January 26, 2010 by littleye
littleye developers have been super busy working on new features to make it easier for you to manage your kids online activity.
FREE RANGE allows your kids to go anywhere online with no restriction! You can view the browsing history and block sites with no restriction at all.
Adding features to keep it simple!
TIME GRAPHS allows you see a snapshot of how much time your kids spend online in a 30 day time frame. During this year, we will build out this feature and allow you to view time graphs by day and by week.
Very soon, littleye will be announcing our mobile parental controls for iPhone, Blackberry and Droid devices. This will allow you to easily manage your kids online activity from the palm of your hand in a simple mobile application. Even though you can access mylittleye from any web browser, we want to make it as easy as possible for you to access information, make changes and manage site approvals.
So, here’s to 2010 and making online safety simple for parents!
Tags: cyber bully, e-safety, google strict filter, internet filters, kids online, kids portals, littleye, new features, online monitoring, online safety, parental controls
Posted in littleye Information | Leave a Comment »
August 13, 2009 by littleye
Make it your way!
This summer we became regulars at Menchies. Menchies is a very smart concept to break through through all the yogurt chains trying to get a piece of Pink Berry’s business. At Menchies, you walk in to a self-serve environment that allows you try all their flavors then customize your mix! After you pick your flavor, you get their “one size” giant container to create your own frozen dream desert. It took us one $12 yogurt to figure out that you don’t really need to fill the container to the top. Menchies charges by weight – MIX, WEIGH, PAY! You are led through the toppings which includes all kinds of candy, cheesecake, brownies, breakfast cereals, hot fudge, carmel – you get the idea. It’s not hard to go crazy and make a two pound sundae. Needless to say, we become regulars this summer because Menchies let us build it our way, a customized frozen desert!
This is what we do at littleye too! You can customize the Internet for your kids. You can keep it simple and just use the littleye safe list, or really spend some time setting up exactly where you want your kids to go online – your way, not ours!
As of lately, there have been a few studies that showed where kids go online, or what kids are searching for online, and You Tube is coming up number one across the board. We have parents contact us constantly at littleye asking us to add You Tube to our master safe list, and we feel this is a decision that should be left up to you. We don’t feel that You Tube is really safe for all kids, so you decide and create your kid’s online experience your way. This goes for all social networking sites too. littleye will never add any social networking sites to our master list, because we feel that it’s your decision whether your kids should be allowed to participate in online social networking. With littleye, you can customize the web by adding sites to your own safe lists.
littleye’s custom safe lists allows you to customize You Tube, MySpace, Facebook and other questionable sites. When you add a site to your safe list, you have the option to add the entire domain or just the URL you visited. This means that you can add a single MySpace profile, and your kids can visit that profile but no other profiles on MySpace. This works the same way for YouTube.
Here is a list of social networking sites to check out to decide if your kids should participate or not:
- MySpace: This well known social network lets users find friends, classmates and meet new people. Now MySpace now allows its members to listen to free music or share video.
- Facebook: The most popular social site on the Internet has over two hundred million members and become one of the premier photo sharing services.
- Linkedin: Find people who share your interests among a community of 40 million students and professional seeking to advance their career and education interests.
- Bebo: Share video and meet new friends around the world. This social network also caters to a large Spanish speaking community.
- hi5: An international social network that also operates on a local level, this site allows members to stay connected, while sharing their lives and keeping up with current events.
- Friendster: This global social network emphasizes true friendships and discovering new people.
- Lovento: An international tourism guide and network providing information on nightlife, sports and art and culture.
- MyCool: A social network considering fashion, culture and life this site is great for students looking for a study break.
- beRecruited: A network for athletes looking to get recruited for college sports, this site connects students with coaches.
- vSocial: An online community built around providing the fastest, ways to share videos.
- Alumwire: A network helping students search for career and employment opportunities to find jobs, career and employment opportunities.
- b4Class: This simple social network makes it easy for students to connect in order to share notes, test materials and homework.
- Campusbug: One of the first social learning networks this educational networking tools connects students all over the world.
- Quizilla: A social site connecting teens around the world, this site has security to assure no unsavory elements infect the network.
