Windows 8 Family Safety: parental controls are your friend

Since Windows Vista, Microsoft has included a fairly robust parental control mechanism in the operating system. Vista’s parental controls were fantastic, but were neutered when Microsoft rolled out Windows 7. They required the installation of Windows Live Essentials in order to work. Microsoft left the door open for third party parental control mechanisms, but few, if any, hit the market. With Windows 8, however, they restored the functionality that was removed and enhanced the overall package.

Now called ‘Family Safety’, the Windows 8 parental controls are much more granular and offer the added benefit of being able to monitor your child’s computer activity via the web (which was one nice thing they did add with Windows 7.)

In order to work, however, you must setup an account on the computer. You can setup a Microsoft Account or a local account. For my purposes, and for this post, we will use a local account.

To setup a local account, bring up the settings charm. Tap the lower right corner and swipe up for touch, or hover the mouse in the same corner and when the charms display, go up and click the settings charm. Next, tap or click ‘Change PC settings’.

You will see the Settings page display. Tap or click the Users link. On the right side, you will see YOUR current account information. Toward the bottom of the page, there is a link for adding a new user. Tap or click that link.

The next page will ask for the Windows Account email address for the new user.  Since we are using a local account, tap or click the link that says ‘Sign in without a Microsoft Account’.

Next, you are presented with a page where you fill in the user’s name and password information. For my five year old, I leave the password blank. There is a checkbox that indicates this is child’s account. Check it. This sets up the safety ratings in the games and applications as well as the web sites. Once you have setup the new user account, you are ready for the real meat and potatoes: the family settings page.

From the Windows 8 Start Page, type FAMILY SAFETY. As you start typing, Windows initiates the search. You will see that SETTINGS will return a few hits. Tap or click the ‘Setup Family Safety for any User’ link.

You are now whisked away to a nice, Windows Desktop app. You will leave the comfort of the Windows App/Metro/Store/Modern UI world. That’s OK, it’s worth the discomfort.

Once in the Family Safety application, you can control the time your child can use the computer, how long, what apps and games and where they can go on the internet. Plus, it all gets recorded for you.

TIME

You can set a curfew, which governs when the computer can be used. Setting it is a snap: it is a grid that you click or tap each block to allow or block time.

You can control how much time is allowed during the allowed time frame:

WEB USE

You can allow or disallow websites:

The web filtering further restricts sites by category: child safe, general interest, adult, etc. By using this in conjunction with the Allow or block specific websites, your child should be protected and prevented from going anywhere you do not wish them to go.

You can also prevent them from downloading anything. While it won’t completely prevent viruii and other nastiness, it should go a long way to help.

GAMES, STORE, APPS

Perhaps the best part of the family safety mechanism is the ability to control what games and apps can be run by the child. In addition, you can control which non-Windows 8 applications can be run. The mechanism does rely on the ESRB ratings system, however, for those games that are NOT ESRB rated, you can prevent them from running all together or allow only certain ones to run.

CONCLUSION

The best thing you can do is to go exploring. This post was not intended to be an in depth how to, rather more of an introduction to this important aspect of Windows 8.  I encourage you to also check out my other posts on this subject as well as the official Windows 8 site. If you have young children, setting up an account and then protecting it is the best thing you can do for your child, your sanity and the computer.

A Qool OneNote competitor or a Qool OneNote companion

While I am a huge OneNote fan, I use it everyday, I am always on the lookout for a decent or even a superior competitor. Evernote comes close, even in its sub-par form today.  Windows 8 has ushered in a new set of applications, including a slate of OneNote like applications.

The latest I have seen is called Qool.  Qool is really more of an organizational tool than a note taker like OneNote-it does not have a complete set of editing tools like OneNote-but it has many basic features that make it more than usable AND…it has a tremendous sync tool.

When comparing features, it has most of the core set: embed audio, video and photos; note taking; embed other filetypes; organize your notes and present them in one of many 'dashboards’. What’s lacking are all of the editing features. I’ve not found any way to bold text, change fonts, or any of the formatting features found in other similar applications.

To create a note, simply double click or tap and a blank note appears. Type your text and then press ENTER.  Viola! Your note is saved.  Like OneNote, there is ‘SAVE’ button, changes are saved on the fly. Right click or swipe up and you reveal context sensitive menus.  The basic menu lets you change the current notes backcolor; Pin to start; Organize; Remove; Clean; Upload a file; record audio or video or take a picture.

Organize gives you several preselected layouts for your notes and files. Clean removes selected items.  Remove removes the selected item. Pin to Start creates a tile on your Start Page that will take you directly to your note.

Other context menus allow you to select your Dashboard layout, change your note color and more.

Dashboard is simply a nicer way to present your dataset. Whereas OneNote is more of a database with various notebooks, QOOL is more of a project management tool. When a note is no longer needed, you clean to remove it (or them, depending on how many you have.)  So, being able to present your notes and items in an organized fashion is a huge plus. There are several pre-selected layouts, but you can create your own.

