Hey, and you know what, kids can also install ComputerTime on their parents computers to prevent their parents from spending too much time on the computer!
Source: momfilter – TheLogOff.org
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If you’re sitting in a chair for most of your day, doing your job, you might want to take notice: Just How Dangerous Is Sitting All Day?
Sitting down for extended periods makes you 53% more likely to have a heart attack, according to a study in a medical journal.
Parents with desk jobs are sitting all day long. That’s not good. Kids have to go to school, move between classes, walk from the bus to home and they’re more likely to be moving around and having varied activities. How many office-working adults are on a sports team.
Of course, kids have their summer vacations. Maybe they prefer to stay indoors where the A/C is on and sit for eight hours with only their thumbs moving as they play with a half-dozen friends on some Xbox Live game.
Even adults can make use of ComputerTime to make them get up, stretch, walk around, by setting session limits with mandatory five-minute breaks. The other alternatives are stand-up desks
If you use a stand up desk, tell us how you like it by leaving a comment below.
Do you think stand up desks might be good for your kids too? Do you think they might be less comfortable about spending too much time on the computer if you made them stand while being on the computer?
Maybe the treadmill computer desk is the way to go.
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ALTHOUGH his computer time is limited to half an hour a day, Damian Chuah Tjun Kit, 14, beat over 30,000 readers all over Asia to emerge champion of the The 39 Clues book series online competition.
To make it extra special, Damian received his prize cheque of US$5,000 (RM15,000) on his birthday, April 25.
Nice work Damian!
(Source)
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It’s the middle of my kid’s school vacation this week. The kids are spending a portion of the week at their grandparent’s house, and a long drive to and from.
We’re also in the middle of Screen-Free Week. This used to be called “TV Turnoff Week”. We once threw together and promoted a “PC Turnoff Week”.
What’s one week when you have fifty-one other weeks in the year where kids are going to gorge themselves with screen-time no matter what? How many screens do your kids interact with. There’s the TV, the computer, the iPod, the smart phone, etc.
Managing screen time is something that parents should be doing all year long.
You can limit computer time, but they might just get on their iPod touch and play games, or text their friends on and off when they should be doing homework.
It’s a challenge to manage multiple kids and multiple screens. Have you been effective at doing this within your family, or have you thrown your hands up?
ComputerTime will do the job on your Windows PCs to reign in excessive use, and more importantly eliminate the arguments between parents and the kids, but are you using any tools to help with the other technologies in your home?
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This is a big day for us. ComputerTime 4.0 is out, and all of our faithful and happy ComputerTime users will have the update pushed out to them today.
We’re also happy about this because along with the updated version of ComputerTime, we’re also releasing something called the Internet Limit Add On. Customers who chose to purchase this optional add on will be able to set one set of limits for overall computer time, and another set of limits for how long the kids can be on the Internet.
When we created ComputerTime 1.0, we always had this in mind that we would have an “InternetTime” product someday too. So this is a big milestone for us. We hope you’ll like the new feature!
More information about this to follow, but I wanted to share the excitement with you.
Download ComputerTime (it has a 14-day free trial!)
Oh… and please share us with these little buttons below! Please!
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Report: 90% Of Waking Hours Spent Staring At Glowing Rectangles
The rectangles even help Americans to successfully emote, often by using a combination of visual and aural signals to indicate when laughter or tears should be produced.
“Life would be very different if it weren’t for these magical squares of light,” cultural studies professor and social critic David Ostroff typed to reporters using one of his wireless messaging rectangles. “Sry. Have 2 go. Movie about 2 strt.”
On average, Americans interact with anywhere from 53 to 107 pulsating rectangles every week. For many, however, this is simply not enough. Despite having a leisure rectangle in every bedroom, along with multiple work rectangles, a rectangle just for the children, and one or two rectangles that can do the work of several rectangles in one, many citizens admit to being dissatisfied.
If Apple really wanted to be different, they would avoid building another rectangular device and do something insanely great, like give us a glowing nonagon, or a let’s get all retro and go back to the 1950′s style glowing squircles.
Have you ever measured how much time your kids are in front of all glowing rectangles? It would be an interesting experiment. I wonder if we actually did measure all of that time with TV, computers, iPods, and video games, if it would make us more likely to impose limits.
If you do come up with measurements, post them in the comments.
