How to Use the Parental Controls on Your iPad

Before you hand over your iPad or give your children their own iPads, you'll 

probably want to set up parental controls to keep your kids safe and limit what they can access on the device. Here's how to use Restrictions in iOS to lock down your kids' iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

The steps below work in both iOS 8 and iOS 9. Before you start, back up your device with either iCloud or iTunes.

 

How to Turn on iOS Restrictions

1.    Open the Settings app.

2.    Tap General then tap Restrictions.

3.  Tap Enable Restrictions.

4.    Set a passcode. Make sure this 4-digit number is something you'll remember (I recommend putting it in a password manager). If you forget the passcode later, the only way to disable Restrictions is to either restore from a backup you made before enabling Restrictions or restore your device as new.

5.    Re-enter your passcode.

That's it. Now you can adjust the parental control settings in Restrictions. Any changes to those settings will require the passcode. Here's an overview of some of the most important parental controls to explore or adjust:

App Restrictions

Apps and settings turned off here will be hidden on the iPad or iPhone until you turn them back on in Restrictions.

Toggle off any apps you don't want to allow your child to have access to.

Three settings in particular you might want to disallow, depending on your child: Installing Apps, Deleting Apps, and In-App Purchases.

 

Content Restrictions

You can limit your kids' access to content, such as movies, apps, and websites based on their rating levels or age-appropriateness. In the websites setting, for example, you can allow all websites, limit adult content, or allow only sites you specify.

Set ratings levels by tapping individual content settings.

Be aware that not all of the content in the iTunes Store and App Store is rated, so these filters aren't a perfect solution. You can, however, choose to not allow a specific type of content (e.g., don't allow movies), regardless of ratings.

Require a password for purchases, including in-app purchases. You can set this to always require a password or require a password after 15 minutes from the last purchase (useful if you're downloading a few apps at a time for your kid and don't want keep re-entering your password). You can also require a password for free downloads.

Privacy Restrictions

Here you can prevent new apps from accessing other apps like Photos, Contacts, Facebook, and Twitter. While these aren't designed specifically to restrict what kids can access or do on the device, they can keep your kids' apps from using your Facebook account.

Tap Share My Location and change it to "Don't Allow Changes" if you want to prevent someone (whether your teenage child or a thief) from turning off location tracking in Find My Friends or Messages on your device.

Allow Changes Restrictions

The section offers three settings to control if your child can create or modify accounts, let apps refresh in the background, or change the volume level.

Set Accounts to "Don't Allow Changes" to prevent your child from adding, removing, or modifying accounts in Mail, Contacts, and Calendar.

Game Center Restrictions

Finally, the last section lets you choose whether your child can play multiplayer games or add friends in Game Center.

2 ways to lock down an Android tablet before handing it over to your child - How to Use Android's Parental Controls

An Android tablet can keep children entertained and educated for hours, but as a parent you probably want to control their activity so they don't access inappropriate content or make accidental in-app purchases. Tablets running Android 4.3 and above come with basic parental controls to restrict what kids can do on the device. Here's how to set up and use these parental controls.

There are two ways you can lock down an Android tablet before handing it over to your child. The first, called restricted profiles, lets you set up multiple accounts for the tablet (much like you would on a computer) and specify which apps you allow your child to use. The second method is built into Google Play and available on all Android devices. You can control the kind of content that can be downloaded from Google Play and also require a password for app purchases.

Set Up a Restricted Profile

1. Open the Settings screen. The quickest way to do this is to swipe down with two fingers from the top navigation bar and tap the gear icon.

2. Tap Users.

3.   Tap Add user or profile.

4.   Tap Restricted profile.

5. Tap the settings gear icon next to the new profile.

6. Tap the new profile and give it a name. Hit OK to continue.

7. Toggle on the apps you wish to allow your child to use. By default, most apps are off, except for some core apps like Camera, Chrome, and Calculator. If an app isn't toggled on, your child won't even see it on the tablet.

The "Settings" toggle lets you specify if you want to let apps use the tablet's location information and the *HPROF setting specifies whether you want to enable Google Search.

8. Tap the back arrow to go back to the profiles list and select the new restricted profile you set up. This will switch the user from your account to the new profile and finish setting it up.

Set Up Parental Controls in Google Play

Google Play also has a setting for parental controls, but it's turned off by default. With these settings, you can restrict the types of apps, movies, music, and other media that can be downloaded to the device based on maturity ratings and require authentication before allowing any purchases. If you have multiple users set up on the tablet, you can create different content filters for each account.