The big feature, though, is the sync. I have the trial version installed on three machines. I could make a change on one of them and the change would show up, almost instantly, on the others. Very nice, indeed.

While OneNote need not quiver in its boots, I see that QOOL not only has some use, but could be a great adjunct to OneNote or even Evernote. I will be using to product, which is currently free, and will be reporting back on how well it works, so stay tuned!

Qool is from 598 Studios and is available in the Windows App Store. Open the store, click the Search charm in the charms bar and search for Qool.

Looking for a tablet for your child? Check out the Nabi 2

The Tablet computer continues its ascension and there is now a tablet for pretty much every need, including children.

Since the devices can range in price from $50(US) to thousands, with most in the $300-$800, many of us do not want to spend that much for such a fragile device for our kids.  Apple and the iPad Mini come close at just over $320, while Amazon is pretty much dead on with its $159 Kindle Fire and the $199 Fire HD.  However, these devices were still designed with adults in mind (though the Fires do have a child mode built in that is pretty effective.)

The children’s tablet, real tablets, is a fairly nascent market with two entries so far: the Kurio and the Nabi.  The Kurio sells for $149 for a 4gb unit. However, it seems pretty lacking and the touch screen is so-so. Also, it does not come with any full-version games.  The Nabi, on the other hand, not only comes with full-version games, it includes 50 very kid-friendly music tracks, an easy to use interface and the touch screen is really nice. Not Kindle Fire nice, but not bad either. Plus, the device is running Android 4.0 with a kid-friendly and a parent friendly user interface. The Kurio does allow for upto 8 profiles, while the Nabi has two: Nabi and ‘Mom Mode’ (which could also be called ‘Dad Mode’.)

In Nabi mode, the device is kid centric. Very few system settings are available here, only the ones dealing with the screen and wifi are available. Plus, the child cannot do much in the way of changing the appearance of the device, delete software, purchase anything or do other things they should not do.  In other words, it is pretty kid proof.

There are games like Angry Birds included. In all, there are 25 full version games and other software plus a slew of demo games.  Also included, is something called the Treasure Chest.  Treasure Chest can be a reward for the child: do something good and get rewarded with games, puzzles, music or what ever. The Treasure Chest uses coins as its monetary system. The parent buys coins from the Nabi store (think Microsoft or Wii points) which can then be doled out to the child via the management panel. When you allot coins, they are available to the child in the Treasure Chest. They can then use the coins to ‘purchase’ something from the Chest. It’s a fun, nice way to reward the child.

For the parent, they can add the Amazon App Store and purchase and download apps there as well. Since only the parent can purchase software, only the parent can make it available to the child via the Nabi mode home screens. In the parent mode, there is an ‘add/remove apps’ app that allows Mom or Dad to add or remove an app from the child’s home screens.  That game you just got too violent for them but you like it, just remove it from the Nabi home screen. By default, software is NOT added to the Nabi home screens, you must do this yourself.

The device also includes a lot of educational software and games as well as a trial for University,  a sort of online  school. I have not looked into this, so I can only repeat what is on the web site.

Internet access is via the Maxthon Browser’s child mode. There are ten or so links already in the browser for kid friendly sites and the parent can add sites as they wish.  The full Maxthon Browser is also available for the parent as well as Android’s Browser.  While Flash 11.1 is included, Flash based sites do not appear to work or work well.

The device, a 7 inch Tegra 2 tablet, is rugged, but kid friendly. It comes with a red rubbery bumper that is adequate for gripping by the child. Graphical prowess-which, I might add, is pretty damn good, is by nVidia. The speed boat racing game looked great and was very smooth. Audio, while not loud, was crisp and clean.  Overall, this is a very nice tablet for parents as well. It also comes with 8gb of storage and has a micro-SD slot for additional storage. Connectors include micro-HDMI, power and USB.

My one gripe with the hardware is the case itself: the middle of the back has these lego like things that protrude up. They are used for these blocky letters, so you can turn the device over and use with real world blocks to spell out things. They are called ‘Kinabis’. Check out the accessories page.

For $179, the Nabi 2 is really good tablet for both children and adults. A bit more expensive than the Kurio, but it seems worth the extra $30.  If you are looking for a kid-friendly tablet, hop on over to your local Best Buy or Toys R Us and check this thing out.

My PiTop is complete: Raspberry Pi and Motorola Atrix Lapdock together, at last

So, I finally got the female to female micro-HDMI coupler that I needed to complete my Motorola Atrix Laptop project.  To recap, I purchased an Atrix Laptop dock (from Motorola) for my Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi outputs video to either an HDMI cable (full size) or a crappy composite video connector (old-style RCA plug) and audio via headphone jack if using composite video.  Since the dock accepts HDMI and USB, it should be fairly easy to mate these two together for some kind of frankentop device.

