Greg Berthume’s Blog

Pamela and I recently went looking for a parental control software solution for all of our home computers to replace Net Nanny.

EVERY family that has computers connected to the internet should be running parental control software on EVERY PC! The internet is a fantastic tool, especially for homeschoolers but there are many dangers lurking on the internet as well. We need to protect our children from being exposed to the dark parts.

We have found that SafeEyes from InternetSafety.com is simply the most powerful and easy to configure solution available. It’s ranked #1 and winner of PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice 2 years in a row. It also seems to be the only one that offers a free trial period so clearly they are confident in their solution. One feature that really stands out is that you can configure everybody’s login from any PC as the controls are web based. This is great because then you don’t have to go to a particular computer to adjust the settings.

Try it for free and you will see.

Some information (click the above link for full details and to download the full featured trial):

What are “Parental Controls”?

“Parental Controls” is a term that has been widely used to describe tools that allow parents to choose appropriate content for their children. Parental controls have been developed for everything from TV to the Internet. Safe Eyes falls in the later category of Internet parental control software. Safe eyes is a flexible set of tools that allows anyone to determine the type Internet usage that is appropriate.

Safe Eyes Parental Controls Include:

1. Content Controls - Flexible “Internet Filtering” allows you to select the types of website that are appropriate.
2. Program Controls - Control Instant Messengers, P2P File Sharing, and other harmful programs.
3. Time Controls - Control the amount of time spent online, and the times when the internet is available.
4. Usage Logging - Create and review logs of websites visited, programs used on the Internet, and Instant Messaging Chats.
5. Usage Alerts - Be notified instantly via email, text message, or phone call when someone visits inappropriate websites.
Parental Controls For Website Content

There are many different types of websites that can be potentially harmful to children. With 35 categories, our parental control software gives you the ability to fine tune access to websites and ensure that harmful content is blocked. Our effective Internet filtering will ensure that your children are protected whenever they go online.

Instant Messaging Parental Controls

Whether you are interested in blocking Instant Messaging or just monitoring who your children are chatting with, Safe Eyes parental control software helps you accomplish the task with ease. Our parental controls allow you to monitor Yahoo!, AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, and MSN Instant Messenger.

Control Time Spent Online

The Internet can be a great resource for homework, research projects and fun activities. But it can be easy to get sidetracked playing games or watching videos online. Our parental controls allow you to specify the amount of time that can be spent online, and the times of the day when the Internet is available.

The night before last I was working late here at the warehouse. Had the back receiving door open. A stray dog wondered in and left abruptly after he saw me. Looked like a Lab mix.

About 15 mins later I shut the place up and went to the “Coopster” (what I call my Mini Cooper) where I came across the dog and another similar looking dog moving about the parking lot excited about something. They looked a little mangy.

I yelled at them to go away and they took off. The thought crossed my mind that I hadn’t seen the cat in a bit. He sometimes goes outside at night but stays close to the building.

I started to drive away and noticed something black on the ground where the car was parked. Went back and checked it out.

It was the front right tire molding. The dogs had torn it off and chewed the molding on both sides! 3 pieces need to be replaced. Plus there’s a deep tooth mark in the bumper that will have to be repaired.

I had no idea why they would attack my car. Maybe Mini Coopers taste like steak?!?

So I threw the piece in the car and proceeded home at my usual high speed. One of these days I’ll probably plow into a deer so I really should slow down but it’s a blast going fast in my little Coopster! Drives like a big go-cart.

I arrive home and start unloading some things. I hear a faint “meow”. I think it’s a cat in the neighbor’s yard. I hear it a couple more times. Sounds familiar…

I go get Pamela and the boys to show them the damage.

I hear the meow again. I look at Pamela and we’re both thinking the same thing. We know this because we’ve been together for over 23 years… ha ha

I pop the engine hood and lo and behold there is Joey the kitten tucked tightly next to the engine where the headlight is.

He barely had room to crawl up through the engine to escape the dog’s teeth. If I had not left when I did there’s no telling how much damage those hungry mutts would have done and surely I would have shot them with my .22!

It took a good 10 mins to get him purring and relaxed but he’s fine and seems to have suffered no ill effects although he probably has some pretty interesting dreams now. Sometimes when he’s sleeping I hear him making engine noises that I swear sound like the Coopster! Maybe he ENJOYED the car ride. Perhaps that was nothing compared to the dogs which to you and I would have been like two grizzly bears trying to get into our house.

He must have had quite a fright between the dogs and driving next to a Mini Cooper engine with me shifting through 5 gears and going fast (I’d rather not say just how fast).

The car didn’t smell like steak, it smelled like CAT which is probably far more attractive to a dog.

I sure hope the damaged pieces don’t cost too much.

