Bill, I got a computer question

[Brewman]

I am the help desk for my mother, who lets my young nieces and nephews at her PC unsupervised.  Last time they screwed it up, took me the better part of a day to restore everything.

[Vinny]

I just recenty (a month ago) re-did my Windows XP as it was acting funky. It started working faster and I have less glitches!

You see children are a lot smarter than parents ... or so they think. You do realize we were never 14 ... again so they think. When I see wiped out history, I know it's to protect the inocent ... yeah right.

As long as I can control the damage, I don't really care, it's just a minor pain.  

[stuart]

I just recenty (a month ago) re-did my Windows XP as it was acting funky. It started working faster and I have less glitches!

You see children are a lot smarter than parents ... or so they think. You do realize we were never 14 ... again so they think. When I see wiped out history, I know it's to protect the inocent ... yeah right.

As long as I can control the damage, I don't really care, it's just a minor pain.  

When I see history wiped out I go to cookies and see where they've been

[Chas]

As bad as the computer trouble is, the life problems this stuff can wreak is far worse. If I can offer these sites;

http://www.x3church.com/

http://www.covenanteyes.com/

And other places you can go to get a tracking program which can keep a record of sites visited even if somebody clears out the history file. These are handy for many reasons.

[Vinny]

Actually, I was doing good until this morning.

And I noticed my computer clock changed after being on this site ... hmm, maybe it is YOU Chas!!!

I have everything in it's place - Virus software and 2 spyware programs and XP has it's firewall on. I did have software that'll track people's usage but it crashed and I took it off.

My son's new passion is going to a place called "my space", it seems to be a forum like this for kids his own age. He's a good kid so I'm not too worried. If he's going to look at pictures, well we have Tammy pictures!

My concern is ... His dad has a hot tub, things are said about hot tubs, he's a "normal" teenage boy, his hormones are probably raging, girls develop faster today than in my day and their VERY aggressive ...

OK I'm buying a security cam!


BTW, Chas where have you been?

[Chas]

Mom and Dad moved in with us a few months ago. Been busy with the stores as well - renovating.

As far as MySpace, my daughter and I both have spaces. We try to keep the other kids honset by letting them know that at least one adult is looking at their stuff. It has an amazing effect. I can't tell you how bad that place is -  you have to see it for yourself: kids will post the most amazing things about drug experiences they just had, sex experiences they had or want to have, and more. It breaks my heart to see it, and I am sure most parents don't have a clue what a wasteland the place is.

Here's my address if you would like to visit:

http://myspace.com/venturafirst

The "friends" I have are all from our church youth group, but I warn you: if you go to their sites you may find objectionable material...

[spaman--]

Mom and Dad moved in with us a few months ago. Been busy with the stores as well - renovating.

As far as MySpace, my daughter and I both have spaces. We try to keep the other kids honset by letting them know that at least one adult is looking at their stuff. It has an amazing effect. I can't tell you how bad that place is - šyou have to see it for yourself: kids will post the most amazing things about drug experiences they just had, sex experiences they had or want to have, and more. It breaks my heart to see it, and I am sure most parents don't have a clue what a wasteland the place is.

Here's my address if you would like to visit:

http://myspace.com/venturafirst

The "friends" I have are all from our church youth group, but I warn you: if you go to their sites you may find objectionable material...

Thanks Chas, My 14 year old was just askin about getting an address there as (everyone does) she says . You just helped my final decision a great deal. I will win this battle after a terrible defeat of her wearing thong under wear, I deserve a win.

[Spatech_tuo]

Be careful what your kids put on those My Space sites. Law enforcement people have told a few friends of mine that there are preditors that regulary cruise that site since it has a lot of kids putting up their own sites and too often they are sooo trusting that they put personal info down such as addresses and ph #s, etc. I checked my son's and it was fine but his friend had all kinds of personal info available including his cell #, school and home town. My wife is normally more of the worrier but I know predators are loving the info they can get from these sites. I've had to talk to my oldest son about this but still wonder if he thinks we're overreacting and might be inclined to include this if I wasn't checking it out.

[wmccall]

For what its worth I had to watch and warn my 70 year old mother about the information she was giving out on the internet.

[spaman--]

Thanks Chas, My 14 year old was just askin about getting an address there as (everyone does) she says . You just helped my final decision a great deal. I will win this battle after a terrible defeat of her wearing thong under wear, I deserve a win.

Holy cow!! I just did a history on my computer and guess wh0o signed up for myspace.com on October 21st? You guessed it my 14 yearold daughter! I found her profile there saying she's 16, apparently all of her friends have accounts there I am certain their parents have no clue. Imagine my disappointment. How can I find the terrible stuff I you were telling about as I want to tell her mother how terrible this stuff can be.

Not to mention she used her real first aand last name as her log in name.  :-/

[Dr. Spa™ Ret.]

myspace........ I have a 24 year old friend. Ex-marine that served in Afganistan AND the Gulf......... As he likes to say, he gets more action from myspace than he saw in the service.. and he was one of the first to hit Bagdad.

I hope none of my employees see this....

ok, how to block a paticular web site from being accessed..........

Search for a file named;

hosts

that's all, there's no extension.

Open the file in a text editor and it will look something like this

---- begin copy and paste ---------------------------------------

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host

xxx.x.x.x       localhost

----end  copy and paste ---------------------------------------

the xxx.x.x.x shown above will actually be the IP number of your computer (I x'ed out mine)

ADD directly under the "xxx.x.x.x       localhost" ;

xxx.x.x.x WWW.MYSPACE.COM

REPLACE the xxx.x.x.x with the IP number in your actual file.

Now, anytime someone tries to go to myspace.com they'll get a Page Not Found error...... It'll look like the site is off line.

You may also want to add the following lines;

xxx.x.x.x WWW. MAIL.MYSPACE.COM
xxx.x.x.x WWW.UPLOAD.MYSPACE.COM

[spaman--]

Thank YOU! Problem solved!

[Dr. Spa™ Ret.]

Thank YOU! Problem solved!

Maybe. for a week. Damn kids are smart. Probably smarter than we were at their age. If they REALLY want, they'll find a way around it. Even if it means going to a friends house. Careful of the cell phones with internet access.

[wmccall]

Thank YOU! Problem solved!

While your there, it can be a good indiciation you have  virus if there are references to anti-virus sites here like symantec.com or mcafee, or networkassociates, or trendmicro.  Some virus add these sites to this file to keep you from getting your anti-virus program to update.

[spaman--]

While your there, it can be a good indiciation you have švirus if there are references to anti-virus sites here like symantec.com or mcafee, or networkassociates, or trendmicro. šSome virus add these sites to this file to keep you from getting your anti-virus program to update.

That may explain a few things with my pc being so slow this week. :-/