Ensuring Your Kids Internet Safety

The internet is an incredible learning resource parents can’t afford to avoid. But it can be a dangerous place. The best way for parents to protect their children online is to understand exactly what their children are doing on the web. Here are a few more things parents can do to ensure their kids internet safety.Exposure to Mature Content: This is probably the first thing that parents think of when they think of their kids internet safety. These include pornography, violent content, etc.The Solution: By legislation, mature websites must identify themselves as such, which makes it easier for web browsers with parental controls (often given to you with by your internet service provider in order to ensure kids internet safety) to restrain the content. There are several tools that focus on online safety that will help any web browser (just research parental control and internet filter software). However, none of these are perfect, and perhaps the best way to work is to work backwards and create a comprehensible list of the sites that your child is allowed to visit.Chat rooms and Instant Messaging: The idea of being able to talk to people all over the country (or the world) is very exciting to the inquisitive minds of children, but the mystery that makes chat rooms enticing is the same element that makes them dangerous; especially because you don’t know who’s talking to your child nor do you know their intentions. The danger here to your kids internet safety is that your child will expose personal information, or that a predator might try to contact your child. There are also video chat rooms (i.e. Chat Roulette) that allow video, which add the danger of exposure to mature content.The Solution: The best thing to do is to educate your child on what information they are and are not allowed to tell strangers on the internet. You may want to ban chat rooms all together for the purpose of your kids internet safety. If you can monitor your child’s usage, instant messaging tends to be benign as users must know each other screen names and thus your child can only chat with people they know.Social Networking: This is the latest trend and it is likely that your child will ask to create accounts on Facebook and MySpace (or even Twitter). The dangers of these websites are similar to those of chat rooms, except that these websites aim to divulge private information as they urge your child to update on their activities (i.e.” at the mall with my friends and no parents”). These websites also makes it easier for anybody to contact or stalk your child potentially hampering your kids internet safety.The Solution: If you choose to allow your child to be a member of one of these websites, make sure you go through the privacy settings with them (this is crucial to your kids internet safety) and talk to them about the dangers of strangers and “status” updates. For further control, make the child sign up with a shared email account, so that at any point you may monitor what they do directly by signing into their account.Online Games: There are thousands of online games available and most of them are fun and safe. If you want your child to avoid certain types of games such as those involving violence, visit the websites yourself and look for suggestions from other parents and trusted resources.Virtual Worlds (also known as MMOs): This is a way for kids to interact with other kids while simultaneously playing online games. These worlds are focused on game-play, so there is not a lot of innate danger (except perhaps addictive playing which can be avoided by setting usage rules). However, there are certain Virtual Worlds that are designed with kids internet safety in mind. These sites provide things such as online football games, and monitors the interaction between users making it a kid friendly virtual world.General Kids Internet Safety Procedures: A good way to ensure your child won’t do anything improper or dangerous is to have the computer they use in a non private place. Setting rules of usage is a good idea as well. These things make it easier to monitor your child and to recognize if he is behaving strangely. If for whatever reason you become worried about your child’s usage of the computer, you can consider using computer monitoring software which will record everything on the screen for a set period of time, allowing you to see everything your child does. Doing all of these things will ensure your kids internet safety.

The Latest Trends in Outdoor Furniture

The style and designs of your outdoor furniture reflect your personality and your taste. When you decide to give your garden a complete makeover, the first and foremost thing that comes to your mind is garden furniture. Recent trends in outdoor furniture have shown that people are more interested in making their gardens look stylish and yet simple. There were days when only plastic chairs were used for gardens. Now, the trend is to make the outdoor space as homey and attractive as the indoors of your home. There have been drastic changes in the trend of garden furniture so that now you hardly find plastic patio furniture.People are ready to spend a little more to give their patios elegant looks. Wooden garden furniture is the latest in the field of garden furniture that has gained immense popularity. Of the wooden garden furniture, teak is the most preferred as it gives a rich and luxurious look. A few years back, teak was used only for indoor furniture, but now, they are increasingly used even as outdoor furniture. Patio furniture is available in different types, like the tables, chairs, coffee tables, and so on. Teak furniture is much more durable than any other material. They are a little expensive but will have a longer life. You get a wide range of outdoor furniture in teak with beautiful designs carved onto it. By adding the right type of cushions to it, your garden is sure to look stylish.People spend their leisure time outside in their gardens and relax under the sun. The outdoor space must also be made to look good to match with your interiors. That’s the place where most of us would like to spend time with our guests, making them feel comfortable. Nowadays, you get a wide range of outdoor furniture that is fashionable as well as economical. Stylish glass-top tables with chairs that have deep-seated cushions find places in many gardens in modern houses. Glass-top tables are available at affordable prices and are convenient to clean and maintain. However, the only drawback of these is their high chance of breakage.Rattan furniture is another trend that has made outdoor furniture even more attractive. Rattan is a natural ingredient that is being used for both indoor and outdoor furniture. It is similar to bamboo but is much more durable and is a solid wood, not hollow like bamboo. This makes them much stronger than bamboo. There are special designs that could be carved onto the rattan garden furniture. They give a contemporary look to your outdoor space.Metal garden furniture is still being used in most houses. Its affordability and low maintenance cost have made it a popular choice. It is now available in better designs and colors to match your home. You also get a wide range of choices like benches, coffee tables, swings, loungers, and so on.