To set content restrictions in Google Play:

1. Tap the menu icon (aka hamburger icon) in Google Play.

2. Tap Settings.

3. Tap Parental controls.

4. Toggle parental controls on.

5. Enter and confirm a PIN to later access and change the parental control settings on the tablet.

6. For each content type, tap the highest maturity rating you want to allow.

Note that the settings above won't prevent a child from accessing inappropriate content through a browser. For more advanced parental controls including website blocking, you'll need to download an app for it from Google Play.

To require authentication for app purchases, including in-app purchases:

1. Go to Google Play's settings and tap Require authentication for purchases.

2. Select how frequently you want Google to require authentication for purchases from Google Play. Note that Google will always require you to authenticate a purchase if the app is rated for kids ages 12 or under.

If your child or another user tries to buy an app or make an in-app purchase, Google will require your account password to continue.

THE DISTORTION II - The Three Change Accelerators Vs The Science of Certainty

Alamy: Additive Manufacturing with the Maker Bot, a 3-D printer.

As technology continues to impact our lives, workers in today's ever-changing labor market need to be prepared with skills to adapt and succeed in the workplace. Job opportunities in technology are growing up to three times faster than other career fields globally, or maybe not yet so in Nigeria – I may need some help ascertaining where Nigeria stands at the moment in the global scheme of things with the crises all over the place over resource (crude oil) control. Long gone are the days of a linear education and career trajectory as technology continues to reshape the world's education and workplace landscapes. Nowadays, the career paths of most individuals resemble a scaffold rather than a conservative straight line.

Changes in the education and workplace landscape not only impact job seekers, but educators and employers as well. It's estimated that by 2025, we could have 20 million jobs without enough qualified people to fill them. Before you start thinking that there will be no jobs for humans to do in the near future, first realize that technology has always eliminated jobs. What we're experiencing now is nothing new. Even in the 18th and 19th centuries, new advancements in everything from textiles to railroads to mail delivery to manufacturing caused jobs to disappear. The difference is that the change used to be slow. It took a long time for those jobs to disappear, so there was time to adapt.

But today, thanks to the three change accelerators of exponential advances in processing power, bandwidth, and storage, we are experiencing rapid change -- or rather, transformation. Because processing power is creating a digital explosion in our tools' ability to do more with less at a faster rate, and bandwidth is increasing exponentially, and storage is moving to the cloud, over the next five short years we will be transforming how we sell, market, communicate, collaborate, innovate, train and educate. As a result, we are going to see many jobs disappear, yet at the same time, many current job definitions redefined as technology gives us new and more efficient ways to do our old jobs.

Ask yourself, 'Do I do a repetitive task?' Obviously, advanced automation and robotics is going to take over those jobs quickly, if they haven't already. Similarly, do you have a well-defined procedure that you do every day, or do you have rule-based skills? Intelligent systems are going to be able to do those procedures for you.

Ask yourself, 'What knowledge and skills can I learn that will supplement my current strengths?' What are the new areas of learning that will make me more relevant in a world of rapid change?" It's time to ask new and better questions, because we used to have a lot of time -- in some cases, a lifetime -- to prepare for job and career changes. Today the time frame to prepare for change is extremely short.

The problem is, we live in an uncertain world, and because of the high levels of uncertainty we all face, people of all ages and career levels are finding it difficult to know what new skills to learn, what courses to take, and what degrees to get that will provide them with the most opportunity going forward. Uncertainty keeps us stuck in the present.

Certainty, on the other hand, gives us the confidence to make a decision, to move forward, to invest time and money to learn new things. Studies have shown and proven the power of the science of certainty – which involves a scientific method of separating Hard Trends -- trends that will happen -- from Soft Trends – trends that might happen. This method is currently being used by many Fortune 500 companies including IBM, Deloitte, and Pratt & Whitney to name a few, to provide an accurate road map of the opportunities that are ahead.

That's why in my post on The Distortion (Con't) I stated 12 assertions (Certainties) that will transform every career, and create new ones. By providing an accurate road map for anyone from CEO to educator to auto mechanic who wishes to increase their personal career relevancy in a world of transformative change, you now have a new tool that you can use to make career and education decisions with confidence. The list highlights technologies that are here now, and will continue to transform present and future careers. As you read through the list, ask yourself how each one will play a key role in your industry and your personal career path. 

Better still, you can begin to direct the already awakened consciousness and energies of the kids in those directions as you deem fit. Remember no career nor business is left out in this sweeping change.

