breadandbubbles

OKAY, i found it!@ and its fantastic. very easy to use, unobtrusive. you create a profile for every user (or kid) and designate how many hours a day they can use the computer, or how long they can use it in one sitting, etc. it gives you usage reports just showing you how long they used it on a specific day. you can even generate 'time tokens', codes they can type in to get extra time. very very nice. its called 'SoftwareTime' here: http://www.softwaretime.com/ they have a free two week trial

im not sure i understand them. well, i mean, have you tried them? ive heard of K9 before, has anyone here tried it? i jsut want to see time. literally jsut the number of minutes a specific user uses the computer for. are you familiar with whether these services offer that? ill try them on ym virtual machine for now. thanks a lot! i forgot about k9.

alright folks, i run a foster home, and im having a big problem with computer use. mainly, ive got four kids all using the **** thing, and i have NO idea how much time each kid is spending on it. usually i get "thomas has been on for hours!" and then thomas: "No i havent i just got on!" but it goes further than that.sometimes i need to know how long they were on for a certain day, so i could go back a week and see that kind of info, yknow? im at my wits end completely. googling produces nothing except that nanny crap that watches them all the time, and im seriously against it. all the terms i use to search produce completely irrelevant results. ideally, all i want is that when they sit down at the PC, which runs Windows XP, btw, they have to login. from then on it just records how long until they log off. thats it. thats all. itd be nice if there were an easy way for me to type a password and temporarily pause the timer in case i have to do something while their logged in, but thatd be a perk. mainly, just the timer is what im after. im asking for your help. please, please consider this in your vast adventures across the interweb. or deep within the recesses of your mind lurks a memory of such software? ill pay whatever it takes, i just need it to be. OR, can you write something like this? i'll pay you! im not sure what else to say. please help me. thank you for reading this.

hahaha. man, thanks so much. its all pretty simple. i cant wait to get my hands dirty, even though theres really not much dirt in the first place. thanks a lot man. i really appreciate it.

With XP and before services had more impact on system performance. Your bottleneck will be disk speed, not the OS. I could saturate most of a Gigabit connection with Vista, but that was on a RAID0 setup. Over USB2? I don't see it hitting 40MB/s too often (nor for long when it does) -- more like 25-30 on average being a USB device. I've even seen HDTach benches of this thing saying more like 20 average, and speeds dropping to 15-ish when half full (i.e. when actually making use of it). If you wanted performance, then you go for eSATA instead. It would have been not only faster but you'd also have more bang for your buck. For example, this external eSATA 4 bay enclosure with this WD 2TB drive or this other WD 2TB drive would have costed you 35% more overall, but for 200% the space, better performance, and everything would be new with full mfg warranty. Or if you went with a smaller 1TB drive the price would be identical (but still faster and with full warranty). You'd also have far lower latency over eSATA than USB (you can expect a 20-something ms latency with this thing), and simultaneous read/write operations go a lot smoother over eSATA too. Either ways, Gigabit would still help as you're going to be limited to 12.5MB/s or less over a plainj old 100mbit Ethernet connection. okay, ONE LAST question. i already have a switch connected to my router. in this situation, what i would do is connect a new gigabit switch to my router, and my old switch to the new switch. so, to get to the internet, a computer would go through switch, switch, router, modem. would that work?

Well, it depends on your setup. Over wireless of course it makes no difference. As for wired connections, gigabit ethernet switches are dirt cheap (my 8 port Netgear Gigabit switch that also supports jumbo frames was like $50). And yes, it makes quite a difference. Both will be able to max out a 100mbit or wireless connection very easily. Transcoding is fairly CPU intensive indeed. And if your CPU is pushed to its very limit, the odds that it would do the job fine with any another OS are pretty slim (the fix would be more like a CPU upgrade). Vista's main overhead vs Linux is RAM usage (and even then, I had a plain old vanilla install of Vista that would boot in 365MB usage), but that's not what you really need a ton of here. Well, for the most part the "unecessary" stuff once loaded will get paged to disk anyway, so no big deal. You could disable things like indexing though. hmm...i hadt thought of the paging. why are people so worried about services then? okay, so, if i get an ethernet switch, and have all my wired devices running though it, and provide internet to it through my dd wrt router, then i could make some gains. but......alright. if i did that, THEN would vista become a hindrance? on gigabit? i hear the drobo only has 40mbps read speed anyway. so gigabit is kind of pointless, isnt it? actually...could 40mbps become a hindrance?

