Protecting ur kids Online with Web Filters

You have kids, you have a computer with an internet connection, the two put together = trouble! I don't mean to understate this point, because when it comes down to it, you, the parents, are the the one that has to take responsibility for your children and what they view. I'm generally pretty harsh on parents that think that nothing can happen on the internet...while the internet feels "safe" because it's in your house, what bad thing could happen? Well, read the newspapers and see what can happen with the "safe" internet. If you're going to have a net connection you need to be responsible and make sure your kids are safe online. So, here are some programs that will help you monitor what your kids are up to:
iProtectyou - This is one of the best programs on the net at the moment to stop your kids from seeing objectionable material and unmonitored chat and email sessions. This program is FREE so download it. This program allows you to control which websites your kids are allowed to visit, which programs can have internet access, blocking email, chat, instant messages that would have objectionable words in it...it will also gather information about what your children are doing online...you can also set up a schedule when your child can be online. I just can't say how great of a program this is and if you're a parent and you want to help your kids be safe, this is the program for you. It is password protected, so as long as your kids don't have the password, they can't change the settings. Really, take responsibility for you children's online life. If I get enough requests I'll write a tutorial for this program that will show you the steps for setting this program up. You can download this program here http://www.softforyou.com/
We-Blocker - This is a very effective web filtering tool that will stop objectionable websites. It has some very nice features including multiple accounts so you can set up different settings for different age groups or different age groups. A very good web filtering tool, I still like iProtectyou a little more because you can limit access to certain programs and chatrooms, IM's, and other venues should be restricted...so this is good if you just want to filter web pages. You can download this program at http://www.we-blocker.com/index.php
AOL and MSN, and many other Internet service providers have some form of internet blocking and restricted zones you can set so you can limit the access of your children on the net. It will limit emails, IM's and things like that...but I think parents are too often drawn into a false sense of security with these settings...if you minimize AOL and open a browser like Mozilla the filters will be gone, and you know those kids will find ways around simple defenses.
In closing, the best way to make sure you kids are safe online is to surf with them...kids, especially young kids, shouldn't be left on the computer without parental supervision. If however you can't be with your kids while they surf, please download iProtectyou and make sure you set it up to block areas that would be dangerous for them. No matter how many laws the government passes to protect children, it will always be up to you, the parent to proactively protect your children.

Bash Shell Commands
Well, I've been dreading writing this section of the website because I don't feel like an "expert" in this area, but it's part of my online knowledge and I thought that maybe a newbie could help other newbies with Linux. With most of the current distributions of Linux you have an xwindow system that looks remarkably easy to understand...umm, but eventually you have to go to a shell...eventually...yes...you have to face the evil that is the command line. Now don't worry, this is okay, just breathe deep, there you go, keep breathing deeply, continue, come on, getting lightheaded yet? Soon you'll be in that state of euphoria where you'll be game enough to start putting in some commands.
Okay, it isn't that bad, the thing you have to do is remember back to the days of DOS and Microsoft and when you had to type in commands to get anything done. Basically that's the best way to describe it to Windows users. Okay, so you're at a terminal and you don't know any commands, here are a few (the list will expand as I learn more).
cd - this basically works like the old MSDOS command, this stands for Change Directory and basically you can change the directory your in with this command.
cp - this is the copy command. Basically you can use this command if you want to copy the contents of a file to some other place. Not so different from the Copy command in MSDOS. You can use this to copy the content to other folders, etc.
ls - This is the list command, very similar to the MSDOS Command Dir. Basically it lists all the contents in a directory or a folder. This had a bunch of wildcards you can add to it, like ls -l will list the file in it's long format... ls -a will allow you to see all the files in a directory including hidden files.
mkdir - This command will make a directory. The command would look something like mkdir testfolder and this would create a directory with the name testfolder.
mv - this stands for move...basically this allows you to move files from one directory to another or you can move it within the same folder.
rm - this stands for remove. This will allow you to delete files without confirmation. Okay a delete command, basically you can delete files but also important ones you didn't mean to delete, umm, well, yeah, okay you know how I know this fact.
rmdir - This will allow you to remove a directory, if you add rmdir -r the directory doesn't have to be empty before deleting it.
passwd - if you type in passwrd it will allow you to change your password. It will ask for you old one and then make you type in the new one twice...the password has to be at least 6 characters long.
Okay, this is it for now because I don't have my linux box open at the moment and I'm not exactly pleased with what I wrote here, hmm, okay so this tutorial is at best so so...I'll need to work on this more and get back to you. If there are any Linux pros out there that would like to write articles for this website, just drop me an email...trust me, I'm humble, I don't pretend to be anything but a newbie.