Category: Tutorials
Everything Parents Need to Know About the iPod Touch
The iPod Touch is a great device that can be used to help ease children into smartphone ownership. It has the same touch based interface and operating system as the iPhone, but without the ability to access data anywhere, and as a result the iPod Touch has less of the headaches associated with smartphone ownership. [...]
How to Find Age-Appropriate Apps for Your Kids
A big question that parents want answered is: How do I find age-appropriate apps for my kids? There are rating systems for movies (MPAA) and video games (ESRB), which are great tools for parents when deciding if the content is appropriate for their child, but there still isn’t a universal rating system for mobile applications. [...]
Five Online Safety New Year’s Resolutions for You and Your Family
When you think about New Year resolutions, you normally think about people setting personal goals, like exercising more, eating healthier or finding a new job – but what about resolutions that the whole family can benefit from? When it comes to digital safety and privacy, most families probably have a number of things that they [...]
Facebook’s New Privacy Settings
In response to recent criticism, Facebook has added new privacy settings and made them easier to access. The new settings give users more security options for who can view content that’s on their profile. In a nutshell, the new privacy settings address tagging, blocking events, blocking apps, and setting visibility restrictions to the public and [...]
How to Make the Kindle Fire Safe and Age-Appropriate for Your Child
As far as tablets go, the new Kindle Fire is one of the best family-friendly values out there. The 7-inch version retails for $174 and is a great e-reader and entertainment tablet that the whole family can enjoy, granted the right safeguards are in place. In order to give your child a rich, age-appropriate experience [...]
How to Set Up Parental Controls on the Wii U
Nintendo has consistently been one of the best family- friendly video game console makers. Additionally, their video game lineup is much more family-friendly than Microsoft’s or Sony’s, they offer some of the most comprehensive parental controls available and their handheld game devices have limited Internet access, which means your children can play online with their [...]
How to Set Windows 8 Family Safety
The Parental Controls in Windows 8, now called Family Safety, can be used to filter websites, set time limits on computer use, monitor and restrict apps purchased from the Windows Store and send activity reports via e-mail to parents–the latter of the two being the biggest improvements between 7 and 8. For those of you [...]
Disabling In-App Purchases on iOS and Android Devices
In-app purchases can pose one of the biggest headaches for parents whose children have smartphones or tablets. If you assigned your credit card to your child’s smartphone, you probably didn’t give it much thought. By why would you? They don’t have their own credit card, so it only made sense. But what parents usually don’t [...]
Technology Agreement – Helping Your Child Follow Your Rules for a Safe Digital Experience
If you know me or visit this website regularly, you already know that I’m a mom of five. I speak to you from a standpoint of practicality, experience and expertise. You know that the editorial team here at Yoursphere Media, Inc. is dedicated to providing practical, easy-to-understand, family-friendly solutions that allow the entire family to [...]
Eliminate the Temptation – Best Ways to Prevent Your Teen from Texting While Driving
The recent and tragic case of the 17-year-old young man from Northern California who, while texting and driving, plowed into a family of three while they were riding bikes, killing the father and 9-year-old daughter, left me hyper-aware. Hyper-aware because that young man could’ve been one of my own sons; hyper-aware because in the bicycle-friendly [...]
How to Delete That Unwanted Google+ Profile of Your Child
The other day my son asked if he could have a YouTube account of his own. He enjoys listening to music and watching the sports videos on the site. He’s 13 now so I said yes. While the intention was for me to help him create his account, he jumped right in and suddenly he [...]
Internet Cookies – What They Are and How to Block Them
If you’re like most parents, the first time you heard of Internet cookies you probably wondered to yourself, ‘what the heck are cookies?’ Well, simply put, cookies are small, often encrypted (protected) text-only files that reside on your web browser or computer’s memory. In a nutshell, cookies are used to make your web-browsing experience a [...]
How to Easily Block Ads on Your Child’s Computer
The idea of ad companies and marketing firms having an “online profile” of your child based on their web browsing habits is of definite concern. Unfortunately, this isn’t just an idea; it’s a reality. In fact, it’s how companies like Google and Yahoo! make money. One of the key methods used to collect this data [...]
Instagram – Is It Okay for Kids? What Parents Need to Know
In many ways, and without reinventing the wheel, Instagram is changing the way people share photos with each other. The mobile app, which is only available on the iPhone, is steadily growing in popularity among the kid and teen crowds, causing parents to take notice and ask, what exactly is Instagram, and is there anything [...]
Screen Retriever Review and Installation Guide
As a parent, I always want to know where my children are, who they’re hanging out with, and what they’re doing. I like to try and give them a balance between freedom and safety, let them grow and mature yet still make sure they don’t do anything that has the potential to harm them. This [...]
Cyberbullying and Online Gaming: How to Protect Your Child
First let me say that, just as I am not OK with it offline, I am not okay with the idea of my children talking to strangers online. But that’s exactly what happens in online gaming services like Xbox Live and Playstation Network. As soon as your child logs onto their profile or joins an [...]
Five Internet-Safety Resolutions for the New Year
When the New Year comes around we make resolutions to lose weight, spend more time with friends and family, or simply get more organized. These resolutions, however, have the tendency to fall off soon after we start as they require a huge time investment and sometimes a change in lifestyle. A desire to be safer [...]
A Step-By-Step Guide to Making Sure Your Child’s Holiday Technology Gifts Are Safety-Enabled And Family-Friendly Ready
If you plan on buying your child one of the many fun and engaging technology gifts available this holiday season, know that there are a few simple things you can do to make sure their gifts are family-friendly ready and safety-enabled. Here are some things you’ll need to consider before buying, and what you’ll need [...]
Your Guide to the New Facebook Timeline Privacy Settings
The Timeline feature that Mark Zuckerberg announced in September is now available to all Facebook users. If you’ve already activated Timeline for your own profile, you’re probably in the midst of adjusting to the new layout and testing out the new features. But what you might have overlooked are the minor additions to your Privacy [...]
Why Apple Products Make the Best Tech Gifts for Your Child
Whether it’s a smartphone or a tablet, we want the latest and greatest digital devices—and so do our kids. Researchers at Gartner really drove this point home with a recent study that found that young adults ages 18-24 actually prefer a new cell phone over a new car. Yes, we live in a different world. [...]
Making Chrome and Firefox Safe for Your Family
Though Internet Explorer is still the market leader when it comes to web browsers, its steady decline shows that more and more people are leaning towards Chrome or Firefox as their go-to browser. When it comes to using content filtering tools as a way to create a safe, age-appropriate browsing experience, I always recommend Internet [...]
Mary Kay is a nationally-recognized Internet safety expert and the founder of 