- Student.com: A network for students, parents, and administrators to learn the facts about financial aid, scholarships, loans, jobs, and college majors
- studentSN: This social network is an engaged community of students dedicated to learning.
- Social Economy Student Network: Connecting passionate caring students with one another, this site is dedicated to saving the world through service.
- teengrace.net: A network designed to link Christian teens with one another, this site is easy and functional.
- Teens for Planet Earth: A social networking site for teens who want to protect our planet, this resource is great for youth wanting to make a difference.
- Habbo: A virtual hangout where users can create and design their own rooms, even throw parties for their online friends.
So, get started today with littleye and make it your way!
Tags: customize web, e-safety, internet filters, kids online, littleye, menchies, Online Dangers, online monitoring, online safety, parental controls
Posted in Marketplace, littleye Information, online safety | Leave a Comment »
June 4, 2009 by littleye
Bing is sooo safe for kids, well, with littleye!
UPDATE: So, two hours later, we have littleye on Safari ready, as well. What we thought would take a few days, took less than two hours! Get littleye FREE here http://www.littleye.com/free
Since Microsoft launched Bing, their really cool search engine to compete with Google and Yahoo, there has been A LOT of press! Way to go Microsoft for getting it right! Typically when you launch a product, the press peels it apart until they find what doesn’t work, and with Bing, they did. Bing doesn’t keep kids safe. Just like Google, Bing has a filter, but you can easily turn it on and off, just like the lights in your house. Does this make Bing or Google a search engine that kids can’t use? Well, kind of. You see, kids figure this out pretty quickly, and if you don’t set the filter, they can and will run across some pretty inappropriate material online.
As you can guess, I am writing this because littleye can, in fact, keep your kids safe on Bing if you are on Vista, XP or Firefox for Mac. I should let you know that our Safari safety net for Bing will be rolled out in a few days, but I wanted to alert you NOW! If you have littleye installed, your kids can use Bing and Google as they wish with no exposure to inappropriate material! littleye’s filter locks Bing and Google in a way that your kids can still search, but are only allowed to SEE and VISIT sites that are on a safe list within our system. This includes image and video search result, as well.
littleye is FREE and keeps your kids safe online, even on Bing!
http://www.littleye.com/free
Tags: Bing, e-safety, google, google strict filter, internet filters, kids online, Mac, Microsoft, Online Dangers, online safety, parental controls, Vista, XP
Posted in Marketplace, littleye Information | 1 Comment »
May 26, 2009 by littleye
We improve our safe list every day!
Over the past few weeks, we’ve had a couple of users ask us to send them our safe list, and our answer is no. We don’t release our baseline safe list but do allow you to search the littleye safe sites list once you have an account and log in to mylittleye.
Our safe list has been a real work in progress and continues to grow every day. littleye has a community of parents and teachers that help us review and approve sites. The lists contains thousands and thousands of safe websites for both adults and kids. For example, we have sites like National Geographic, History.com, CNN.com, ABC.com and Google.com. There are many very kid-centric sites like Starfall.com, Disney.com and Nick.com.
We allow users to search our safe list, but we don’t release the entire list to anyone. At littleye, we have a strict policy not to release any of our intellectual property, to the outside public. This includes the littleye safe sites list.
If you have really young kids, like 7 years old and under, we suggest that you may want to build a safe list specific to that younger kid with only handful of sites and unsubscribe that kid from the littleye safe sites list. This will only allow your youngers kids to go to sites on the safe list you built specifically for them.
You can learn more about lists in littleye by watching our “how-to” videos!
Posted in littleye Information | Leave a Comment »
May 22, 2009 by littleye
I just read this article from InformationWeek about a 3 year old clicking around on a site the parents were using to purchase toys and ended up purchasing a $12,000 Backhoe on an auction site! As funny as this may sound, it could have caused some major problems. Lucky for the
parents, the auction was reversed immediately.
How could this have been prevented? Well, with littleye, we have many users that have unsubscribed to the littleye safe sites list, and only allowed their younger kids to visit a handful of websites. The video on our homepage tells the story of Rebecca who set up littleye for her 3 year old to visit only Disney.com and Starfall.com – that’s it! That IS the Internet for Rebecca’s 3 year old. When she logs him in littleye, his online universe consists of two sites. This sounds pretty good for a 3 year old – right? Tell us your stories about where your kids online.
