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.

im going CRAZY trying to find a solution to this. my parents run a foster home. theyre running a Linksys WRT54GT router, with tomato. they dont know this, because theyre terrible with electronics, and couldnt care less. now running off the router they have: 3 PSPs, wireless 2 iPod touches, wireless 2 laptops, wireless 3 desktops, wired 2 original xboxes, wired 1 xbox 360, wired 1 PS3, wired now what i want is fairly simple, or so i thought if the kids jerk around and act like as***** and steal s*** or break s*** or whatever, i go into tomato and block the MAC address of whatever device from the internet. were not legally allowed to take it away from them under certain circumstances (violent ones), so we jsut cut the internet on them and until they get their s*** together. the problem is, my parents have no idea how to use tomato, and im not always available. i can do it remotely, but not if im working or something. and sometimes if a kid wont get off the computer, theyd like to just be able to shut down the internet right away. now, what im looking for is some sort of software the can run on their main desktop that allows them to allow or disallow the internet to a specific device. so if thomas is acting like a s***, they open up their program, click thomas' xbox, and disable the internet to it. i found Network Magic, but it seems like it only works on PC's, not xbox's and iPods. am i wrong? it doesnt support wireless devices because im using Tomato apparently. if i used the default firmware, it would probably work, but thats a s***ty option. there has to be another way. please, i cant find ANYTHING. ive been looking for weeks. any help at all?

oh man, one other question. right now i use Tomato to block certain Mac addresses on the network from the internet when i need to. if they go through the switch, and THEN to my router, will i still be able to block their MAC from ym router? or does the switch have its own MAC, and thats all i'll see? everything past the switch will be invisible? also, do you guys know of any program, with a basic GUI, that can access your router and block MACS easily? i want my parents to be able to do it easily from their desktop, as using tomato is a bit much to ask of them.

my pictures doesnt show? ****. well, heres a direct link: http://bayimg.com/image/bajldaacn.jpg

So, i have a few devices on one side of my house, and a few devices on the other. there is an original xbox on either side of the house, that i would like to system link together. i dont know ANYTHING about system linking, but what i wanted to know, was if i could use a switch. heres an image i made, to show what i mean: so by plugging a network line into port 1 of my router, and putting a switch on the other end, can i share files with that PC? can i system link the two original xboxes?

is there a way to verify a disc thats already been burned, with it source disc image on the hdd? i copied a disc as a disc image on my HDD, and burned the image, but forgot to verify it. i closed the program, but i wanted to know, is there a way i can verify it after the fact? via Nero, or Imgburn, or something else? im running Win. 7 64-bit. HP. thanks!

my decision is kind of made for me. online classifieds, via kijiji, have a guy advertising a 4850 512mb for $70 (cad). i cant go wrong with that! i thought about waiting, but for 70 bucks, my two cards will outpace a 4870, at least. well, thats alright. youre right though, i'll hold off on extra cooling. im not at the level where its worth it anyway. it was mentioned, that combining two different cards isnt generally suggested? 4850 + 4830, both 512 = not a good idea? it seemed like a good idea, but, maybe im missing something?

So im already running an ATI 4830 512mb Sapphire on my Crosshair 3 mobo, with my 955 Black chip. its bringing my system down a little bit, but im on a budget. i thought id just add another 4830, and crossfire them. now, i dont know ANYTHING about crossfire, but my options are another 4830 sapphire 512mb for 100 bucks (canadian $) another 4830, but 1GB, for 120 bucks a 4850 1GB for 145 bucks. SO. first of all, by adding a 4830, is it worth it at all to go with the 1GB? will i notice any difference at all, really? i always thought the size of the memory is a bit of a gimmick. am i wrong? im not actually considering the 4850. didnt think it was worth an extra 50%. am i wrong there too? ALSO, i hear the cards onboard power supplying system was on the back. and that a cooling system like a water block or something would not be effective. is this true. ALSO, is it worth it to go with liquid cooling in this case? i wont have much room, in my Antec Skeleton case, after these two cards. the heatsinks are HUGE, but theyre very overclockable. i guess what im asking is: the extra money to go twoards better cooling could just go towards a better card thats as fast anyway, right? am i wrong? is liquid colling cheaper than that? i dont know what im doing here.

im jsut trying to take a folder of AVI files, and put them on a normal dvd for playing in a standard dvd player. is there any recommended software, for making dvd menus and stuff? running Windows 7 HP.

man, you guys are the best. it wasnt set to Master, so i changed the jumper. i also put a new IDE cable in. went from 115 seconds to 25. thanks for your help!

not sure if this is a problem with windows or the hardware. my grandmother has a fairly basic PC. 2.2ghz pentium running XP. she was complaining about a few things, then her power supply died. i replaced the PSU, and decided i should jsut backup her files, and give her a fresh install because of many of the problems she was having. everything went well, except i ran into a strange problem with her motherboard. it wouldnt detect the harddrive, then it would, but only if the disk drive wasnt plugged in. on and on. strange stuff. then it seemed to work. now, when it boots up, after the Bios screen, theres a black screen with a cursor for about 30 seconds, then the screen goes black for a minute and a half or so, then the window loading screen comes on. it loads quick, and the PC runs great, but booting takes FOREVER because of this. whats going on? is this windows fault? her mobo is an Asus P5S800-VM. im using PATA drives, even though it has SATA support.