[Podolsky]

I just bought an 800mhz, 512mg ram, superdrive eMac for my kids and I am looking for any dos, don'ts, tips and advice you may have to share. You know, the things you wished you had known before you got yours. I am a long-time Mac user and I am very open and appreciative of any and all advice.

Thanks!

[Justin W. Williams]

Do let them explore and have fun.

Don't let them look at porn.

the eMac is a great machine. Be careful they dont poke the speakers or break the cd drive I would guess is the only problems I could think of.

If you didnt get the tilt and swivel stand, get it. It will make it much more pleasent.

[Podolsky]

An 8 and 10 year old will share this eMac as they did a Rev "b" iMac. I worry about porn and use Explorer settings to the extent I can to filter that stuff out. But I know they don't work much at all.......

Thanks for the advice.

[JNG]

Keep the speaker covers in, make sure you buy the right kinds of media for the Superdrive, get the Tilt n' Swivel Stand if you didn't, get more RAM if anyone complains about pokiness in OS X, enjoy the packaged Otto Matic game (I kinda do, and I'm 22!), and be a proud eMac owner!

[Justin W. Williams]

Originally posted by Podolsky:
An 8 and 10 year old will share this eMac as they did a Rev "b" iMac. I worry about porn and use Explorer settings to the extent I can to filter that stuff out. But I know they don't work much at all.......

Man, I wish my dad woulda bought me a Macintosh Classic when I was 8. All I got was a lousy Samsung

What a great dad!

[vmarks]

filtering software inevitably doesn't work. It can't filter everything, and filters things it shouldn't as well. You can expect that given enough time and determination that children will find inappropriate material anyway.

What you want to do if you choose to use filtering software is try and prevent the accidental encouter with inappropriate material. You can almost do that as well by using Mozilla instead of Explorer, and not allowing the browser to open pop up windows ( a preference setting in Mozilla.)

More important is that you look at the browser history and if you see an obviously inappropriate site, talk to your children about why it's wrong and address it as you see fit as a parent. (I won't get into advising parental discipline.)

Another option you have is to not have the Mac have internet connectivity unless you're around. I have helped other parents set up a router so that they can block internet access from the child's machine when they leave the house for work.

[turnedge762]

About the pornography on the internet, I would tell your kids about why they should stay away from it, but not tell them that it's wrong. It's a broad statement to tell kids that something is wrong and they can and will make braod associations with what you say. I'm not trying to tell anyone how to parent; I was just offended by the severity of the moderator's statement.

[Podolsky]

Thank you all for the suggestions. I am going to stick with 512 ram for now. It is enough for my Powerbook running Jaguar.

Regarding the porn thing - thank you. I do talk about it and they know I feel it is something to avoid. I don't think it is "wrong" but I do feel that it is way too intrussive on the net -- for adults and kids. I set Google's filters as well as explorer to try an limit it but you all know that no method is foolproof. I'm not fanatically about or else they wouldn't have a connected Mac. Whether we like it or not porn is pervasive on the net so we might as well use it to teach some life lessons. But some of those lessons I didn't think I would have to get into right now..........

What about software titles that seem to be nicely matched to the eMac and to 8-10 yr. olds?

I am going to keep things simple for now and set up 2 users Dad and Kids. Any suggestions on how to setup these users?

Thanks - mucho