Just another day in my life which is NEVER boring to say the least!

I have finally posted some pictures to the CONNECT! forum. Sorry for the delay.

They are in Homeschooling >> Homeschooling pictures.

An album for the Kennedy Space Center pix and one for Butterfly World. Some of the butterfly pix are really stunning.

I’ll be posting more pictures from our visit to Palm Beach and camping at Kissimmee State Park.

It’s 3:10am and past my bedtime! Yawn.

Greg

Sorry it’s taking me so long to post the results of our trip to Florida (J.Jay and I). I had some work related things that had to be dealt with so I’ve been swamped.

We had a great time in Florida. We went to the Kennedy Space Center for homeschool day and learned a ton about NASA both past and present. I’ve been there a couple of times but this was J.Jay’s first time and he was like a kid in a candy store. He was fascinated by all the technology to say the least, as was I. We are both technology junkies. Anything to keep the brains stimulated. Without stimulation, our brains can’t develop to their full potential.

We got to meet and hear an astronaut speak for 30 mins. Jack (forget last name but he’s one of the older astronauts) lived on SkyLab and was a an early space shuttle commander.

Jack mentioned that on the earlier space flights they had to collect their human waste so that they could study it to see how the human body metabolizes food in space. The toilet was mounted to the wall and they had to collect it in Ziploc bags. To see what they were doing there was a mirror mounted on the wall. They called it the “rear view mirror”. Everybody thought that was funny.

We learned that the astronauts that ultimately travel to Mars will be the kids that are 5-15 years old today. J.Jay is 10 so who knows, maybe he’ll end up living on Mars one day! It’s a 6 month flight one way to get there. NASA is mainly going back to the moon to learn how to live for long periods in space. They will need to grow food and produce water and oxygen to survive. It all sounds very complex and costly. It’s worth the expense though. I don’t think the average American realizes how many inventions and technology breakthroughs have come from the challenges that NASA faces every day with solving problems to accomplish their mission. Diapers came from NASA just to name one.

We visited the Astronaut Museum which was fascinating. There were several simulators. J.Jay got to experience 4Gs. I declined the ride after I found out it had barf bags. I just don’t do well spinning around and getting dizzy. Plus I had just had a large milkshake so it didn’t seem prudent to try it. I did go on the Mars simulator though and that was bearable. That wasn’t very impressive.

After a couple of days camping in Titusville and learning about NASA, we dropped further down to my mom’s house in Lake Worth and had a nice visit with her and my grandfather who arrived the same time from Michigan with his wife. He’s in his mid 80’s so it was nice to have 4 generations together which is a rarity since my family is all over the place. He’s doing very well but we never know how much time we have with our grandparents so we need to charish the time spent with them and allow our kids the opportunity to get to know them better.

We went to Butterfly World in Coconut Creek. Very cool! Tons of colorful butterflies, moths, birds, fish, insect museum and a great gift shop. J.Jay had a bird land on his head where it promptly peed on him. It was quite funny and was captured on video. There is a great virtual tour at the website and I will be posting some pictures I took in the CONNECT! Homeschooling Pictures section. www.butterflyworld.com

While packing up our van to head off to find another campground, a 4′ black snake slithered up into the body of the van (not in but under). We never saw the snake again but needless to say that for the first few miles as we drove away we were nervous that he got in the van somehow. He probably just fell off as we drove away.

We spent a couple of hours in Palm Beach visiting my mom. She works in the ladies shoe department at Saks 5th Avenue on world famous Worth Avenue. She likes it because she’s off 4 months every summer because the wealthy Palm Beachers aren’t there during the summer. Too hot and humid! Plus those nasty hurricanes are lurking about, more so in recent years. She travels throughout Europe and spends time at her vacation home in the NC mountains near Linville Falls.

We spent a couple of hours on the beach which has been newly renovated in recent years with new sand and life guards. Very nice. There’s a lot of new growth in southeast Florida but too crowded, expensive and hot for me. Been there done that. We are happy to be back in Greenville, SC after our 6 year, 6 move, 4 state extended fieldtrip! This has got to be the best place to live all things considered in the eastern US. I took Greenville for granted when we lived here before. I know appreciate it more and have learned that the grass isn’t always greener elsewhere.

I wanted to go spend some time on the gulf side of Florida but we ended up at the award winning Kissimmee State Park near Orlando. It’s a very nice state park. Saw many birds, deer, alligators and armadillos visited our campsite every night. Will post pictures soon. We fished and although didn’t catch any I did manage to inadvertently hook a 4′ alligator. He was lurking about and came up on my bobber and tried to eat it. He (she?) took it down deep. I believe the hook got his/her face. I slowly reeled the gator to the surface where it promptly rolled on the line a couple of times and it snapped. Got the bobber back but I believe the hook is embedded in his face. He popped back up about 50′ away and seemed just fine. That was an interesting experience! I probably should have made more of an effort to keep the line further away but oh well, live and learn. J.Jay got a kick out of it. Now he can tell his future kids about it and turn it into a tall tale “my dad hooked a 12 foot gator and it wouldn’t let go so he jumped in and wrestled it into submission and then retrieved the hook!”