well i certainly appreciate the feedback. id like to ask a couple of things though. you mentioned gigabit ethernet. it does have that, but the router im using is of thw WRT54G series, running full DD-WRT, which is NOT gigabit. i need dd-wrt for a number of reasons, but one thing im wondering is whether or not gigabit matters? i mean i know it does theoretically, but in the real world will you notice it? thank you for addressing everything step by step, it was really helpful. the only thing i forgot to ask was performance. will running vista have a substancial impact on system resources over linux? i think the processor is 2.2ghz. i dont know anything more about it. but with transcoding, ill probably be pushing it fairly hard. would linux be alot lighter? is there anything i can do to reduce vistas impact? just....disable unnecessary services, and any extra visual stuff? oh! btw, i was upset about being stuck with windows not because it was windows, but because i was stuck! i just like to have options, and know what they are.

aaaaaaaaah screw it. maybe linux is the best. we'll see what you folks say.

so id like to settup a home server. i need this thing to be foolproof, failproof, and cheap. i know i know, EVERYONE wants that. but heres my quick situation. I nabbed a Drobo, 2nd gen, second hand. before you roll your eyes, it was only 200 bucks, WITH a 1tb hdd. couldnt say no. i also got a second hand PC. nothing fancy. dual core something or other, i cant remember, but its preloaded with Vista HP. now, id like to plug my drobo into this thing, and have some online thing, probably Mozy, back it up. just a file server. OH, and ill have to put tversity, or something like it, on there for now for Playstation 3 access. my point is, having mozy, drobo, and tversity all running means im stuck with Windows. i already have vista on there. is it as simple as reinstalling vista, setting up a firewall, and windows SMB? or do you think i should get into linux? im not adverse to linux by any means, but its the compatibility im concerned about (again dont roll your eyes, i know EVERYONE says it). anyway, whats your advice? vista? linux? if vista, are there things i should take note of? connection caps? safety issues? if linux, i guess i could go with twonky for PS3, but what about online backups? remote access from my windows 7 pc? drobo support is iffy, isnt it? if you have any input on any of the myriad of subjects here, please post it. id really appreciate any help at all.

anyone? it seems like a standard sort of situation.

*sigh* so, im kind of at my wits end here. im currently living in my parents house, and they run a foster home. theres 6 kids her altogether, and everyone has a laptop, or psp, or xbox 360. everythings running off of my wrt54gt router, with tomato. its working find, but were running into problems with control. for instance, one kid plays his xbox 360 ALL THE TIME, like..always. its a struggle to get him to eat or sleep. its crazy. unfortunately we have to be relatively passive, because of legel restrictions. we cant jsut go and take his xbox. if he gets aggressive, we cant tough him. so i use access restrictions on tomato to disable his live, until he does what he needs to do. the thing is, we want to be able to put in a restriction rule like....i dont know, 4 hours per day, or something. so if his MAC is online, it will be blocked from the internet after 4 hours. wed also like to block certain content, like XXX rated stuff. ont op of ALL THAT, i need a friendly desktop gui my mom or dad can use to do all this. they cant be messing around in tomato firmwares writing scripts. i need GUI. it seems to me that this all goes beyond the limits of my little linksys. what can i do? should i build a firewall out of a little desktop pc? can you recommend some software for that?

thats not a bad idea. ill look into that!

it makes perfect sense to use web management, im jsut extremely surprised there isnt something consumer friendly in the way of desktop management. think of the market! when you run that disc that comes with your router, it actually DOES something! that would be wicked, and im surprised it doesnt exist. i tried firewall builder, but...im a little confused about what im looking at. do i have to install this with any device im using? if so, then it wont work with ipods, psp's, xboxes, or gameboys right? *BUMP* im sorry guys, i really need help with this. it boggles my mind that more people arent interested in this.

it makes perfect sense to use web management, im jsut extremely surprised there isnt something consumer friendly in the way of desktop management. think of the market! when you run that disc that comes with your router, it actually DOES something! that would be wicked, and im surprised it doesnt exist. i tried firewall builder, but...im a little confused about what im looking at. do i have to install this with any device im using? if so, then it wont work with ipods, psp's, xboxes, or gameboys right?

right but i really dont want them to go into any access restriction settings for any firmware. im looking for a desktop GUI.