How to Limit Daily Desktop Usage in Ubuntu
February 3rd, 2008I have been looking for a way to limit the amount of time my kids spend on the computer. After toying with a couple of different things like timeoutd and pam_time, I decided to hack together something to meet my needs: Read the rest of this entry »
6 Tools for Keeping Kids Safe with Open Source
January 31st, 2008My family uses open source software almost exclusively. Everyone from the toddlers to the teen to the Mrs. have what they need to play games, chat with friends, manager emails, surf the web, keep busy schedules straight, do homeschooling, and pretty much anything they may want to do. Read the rest of this entry »
What I Learned using Linux over the last 10 years
January 25th, 2008I started using Linux as my primary desktop and operating system in 1998. After brief flirtations with FVWM 95 and Enlightenment, I settle on Gnome (with it’s various WMs over the years ) and Redhat/Fedora (until switching to Ubuntu last fall ). Read the rest of this entry »
Why your kids should read your blog…
January 22nd, 2008Or “Requiem for a Sea-Monkey”
If you caught my last entry, you would know about the Sea-Monkeys. Yesterday, it came time to add the “Instant Life Eggs” package, and since Dad was busy, my son decided to help out. He read the package, took note of the fact sea-monkeys hatch faster if the tank is around 80F. Noting also that the room temperature was a little cooler, he took it on himself to warm up the water. While there are a variety of ways to warm up a small volume of water, I could sense a potential problem when I heard the tea kettle begin to boil in the kitchen. I rushed to the kitchen to find my first born ready to poor water from the steaming kettle into the sea-monkey’s tank. Read the rest of this entry »
Uhhh… the sea monkeys have my money…
January 19th, 2008The last vestiges of my childhood sense of wonder have just died. The have become road-kill on the information superhighway under the wheels of Wikipedia. Let me explain…
My daughter just received a box of Sea-Monkeys for her birthday. The world became a bit wavy as I flashed back to my childhood. Memories of waiting anxiously for 24 hrs. while the “Water Purifier” packet prepared my soon-to-be new best friends’ home. Then peering intently into the Sea-Monkeys kingdom as they instantly sprank to life from the contents of the “Instant Life Eggs” packet. Read the rest of this entry »