Health Insurance For Students – 4 Affordable Options

If your son or daughter is getting ready to pack up and head off to college, don’t forget to pack a little health insurance along with the futons and orange crates. After all, the student lifestyle of late nights, one-the-run nutrition, and germ-infested dorms is more than likely to require a few trips to the doctor.
 
But what is the best way to insure your student’s health? The answer to that question depends on the type and quality of your existing healthcare plan. Here are four options you may want to consider.1. Use the Student Health Plan – Some families opt for the medical plan offered by the college. While this is a viable option if you don’t have an existing health plan, it’s important to realize that these college-sponsored health plans offer extremely limited benefits. While a student plan will usually pay for trips to the college health center, they usually charge up to 70 percent more, plus a deductible for additional medical care or testing, such as lab work, X-rays and prescriptions. In addition, most student health plans only cover care received at the student health center, meaning a trip to emergency room could be financially devastating.2. Use Your Current Health Plan – One alternative is to skip the student health insurance and keep you son or daughter on your own health plan. However, if your current plan is available to you through your employer, there is a good chance it is an HMO (Health Maintenance Organization). An HMO is the most restrictive type of health plan when it comes to choosing your doctors and medical treatment centers, and if your son or daughter attends school in another city or state, he or she will most likely need a referral to see a physician while at school.
 
3. Change Your Health Plan to a PPO -If an HMO is too restrictive for your current needs, this may be a good time to switch to a PPO (Preferred Provider Organization) that provides more flexibility in the healthcare providers you use. To receive maximum coverage, you need to use an in-network doctor, but your student would have the option of going out-of-network by making a small co-payment.
 
4. Change Your Health Plan to a combo HDHP/HSA – You may have been reading about the benefits of the Health Savings Account (HSA) ever since it was first introduced by the Bush administration in 2003. An HSA allows you combine a High Deductible Health Plan with a designated savings account funded with pre-tax dollars. You use a debit card to access the account when you need to pay out-of-pocket medical expenses. This combination HDHP/HSA plan is a good strategy if you’re self-employed and don’t have an existing health plan, and it also provides good flexibility for both you and your student. But it works best when you have only occasional medical expenses, so if you or your student have chronic health problems that require frequent trips to the doctor or numerous prescriptions, it’s best to opt for a traditional like an HMO or PPO.
 
Of course, you can always provide your son or daughter with a low-cost individual insurance policy. (Consider it an early graduation gift!) While not the cheapest choice, it’s an excellent way to provide your student with security throughout the college years. After graduation, they can choose to maintain the policy on their own if they aren’t covered by an employer-provided health plan.If you are interested in learning more about health insurance for students [http://www.shop-health-insurance-quotes.com/health-insurance-for-students.html], or would like to shop for multiple insurance quotes, please visit the website recommended below.

Automotive Floor Jacks – Is Yours Really Ready For Action?

How many times have you pulled out your automotive floor jack to jack up your vehicle and realized that the crank handle is nowhere to be found? Oh, this is just great. The scissor jack isn’t worth fifteen cents without the handle for it. Finally, when you are finished ripping your vehicle apart trying to find it and you can’t, then you are officially mad.Don’t let it completely ruin your day because there is an answer for this dilemma. What you need to do is find your automotive jack and look at the crank mechanism where the handle fits into it. You should be able to size a socket to fit over this part that will allow you to turn the jack mechanism with a ratchet and a few extensions. Then you are set to ratchet the vehicle right off the ground. Problem solved, unless you can’t find the socket and ratchet after the next flat tire.That problem can also be solved with ease. You can find these plastic toolboxes around for between 20 and 30 dollars that should be big enough to house your automotive floor jack, socket, ratchet, and extensions all in one place. Keep this toolbox in your trunk and have no trouble at all finding everything the next time you need it.There is one other possible item that would help your situation. That would be a piece of pipe to slide over your ratchet handle to use as a cheater bar. It makes a world of difference in the leverage you can gain when jacking the ratchet with the weight of the vehicle bearing down on the floor jack. I would advise using at least a ½” drive ratchet for this method. Do you know where your automotive jack is now? You need to check it and make sure you are good to go in case you need it.