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Thursday, January 27, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Santa Needs a Technology Assistant
This Christmas was the year of technology for my kids. Two kids received iPod touches and one child made a deal with Santa by pitching in the difference and was given an iPad touch.
Had Santa been better organized, he would have figured out all there was to know about these items prior to their delivery. Since he didn’t, in case you are considering purchasing one of these items for your child, here are ten tips I wish I would have considered in advance.
1) Prevent access to inappropriate material by setting Restrictions (Parental Controls). Locate these setting by tapping Settings > General > Restrictions. Movies, TVs and Applications all have separate rating and restrictions. Do this before letting your child install any apps or you will need to go back and check ones they have may have installed before you put the restrictions into place.
2) Safari can be completely deleted, but since kids may have have a valid need for a search engine, you may wish to replace it with an alternate browser such as “Safe Eyes” ($20) or Mobicip ($5) from the itunes store.
3) Although your kids may be protected on your home computers with software such as “Net Nanny,” remember that these programs will have to be installed on the kids’ devices and may or may not be supported. I use Net Nanny at home and it is not.
4) There is currently no way to set hour use limits on these devices. The best way to do this is by setting limits for each device individually through your router.
5) Do not assume just because you have restrictions set on your router that your kids are safe. They will take their devices out of the house, or connect to an unsecured network from inside your house, and then be able to access the internet unprotected.
6) Although multiplayer games in Game Center may not be an issue with you, consider restricting your child’s ability to add friends in Game Center or else your child will end up playing games and receiving messages from strangers.
7) Just because restrictions on your child’s device may be set, this does not mean explicit content won’t be displayed in the iTunes Store itself. Restrictions for podcasts, radio content and shared music must be set so ensure that these items no longer appear on the left side of the iTunes window.
8) Consider using only one itunes account. That way apps can be shared with up to 5 devices and you will be sent itunes receipts via email for each app purchase.
9) If you give your kids access to your itunes password, be sure you have only loaded the account with itunes gift cards and not stored your credit/debit card number.
10) Consider having a family computer docking station where each device is synched up with each other on a regular basis. This helps you keep track of which apps have been purchased.
Had Santa been better organized, he would have figured out all there was to know about these items prior to their delivery. Since he didn’t, in case you are considering purchasing one of these items for your child, here are ten tips I wish I would have considered in advance.
1) Prevent access to inappropriate material by setting Restrictions (Parental Controls). Locate these setting by tapping Settings > General > Restrictions. Movies, TVs and Applications all have separate rating and restrictions. Do this before letting your child install any apps or you will need to go back and check ones they have may have installed before you put the restrictions into place.
2) Safari can be completely deleted, but since kids may have have a valid need for a search engine, you may wish to replace it with an alternate browser such as “Safe Eyes” ($20) or Mobicip ($5) from the itunes store.
3) Although your kids may be protected on your home computers with software such as “Net Nanny,” remember that these programs will have to be installed on the kids’ devices and may or may not be supported. I use Net Nanny at home and it is not.
4) There is currently no way to set hour use limits on these devices. The best way to do this is by setting limits for each device individually through your router.
5) Do not assume just because you have restrictions set on your router that your kids are safe. They will take their devices out of the house, or connect to an unsecured network from inside your house, and then be able to access the internet unprotected.
6) Although multiplayer games in Game Center may not be an issue with you, consider restricting your child’s ability to add friends in Game Center or else your child will end up playing games and receiving messages from strangers.
7) Just because restrictions on your child’s device may be set, this does not mean explicit content won’t be displayed in the iTunes Store itself. Restrictions for podcasts, radio content and shared music must be set so ensure that these items no longer appear on the left side of the iTunes window.
8) Consider using only one itunes account. That way apps can be shared with up to 5 devices and you will be sent itunes receipts via email for each app purchase.
9) If you give your kids access to your itunes password, be sure you have only loaded the account with itunes gift cards and not stored your credit/debit card number.
10) Consider having a family computer docking station where each device is synched up with each other on a regular basis. This helps you keep track of which apps have been purchased.
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