Employers find it a need to monitor employee’s computer activities to ensure work efficiency. There may be times that workers would just sit on their computer, do an entirely different thing apart from their work. This can actually cost the employer a lot of money and can cause an environment of inefficiency in the workplace. Most employers would also block certain websites from working on their employer’s computer that they deemed are not related to their line of work. Most websites that are blocked from the workplace are social networking sites and the like. If an employee believes that there is an eye watching on his computer use- then he is compelled to do his job and such a workplace encourage productivity.

If your teenager is being harassed or you think they are being harassed you should ask questions to become more aware of the situation. If its targeted through emails then you can easily block where the messages are coming from and you can also save and forward the messages to your ISP who often will have policies regarding this and have it looked into. Social networks like MySpace and Facebook are often used for harassing teens online and they can also be reported to the staff and support team of these websites and often they will take care of it.

Being harassed online can be terrible for a teenager to have to be involved in and often parents don’t find out until it’s too late. Being an informed parent will help prevent this from happening in the first place as if you become aware of the situation you can handle it instantly. It’s important to know what your children are doing online and this involved asking questions about their use of websites.

If the problem becomes serious then you can contact your local police department and have them look into the situation. Often the person will be charged and dealt with accordingly so it’s good to open up to the police in most instances.   

As they become more independent and older you can allow them to have their own email address. There are still options however though so you can still see the mail being received and sent in the family inbox. This way you can ask you children about any suspicious emails they are receiving or replying to. There is lots of spam emails being sent to every email created and you should set-up a spam filter for your child’s email. This will save a lot of hassles from any unwanted mail you don’t want your child receiving. You can also set filters for fraudulent looking emails trying to capture personal details to be used for fraud.

It’s also important when you allow your child to open their first email account that you set some rules for them and make sure they are aware of the possibilities of fraud, illegal emails, spam, etc. Make sure they know to delete any suspicious emails from addresses they don’t recognize. Once they are into their teenager years this becomes more evident to your child and you won’t need to check up on them as much. Email accounts are very important in today’s society so teaching your children how to use email is very key step in learning the ropes of today’s technology.

There are a few ways in which your child can become unsafe in an Xbox 360 game. The first way is if the child plays on Xbox Live then you will want to keep an eye on how they are playing and interacting. There are a lot of foul mouths on the Xbox Live headsets and this can become rather unsafe language for children under the age of 13. You can prevent this by allowing them to play without the headset which isn’t quite as fun but at least it is better then being cussed at all game. A lot of users know how to speak to people though and 80% of the time you won’t need to worry about the headset becoming a problem.

Quite a few parents also don’t want their children being able to play games rated A for adult. There are many gruesome gun and fighting games out there for the Xbox 360 which quite be unsafe for your child to play. The fact that xbox games can be downloaded with broadband internet and other means of internet connection makes this game console a bit detrimental to children. The graphics can stay in your child’s mind and they could perform things they normally wouldn’t because the influence of some games. A lot of people think this is farfetched and that most children no the difference between games and real life but it’s a fact that games can influence children who may not otherwise know any better.

One of the best features on the Xbox 360 is the parental controls which you can access and set-up so that your children can only play certain rated games. This way they won’t be able to play games rated adult unless you give them permission and are watching as they play. Joining in when your child first starts to play video games is ideal as well because then you can lay out the rules you have and concerns you have.

1. They close all browsers when you approach the screen
2. History is always deleted when they get off computer
3. If computer is in common room, look for weird random glances and then keystrokes

All these techniques can be used to determine if your child is viewing the wrong sites. If you find out they are you will want to take the necessary precautions and tell your children about what they are doing wrong. If telling your children not to access these sites doesn’t work then you will need to take more aggressive steps to block their habits.  You can download software which blocks out sites that you don’t want to allow, this is great for blocking out all adult content to your computer. As an alternative you can move the computer screen so that you can see it while your children access it. There are scripts for every type of application including browsers, emails, and much more. You can control who your child communicates with online as well as where your child is able to view sites. Its important to set this up if you have children using the computer as even sometimes pop-up’s will come up with rated content that you don’t want your children seeing. Take the few minutes it will take you to set-up the software.

Vistas parental controls help you the parent in being able to limit what your children have access to online. It’s important you know a little bit about computers and that’s why I’m here to help you. The very first thing you must do to utilize the parental controls is turn it on for your user account. Once you have enabled the parental controls you will be able to have 100% control over what websites you allow and block your children from viewing.

