[Macworld]

Post your comments for Leopard?s Parental Controls here

[JasoninaJeep]

We use Parental Controls to manage mac time for 3 girls. My only complaint is that I can't check to see how much time is left before they get kicked off - we have to wait for the 15 minute notice. It would be handy to check how much time is left & add time when homework takes longer than expected.

[akuma1x]

My problem with Parental Control, while running under Tiger, was that certain applications, many of them games that I approved of and allowed my kids to play, would need some type of admin permission for them to run correctly. I could get some games to run OK, and others would completely refuse to open. Does anybody know if this has been fixed in Leopard, or am I doing something wrong in Tiger?

[davebarnes]

As someone whose daughter had her own computer from age 7 onwards, I despise Parental Controls.
The secret to protecting/helping your children is parental INVOLVMENT in their lives. Computers are not a substitute for parental love and responsibility.

[Fesdon]

I confess that one of the main reasons I put my 13 year old son on a Mac was parental controls. I was however saddened to find that the other reason was so he could use his Ipod and Itunes store. the two were incompatible... parental control stopped him from going to the Itunes store to spend his monthly allowance. Check the forums (it was a known issue the last time I checked). Amazing yet true....

[JasoninaJeep]

Oddly enough, I think only iTunes' home page is inaccessible through a parentally controlled account. For example, my kids open iTunes and it can't connect. But if they search for a song or artist, then through the search results they can browse the horrid music they like.



Hope this helps.

[Zews]

The most basic and most important setting of Leopard's Parental Control does not work! This most basic setting, as far as I am concerned (and probably as far as most parents are concerned), causes Parental Controls to malfunction. It just does not work.
When I check "Try to limit access to adult websites automatically" so my youngest son is blocked from such sites, his Google Mail account is no longer accessible. Even when adding the site as an allowed site, he still cannot access his Google Mail account. He gets an error message saying that the browser cannot establish a connection with the server.
This issue has been reported by numerous users in the Apple Discussion Forum, yet it does not seem that Apple has solved the problem. And it is not a new problem, the dates on the posts go back quite some time.
It is unfortunate that a rather vital part of the OS is virtually useless, yet Apple chooses to advertise this function as one of the strengths of the OS.
If you have a solution to this issue, that Apple has not yet provided, I would greatly appreciate it.
I have communicated this with Apple via email and via Tech Support, to no avail.
Sincerely,
A S
a concerned parent using OSX 10.5.5

[Buffyzdead]

As one of the original posters in the Apple forums, of using iTunes Store while under Parental controls issue, and subsequently discovering the work-around, as detailed by JasoninaJeep in these comments.
I can now attest that the issue has been resolved ! ! ! .

My 11 year old son can finally access the iTunes Homesite while under full Parental control lockdown.

What was the fix?....We have no idea !!....It started working about 10 days ago. Guess Apple just fixed it....quietly.

[jbh001]

As someone with four children still at home, the time limit features of Leopard's Parental Controls are priceless in ending those arguments about "she got 10 minutes more than I did!" or "I'm almost done." No amount of parental involvement or love can win those power struggles. It is so much nicer to that the issue settled by a neutral 3rd party: the Leopard OS.

[cronejp]

I'm surprised that other folks have not commented on how unbelievably BUGGY parental controls is. Am I the only one who was stunned to see something as fundamental as the incompatibility of Parental Controls and Dashboard in the 10.5 early releases?
I've also lost count of the number of times I've had to clean up the mess that is made of the permitted applications. So many times my kids have signed in to complain that they can no longer run a favorite game, because somehow the permissions are broken, and the icon is now the generic document icon pointing to some other app.
(I've got 25 years of unix experience, and I've not been able to glean where the links are stored for permitted parental controled apps)
I'd also love to be able to something exceedingly simple like prohibit my 3 year old from playing in KidPix and hitting the Print button every 5 seconds.
(I understand the comment by the poster talking about "parental involvement" but after saying "no" for about the 50th time, I'm looking for the technological solution for STOP PRINTING!!!)

[Zews]

You are surprised people have not commented about how buggy Parental Control is? Did you read the posts? I mentioned a major bug just three posts above yours.

Unfortunately as far as my 13 year old son is concerned, Parental Control is a useless mess, since it blocks him from being able to use his Gmail account.

[Fesdon]

Agreed... as far as I am concerned, Parental Controls has been a farce. From my experience, and from what I have read here, te editor of this article has never tested this in a live working environment (with a kid at home) as the problems are obvious (and many by history). Many promises undelivered. Shame shame Apple... you could do much better than this. You too MacWorld!

[Chris Breen]

Zews said:

> When I check "Try to limit access to adult websites automatically" so my youngest son is blocked from such sites, his Google Mail account is no longer accessible. Even when adding the site as an allowed site, he still cannot access his Google Mail account. He gets an error message saying that the browser cannot establish a connection with the server.

You're not adding the right URL. Do this:

On the Mac you use to administer the parental controls open Parental Controls and click the Logs tab.

You'll see Google listed with a series of entries beneath it. Select one and click Open. Repeat until you're taken to a URL along the lines of http://www.google.com/coop/cse and then a bunch more stuff. This is the URL you want to copy and add as an exception. Once you've added that URL you should be able to access Gmail with the "Try to limit access" option on in Parental Controls.

The clue is that before Safari tells you that it can't access Gmail, it very briefly appears to be trying to access a different web page. This is the web page you need to access Gmail.

I can understand your frustration, but in this case I think you're targeting the wrong company. Without that hidden redirect you'd have no problem. Maybe time to talk to Google.

[Chris Breen]

Fesdon said:

>Shame shame Apple... you could do much better than this. You too MacWorld!

And, just to cover all our bases, shame on those users who fail to configure Parental Controls properly and then blame their troubles on others.