The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Where is your computer in your house? In the rec room downstairs? In a den or extra bedroom somewhere? What about in one of your kids bedrooms? A lot of homes are beginning to get more then one computer these days as well. When Dell is offering deals where you can buy an entire machine for under $500, it is no wonder that most homes have at least one machine, and many are looking at a second. But a vital questions is, where is it? Not as stupid as it sounds, especially if you have kids over the age of about 10. Computers and technology, for one of the first times in history, allow kids to know more about something then their parents. Most parents will freely admit this, but it is scary. The biggest question is, how to keep your kids safe online, if you are not that certain yourself how to operate a computer? Fortunately, you have a few tools available to you. The most valuable one may be the history file on your computer's Internet browser. All browsers record the sites they have visited over a certain period of time. When your web browser is open, scroll through the menus along the top of the screen until you find the preferences. Find your way through this set of menus until you get to the history file. In this file, you should find the setting which shows how often your history file clears itself. Most of them are set to a standard five ? seven days, but they can be set to almost anything you wish. To find the sites that are actually in the history file, close the preferences menu and start looking through the menus along the top of the screen again until you find history. Opening this file will show you where your computer has actually been online. If it's empty when you get there, start asking questions, because the only way this file is ever completely empty is if it has been deliberately cleared by someone who does not want their steps being followed. Thankfully, chat rooms are falling in popularity among kids as tools such as MSN Messenger grow in popularity. Chat rooms had a reputation as being dangerous places for kids to be. A recent survey says that over 30 per cent of kids who frequent chat rooms have been asked to meet someone in person. How many of these are actually other kids, and how many of them are predators looking for kids is anyone's guess, but last year, over 1,000 kids across the country went missing after meeting someone in person they first had met online. Scary stuff. Another popular thing among teens is designing their own websites. Websites such as Piczo and Tripod offer free space to anyone, and many teens are taking advantage if this. In theory a great idea. It gives kids the opportunity to try out a new set of skills, and they are the modern equivalent of a scrapbook. Problems come when kids post too much information online. Pictures of themselves and their friends with first and last names, names of schools, addresses and schedules. Even putting innocuous things like the names of school teams can lead a predator to a specific place to track someone down. I do think that allowing kids to make their own websites is a fabulous thing. New skills are always needed, and websites are a great way to stay in touch with everyone, friends and relatives as well. Wouldn't it impress grandma and grandpa to see the site their brilliant grandchild has designed? But it absolutely needs to be done in a way that keeps your kids safe. The last thing I caution you about is making certain that your kids know not to give out any of their (or your!) personal information when they are online. Passwords are everywhere. PIN numbers for bank accounts, credit card numbers, passwords for email accounts, etc. Often without thinking about it, kids will give away information to people online. This more often ends up being friends then strangers, but the results can be just as bad. When someone has been coerced into sharing the password for their Gmail account, the next thing you know, your phone is ringing as some teacher has been receiving nasty email, or Visa is phoning you about the overage on your account. Teach your kids to be safe online to protect themselves, and the rest of your family. ([email protected])
