Monthly Archives: November 2013

Setting up Privacy Control for Children: Optimizing Windows Performance

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Through computers, children have access to a lot of information in the world. A computer connected to an Internet would mean that your child can navigate to any website without your permission. Likewise, they often navigate to pornographic websites without the parents knowing. For this purpose, Microsoft Corp. has designed Windows to support the Parental Control feature so that parents can keep an eye on their children. Setting up Parental Controls in windows is quite easy. All a user needs to do is to navigate to the section and select the options that best suit his or her requirements.

 

Setting up the privacy controls

Setting up privacy & parental controls is quite easy in windows but it should be kept in mind that the user should be signed in as an Administrator so that the change can take effect in all the accounts. In our day, the most common mistakes that parents make is that they sign in as a single (personal) account and change the settings in Parental Controls. These changed settings take effect in that particular account. As a result, it is necessary that a parent sets up the control measures through an administrative login.

Double click on the My Computer section and type ‘parental controls’ in the search bar located at the top right corner. On the other hand, a user can navigate to the Control Panel home page and locate these settings under the Privacy icon. Users can also locate these settings by typing ‘parental controls’ in the search bar of Start Menu. Now, click on the User Accounts section and enable the Parental Control option.

A display bar will be opened that will let you select programs that you want to block from the children. Select the programs through the Browse Tab or Drag Drop the icons of these programs (the Launch Applications). Parents can make changes to these settings anytime.

The second step is to navigate to the browser and enable Parental Controls. The Internet Explorer contains a Privacy option in the Internet Options section. A parent can add websites that he or she wants to block from the children. In addition, they can check the recently visited websites through the History section of the explorer.

Note: It is always best to restart the computer for the changes to take effect before the program can be used by the user.

Secure Email – Optimize the Program Experience in Windows

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Most users are reluctant to use Microsoft Outlook and similar other Microsoft related messenger as well as email platforms, as they were reported previously for being virus and malware carriers, infecting the entire mailbox. These malicious emails were sent to other mail users in the contact list and their mailboxes were infected upon opening of these emails. Having switched to BBMs, people are now concerned about their privacy, and have stopped using emails for the sake of preventing their personal information and documents being accessed by others.

AOL and Gmail have installed state of the art software programs that filter out all possible spams and malicious emails that can infect a user’s mailbox. These companies have also installed virus protection and security measures to prevent the privacy of individuals from being compromised. Several ID protection services in collaboration with Norton and AVG have been installed, along with identification confirmation upon two wrong password entries. In addition, two email addresses are linked together for verification purposes. Even with these security measure that are being taken by email giants like Google, Hotmail, and AOL, cyber crimes are continually increasing in the US and other countries throughout the world.

You (as an email user) can take the following precautions to prevent your personal belongings from being compromised.

Activate the spam filter technology if you are using AOL, Hotmail, or Google Mail. This feature can be activated by clicking on the spam folder and clicking on the Filter Spam icon.

A user can also activate the Identity protection feature before logging in. The log in page contains information on this feature that takes no more than six clicks (and some forms) to activate.

Link two personal email addresses together. This can be done by creating a back up (reset information) email when you sign up for an account. Most email service providers continually circulate messages that contain an alternate email bar.

Change the password every month by clicking on the ‘forgot password’ on the email home screen.

Do not open email from an un-identified source, especially the ones that are related to financial incentives.

Avoid sending an email that contains your personal data or information to an un-identified user, in order to prevent breach of personal information.