{"id":1405,"date":"2013-03-15T16:53:30","date_gmt":"2013-03-15T20:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/?p=1405"},"modified":"2013-03-18T08:34:34","modified_gmt":"2013-03-18T12:34:34","slug":"linkdump-computing-for-kiddies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/2013\/03\/15\/linkdump-computing-for-kiddies\/","title":{"rendered":"Linkdump: computing for kiddies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Stinkbug Manor houses two lovely and awful children, ages 4 (soon-to-be 5) and 7 (soon-to-be 8), and recently, I&#8217;ve noticed that they&#8217;ve spent far too much time hovering around my computer.<br \/>\nIn general, I don&#8217;t have a problem with telling them no and booting them off. However, I also know that I want to blunt the emerging issues regarding my daughter, the 7 (8) year-old, whose friends are beginning to acquire either their own devices (iPods Touch, primarily) or laptops. There&#8217;s no way on Earth I want to give my daughter unfettered access to Girl Drama, and I certainly don&#8217;t believe any child of any means should own a device they can&#8217;t replace with the money found in a few holiday cards from Mom-mom &amp; Pop-pop (seriously, Mom, St. Patrick&#8217;s Day cards? Really? They appreciate the $5, though.).<\/p>\n<p>My lovely and talented daughter can barely make it through dinner without spilling her glass, I&#8217;d hate to see the damage she&#8217;d do to her own iPod. They are allowed to play games\/Facetime on our devices, even unsupervised (but not far away), but they&#8217;re not getting their own. Uh-unh.<\/p>\n<p>Still, I&#8217;d like them to use a computer. Even play games (although I&#8217;m trying to keep gaming to a minimum. I see no need to introduce gaming consoles any time soon. I fear they will become inevitable, but they are yet another thing that will try to keep my kids inside.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_846\" style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/103_0020.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-846\" class=\" wp-image-846 \" alt=\"More this, less computing. But still, some computing\" src=\"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/103_0020-300x225.jpg\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/103_0020-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/103_0020-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-846\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">More this, less computing. But still, some computing<\/p><\/div>\n<p>So, computer it is, and, I have an embarrassment of plans of how to deal with it. But let&#8217;s inventory the equally amazing embarrassment of computing options available:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A mac mini, purchased 2012 after the catastrophic failure of my old macbook&#8217;s hard drive.<\/li>\n<li>A macbook, revitalized after the 2012 hard drive death.<\/li>\n<li>An ancient Dell laptop, trash picked. Now runs Ubuntu. Doesn&#8217;t have a wireless card.<\/li>\n<li>A new $199 no-name Chinese laptop bought on Ebay. Also runs on Ubuntu. I bought it intending to give it to the missus, but it was too icky slow for the Win7 it came with and so I decided Ubuntu would be good. It makes for a nice writing laptop, though, so I&#8217;m kind of loathe to get rid of it.<\/li>\n<li>An ancient Dell Inspiron laptop what my wife uses for work and should replace for Gawd&#8217;s sake already. (Generally off the table.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So here are the options:<\/p>\n<p>1) I could give each child their own account on the Macs, complete with predetermined auto shutdown time limit thingies, which is nice.<\/p>\n<p>Downsides:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I still don&#8217;t like the idea of them mucking about on the computer with all the Family Stuff on it.<\/li>\n<li>They also tend to poke the screens with their little pointy appendages and it gets all icky.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>2) I could give them each an Ubuntu laptop, with similar safety bits.<\/p>\n<p>Downsides:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They&#8217;re not at all familiar with Ubuntu.<\/li>\n<li>One of them would necessarily get the trashpick Dell, whose lack of WiFi card would prevent PBS kids and require tethering to the router. (Still, minecraft)<\/li>\n<li>Inability to Facetime or Message with Apple-equipped peers, the little sh!ts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>3) Do nothing. Allow them to whine.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s no downsides to that, really, as the whinging hardly stops anyway. Still, I <em>want<\/em> them to be able to use a computer to discover how to do stuff and make stuff.<\/p>\n<p>So, while I&#8217;m trying to decide, some helpful links. If you happen to read this, let me know if you have any ideas. Feel free to comment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ubuntu-y<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/54036\/how-to-create-a-family-friendly-ubuntu-setup\/\">How to Create a Family-Friendly Ubuntu <del>Land of Pure Bliss.<\/del> Setup.<br \/>\n<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/askubuntu.com\/questions\/68918\/how-do-i-restrict-my-kids-computing-time\">How to restrict my kid&#8217;s computing time.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/linuxaria.com\/article\/linux-is-full-with-educational-software?lang=en\">Linux is Full of Educational Software.<br \/>\n<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.edubuntu.org\/\">Edubuntu<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dansguardian.org\/\">DansGuardian<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ubuntuforums.org\/showthread.php?t=207008\">How to Install DansGuardian<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.linuxlinks.com\/article\/20090516201424454\/EducationalGames.html\">9 of the Best Linux Educational Games<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/the-linux-desktop-rich-with-educational-software-4010024668\/\">The Linux Desktop: Rich With Educational Software<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Mac-y<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/mac.appstorm.net\/how-to\/os-x\/the-complete-guide-for-child-proofing-your-mac\/\">Child-proofing your Mac.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.macworld.com\/article\/1163342\/how_to_share_one_mac_with_your_family.html\">How to share your Mac with your family. <\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.macworld.com\/article\/1163346\/how_to_manage_multiple_macs_at_home.html\">How to manage multiple Macs at home.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/support.apple.com\/kb\/PH4522\">Support.Apple&#8217;s bit on managing kid computer usage.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do kids need to compute? They might. How shall we provide options while preserving the Integrity of the Mr. &#038; Mrs. Lstr&#8217;s home computer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,6,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dumb-thoughts","category-gregs-reference","category-stinkbug-manor","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7V2xo-mF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1405"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1407,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405\/revisions\/1407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}