Whilst I don’t let my kids have access to my Windows Vista PC, I was interested to read an article (including a video demonstation) the other day on the Parental Controls that are a feature of Vista. They seem to offer much of the protection offered by OpenDNS but without the need to set up a different service. There seems to be less potential for customisation than OpenDNS but it’s a part of the operating system so will appeal to many, including less technical users.

It’s a part of  Windows 7 too.

Have you used Windows Parental Controls? I’d be interested to hear your opinions in the comments.

As a self-professed IT geek, I’m keen to ensure that my children are up to speed with modern technology and understand its role in a modern society.

Despite them being too young for full-time education, they do have their own computer: a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop running a popular operating system called Ubuntu. Continue Reading »

There’s been a lot of noise recently about the Australian government’s plans to implement a national firewall to protect the nation’s internet users from illegal content. I’ll not go into details here but at the time of writing it’s looking like the firewall won’t be erected.

The theory behind a firewall is fine: a firewall is a piece of software that sits between you and the internet, blocking any traffic that violates a set of pre-determined rules. In practice, the Australian national firewall seemed easy to bypass and would most likely have caused internet speeds to slow dramatically as every bit of data that flowed into or out of the country had to be checked.

However, just because the nation isn’t being firewalled doesn’t mean you can’t implement your own. Continue Reading »

This panorama is created from a series of photos taken on 29th November 2009. As is usual, I didn’t have a tripod nor did I have much time to set up the photo. Consequently the camera was set to fully automatic and I had to make do with the available light. The photo was stitched, blended and tweaked in Photoshop.

Widemouth Bay Panorama

We were walking the sheepdogs on the beach. My kids had just come from an Australian summer and were not all that impressed with the cold, driving onshore wind. The dogs loved the surf that it generated though!

Since posting, I’ve realised I missed a big blend on the left of the image. I’ll fix that in due course and update this post.

This photo was taken in January 2010 from the roof of Printemps in Paris. The photo was stitched together using Photoshop Elements 8. I’ve not edited the lighting or colour — simply stitched the pictures as-is.

Panorama across Paris

I didn’t get much of a chance to set the photo up. We were in Paris for a few days and I’d not known about this rooftop terrace until we got there. Consequently I had to make do with the available light and the camera was handheld and in auto mode.