 |
|
|
|
Please note: The reports in this section are not product reviews or tests; they're meant to spotlight options for you to consider, as well as milestones in children's online-safety technology development. Comments from readers on their own experiences with these products and services are most welcome - and, with your permission, we publish them. Do email us your own product reviews anytime!
iForAll: Remote monitoring + communication (April 28, '00 issue)
You know how a lot of parents are using pagers to keep track of their teenagers? Well, you might call this product a "pager" for when they're on the Internet. IForAll is next-generation monitoring software designed to do two quite unique things:
- Lets parents track kids' at-home online activities while the parents are at work. Mom, Dad, or both (from separate workplaces) - or how about Granddad from his house?! - can see what's going on on up to three computers in realtime (they're not just looking at history files, they're looking at a computer screen at the same time the child is). All this monitored activity takes place in a "window" that can be made any size on one's computer screen at work, so the parent can work while monitoring.
- Allows for two-way instant-messaging communications between parent and child while they're both looking at the same Web page or chat room.
What all this means is, parent and child can surf together from remote locations. This might sound very big-brother-ish, or at least not very trusting, but we like the positive message InFORall is sending with its marketing. Product manager Steve Schmidt says the software "allows kids to grow up on the Internet with their parents' help" - while giving parents the flexibility of not having to be in the same room when the child's online. Certainly, parents can view the product as a spying tool, but if they feel the need to monitor kids online, they can be up front about it (instead of secretly viewing browser history files). And they can use the instant-messaging feature in a positive way as a family communication enhancer.Other iForAll features include:
- Filtering via a database of blocked sites that parents can edit, based on self-rated Web sites. This is not one of the product's strong points - there are a lot of "objectionable" sites that haven't opted to rate themselves under the PICS-based Internet rating system. See GetNetWise for more on Web rating.
- Online activity record-keeping (a bit like browser history files) for asynchronous (non-realtime) monitoring.
- Replaying of chat activity.
- Remote "locking down" of home computers (no other remote control, remembering it's meant to be a monitoring and communications tool).
- Listing of all incoming and outgoing email addresses and instant messages.
IForAll can be downloaded for $60 ("about the price of a video game," the company says) from the company Web site.
We were interested to hear that this software comes out of industrial technology that systems administrators use to monitor various parts of a manufacturing process. InFORall founder and chief tech officer Nega Gebreyesus put that capability on the Internet and added the instant-messaging piece. Fun to know where things come from! The company's next application, we're told, is for Net-based, wireless family communications using any device. It turns a home-based PC into a communications "hub." So Mom on a business trip can use her palmtop to look at the family and school calendar that resides on the home-PC communications "hub" - then have an instant-message "chat" with her ninth-grader about his homework that night. Any family member using any device from anywhere will supposedly be able to "input," "store," and "view" anything on the "hub." Always new vocabulary to learn!
Of course, we believe, truly sophisticated use of any technology is based on solid family groundrules (such as an Internet acceptable-use policy that family members hammer out together) that grow out of good communication and respect going in all directions.
If any of you try this product and would like to comment on the experience, fellow subscribers would probably appreciate your perspective. Please email us!
HOME | newsletter | subscribe | links | supporters | about | feedback
.gif)
