As I've stated before, one purpose of this blog is to review products that may (or may not) be useful tools for parents. The first tool evaluated and reviewed is OpenDNS.

Any discussion concerning the challenges of parenting in the age of the Internet at some point usually involves someone will come out in favor of stronger laws to protect our children. While I can certainly relate to the urge to make things better, I'm also beginning to realize the full complexity of these problems.

I recently completed a very well designed course in web application security put on by the SANS Institute. My job at the University of Northern Iowa involves managing web servers, including online learning systems, general web servers and specialized web based application servers. As you might imagine, security is a large and growing aspect of my job. While the training focused manly on highly technical issues, one concept that came up again and again was that the most vulnerable part of the web is the end user.

The situation I spoke of in my last post, Unwelcome Visitors brings to mind the often uncomfortable topic of online pornography. Since this blog focuses on technical issues that modern families face, it's probably best to get to this sooner than later.

This past weekend we had some family visit, and not surprisingly, playing with all our tech was a favorite activity for all the kids.

I installed the Activity version of TuxPaint, which Sam has played with for several years on my Linux and Mac computers. I had previously installed this via yum, but starting it up on the command line was difficult for Sam, so this is a welcome addition to Mr. Laptop. Sam has become quite proficient with Sugar and has even started using some keyboard shortcuts.

It's been a while since our last post. Yes, this is mostly due to having too much fun with Mr. Laptop and other Christmas presents to have time for the blog. However, Sam's explorations have provided a wealth of things to write about.