This internet parent guide is about behaviours and practices rather than software.

By now you probably are already aware of the most basic practices, but for a refresher click here.

Know your child’s real world first. Who are his or her friends? Who do they hang out with at school? Which friends have computers and internet connections.

Talk to the parents of your children’s friends. Think of yourselves as “internet parents” the same way you would as soccer moms or hockey parents. Agree on common ground rules for web use when the kids are at one another’s homes. Ask them to Read more…

Parents who only read the following four articles will be heavily armed and well informed in the struggle to protect their children and their families.

1.Location Location Location: This article explains in detail why location of computers is important and provides parents with strategies to bring children on board with appropriate location.

2. Remember who your child is: A walk through on matching your children’s ages and personalities with appropriate internet intervention strategies.

3. Enlist older siblings: Even if you parent an only child, this article provides important insights on communication and coaching tools.

4. The Contract: The famous “contract” that provides step-by-step coaching on getting real buy-in from children for a framework that will protect the entire family.

Beware Strangers Bearing Gifts: Safety Scams
by Glenn Caleval

Concerned parents are an ideal target for the unscrupulous. Even when it’s not a “scam” in the legal sense, there are highly unethical “free” offers out there that you need to be very careful with. Please, please, do read the “Terms & Conditions” and “Disclaimers” and any similar link that may hold surprises in the offer.

Here are some examples.

Read more…

Obtaining a domain name

There are several steps to complete to purchase your own domain name. You can do it yourself (DIY) if you think the time and effort you will spend is worth less than the cost of having someone do it for you.

Our sponsor, Walking Dolphins Consultancy will complete the process for at a cost of no more than $49 which includes your first year registration fee (applies to .com, .org, .net, .ca, .us and .info).

Here are the steps they would do that you can do on your own:

1. Determine if a name is available that is either exactly the one you want or one that is sufficiently similar or relevant. This step involves going to a whois server or a registrar site and entering in your preferred domain name. Check our step-by-step tutorial for researching your domain name.

Let’s say your family name is smith so you want smith.com. You will find right off that smith.com is not available. You then check for variants such as Read more…

FREE Phishing Protection

One free service that we use at Secure Surfing Organization is elegant in its simplicity and highly effective for more than fraud protection.

NOTE: you are not even required to register or sign-up with OpenDNS to use their service.

OpenDNS is entirely free and works by having you set your DNS server addresses to OpenDNS’s servers, 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220. If you don’t know what this means, they have a very clear video with step-by-step explanations to get you up and running. Read more…