Kids Today Got It So Good...

A while back I wrote a column about how I wasn’t in a hurry to have my daughters getting on the Internet. My rationale was that as long as they had better things to do, there was no sense in rushing things.

I have been a two-Mac user for years. I had a desktop at school and a laptop to carry around. But when you move from classroom to office to home a lot, it becomes a pain to remember where all your files are. Yes, I could synchronize my files using my .mac account, or even other programs, but I was using the account space for other things and didn’t really want to use it up with just documents on the iDisk. Also, frankly, I was relying on the Powerbook more and more and just doing maintenance on the desktop. So I decided to set the desktop up at home for the family. How magnanimous…
We put the computer in a “public” area rather than in one of the girl’s bedrooms. Our thoughts were that we could supervise it and restrict use if necessary. Our internet isn’t filtered and also we don’t want them on it all night. Plus, there would be a fight if it was located in one bedroom and not the other.
At first the kids just used the computer to play some games they found buried on the hard drive. Then one day I was burning a music CD from iTunes (all legally paid for…) and the girls saw that. Next thing I know I am burning CD’s for them for their dance class and they are using the computer as a jukebox. I added some Altec Lansing speakers with a big sub-woofer and they had a nice stereo. This was pretty much all right with me, because all the music was from my collection anyway, so I was passing along the music of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s to my daughters… (no disco, no country…)

Our local cable provider runs counter to prevailing public opinion about the cable company. They are always nice to me on the phone and I seem to always buy the next service they offer. We already have a big cable TV bill, and my wife was looking at me with disgust. So I did what any nerdy gadget driven guy would do, I signed up for digital phone service. The people who come to install these things are very tech oriented and I always have great conversations with them. Nerd bonding…

Well, as you can imagine, it was only a short leap to give up dial-up and get cable-based broadband. As I explained it to my very patient spouse, “We’re saving money because now we have TV, Phone, and ISP with the same company!” We probably are saving money, but I admit it isn’t my biggest motivator…

The Cable Woman (Gal sounds pejorative…) told me to run down to Radio Shack for a LinkSys Router and I would have a physical firewall and be able to split my internet connection to both my desktop and laptop computers. I considered going wireless, but because I had gone cheap when purchasing both computers, neither had a wireless card. So we’re wired. Maybe next time…

I did have trouble setting up some sub-accounts so everyone in the family would have separate email. Time-Warner has an on-line feature where you can chat with a support person. It worked great and the problem was solved in about 10 minutes. I am a big fan of this type of support.

The girls were on the internet in about a New York minute! All of a sudden there was stuff to look up for school. My oldest was very involved in looking up stuff for the election. It amazed me that a 12 year old was that interested. There were recipes to download from cooking shows. Emeril and Rachel Ray are the current favorites. We got some books from Amazon, and bought some presents on eBay. Because my younger daughter and I are on a Hot Air Balloon Chase crew, we check our crew schedule and the weather all the time. We also post our pictures from balloon festivals.

So now we have a fast connection, each kid has email, and we’re in the new age. I printed up little business cards for the kids to take to school to hand their email address out to friends. We need to have a training session about not giving our email address out to servers on-line, but so far I am the only one who has broken that rule (see last post…) Our kids still read and do well in school and we aren’t having to fight to get them off the computer. Just waiting for the other shoe to drop…