Comments on: Leopard’s Parental Controls a possible source of resource hogging?

By: davidos

davidos — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:55:07 +0000

yeah, ActyMac DutyWatch good software

By: bolh

bolh — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 10:40:39 +0000

for parental control i use ActyMac DutyWatch

By: Cindy

Cindy — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:59:22 +0000

4 kids have accounts on my laptop. The only parental control I use on those accounts is the time limits. Until upgrading to snow leopard, I had no problems, but now I have endless problems. If I add time to any of the accounts, it disables the time limits for all. In order to fix it I have to repair permissions and restart. Like others here, I need to have those limits in order to keep peace in the house. Snow Leopard has also slowed everything down on the laptop – and I don’t use any parental control but the time limits. This REALLY sucks.

By: Deke

Deke — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:30:19 +0000

Another problem to add……Seems the ability to add websites is not blocked at all. When we try to use the normal way (add admin user name and password), it does not work. However, if you cancel, it just let’s you add the website!

By: fara

fara — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:22:49 +0000

We bought 2 mac computers because we heard they were the best. I was pleased until I decided to use the parent controls. My first problem is the time I set for the computers to sign off. Sometimes it works and sometimes it dosen’t. I will set it and it will work and the next day or so it is back to original settings. My other problem is on the other computer the logs do not work.
I have been working on these problems for a solid month and I have changed my password twice thinking maybe the kids were changing the settings! I am frustrated beyond belief!

By: Laurie

Laurie — Sat, 16 May 2009 04:03:54 +0000

I have Leopard 10.5.6 and the parental controls usually worked until recently when the timer options have completely given up. I checked the settings and they are where I set them, but it is now 2 hours past when the boys should have been kicked off and there is no indication on the sign-in window that they can’t sign on.
This is really frustrating because they are home alone more as they get older and I would love the machine to kick them off when I am not around to do it. The iPod is just too tempting to realistically expect them to get off in a reasonable amount of time when I’m not around. Okay, I guess that means I should keep them off completely when I’m not here. But it won’t let me do that, either…..

By: jon

jon — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 11:18:09 +0000

a few cool parental control utilities for Windwos are listed here http://www.parentalfiltercontrol.com/

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 03:30:34 +0000

Yep, same with me regarding no Internet access with parental controls enabled. Had my iMac since February and up until about a month ago (July ’08) it was working fine and now my kid’s accounts can’t access the Internet. Apple phone support was no help and neither were the Apple Genius’, as they call themselves, at two Apple stores. May end up getting a third party application to handle filtering. Lovely, another expense. Granted, there may be better applications to handle access and filtering, but so far I wasn’t that disappointed, except for some of the blocked sites that really shouldn’t be blocked. I also check the log files for their accounts to check for any sites that I think are bad. A lot of times as long as the kids know you’re actively looking at their activity that will act as a deterrent, until they go online at their friend’s house! ;-)

I do try and limit their usage, but I take an integrated approach which I suggest more people do. I set the ‘technology’ controls on the PC for usage times but I also have the ‘human’ control which is me making sure they don’t sit online for hours. More work, but they are my kids. “As long as they live under my roof and until they’re 18…” parents know the rest of this statement!!

Hopefully we’ll get improvements soon to these annoying problems.

By: Mac Parent

Mac Parent — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 13:13:47 +0000

The timer can completely be ignored. I bout 2 new iMacs for my kids to keep them safe, based on the parental controls. Also I wanted to limit their time use to only one hour a day and 2 hours on weekend days. But my kids simply ignore the timer and are able to stay logged in! I have 5 children that use the computer, so it is important that I be able to revolve them. One tool for that was the time allotment. But it doesn’t work. Logging in to the parental controls (even though I’ve enabled it) from my macbook pro doesn’t work either. What gives Apple? I own 6 Macs total. I’ve converted my entire family. All I ask is that if the options are there, make them work!

By: Brian Jordan

Brian Jordan — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:57:43 +0000

Has this been fixed yet?