...a Wall Street Journal columnist's test of filtering software. After MSN and AOL's parental controls, tech columnist Walt Mossberg and his assistant Katie Boehret favored FilterLogix. "In our tests, CyberPatrol and FilterLogix did the best job of weeding out bad sites, though we preferred FilterLogix, because it required the least tweaking [they're smart - that's important to parents]. Net Nanny … [Read more...] about NetNanny failed…
Cell-phone scatter-brains
"We were celebrating summer freedom from school," writes a parent and psychology professor commenting in the Christian Science Monitor. "The kids rode waves for hours, skim-boarded on the beach, played football, and hiked the rock cliffs to watch the sunset. Another mom and I organized a cookout just after dark. What could be better? Well, apparently something could be. Our trip was constantly … [Read more...] about Cell-phone scatter-brains
File-sharing milestone
Even kids - those who use Kazaa or BitStream, anyway - will be interested in this case. It pitted dozens of huge media companies against two small software companies (and the millions of file-sharers that use their services, Grokster and Morpheus). In a unanimous decision, a US federal court in California ruled Thursday that Grokster, Morpheus, and other P2P services, can't be held liable for the … [Read more...] about File-sharing milestone
Update on MS’s big PC patch
Families know that nothing's perfect in the world of PC security - meaning, the intrepid young Web surfers in our homes can download anything. Meanwhile, intrepid hackers of the malicious sort are constantly finding ways to hack into Microsoft software (because it has the lionshare of computer users). So it was inevitable that Microsoft's milestone security patch, SP2 (for "Service Pack 2"), would … [Read more...] about Update on MS’s big PC patch
A parent’s college-shopping
Michelle Slatalla is just fun to read, partly because she's a fellow parent, I guess, plus she's very down-to-earth and a great writer. In her Online Shopper column this week (in the New York Times), she's shopping for colleges for her daughter - early. "It started with one of those sinking feelings of parental panic. Mine occurred at a cocktail party, where the conversations made it clear that … [Read more...] about A parent’s college-shopping