Steps to using the parental controls:

1. Click start menu on Vista and open the Control Panel, once here double click the accounts menu and then on parental controls.
2. Choose the user account you wish to set the parental controls for.
3. Click ON to enable the controls for the specific user account. Now that they’re on you can use them to block access.
4. Double click on Windows Vista Web Filter, choose to block some websites and select Edit the control and block list.
5. Enter the address to the website you wish to block.
6. Select to block adult content automatically.
7. Turn on activity reporting to view computer usage of the user accounts of the computer.

These steps outline how you can go about blocking access to a website. It is very easy to do if you follow the steps above, I created them as easy and detailed as I could and I hope it can help you in your aid to block the bad content from you’re children.

There are numerous ways you can stop your children or at least limit them from viewing pornography. I have compiled a few tips you can use to help aid your prevention.

1. Put the computer in common area of household where screen can be seen
2. Make your child aware of the problems associated with pornography
3. Download software preventing it from being viewed
4. Use one of many free parental controls on the internet
5. Let only allowed websites be viewed on the internet

All five of these tips are easily implemented and can offer a great way for you to feel at ease with what your children are viewing on the internet. Viruses are all over pornography sites as well and can harm your computer so having these sites blocked isn’t a bad idea in the first place. A lot of malicious people target these sites because of the ever growing population of users and it isn’t good to get your details mixed up with the sites. Let your children be aware for the things that can happen to them for viewing pornography, and also let them know it isn’t legal with what they are doing.

Talk to your children about the types of people online and let them be aware of some of the things that have happened to other children there age. It’s important they know what can happen if you want to make sure they will follow the right safety guidelines. You as a parent can do your job by looking over a few of the features on your children’s profile, here are a few of the things you will want to look out for.

1. Make sure their profile is on private at all times
2. Don’t allow children to accept requests from people they don’t know
3. Show children how to report people
4. Hide child’s online status, this will make them appear offline at all times

In closing just be sure to remember that MySpace is a social networking site that is available to anyone with an internet connection. Now although most people are there to make friends and associate with there existing friends, there are many people on the site trying to use it for malicious reasons. Never allow your child to give out any personal details about themselves to anyone they don’t know. Even if they pretend to know your child make sure they understand people are out there who do bad things.

Parental control software is closely linked to content control software.  Both disallow a certain group of user’s access to information that others do not want them to see.  Many companies use content controls to prevent employees from surfing the Internet at work.

Parental Controls are hotly contested because they allow infringement on your first amendment rights of freedom of speech.  It was actually argued in front of the Supreme Court that Internet filters in a public library infringed on a child’s first amendment rights, the outcome showed that filters were unconstitutional.  Parental Control Software can be implemented on the side of the Internet Service Provider or on the side of the home computer user. 

Most Parental Controls in the United States are implemented on the side of the home user.  A parent usually purchases a copy of a program and installs it on the family computer.  These Parental Control programs can be extremely proactive blocking any search for Sussex or Essex because they contain the word “sex”.  Many of the companies that run these programs have been criticized because of this.  The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation also discourage the user of Internet filters.  They have taken many libraries and some companies to court over the fact that they are impeding on the first amendment rights of children. 

Many Parental Control programs can be circumvented by different techniques.  These include using FTP an alternative file protocol, or shutting down the system process in task manager for windows. 

You should have raised your child to not do anything stupid, such as fall for pedophile traps. But you shouldn’t restrict the sites they can or can’t go to, because that is there business.  When a kid is under the age of 10 or so, then sure restrict sites with adult content but there is a limit.  Sooner or later they are going to discover it. 

Teenagers should not be restricted any way on the other hand.  They have grown and should have matured enough to know what they are doing, if not then maybe you should re-evaluate your parenting skills.  It is not up to a parent what a teenager looks at and what sites he visits on the computer, that is their business and that is all there is to it. 

Just like you wouldn’t want your kid trying to tell you what you can and can’t watch on television, you wouldn’t like that to much.  Let a kid grow up naturally let them live and learn, the best way to learn something to live through, it’s not like they are going to die if they visit a website with adult content on it.  Like I said they will discover it sooner or later, so why not let them discover it by themselves, and that saves you the trouble of having to having the big “Sex Talk” with your little child.  That is just my opinion and everyone is entitled to there own.