told them I was writing a Friday Letter about MySpace.com this week, and that I wanted to hear their opinions. I told them that this social-networking website had been in the news recently, relating to assaults on young people. Police around the country are investigating incidents of teenagers who were sexually assaulted by people they met on MySpace.com. I also told them that I had a MySpace.com account myself and had visited a wide range of profiles. Jaws dropped.

"I have had positive experiences with some of my nephews and nieces and several of my advisees maintaining blogs. Blogging sites such as LiveJournal.com are like online diaries or journals. People use text-based blogs to share their ideas and thoughts with a group of friends. I was curious about how MySpace.com was different. I discovered that online communities like Xanga.com and MySpace.com are about social interaction, sharing photos, and meeting other people. It is a digital equivalent to other unsupervised times that adolescents have at social events or at home, except that other people can listen in or read along with the interaction.

"MySpace.com has some wonderful qualities. There is a vibrant music scene that happens around MySpace.com. It is valuable to have a place for youth to express themselves; it is natural for kids to want to share their thoughts with their peers, to create a community for themselves. While online communities like MySpace.com provide users with the ability to post blogs—sort of an online journal—most adolescents and adults use it as an opportunity to chat, share photos and videos, and meet other people. A lot of the behavior on sites like MySpace.com has been going on in teen hangouts for generations.

"However, now comes the danger: this adolescent behavior is on display for everybody—peers, parents, and predators. It is dangerous when kids reveal, intentionally or, more frequently, unintentionally, specific information to strangers about who they are and where they can be found, such as their name, what school they go to, their favorite hangouts, or anything personal.

"When I went on MySpace.com, I was surprised at how easy it was to find middle school aged-students. While MySpace.com requires users to be 14 years old, and has some restrictions on access to pages of users younger than 16 years old, most kids (and many adults) using the site simply lie about their age. However, no matter what they state, the photos and comments they post make their age clear. Many adolescents post photos of themselves and their friends at school, at home or at school events.

"For Internet use in general, we recommend parents supervise their children’s use. We think that our children’s computers with Internet access should be in communal rooms, rather than in their bedrooms. While at RDS we do not filter Internet access, our practice is to let students use the Internet only for schoolwork and under teacher supervision. We recommend that parents monitor adolescents’ use of email and chat rooms. The spam flooding in their box is a perfect opportunity for one of those teachable moments that parents and teachers look for.

"When it comes to the use of MySpace.com, we recommend parents of adolescents try out the site by logging on to see what kids are up to, maybe even their own kids. It is an opportunity for a meaningful conversation. Matt Harris, a technologist at the Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School has posted very good instructions for how to do so: www.wornickjds.org/tech/parenting/parenting_communities.html. Make sure your child’s page is private, that they do not post personal information about themselves, and that they do not mention where they live or go to school. For more information and resources about Internet privacy, I have posted some information and links at www.rdschool.org/Learning_at_RDS/ClassPages/Online_Safety.html.

"As you explore MySpace.com or monitor your child’s Internet use in other ways, don’t be surprised if your child accuses you of invading their privacy. The following two points outline a fair strategy and the educational bottom line:

"1. Let your child know that you are going to visit MySpace.com well ahead of time. That is, give them a chance to clean up their act if they need to.

"2. The whole point of this is for them to learn that online communities are not private, and therefore not safe from prying eyes. If your child really expresses a need to have a place where they can express themselves in privacy, let them know that an online community is not private, and that the best bet is still the old-fashioned pen and journal.

"The most important advice I can give is that parents talk to their adolescent kids about their use of the Internet, and to help them understand that the information they post is not private, and that once posted, it may be difficult to remove.

"The links below provide information about keeping yourself and your children safe online, and about software tools you can install to filter or limit your child’s access to the net. However, please remember, no software solution takes the place of active engagement with kids on their use of the Internet; most can be bypassed by tech-savvy teens."

http://www.wiredsafety.com/
http://www.cyberangels.org/index.html
http://www.blogsafety.com/index.htm
http://www.safeteens.com/
http://www.protectyourkids.info/

Labels: Internet, parents, security

posted by bruceb at 2/28/2006 09:43:00 PM | permalink

MICROSOFT STUDENT 2006
Microsoft Student 2006 is on the shelves now for under a hundred dollars. Parents of middle-school and high school students should take a long look. Here are some notes to understand what it is and how to work with it.

• The heart of Microsoft Student is the premium version of Microsoft's wonderful encyclopedia, Encarta 2006. Student includes all of the content from the encyclopedia disks, plus one year of access to Encarta's online content. Encarta has always had help for students, but this product brings that help to the front and adds other rich features for education and homework.
• One important feature isn't highlighted. "Learning Essentials" is a set of toolbars and templates that integrate with Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint for reports, projects, presentations, and foreign language assignments. Look at the bottom of the main Student screen, or on the Start menu.
• Student has some stiff requirements. It is only available on DVD - you can't install it without a DVD player or recorder in your computer. It's easiest to use if all of the content is installed onto your hard drive, but that requires a couple of gigabytes of free space.
• "Learning Essentials" requires Microsoft Office XP or Office 2003. If you need to upgrade, it looks like the price has dropped a bit on the Student and Teachers Edition of Microsoft Office 2003 - it's only $109 at Amazon this week. The Student and Teachers edition of Office is identical to the full version of Office, and each copy is licensed to be used on three computers.
• The first time you try to use an online feature, you'll be led to a signup sheet for "Club Encarta." Remember, a year's access to premium online Encarta content is included with Student - if you see a request for money, you're in the wrong place
• Registering for "Club Encarta" is a two-step process. You'll first have to create or log into a free "Passport" account, using your existing e-mail address. I find the entire Passport system to be wildly confusing. Passport was originally intended to be a single sign-on for a world of secure online services, but nobody liked it, so now it's used only for Microsoft's instant messenger programs and a handful of other Microsoft services.
• Once you've logged into the Passport system, you'll have to fill out an additional brief form specifically for Encarta. You should see a page telling you what a wonderful job you did at the end.
• One of the most valuable parts of the Student package is online help linked to the most widely used math textbooks in the country - literally page by page, problem by problem assistance. The Prentice-Hall pre-algebra and algebra books used in our public school district are included.
• But it's in the math help that I've run into one bug. The link to Math Help Online on the main Student screen is broken. It leads to a repeated complaint that you haven't made it into the Club Encarta database. It's a bug - ignore it! Instead, get to the math textbooks by clicking on Learning Essentials / Useful Web Links / Homework Help / Math Homework Help.

I'm looking forward to finding out whether kids will actually use the tools included in the Student package. It's well-designed - almost every kid might find at least something that will help them out. Let me know what your experience is!

Labels: parents, software

posted by bruceb at 8/16/2005 11:25:00 AM | permalink

MICROSOFT STUDENT 2006
Microsoft will release a new product later this month, Microsoft Student 2006. Here's an article about the new software.

It's a big package, and a relatively pricey one - retail price is a hundred bucks. At its heart is a set of tutorials, toolbars and templates that integrate with Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint for reports, projects, presentations, and foreign language assignments.

There's online help with math homework, links to Encarta added to online search results, an atlas, and more. It looks interesting for parents of 12-18 year olds.

Microsoft Office 2003 is required to take full advantage of this product. If you don't have it already, buy the Student and Teachers edition, sold widely at about $140. It's identical to the full-price version and can be installed on up to three computers.

Labels: parents, software

posted by bruceb at 7/05/2005 12:47:00 PM | permalink