Club Penguin
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Just remember that hiding personal information by default doesn't mean that kids won't be clever enough to find a way to share it anyway. A few months ago I read an article somewhere (arstechnica?????) written by someone who'd tried preventing it in a kids site (IIRC a secondlife type MMO) only to discover kids spelling things out one letter at a time by moving moving furnishings around to draw them as crude bitmaps.
3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18
Fortunately, you can set it so that interaction is via stock phrase only, e.g. Hello.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
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So, my 7 year old asks last week if she can start using Facebook? A friend of hers has an account, which she set up with her parents blessing, and now Catherine has expressed an interest. Now, rather than write the idea off, I did a bit of investigation this weekend and found an alternative "social networking" site, from Disney. It's called Club Penguin[^], and it is much friendlier for kids than Facebook can be (it differs in that you also pay a subscription fee). We signed both Catherine and Hannah up for it, and now they are hooked. In it, they can make buddies, but no personal information is shared, and the characters are represented by penguins. They can earn virtual money which they can use to furnish an igloo, adopt a pet, etc... All in all, it's a nice little environment for youngsters.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
all web activities with such young kids should be done under _responsible_ adult supervision... but remember that kids are smarter than you think.
Watched code never compiles.
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all web activities with such young kids should be done under _responsible_ adult supervision... but remember that kids are smarter than you think.
Watched code never compiles.
Maximilien wrote:
should be done under _responsible_ adult supervision...
Leaves me out. I'm teaching my kid video games currently. At 5 he can finish almost every level of Lego Batman. We got him Indana Jones for his B-day, so I look forward to see how well he can solve the puzzles. After he has mastered that, we will move on to something involving decapitations.
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So, my 7 year old asks last week if she can start using Facebook? A friend of hers has an account, which she set up with her parents blessing, and now Catherine has expressed an interest. Now, rather than write the idea off, I did a bit of investigation this weekend and found an alternative "social networking" site, from Disney. It's called Club Penguin[^], and it is much friendlier for kids than Facebook can be (it differs in that you also pay a subscription fee). We signed both Catherine and Hannah up for it, and now they are hooked. In it, they can make buddies, but no personal information is shared, and the characters are represented by penguins. They can earn virtual money which they can use to furnish an igloo, adopt a pet, etc... All in all, it's a nice little environment for youngsters.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
So, my 7 year old asks last week if she can start using Facebook? A friend of hers has an account, which she set up with her parents blessing, and now Catherine has expressed an interest. Now, rather than write the idea off, I did a bit of investigation this weekend and found an alternative "social networking" site, from Disney. It's called Club Penguin[^], and it is much friendlier for kids than Facebook can be (it differs in that you also pay a subscription fee).
That would mean their (school) friends would have to subscribe?
Two heads are better than one.
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Fortunately, you can set it so that interaction is via stock phrase only, e.g. Hello.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
Is: Hello Hello Hello Hello (D) pause Hello (A) pause Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello (N) really any less masochistic than drawing bitmaps by dragging spites? Or if the list of stock phrases is wide enough: Disney is awesome Anastasia is my favorite movie No I wish I could find the article. I remembered the dragging stuff around to create letters because it was so absurd I'd never thing of it, but the article included a whole bunch of other ways devs tried to stop kids and how they were outsmarted every time.
3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
So, my 7 year old asks last week if she can start using Facebook? A friend of hers has an account, which she set up with her parents blessing, and now Catherine has expressed an interest. Now, rather than write the idea off, I did a bit of investigation this weekend and found an alternative "social networking" site, from Disney. It's called Club Penguin[^], and it is much friendlier for kids than Facebook can be (it differs in that you also pay a subscription fee).
That would mean their (school) friends would have to subscribe?
Two heads are better than one.
Yes.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
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So, my 7 year old asks last week if she can start using Facebook? A friend of hers has an account, which she set up with her parents blessing, and now Catherine has expressed an interest. Now, rather than write the idea off, I did a bit of investigation this weekend and found an alternative "social networking" site, from Disney. It's called Club Penguin[^], and it is much friendlier for kids than Facebook can be (it differs in that you also pay a subscription fee). We signed both Catherine and Hannah up for it, and now they are hooked. In it, they can make buddies, but no personal information is shared, and the characters are represented by penguins. They can earn virtual money which they can use to furnish an igloo, adopt a pet, etc... All in all, it's a nice little environment for youngsters.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
My kids used to play Club Penguin a few years ago. They've moved on to World of Warcraft. :laugh:
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon "Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham
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So, my 7 year old asks last week if she can start using Facebook? A friend of hers has an account, which she set up with her parents blessing, and now Catherine has expressed an interest. Now, rather than write the idea off, I did a bit of investigation this weekend and found an alternative "social networking" site, from Disney. It's called Club Penguin[^], and it is much friendlier for kids than Facebook can be (it differs in that you also pay a subscription fee). We signed both Catherine and Hannah up for it, and now they are hooked. In it, they can make buddies, but no personal information is shared, and the characters are represented by penguins. They can earn virtual money which they can use to furnish an igloo, adopt a pet, etc... All in all, it's a nice little environment for youngsters.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
Club Penguin was started by a very small company in Kelowna, BC (about a 90 minute drive from where I live). It was big news 'round these parts when Disney bought them out for 350+ million a few years ago, considering they had less than 50 employees at the time. Lucky ducks er.. penguins. Cheers, Drew.
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Tux wouldn't be caught dead associating with Disney :)
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels) -
So, my 7 year old asks last week if she can start using Facebook? A friend of hers has an account, which she set up with her parents blessing, and now Catherine has expressed an interest. Now, rather than write the idea off, I did a bit of investigation this weekend and found an alternative "social networking" site, from Disney. It's called Club Penguin[^], and it is much friendlier for kids than Facebook can be (it differs in that you also pay a subscription fee). We signed both Catherine and Hannah up for it, and now they are hooked. In it, they can make buddies, but no personal information is shared, and the characters are represented by penguins. They can earn virtual money which they can use to furnish an igloo, adopt a pet, etc... All in all, it's a nice little environment for youngsters.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
My 8 yo son is heavily into Battlefield Heroes[^], and we actually give him his pocket-money as BattleFunds instead of "real" money. He's pretty good at it too... But he'll get upset for being vote-kicked from a game for cheating or hacking, when he isn't.
The StartPage Randomizer - The Windows Cheerleader - Twitter
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So, my 7 year old asks last week if she can start using Facebook? A friend of hers has an account, which she set up with her parents blessing, and now Catherine has expressed an interest. Now, rather than write the idea off, I did a bit of investigation this weekend and found an alternative "social networking" site, from Disney. It's called Club Penguin[^], and it is much friendlier for kids than Facebook can be (it differs in that you also pay a subscription fee). We signed both Catherine and Hannah up for it, and now they are hooked. In it, they can make buddies, but no personal information is shared, and the characters are represented by penguins. They can earn virtual money which they can use to furnish an igloo, adopt a pet, etc... All in all, it's a nice little environment for youngsters.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
My daughter has outgrown Club Penguin and has moved on to FanTage[^], I refused to pay for her to use anything on the internet as she can get it for free. So she saved up her money and paid for six months. If she's still interested after that I'll pay for her to have 12 months, since she's proven she wants to use it and hasn't got me to spend my money and then be bored with it a few days later.
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004