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What To Load On a 4-Year-Old's Netbook?
nostrodecus writes "I have a nephew who is very young, but who has the techie gene — he found the Gruffalo on YouTube before anyone knew he could spell. Now he's almost 4, and I was thinking of giving him my netbook (Acer running XP), which I hardly use any more. So, of course, I will be deleting all the porn, but what should I load up on it? Are there tools/apps that I can load up on it to protect it and him from things he shouldn't see until college? Also, what apps or games could I load on it that a 4-year-old will get some use out of?"
One Laptop per child has emulators for regular PCs and their software is ideally suited to a small child: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Software_components They even have a "live boot" based on Fedora Linux
My dad gave my two year old son a soccer ball last month, he threw it down the stairs and grabbed my mom's iPhone. Kids aren't born with blank slates, they have natural inclinations. You can fight those inclinations, and the children, but all you end up doing is screwing them up. If the kid has an inclination towards gadgetry, support him.
Certainly as parents we will have to force our kids to recognize the need for physical fitness (just like brushing teeth, hands and household chores), and chase after them to make sure they get enough exercise, but that's just parenting.
Most filters are effective at stopping accidental viewings. If the user actually tries to access porn, it will fail sooner or later, emphasis on the sooner. But, given that the kid is four, it seems unlikely he's going to be typing "free porn xxx" into Google.
If you just want casual filtering, I would recommend OpenDNS. Just set your DNS server to 208.67.222.123, and it will quietly block porn, malware and warez sites. I haven't found many false positives either. It won't catch everything, but if you want to delay teaching your kid about such things until he's mature enough to understand it, it works well enough.
As for productivity software, try letting the kid loose on Blender. Open-source 3d modelling/rendering program. Might be a bit slow on netbooks, but if the kid's creative, he'll find something to do with it.
Install Windows Steady State on the machine after you set it up and before you give it to him. It is designed for places like computer labs, libraries, schools, etc... that don't want kids or malicious user wrecking too much havoc. Lots of features but the gist is you have full control over what users can do (by account), how long they can be online, what drives and resources they have access to, etc. There is even a rudimentary site blocker so you can allow playhouse disney, or whatever kids sites you know are safe without letting them have free reign over the net or having to manage this at the firewall. Highly recommend it.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
By 4, most kids are ready to move onto the real thing. Duplo is for 1, 2 and 3 year olds who like to put things in their mouths and might choke on Lego, and aren't yet fully in control of their limbs so need the bigger size and tolerences of Duplo to avoid frustration.
Google "Vice President of the United States residence"
While Scratch is geared towards 6 - 16 year olds, it may be worth a look.
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
Hahahahah I have two boys who have to endure theirs dads liking of using a laptop loaded with Linux acting as the proxy, gateway, firewall. :D
I use Dans Guardian as a content filter and they HATE it LOL
I love the filter though and have been using it for many years. It has a wonderful where I can adjust the level of filtering based on the average age of those going through the filter. Naturally you can add certain IPs to not go though it.
Thankfully they have found no way to bypass it YET