Pgrytdal's website

How to protect your children online

pgrytdal@gmail.com (Pgrytdal) — Fri, 04 May 2012 19:58:57 +0000

I recently read this article on Mashable titled: Europe Seeks to Protect Children, Prove How Old You Are Online [VIDEO]

It talked about how the European Government is in discussion about how to prove peoples age online. Mashable doesnt know how they intend to do it, and maybe the European Government doesn’t know yet either.

Mashable challenged everyone to comment about their ideas on how to accomplish this, and I have one idea.

My idea doesnt exactly require the user to prove their age, but it (hopefully) has the same result.

My idea involves a program called ”K9 Web Protection.”

What it is, is a non-profit (I think) who built a program so that parents could protect their children online. You download and install the program on your PC/Mac (there are also apps for Android and IOS devices.) It has many options that you (as a parent) can set to protect your child from many websites.

The main options are:

High: Blocks the most commonly blocked categories, plus Abortion, Gay/Lesbian, and Unrated sites.
Default: Blocks the most Commonly Blocked categories, but allows Unrated sites.
Moderate: Blocks Adult/Mature Content, Pornography, Nudity, and Spyware categories only.
Minimal: Blocks Pornography and Spyware categories only.
Monitor: Allows all categories – only logs traffic.
Custom: Select your own set of categories to block.

When children try to visit a blocked site, (say, a Pornography site) they get this friendly page that makes a barking sound:

(Click to enlarge)

Then, in order to bypass this page, the person trying to access the site must enter in a password that you enter when you install the program.

If a child thinks a site is safe, and would like to access it, he/she would go to his/her parents and talk to them. The parents should then go and check out the site, and if they think it’s safe, they would put it on “the whitelist” which would keep the category blocked, but that one site unblocked. (Or, you can give your chid access to it for only a certain amount of time. From 5 minutes to an hour, I think.)

I could go on for hours talking about this wonderful program, but I’ll just get to the bottom line.

I think that when installing Firefox, Google Chrome, or any other browser, the European Government (and every other country, for that matter) should require the company (like: Mozilla, Google, etc) to ask if they would like to install K9 Web Protection along with the browser. Note: It would be entirely optional whether the parents install it or not.

Now, I also urge parents who read this, to install K9 Web Protection even if this never actually happens (which it probably wont.)

To learn more about the program, or to download it, please Click Here.

Popcorn, anyone?

pgrytdal@gmail.com (Pgrytdal) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 23:52:11 +0000

Hello, everyone!

Did you know you can help me earn my own way to Boy Scout Summer Camp?
Just Click Here and place an order on my behalf. Trail’s End has made a lot of improvements this year.

All microwave products are made with canola oil and all chocolate products contain no hydrogenated oils, so there are plenty of healthy, flavorful snacks to choose from.

70% of your purchase will be returned to my council, my unit and my Scout rewards. Online purchases help us fund fun, educational activities and help more kids experience all the things that make Scouting great.

Thanks for your support,
Parker

A few updates

pgrytdal@gmail.com (Pgrytdal) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 04:46:27 +0000

Hello, Everyone!

I would like to let you know that I have made a couple updates to my website, that I hope you will enjoy!

The first one, which is probably the most noticeable, is a new theme!

The old theme I used was called Atahualpa. Atahualpa is by far, my favorite theme. It comes with 200+ options that help you make the perfect theme. When I have a color scheme to go by, I am very good. I made a few fan sites of games for people, and those themes came out wonderfully, because they told me what colors they wanted.

What happened with my site, is, I had no one to tell me what colors I should use, and no one to tell me whether my site looked good or not. I was going through my site and I was finding errors everywhere. In the sidebars, some of the text was squished together, text in the

tags looked bad, and even though you couldn’t notice it most of the time, the background image had a “crease” in it when it repeated.

So, I found out about this great theme on The coding massacre called Magazine Basic. I installed it, and now love it!

Here is the difference between my two themes:

Old Theme:

New Theme:

Also, a more minor update is:

Contact forms have been updated/changed!

When I was (more of) a n00b at blogging, I used WordPress.com. One of my favorite features on WordPress.com was, the Contact Forms feature.

Well, Automattic (the creators of WordPress.com) made a plugin called “Jetpack” where they add features available on WordPress.com, but not Self Hosted WordPress.org. Well, in the most recent update, they added the Contact Forms feature!

For the last year or so (whenever I originally made my first personal blog) I have always used Contact Form 7 or Fast Secure Contact Form. They are both wonderful plugins, with wonderful features. But, I think that the simplistic design, and ease of use in the Jetpack Contact Form Feature is what I need. Also, it comes in an update to the Jetpack plugin. So why not use it, instead of using another plugin, taking up more space on my hosting account?

