Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Second step: Set up Parental Controls on existing accounts

Now, two accounts have been created. On the upper right corner of the Control Panel window, single click on Set up Parental Controls for any user. Select any user account of your interest, in our case, "brandon" account.
Remember that this account is for school work related use, such as, checking home work assignments and grades, emails and news.

Let's walk through the options:
  1. Enable Parental Controls so that all other options on this window will take effect
  2. Optionally enable Activity Reporting to have Windows to collect information about computer usage
  3. Single click on Windows Vista Web Filter leads us to Web Restrictions for "brandon".

    Here we enable Block some websites or content and created a block list for facebook.com etc.

    The list can be obtained by inspecting the activity report mentioned above. Basically, all sites that do not have anything to do with his school work could be candidates for blockage. We also choose the Custom web restriction level and select all categories that are inappropriate for him. You may also Enable Block file downloads in this window if you wish. Click OK when complete.
  4. Single click on Time Limits leads us to Time Restrictions where we can control when"brandon" can use this computer. Toggle the time slots to allow or block usage, displayed in blue color.
    Click OK when complete.
  5. Single click on Games leads us to Game Controls where we disable game playing. Click OK when complete.
  6. Single click on Allow and block specific programs leads us to Application Restrictions. Here "brandon" can use all programs. Click OK when complete.
  7. Back in User Controls window, the current settings of this account are displayed on the right hand side. Single click on View activity reports to bring up the Activity Viewer for all user accounts. Single click on any user account on the left hand side to view its history of Web Browsing, System, and Applications Run and etc.
Recalling the account created for "play", the primary differences are on the Web filter, Time limit and Games settings:
  1. On the Web Restrictions, we enable Block some websites or content and create an Allow list which contains only those appropriate sites that we agreed upon. We enable Only allow websites which are on the allow list.
  2. On the Time Restrictions, we only open those agreed upon time slots. We reward good behavior or school reports with extra time slots.
  3. On the Game Controls, we enable game playing up to TEEN rating.
This concludes Parental Controls set up.

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