Bringing a New PC Home: It's a Family Affair

You've spent the last four years thinking about it, and now you finally splashing out on that awesome new PC. You've sorted out your megabytes from your screen resolution and your bits from your bytes, and now you've got a Net ready PC in its big new boxes, but you don't have a clue what to do next.

Will your kids be lured away from home by on-line pedophiles lurking in chat rooms? Will your partner indulge in an adulterous affair via email? Will you become uncontrollably addicted to porn? Will you run outrageous phone bills and end up in bankruptcy?

It's easy for media scaremongers to dream up these catastrophic scenarios, but all these things have happened. It's best to get off to the right start so you can reduce the chances of these disasters happening. It's also worth having a look at whether your family is making the most of its Net connection. There are dozens of brilliant educational sites for kids and recreational pages for stressed out moms and grandparents making the most of their retirement.

Now that you've got your PC, check out how long you can afford to be on-line each week. Keep costs down by limiting your access to weekends. Figure out how many hours everyone can spend on-line each week, and then ration this out and buy filtering software to make sure everyone complies.

You might also want to buy an off-line browser so the kids can download sites during cheaper times.

Where to Put the Computer

It depends who wants to use it. The main points to consider are:

1.Who will be allowed to use it? If you want to restrict kids access without any fiddly software complications, you can use a room with a lock on the door.

2.Be aware that PC's are inherently very noisy. It probably doesn't seem that way when you're using it in an office, but the constant whirring of the fan and tapping of the keyboard will drive you crazy at home. Don't even think of trying to watch TV when someone is playing games.