How to Use the Parental Controls on your Windows 10 Computer

I was at a tech shop one day when a woman walked in to pick up a set of desk top computer and other gadgets  for her children in preparation for the new academic session, or so, based on what I heard her say while chatting with the shop keeper. She talked of how her children spoilt a previous system and was accessing websites indiscriminately and knew their way around gadgets, that she doesn’t know what to do, especially regarding how to ensure they are not exposed to illicit and provocative contents online. The shop keeper, also a computer technician and a longtime acquaintance of mine, knowing I work with children and have done so for quite a number of years, tried explaining to her and then asked for my opinion on the matter.

This brought to mind the challenges some parents might be facing in this regard so I decided to do this piece: a step-by-step way to enable parental control on a windows 10 computer - since it’s about the latest OS. So let’s get to it.

Parental controls can help keep your children safe when they use the computer. For example you can:

·        Restrict which programs they can run and which websites they can visit

·        Limit what games they can download and play to their age range

·        Limit how much time they can spend on the computer each day, and

·        Get detailed reports on their activity

·        Decide how they spend online

Here's how to turn on and tweak the parental controls for each child account in Windows 10.

 To use Windows' parental controls, you'll need two things:

1.  You have to log into Windows with your Microsoft account (not a local account) and

2.  The account you want to manage has to be set up as a child account in Windows. With Windows 10, your child will also have to use a Microsoft account to log in. This is a change from previous versions of Windows, but it allows you to apply the parental control settings across all the Windows devices your child uses and manage the settings from the web. If your child doesn't have a Microsoft account or an email address, Windows 10 will prompt you to create one when you set up the child account.

Once you have the child account created in Windows, you can start using the parental controls available from the Microsoft Family web portal (previously called Family Safety). In the steps below, we'll walk through all of the settings that can help you manage your children's computer usage.

Log onto Microsoft Family and Review Your Child's Computer Activity

1.   Sign in to https://account.microsoft.com/family#/ with your Microsoft account. A link to this page is also available under your Accounts settings (in the Settings app, Accounts > Family & other users).

2.  Click your child's name.

3.  Review and adjust the Activity reporting settings on the main account page for your child. Activity reporting and weekly email reports are on by default. You can uncheck or toggle these settings off and also view your child's web browsing activity and apps usage on this page.

4.   Block specific sites or apps your child has previously accessed by clicking the "Block" link next to them. For URL blocking and web browsing reporting to work, your child will need to use Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer, so you'd have to block Chrome and other browsers if you want these features.

Adjust Parental Control Settings

From here, you can navigate to one of the parental control settings using the dropdown box at the top of the page (it currently says "Recent activity").

Here's what you can change for web browsing, apps and games, screen time, purchases, and Xbox privacy settings:

Web Browsing Settings

1.   Toggle inappropriate content blocking off or on. Adult content is blocked by default. You can change that setting if you want here.

2.   Add URLs for any websites you want to allow your child to always be able to access or always want to block.

Apps, Games & Media Settings

1.     Allow or don't allow kids to download mature apps and games. By default, inappropriate apps and games (e.g., mature movies and games) are blocked.

2.  Select the appropriate age ratings for apps, games, and media from the Windows Store with the age dropdown box.

Screen Time Settings

1.  Turn on time limits. These are off by default.

2.  Choose the times your child can use the computer. For each day, you can set a start and end time, as well as a time limit (e.g., 4 hours on Saturdays but 2 hours on weekdays. You can also block access all day). If the child exceeds the time limits or it's not within your set timeframes, a warning will pop-up and require an adult to log in to regain access to the computer.

Purchase & Spending Settings

1.  Review your child's spending in the Store. This page shows your child's purchase history with the Microsoft Store and the Xbox store.

2.  Add money to your child's Microsoft account. If you want to allow your child to make some purchases--without racking up thousands on virtual coins--you can add money to his or her Microsoft account and keep your credit card out of it.

Xbox Privacy Settings

This takes you to the privacy settings web page for Xbox. If your child has an Xbox account, you can set whether your child can see other's Xbox Live profiles, use video on Xbox Live, share or see custom content such as images in games, and more. In addition to these global Xbox settings, you can also tweak specific Xbox One Online and Xbox 360 Online settings, such as restricting downloads to only free games or blocking multiplayer games.

Ok, so hope this helped? Kindly drop comments and suggestions in the comment box below. Will update this post with that for earlier versions of windows soon.

Thanks for stopping by.