Know what? It was easy.  Buuut…..getting the necessary connectors…well, that was quite the exercise.

Since both plugs on the dock were male, that meant I needed FEMALE couplers to plug the male cable into.  Finding these was just terrible. Seems that they are very niche products and I had to order them both, one on eBay and one on Amazon.

First, the easy one…I just ordered the Atrix cable kit. That comes with the USB cable I needed. I ordered from Amazon.

The second, though, I went through eBay and that came from China. Took nearly three weeks to ship!

At any rate, I got all of the necessary connectors, cables, wire ties, shrink tubing, etc. to finish the job.  Actually, just getting that damned micro-HDMI female coupler was the hardest part (and not burning my fingers with the soldering iron.)

NOTE: it is worth twisting the wires together and trying the cables first, before soldering. I did this to save myself any possible hassle should something not be right. However, when you solder them together, it is best NOT to twist them. Lay them in parallel and solder. Pre-tinning helps tremendously.

Since I wanted to use the lapdock to power the Pi AND take advantage of the keyboard and mouse pad, I had to Frankenstein the USB cables too.  This is fairly easy: you want power only to the micro USB connector on the Pi, and DATA ONLY to the USB port on the Pi.  So…I had to cut the ends off of a full size male USB cable and cut the Atrix USB cable in half.  Carefully stripping away the outer tubing on each piece of cable, I then stripped the RED and BLACK wires on the female micro USB cable and the male micro-USB cable. These get some tubing before soldering. Once tubing is in place, carefully solder the wires. DON’T FORGET GROUND! Solder the ground wire as well.

Next, strip the WHITE and GREEN wires (the BLUE wire on the female side is not used here), place some tubing on each and solder. Next, pull the tubing over the expose wire, apply heat and set aside for a minute or two, the cable will be hot.  I used a large piece of shrink tubing on the outside, but it did not cover the actually spliced area, so…embarrassingly, I used electrical tape where the three cable ends meet. It is not pretty, but it does not have to be pretty, just needs to work.  I gave up my soldering days long ago, I pull the old iron out once in a while for repairs, not for looks.

Next, plug it all together and open the lid on the lapdock. If everything is ok, you will see your Pi booting on the gorgeous screen. Moto did a nice job selecting the screen, it looks great.

Now, after having used this set up for a few days, it is not all roses.  My biggest complaint: the damned trackpad. It does not take much to make the mouse move and you can find yourself typing where you didn’t want.  Also, shutting the lid will turn off and then turn on power to the Pi. Don’t know why, but it does.  USB can be problematic: typing and using a WiFi adaptor seem to cause a problem: the keyboard will slow. WiFi is also interefered with by the USB hub built into the lapdock. Sometimes, it gets unresponsive, un plugging and plugging back in the WiFi adaptor seems to fix it.

These little quirks aside, this combo is pretty cool. My PiTop works pretty well and it was cheap: less than a hundred bucks for everything. And the Pi is just cool…no matter what one does with it.

Microsoft does listen: licensing for Office 2013 is to change

In an amazing turn of events, Microsoft actually listened to its customers and has changed the licensing for the RETAIL version of Office 2013. As I previously warned, the license for retail, boxed copies of Office 2013 was perpetually tied to the machine that it was originally installed, unless that machine died within its warranty period AND Office were pre-installed. You would be able to transfer it ONCE.

Today, acknowledging its customers, Microsoft changed the licensing to be a bit more flexible. You may now transfer the license from one machine to another, but once every 90 days. So, you still cannot install on your desktop, your laptop, your brother’s desktop or significant other’s machine at the same time.

While not perfect, it is better and it does prove that Microsoft does, in fact, listen.

From the Office blog:

Based on customer feedback we have changed the Office 2013 retail license agreement to allow customers to move the software from one computer to another. This means customers can transfer Office 2013 to a different computer if their device fails or they get a new one. Previously, customers could only transfer their Office 2013 software to a new device if their PC failed under warranty.

While the licensing agreement text accompanying Office 2013 software will be updated in future releases, this change is effective immediately and applies to Office Home and Student 2013, Office Home and Business 2013, Office Professional 2013 and the standalone Office 2013 applications. With this change, customers can move the software to another computer once every 90 days. These terms are identical to those found in the Office 2010 software.

So, there you go. It’s a shame that they abandoned the three-install license (I called it the ‘family pack.’) With Office 2010 Home and Student, you could install and use it on three devices, concurrently. Install it on others as long as you uninstalled on one.  Nice, family and budget friendly and it gets more people using the software. For some reason, they abandoned this (OK, it’s Office 365 that did it) and went with the archaic terms for the boxed software. They REALLY want that subscription. Well, I’m just not sure I’d want to do that. At $99 a year, it would feel like I am buying it every year. Not sure I want to do that. And, while 2013 looks great, I’m just not sure it is any better than 2010. But, that is me. You decide, is it worth it?