Last, but not least, I now have a mobile theme!

Mobile theme view 1

Mobile theme view 2 (rotated)

Anyway… Hope you enjoy these updates!

~Parker~

Podcast update

pgrytdal@gmail.com (Pgrytdal) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 20:43:49 +0000

Hello everyone

I would like to apologise for not posting any new podcast episodes.

For the first two weeks of missing the deadline (every Friday) I had just not finished the episode. (I currently have 2 topics to finish)

But now I have a completely different problem. My computer monitor isn’t working.

I have a solution on how to make audio podcasts, but not video… So I won’t have any tutorials for a while.

So, you may see a new audio pocast this week, but probably no video for a while.

Thanks guy’s!

~Parker~

Cover Tune Grab Bag – “Baby”

pgrytdal@gmail.com (Pgrytdal) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 07:30:39 +0000

Ok, so I went to this concert on March 4th called the Rock and Worship Roadshow with two of my fav bands Mercy Me, and Tenth Ave. North. (They were also touring with a few other people like Lecrae, Hawk Nelson, Disciple, and others)

Anyway, Mercy Me does this thing called “Cover Tune Grab Bag” which is where they sing songs that they didn’t write. So, it has also been a tredition (starting last year) to do a “Cover Tune Grab Bag” after every Rock and Worship Roadshow tour. This year, they decided to do “Baby” by Justin Bieber. I do not like JB that much as a singer… I think he is a cool guy, but I don’t like his song’s.

Mercy Me makes “Baby” 100% better. So, without further delay, here’s: Cover Tune Grab bag – “Baby”

Watch this video on YouTube.

Hope you enjoyed it!

~Pgrytdal~

Pgrytdal’s Podcast: S1 E2 – How to install a plugin VIA the WordPress Dashboard

pgrytdal@gmail.com (Pgrytdal) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 00:00:58 +0000

Hello Everyone!

The second episode of my podcast is out! (This is also my first video episode!)

This episode is how to install a WordPress Plugin VIA the WordPress repository, and the Dashboard.

If you would like to see this video in its own page, Click Here!

~Pgrytdal~

Pgyrtdal’s Podcast: S1 E1 – Question

pgrytdal@gmail.com (Pgrytdal) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:42:54 +0000

Hello!

I would like to let you know that the first episode of my new podcast is out!

Check it out below:

What do you think?

~Pgrytdal~

Podcast

pgrytdal@gmail.com (Pgrytdal) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 17:46:50 +0000

Hello!

I have always had a problem writing down (or typing) what I am trying to say. I am so much better at saying what I’m thinking, and not writing it or typing it.

So, I have decided to start a podcast!

It usually wont be too long, but who knows!

I think I will be recording the first “episode” tonight… but no promises it will be done then.

Any new “episodes” will come out when I decide to write a new post. I may… MAY trans scribe the podcast into text, because that will be a lot easier to do, then battle for hours over what word to say next in my posts.

Also, this blog usually has always been about technical stuff, with personal stuff here and there… but now I will be making just random… anything I think of to post. So, be prepared for my stong opinions

Anyway… hope you like it!

~Pgrytdal~

Andrew and Robin: Part 2

pgrytdal@gmail.com (Pgrytdal) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 04:08:44 +0000

A few months ago, I posted about how my best friends brother was getting married. I also mentioned that the bride had Cancer. One thing I didn’t mention was that they were seventeen.

Today, Robin died. She died from a cancer called Osteosarcoma. I can’t make this a long post, because we are meeting the family’s of Andrew and Robin, to pray with them in this horrible time, but please pray for them. Pray for Andrew and Robin Burdick and their families.

Contact Forms

pgrytdal@gmail.com (Pgrytdal) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 10:12:08 +0000

Update 1: The Contact Me form is now up!

Update 2: Stargate Quotes Plugin form is now running!

Update 3: All Contact Form’s are now working.. they have for a while now, I just never got to updating today.

Hello everyone!

I wanted to let you know that I am changing Contact Form Plugins. So, any forms on my blog are currently down.

I will be posting updates as the forms are back up.

Thanks!
~Parker~

Pgrytdal's website

How to protect your children online

Popcorn, anyone?

A few updates

Old Theme:

New Theme:

Mobile theme view 1

Mobile theme view 2 (rotated)

Anyway… Hope you enjoy these updates!~Parker~

Podcast update

Cover Tune Grab Bag – “Baby”

Pgrytdal’s Podcast: S1 E2 – How to install a plugin VIA the WordPress Dashboard

Pgyrtdal’s Podcast: S1 E1 – Question

Podcast

Andrew and Robin: Part 2

Contact Forms

Anyway… Hope you enjoy these updates!

~Parker~