I hate to admit it, but Microsoft has a great solution for this.
https://fss.live.com/
Parents can use their existing passport accounts add the kids own hotmail.com or live.com email adresses, and then the parents are in control of every contact they can receive or send from. The kids can make requests, and then parent can grant them. It also works for Windows Live Messenger, only the contacts the parents approve are allowed to talk. I have been using it for my 10 and 8 year old. Works great. Even on Linux. You just have to live the stigma of giving your kids hotmail.com accounts.
For what it's worth I use a Linksys WRT54GSv2 with Tomato (www.polarcloud.com/tomato) It's working very well. The QOS and bandwidth meters are better than anything else I have used. I have had very long uptimes, basically until the next update from tomato comes out and it has to reboot. I have moved hundreds of gigs via bittorrent, with no issues.
Tomato does allow over/under clocking and increasing the number of connections, among many others.
I am always amazed at what people really think they need to hide. So what if someone wants to read my casual conversations, even my personal ones. Does it somehow reduce my quality of life, or how I interact with people. NO. If Google thinks they can provide me better service by knowing me better, I say so be it. If you think you have something to hide, I say check your conscious, and see if you really have a moral reason to be concerned. I personally have a hard time coming up with a good exception. (Although I admit a few and rare occasions exist.)
Slashdot Mirror
Waiting for this as well.
I hate to admit it, but Microsoft has a great solution for this. https://fss.live.com/ Parents can use their existing passport accounts add the kids own hotmail.com or live.com email adresses, and then the parents are in control of every contact they can receive or send from. The kids can make requests, and then parent can grant them. It also works for Windows Live Messenger, only the contacts the parents approve are allowed to talk. I have been using it for my 10 and 8 year old. Works great. Even on Linux. You just have to live the stigma of giving your kids hotmail.com accounts.
I have found many good/small bloat free apps here .... www.tinyapps.org
For what it's worth I use a Linksys WRT54GSv2 with Tomato (www.polarcloud.com/tomato) It's working very well. The QOS and bandwidth meters are better than anything else I have used. I have had very long uptimes, basically until the next update from tomato comes out and it has to reboot. I have moved hundreds of gigs via bittorrent, with no issues. Tomato does allow over/under clocking and increasing the number of connections, among many others.
I am always amazed at what people really think they need to hide. So what if someone wants to read my casual conversations, even my personal ones. Does it somehow reduce my quality of life, or how I interact with people. NO. If Google thinks they can provide me better service by knowing me better, I say so be it. If you think you have something to hide, I say check your conscious, and see if you really have a moral reason to be concerned. I personally have a hard time coming up with a good exception. (Although I admit a few and rare occasions exist.)
Tom O. Is that you?
That's funny my IBM Aptiva 2158-530 machine I bought a few years ago came with a 13GB Maxtor drive in it. I was surprised too.