For my two kids, my son exceeds my daughter by a large margin. My daughter is mostly in front of her computer, while my son does a considerable amount of TV and iPod Touch staring in addition to the time he spends on the computer and it can consume an unhealthy amount of time.
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Speaking to a customer who was trying out ComputerTime, I was asked if ComputerTime did parental control types of things. What she really was asking was, “Does ComputerTime do internet filtering?” Some people think the terms are synonymous. But parental control software is a more general term and can refer to different types of control.
Blocking and Logging Parental Control Software
Most parental control software that hit the market over a decade ago, primarily monitored or blocked websites along with other internet related activities. Some software went as far as spying on kids every activity.
Website blocking software has never been extremely effective*. To be effective, the database of sites that need to be blocked has to be complete. But everyday, tens of thousands of new domains are registered. Old domains expire and are acquired by people who put up different web pages than the previous owners. If you feel comfortable utilizing a tool that may only be 90% accurate — that’s better than nothing — but don’t rely on it for real protection.
I Spy with my 25 Eyes by nickhall
Tools that give parents detailed logs of websites visited, every keystroke typed, and even screen snapshots seem a bit creepy. Just because parents can monitor every aspect of their kids online lives, is it the right thing to do? Parents will take different sides on this issue. Parents today should think back to when they were kids: If your parents clandestinely listened in on your phone conversations, or trailed you in their cars at a distance, using parabolic microphones to listen to your conversations across the parking lot, would you resent or respect them for how they handled your upbringing.
SoftwareTime’s Approach to Parental Control
SoftwareTime‘s stance is that the best web filter is the watchful eye of the parent. Ensure that computers are located in a public area of the house and if you choose, set limits that disallow use of the computer at times that you won’t be around to keep an eye on the activity.
ComputerTime encourages responsible use of computers. Kids push against boundaries, not always respecting limits. They don’t always act in their own best interest, and ignore consequences. Parental guidance is required. ComputerTime helps parents to provide this guidance, but does not replace parents.
With ComputerTime, it’s you, the parent, that still sets the rules for how long and when your kids can be on the computer. You can be strict with the limits that you set, or you can be flexible and let the kids manage their time within relaxed constraints if they have shown themselves to be more responsible. Since you’re only managing time with ComputerTime, it’s a less intrusive type of parental control.
Things Are and Aren’t Different Today
Kids with cell phones, the web, IM, email, FaceBook, MySpace… It’s a whole new world.
But kids themselves, they haven’t changed all that much. The aspire to be trusted, respected, loved, appreciated, etc.
The best way to handle our children in today’s technology-saturated world is similar to what our parents would have done when we were kids:
- Have a good, open relationship with our kids where they feel comfortable talking with you. Spying on them would joepardize that relationship, so don’t do that.
- Provide guidance. Teach your kids good values and responsibility so that kids can do the right thing whether that be at the playground, the mall, or online.
- Pay attention to your kids. You’ll know when something is wrong; attentive parents notice subtle changes in kids behavior and moods when they are in trouble.
- Give them roots and wings
Do you agree with this philosophy? Do you think parents always be aware of exactly what’s going on? Overtly or covertly? Leave a comment below.
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A quick shout out to my friend Brett, who posted about his fears and uncertainties about how to best handle the issue of how much privacy he should give his kids when they’re old enough to get onto the Internet. It’s a problem that a lot of parents wrestle with, and inspired me to share my two cents.
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Whether you suffer hearing loss from headphones depends on three things: how loud you listen to music, how long you listen, and what type of headphones you listen with.
Most MP3 players (such as the iPod) come with the earbud style headphones which are placed in the ear, will cause hearing loss faster than supra-aural headphones which rest on the outer ear.
Study: Hearing damage occurs after more than 5 minutes of full-volume listening on iPod earbuds.
The worst choice appears to be the headphones that isolate outside noise by fitting into the ear canal.
Played at no more than 50% of the maximum volume, none of the headphones appear to cause permanent hearing loss. You can even enjoy constant listening at those moderate levels.
Higher volumes bring the risk of damage, and then listening times also become a factor. If you are going to push the volume up, then you should limit how long you listen.
Recommendations: Find a good set of supra-aural headphones. I’m a fan of the Sennheiser PX 100
Previously: Famous Rocker Pleads With You to Turn It Down.
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