Important: This is NOT one of those wonderful blogs that do nothing but advertise products, or offer faux reviews. This is a one-time suggestion of a software to protect your children online. If you'd prefer to leave now, consider these blog posts of mine that a lot of people seemed to enjoy:
Ugly Son? It's Dad's Fault, Study Shows...Gag-Proof Your Parenting Attitude! (Get the Funk Out Your Home!)The Zippy and Lippy Show--Dad Gone Wild!
Still here? Okay, here's the deal...there are many different software programs out there to help keep your child safe on the Internet. But once your child gets into the upper-elementary age-group, such software becomes far less effective (kids can't get to the game sites or music sites they want to get to with the other software and you have to set the filters to be so loose, the protection of the software becomes practically useless).
As kids get older, you need a way to MONITOR them. (At least that's been my experience. But perhaps your child is perfect. :)
Features of Spector Pro. Spector Pro’s excellent combination of monitoring features: Screen Snapshots, Chat/IM Activity, Web Sites Visited, Email Activity, Program Activity and Keywords Detected. They also have three new features: MySpace Activity, Online Searches and Top 10 Summary Reports.
Without getting into too much detail, our monitoring has kept our daughter safe several times already. One time we were alerted she had tried to input our address. Another time we were alerted to cyber-bullying. A third time we picked up on some boys that were 19 and 20 flirting with our daughter online and trying to get her to meet them (then 14)--that one was a lot of fun.
That is what makes this software so good.
Plus the install was easy and the customer service was excellent. So if you want it, go ahead and buy it. If you don't want it or if you are uncomfortable with that level of monitoring of your child's online activity, simply don't buy it. Thank you for your time and tolerance.
There is a corporate version of this. Sales have been brisk due to statistics showing that the average worker admits spending over 2 hours a day of company time surfing the internet for non-business related purposes. (Emphasis there on the "admits". To corporate, it's called "time theft"--though buffooned recently on the wonderful show The Office--still a reality.) Yeah, if companies could get that 25% of worker time back...maybe there won't be as many lay-offs...word to the wise, warning to the wise guys.
You may balk at the price of this product (at this writing $84.99 on Amazon) ...to me, it is the best $85 I ever spent. Worth EVERY penny for the peace of mind it brings.
Labels: child safety, good parenting, monitoring kids online, online safety, parenting children, parenting teenagers, Things Good Parents Do