There are still parts that are in development, like most of the forms and the search. But it should be functional and as I said, easier on the eyes when reading.

I’m also considering to make printing to PDF available so you can save some of the information on your local resources.

Hope the new look is satisfactory to everyone reading.

The Internet with all it’s glory also opened a gateway to our homes for the predators. Following the news you read almost weekly about police shutting down large pedophile groups, and that’s a good thing. Law enforcement units are able to hunt them down using the networks. But just as the good guys use the networks to find them, the bad guys use the networks to share their sick and twisted materials.

How do we protect our children from this?

I know the most effective ways are to, from a young age, teach them how to behave in social medias etc. But does it protect them enough. I don’t think so!

If you work as a systems administrator and have the privilege of watching firewall logs you’ll know what I know. Even if there is a company policy saying you can’t do this or can’t do that, people will still do it if you don’t prevent it. And you need to remember these are adults, so do we expect our children to follow these rules without ever crossing lines. I hope your not that blind, because they will.

So how do we protect them, the most secure way might be to sit the sessions with them, but that’s never going to work. My daughter is only 6 months so I don’t expect to know everything yet but I’m guessing someone with a teenage daughter trying to sit with them while they chat with their friends would hear a lot of *unfriendly* words. Correct me if I’m wrong.

The same goes to using spy software, not to mention in some countries it’s illegal.

There are also many devices children use. They use cell phones, computers, PSP, MP3 players, Nintendo’s, Playstation’s, Xboxes and many more. Most of them able to connect to the internet.

Using proxy services and firewalls

We can block access to certain sites or allow access to only certain sites using proxies. And blocking every port and protocol except the ones needed for the proxy will effectively shut down any attempts made to chat with software like MSN, ICQ etc. But doing something like that do we also restrict our children from learning? Where does the line between security and paranoia go? Also I don’t expect every parent out there to sit at home and configure proxy services and firewalls. It’s just to hard for the masses.

Apple OS X does include really easy to setup services to some protection. Like blocking adult sites, allowing use of only a few software’s, usage time and bedtime. This is a great idea but at the same time it does need configuration. But unlike firewalls and proxies, OS X is like any Apple product easy to use.

Here you can see some of the settings.

If you know of software’s like this for other platforms like Microsoft Windows, Linux, Symbian, Windows Mobile, iPhone OS, Android etc let me know. I’ll try to test as many as I can and post the test results on this blog in a future post.

Trust your children

Should we just trust them to make the right decision when confronted with a choice? Yes and no is my answer. There is no way we can ever protect our children from everything bad out there. We should also let them do their own mistakes. As we did when we were young.

We do need to follow closely on behavior and patterns since we have the web working against us. And we need to know what’s going on by *knowing* our children. Not by spying on them! Create a relationship based on trust and teach them how to behave online just as you teach them how to behave in real life. The web isn’t that different from the real life. I’m guessing the hardest part is to get your child to trust you enough to be open about what’s going on in his/her life. And internet or not, that’s called parenting.

Are you a parent? Have you been thinking about this? Please comment. How did you solve the problem, or do you trust your child to make the right decision?

More ads than content

We have all seen these sites. There are thousands out there. On the site there’s so many ads that if you make the mistake of using Internet Explorer when you go to the page it will stall your computer. I see nothing wrong with advertising, it’s a great way to keep some services that otherwise might be per pay free. What I do find bad is cluttering a whole page with ads so you have a hard time finding any content.

Newspapers and magazines are the ones I find worst. For some reason they seem to think they can make the same amount of revenue of a user that uses online services as one ordering the paper. This will never happen. The web is the home of many free services, so if someone over advertises or starts charging for services you can find for free elsewhere you’ll go elsewhere…right.

There has been a lot of talk about this on the web, many large media companies are thinking of charging for the use of their sites. So how will users react? I think, and maybe wrong, that users will find another supplier for their needs. One who still offers their service for free and rely on advertising.

Ad-blockers are the result from many publishers use of intrusive advertising. If advertising tickles my nerves on a site, I won’t be going back if I can’t block them with a ad-blocker. One great example is a Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. Go to their site using Internet Explorer and see how your computer is sent back in time to the twentieth century. It’s like you have 16Mb or RAM and an 33MHz processor. Crazy isn’t it.

The developer of Ad-block Plus has been discussing a new way of handling advertising. I think this approach is great. This would would allow the webmasters of sites who do fair and reasonable advertising to enable advertising for users, but only if the user allows it. This way, if you run intrusive advertising your site will be blocked. There is of course the dilemma of some users who might, even if the ads aren’t intrusive, enable ad-blocking features and some webmasters seam to be really annoyed by this. Well isn’t it better we can get some users to look at our ads than none. There will always be users blocking advertising, you can’t get around that fact.

Now dear readers, would you be so kind to comment and let’s build a list on sites that use to much advertising.

So working with Microsoft products and writing about Microsoft products and technologies made me realize I really need to get certified. Certification for me was a way to prove to myself I know my way around the Windows Server operating system and specifically the Active Directory (AD).

The goals for now are to get the Microsoft Certified IT Professional: Server Administrator and after that Enterprise Administrator.

The first exam done

Today I took my first exam, the Microsoft exam 083-640 or 70-640, and by doing so receiving my first certification. And now I’m awaiting my email about my MCP status. Next week I have the next test booked and during my learning and training process I’ve noticed I remember things a lot better by writing about them, so this blog will probably get updated more these weeks than it has ever been, so keep a look out for new articles you might be interested in.

Bye for now

This was all for today and as I said, keep a look out for articles you might want to read in the close future.

Anyway planning a office for myself I had a few goals. I had to have enough space to keep papers, books, magazines, notes and various office supplies on the tables without them getting in the way. I settled on two tables placed like an L. The other thing I felt important was that I had to have a view out the window and see the television in the living room. I feel more constructive when I can see something else than a wall.

All this in mind I ordered the furniture delivered to our door and the bill was a little over 800 €. Quite cheap considering I got everything except the chair which I already had and felt didn’t need to be upgraded. I wouldn’t buy a chair from IKEA anyway.

The home office

The point of this post was to show some pictures of my home office. It’s still a work in progress. I still need a few shelves and some paintings or photographs on the wall. But somehow buying stuff for my computers always seems more important . So here are two pictures from the office. I dare not show you the other wall since it’s a mess.

As you can seethe desktop is quite clean. Nothing special there.

New Keyboard

My trustworthy old Logitech MX keyboard started pipe out. The left shift button was working and not working as it saw fit so I had to replace it. And as from the heavens Jeff Atwood posted his keyboard was worn out. His “holy grail” of keyboards was the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. I remember myself looking at these ergonomic keyboards years back. So I figured it was time I’d at least try one out. I got the wired version since I see no point in using a wireless keyboard at the desk. A wireless mouse is different.  So I placed my order to my shop of choice Verkkokauppa.com and picked it up a few days later. I’ve now been using it for a few days and I have to say I really love it. Once you get past the fact that the keys are separated for the left and the right hand you’ll love it. I just feels right and I can’t remember a better keyboard. This is definitely the one I’m going to get to work next time I need something new.

Next time I’ll post pictures when the office is done. Until then this is what you’ll have to settle for. Feel free to comment and any ideas or ways to make a home office “better” will be greatly appreciated. If you have pictures of your office I’d be happy to see some and snag a few ideas.

I just had to share this with anyone of my friends who hasn’t stopped to listen to it.

This is one of the reasons I love http://www.youtube.com. Feel free to listen to the song and I hope you’ll get as blown away as I do.