‘Star Wars Kid’ may someday regret his online posting
As you may recall a few columns ago we discussed the problems of keeping kids safe online. I mentioned the rise of "specialty" social networking sites for younger children rather that the more open sites like MySpace.com. A good example for youngsters is Imbee.com which only allows select online visitors on your child's blog.
One reader reminded me why this is so important: Not only does it stop bad company from entering your kid's world, it also could prevent an embarrassing situation later on in life.
Here's what I mean: If your child posts something on the Internet, it might follow them the rest of their life. Thus, something really dumb could end up finding its way into a job interview 10 years later.
There are already numerous accounts in the media of young people who posted unflattering photos or commentary which ended up on the desks of future potential employers. Some things are best kept private.
Try Googling "Star Wars Kid" and you can imagine something as innocent as this ruining that person's life.
A number of readers also responded to the column I did on burning CDs a few months ago and inquired if there was good software to catalogue CD and record collections. The answer is yes. Collectorz.com, is database software that is good for music, MP3 files, digital photo files, movies, video games and even comics. The price is $39.95. You can probably find free stuff, but, as my father always says--you get what you pay for.
However, sometimes even if you pay for something, you can't have it forever. Microsoft ended its support for Windows 98 and ME as of July 11. Obviously you can still run these old OS's, but there will be no more critical updates and no security fixes. The best solution: Upgrade to Windows XP. If your machine is really old, I say get a new computer.
Speaking of security, I checked out two excellent Web sites that help keep you safe from scams and harmful Web sites. Scandoo and SiteAdvisor, have different methods of attacking this problem. Both are free and both work with Windows and Macs.
Scandoo requests that you to enter a search term at its Web page and then scans the suspect site to look for issues. SiteAdvisor will check to see if a potential problem site is on its "bad actor" database. Thus, Scandoo's conclusion comes from its scan of contents--not the ads found on the site. SiteAdvisor, however, will actually gauge the results as well as the ads.
SiteAdvisor operates with a free plug-in that you need to download from www.siteadvisor.com and it works both with Microsoft Internet Explorer or the Firefox browser for Windows, Macintosh and Linux. SiteAdvisor is set up to work with search engines from Google, Yahoo and MSN.
Kiman Wong is general manager of digital phone at Oceanic Time Warner Cable. He can be reached at
kiman.wong@twcable.com.