Parental controls

Q. My wife and I have recently become guardians of a 16-year old teenage girl who is fairly computer literate. We want to allow her access to the Internet, but we need some ways to monitor her usage. Is there anything already in my Microsoft XP Professional that will allow parental control and perhaps some sort of reporting tool to monitor websites and/or chat rooms visited?

A. Microsoft XP has no such reporting or monitoring tool built in. One of the more highly touted features of the new Windows Vista operating system is the built in parental controls that will do a lot of what you are seeking, including sending reports and allowing you to set times when the computer can and cannot access the Internet.

Unless you upgrade to Windows Vista, you will have to purchase a third party application to accomplish what you want to do with your recently acquired adolescent ward.

There are many, many so-called Internet nanny software programs on the market today. You can find reviews of some of the more popular programs at Just type in the search term “parental controls” on their main page.

Another great resource is About: Family Internet. Use the same search term as I mentioned before, but also take some time to read the other articles they have there as they are most informative.

Since you mentioned that your teenager is somewhat technically savvy I would like to point out that these “cyber-sitter” programs can be pretty readily disabled by someone who knows what they’re doing. I’ve said it before and I will say it again; There’s no substitute for parental involvement.

When it comes to managing the Internet usage of a family member you might consider a less technical solution such as keeping the computer in a public area of the house rather than tucked away in a private space like a bedroom of home office space.

I don’t know too many people, adolescent, adult or otherwise that tend to act out inappropriately on the computer when there’s a chance of someone walking up to them while they are doing it.

Jay Lee