The Web Authority

I know this for a fact as I was told by a Sheriff that Charles County Maryland officers are watching the Web. In fact this officer told me that they were actively monitoring MySpace sites and YouTube for videos of teens breaking the law.

The officer went farther to tell me that if they find a video where your teen is breaking the law, they can actually ticket your teen for up to one year after the video had been posted and even prosecute them for the offense. If someone is injured, there is no time limitation. Even if the video is removed by your teen, YouTube and MySpace still have a record of it and they can request it through the County Attorney’s Office!

If your teen is loading videos to MySpace and YouTube as mine is, it is very important that you as the parent review what they are loading. My teen had loaded videos of himself driving fast, and I mean really fast. Foolish, yes, life threatening yes. This is how I know what the Police and Sheriffs departments are doing, as I asked for help to intervene with my teen and instruct him in safe driving. Little did I know that I was potentially getting him into trouble to the tune of a $540 ticket and 5 points on his license.

The officer said he didn’t care if my son told his friends if it would stop reckless behavior and possible the death of a teen, it would be worth it. So my advice to you is to become aware of what your kids are posting starting in stealth mode. Then help them to understand their foolishness if you catch them and work actively to keep them safe.

It was bad enough for my teen to have consequences for his actions from his Dad and myself, but to have a possible traffic court record from a video is just really bad.

My Mom is just now trying to understand email and I really needed to find the simplest yet most powerful email client available to assist her. Our parents generation is technologically challenged. Some people my parents age have jumped on email as a way to connect with kids and grandchildren and others have really hit a brick wall and refused to embrace the technology that keeps them connected to others.

So, based on that what is unequivocally the easiest email application for the technologically challenged. Hotmail has the others beat hands down. For my Mom to try to even explain how to use Outlook Express and set up a mail download is way complicated. So I decided to set up an online mail service that she could check from any where, but it had to be simple.

My sister said, get Yahoo beta mail, it’s great, but oh boy for the technologically challenged, the interface is way complicated. Enter Hotmail. Super simple, clean, no clutter, intuitive controls, super easy configuration, one click actions and voila, my Mom is using email.

So if you have a parent, friend, grandparent, aunt, or uncle who needs to embrace the information age, try Hotmail first. What seems so incredibly simple to those of us who use the computer every day is like rocket science to others.

One sidebar on this, I found that I needed to even take time to instruct my Mom on how to use the mouse. As you help your relative, you may want to make sure that you cover this simple yet very important step, they may not even know to ask.