Right, I thought I was pretty good with Win 2000. Then I get XP and don't know where I am again.

Got meself broadband, DVD player, the lot. Can now listen to the beeb in Lisbon without having to hang upside down out of the window to get decent short-wave reception. Or so I thought.

Now, within four weeks of purchase, my DVD player locks up twice during each film, needing a total reboot each time, and I find my son has a whole load of **** bookmarks in his History file, one video of which jumped out at us while the family were present. I hope to laugh later, but it wasn't funny at the time, I assure you. I get onto IE's content management system, without enabling any references, set most settings to all-but-one worst (he's 13, not 5), and now it won't even let me into Google, Scoobynet, or the BBC website .

For the DVD freezing, my theory is that Win Media Player is clashing with RealOne Player, the latter of which I downloaded recently and have just now uninstalled.

For the **** control, I have no idea.

Can anyone help me with 1. a decent media player (seems like Windows MP doesn't like listening to radio) and 2. something to stop the worst of the ****, which is apparently the multiple pop-ups created by clicking on Hotmail crap? I remember someone posted recently about a bit of software which kills pop-ups, that would be nice.

Thanks for any help

Brendan

 

Pop-up stoppers:
http://www.free.surfer.tc/mail
http://www.panicware.com/

DVD players
Windvd: http://www.intervideo.com/jsp/Home.jsp
PowerDvd: http://www.gocyberlink.com/english/index.jsp

Whilst you can download trial versions of the players, they will only play arond 5 mins of the film before stopping.

Also take a look around http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/software/index.html

 

Thanks Howard, I'll look after work.

What s/w plays DVDs and allows me to download streaming radio as well?

BJH

 

Anything decent you'd like to share with us?

 

2 possible answers:

1. No, nothing decent, it's all indecent.

2. Well, in my book, "share" means you give something in return.

So answer my bl00dy question and you might get a bookmark !

[Edited by Brendan Hughes - 7/26/2002 5:03:30 PM]

 

Cant you give your son his own logon under XP, and then restrict the services he can use?.

 

Bruce, I've done that, but it's a mixed blessing. It means he can't install software (which is good - all he wants to do is shove his friends' entire collections of software on the machine without thinking about viruses, errors etc), but then it means he can't read some CDs we have, or change settings which I don't mind him changing. XP would be a lot better if it allowed the administrator to allocate different powers to different users, as at present it is a bit too black and white. I suppose that'll be in a Gates Future Version.

And the parental controls on IE, as stated above, seem to be CRAP. I set them all to medium, it wouldn't even let me into Google's search page!

We've now got Pinnacle PCTV. I have to look to see if there's a time monitor on it; he claims he doesn't watch TV for 5 hours solid when we go out, somehow I doubt it...

Me control freak? Moi?

BJH

 

I believe you should be able to run a hardware firewall or proxy server and restrict the sites available to your son.

 

How about

http://www.cybersitter.com/

or

http://www.netnanny.com

David