Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes

http://live.pirillo.com/ – What? You want ONE piece of software that will work as a parental control on EVERY operating system?? Sorry… not gonna happen. YOU are hands down the best parental control you can find.

OS X Tiger has an excellent built in parental control. “When setting up your child’s user account, Mac OS X Tiger lets you specify any account as a managed account and limit the changes a child can make to your system. For example, you can lock all System Preferences. Save paper and sanity by granting or limiting printer access. Enable or disable CD and DVD burning, installation of new programs and more — however you see fit.”

Windows Vista also has a very good parental control included. “These controls help parents determine which games their children can play, which programs they can use, and which websites they can visit—and when. Parents can restrict computer use to specific times and trust that Windows Vista will enforce those restrictions, even when they’re away from home.”

There is no end to the number of parental control software titles. Wikipedia has compiled a long list of them for you to check out.

However, I have to say this. I may not be a parent yet… other than to my dogs. I am an adult, and I happen to be technologically minded. Parental control boils down to one thing: PARENTS. Take an active interest in what your child is doing on the computer. Communicate with them about your expectations, and whether they are meeting them. Parental controls should be less about software, and more about people. NO software can ever trump your abililty to parent your child. Software can only control so much. Take that control back!

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Cross Platform Parental Controls

I don’t know everything, even though I’m happy to field answers for followers like Allison Stone:

I have a question, and I knew you would be just the person to ask! I am currently researching parental control software, and there is so much out there to choose from. I’d like a program that will allow installation on multiple computers (at least 3), with a time restriction and keyword filtering. I’m no fun at all, I know! I am not ready to jump ship to Vista, and my son is getting too net savvy for my comfort now. I’ve been looking around, but instead of paying for something that will lock ME out and cause me to bang my head on the keyboard in frustration, I thought I would turn to you first. Thank you in advance!

I can tell you this much: when I was visiting a friend’s house the other day, I watched him use Windows Vista with its parental controls flipped on – and I had never seen more password prompts in my entire life. Argh. There must be an easier way?

Parental Control Software Suggestions?