We had lots of fun watching movies in the tent at night on my notebook PC. I brought some old Little House on the Prairie and Walton’s DVDs. We watched “The Right Stuff”, the old 80’s movie about the original 7 Mercury astronauts. That was enjoyable considering the theme of the trip was NASA and rockets to space. I had never seen the movie.

Well this was our trip in a nutshell. J.Jay and I had a great father/son bonding experience. I hope he realizes some day just how special and rare a 7 day camping adventure with dad is!

I hope to have some of our “cool” pictures posted by the end of this weekend.

Stay tuned and God Bless!

Greg

My 10 year old son J. Jay and I are about to embark on an exciting trip to Florida on Friday.

This will be our first major father/son trip together so it should be a good bonding experience for the two of us. We will probably be gone a week.

We are going to the Kennedy Space center for “Homeschool Day” where we will participate in many fun and exciting activities including getting to meet a real astronaut! Needless to say, J.Jay is very excited as he is very into science and NASA. We are visiting the space center for an extra day to see all the things we didn’t the first day. It’s a great deal. Only $29 per person which includes lunch and a pass for a 2nd day.

We are going to camp. We have several tents of various sizes. I’m bringing my notebook PC so I will try to update my blog with news of our adventures as I can find Internet connections along the way. Also need to check email and continue with my software development projects. I’ll be releasing some great homeschool software really soon!

After the space center we are going to venture on down to Palm Beach County where my mother and J.Jay’s grandma lives. My grandfather is flying down from Michigan next week with his wife and my new grandmother. He’s over 80 so I need to spend time with him whenever I can.

We are planning on visiting the Everglades National Park, taking an airboat ride and wrestling some alligators.

Check back here for frequent updates and pictures!

Pray that Pamela, Brittney and Elijah can survive our absence! I’m sure they will enjoy the extra peace and quiet. Ha ha.

God Bless!

Greg

I have added a new forum topic in the CONNECT! Homeschooling category called “Urgent Announcements!”.

Please look at the message I just posted. It requires action and pertains to homeschooling in Australia.

Thanks!

Greg

Private Messaging via the CONNECT! discussion forum is really cool. You can invite one or more participants to a private discussion. Only these participants see the replies. You don’t even need to know anybody’s email address, just their CONNECT! member ID.

There are no banner ads and no spam to deal with.

This is also especially great for our kids to communicate with one other in a safe “closed” environment for the above reason.

You can access Private Messaging through the “My Space” link as well as from within the discussion forum. Select the New option and then Private Message. Keep a list of the members that you wish to private message with.

I created my first CONNECT! photo album today. It was very easy! You can select mutiple picture files to upload and you can also put them in a ZIP file and upload a single file. Visit www.winzip.com for more info on ZIP files (a compressed file containing multiple files for speed and ease of distribution).

A new topic has been added to the Homeschooling category called “Homeschooling Pictures”. I’ve added the first photo album containing pictures of my son J.Jay disecting a sheep’s heart.

Here you can create your own photo album and add to it on a regular basis. Add pictures of your homeschool classroom, your kids, fieldtrips, etc. Any pictures you’d like to share with the community. Add as many photo albums as you like. Just keep the picture files (JPG) less than 100k in size.

I frequently use a free utility called Easy Thumbnails to shrink picture files and to create thumbnails. You can download and use as well. Visit www.fookes.com/ezthumbs It is a very easy to use utility.

Your digital camera is most likely creating files that are fairly large in size so that the quality is high. You will generally want to shrink the file (create a new smaller one but leave the original alone) for quick emailing and for uploading to HomeschoolersConnecting.com

Members can watch slideshows of your pictures and comment on any of them.

Enjoy!

Greg

Homeschool Graduates Now Considered “Preferred Enlistees”

After a long struggle, the military has now fully opened the door to homeschoolers. Homeschool graduates who desire a career with any of the four branches of the Armed Services are being treated as “preferred enlistees.” As a result of this change, homeschoolers will receive the same educational benefits, cash bonuses, and available positions in the Armed Services as any of their peers.

Read more about it at:
http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?id=2734

December 11: USA Today
More black families home schooling
http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?id=2729

Hi All,

I just discovered a new website that looks interesting: www.happynews.com

It focuses on “happy” news as opposed to most of the news at the other news sites which just seem to focus on death, catastrophe, crime, etc.