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The Internet's great freedom can also be one of the great causes of concern for the parents of curious children eager to use this wonderful tool. Some may be concerned about their children enjoying the computer too much, to the point where they neglect other types of play that involve physical activity. Others may be concerned about their children stumbling upon websites that contain things that they may not yet be mentally and emotionally ready to see, read or hear. My intention in discussing these tools is that they should be used in an above-board manner with the children's knowledge, combined with open discussions about the information available on the Internet and education about critical-thinking skills.

The Parental Controls present in Windows Vista enable a parent to control things such as the amount of time (including which particular times) their child can access their account, the games they can play and programs they can run, the websites that they can and cannot visit, and whether or not to track the account's activity (4).

The Parental Controls can be found in the "User Accounts and Family Safety" section of the Control Panel, and can also be accessed using the main search function after opening the Start menu. In order to use the controls, the account you are logged in under must have administrator privileges (1).

At the Welcome screen you will be given the option of either applying controls to an existing account or creating a new account. If you choose to create a new account, click the appropriate link and follow the prompts to complete this task. From the main welcome screen you can choose to select a games rating system to be used with the Games controls, and can also select Family Safety Options, where you choose how often to view activity reports if you turn on this feature (1).

When you choose an account and click on it you will have a number of options of things to control. You can choose to turn Parental Controls and Activity Reporting on or off for that user, and there are 4 options at the left to choose from for controls: Vista Web Content Filter, Games, Time Limits, and Allow and Block Specific Programs. Once you have turned on the Parental Controls at the left, you will be able to use these options.

The Web Filter option allows you to choose which websites to block and allow. You can select to do this automatically based on settings, for example by choosing High, Medium or None for filtering. The Custom options lets you check off which

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