Tags: e-safety, littleye, online safety, parental controls
Posted in Marketplace, littleye Information | Leave a Comment »
April 30, 2009 by littleye
I really don’t get cyber-bullying and people who are mean on-line. We do have to excuse kids because they are after all, kids. But I have seen adults partake in this activity and it’s just disgusting. We need to not only monitor kids on-line, but teach them about on-line etiquette or “netiquette”. It’s the same as offline. It’s the same golden rule. Here’s a link to a pretty extensive guide to netiquette. There are several issues that affect both kids and adults like using foul language with one another, posting pictures with comments, basics like using ALL CAPS and weird stuff like alternate persona’s on-line. This goes back to an earlier blog post of mine about how anybody can be anybody on-line. If someone is posting information with an alternative persona, we gotta stop and think, “Is this a good person? Should they be a friend offline?”
An on-line friend “Amy” sent me a Twitter direct message last week and asked me if I could help her with a cyber-bully. Apparently, an old high school “friend” posing as someone else on Facebook was sending her mean spirited messages and posting negative comments on her Facebook wall. Amy suggested to this person that she knew their identity and would like to make nice, but the old grudges in high school still remained as this person kept calling Amy names and posting information about happening from high school. Just so you know, Amy is 35 now, so high school was like a way long time ago. Like, so long ago that no one cares or remembers? As it turns out, this “friend” ended up removing their Facebook account. But even after all these years, this “friend” used Facebook to try and settle a 17 year old score. Why? Because they are not a nice person. I have to wonder, if this person has children, are they learning this type of behavior?
The solution is simple in social networking: delete this “friend”. If you start receiving emails, block their email. If you or your kids receive bullying texts, just block their number.
A few people on Twitter have direct messaged me and asked who is this littleye person? It’s just me, Sandra McIntosh, Founder of littleye. I do not have personal information posted online. This is not because I have anything to hide. It’s just because I don’t feel the need to share personal information on the Internet. I am the founder of littleye, and everything I do online is directly related to littleye and educating you regarding online safety. I have accounts with Facebook, Twitter, WordPress and, of course, the littleye website . My goal is to do what I can keep kids safe online. Eventually, the team at littleye would like every parent to feel comfortable allowing their kids to use the Internet safely – you know, to have a very positive experience online.
So, are you being nice online? I hope so! 
Tags: cyber bully, online safety, parental controls
Posted in Marketplace, online safety | Leave a Comment »
April 22, 2009 by littleye
Most of the time, it's by accident!
We’ve found that parents are very interested in learning how to protect their kids from being exposed to inappropriate content online. This is not because kids are trying to be bad online, it’s because of the accidental exposure to explicit material on the Internet. Granted, some kids will push the limited and intentionally conduct searches to see this material, but most kids stumble upon accidentally.
For example, if you use Google to search the term “lightspeed” while the Google strict filter is off, the image results are appalling. Or use Google to search Vanessa Hudgens from High School Musical and take a look at the image results. Wow – it’s amazing that Disney let that one slide.
This is why, at littleye, as an extra layer of protection to our existing filtering system, we enable the Google strict filter. Kids are not allowed to disable the Google strict filter while littleye is on.
We don’t think kids are trying to be bad online, so we want to protect them in case of accidents.
Tags: disney, google, google strict filter, kids online, online accidents, online safety, parental controls
Posted in Marketplace, littleye Information | Leave a Comment »
April 21, 2009 by littleye
When you sign up for littleye, you are automatically subscribed to the littleye Safe Sites List. This list contains thousands of sites that have been approved for kids. Our list contains sites like Disney, Discovery, PBS, CNN and consumer product companies like Ford and Pepsi. You can use our list and just set it and forget it with littleye.
If your kids run across sites that are not on our list, you can add them to your own safe list. It’s really easy. Watch how littleye allows you to unlock sites and add them to your own safe list(s). When you log in to mylittleye, you can block sites on the littleye safe list too, if you want. Watch how you can customize the Internet for your kids with littleye!
There are popular sites that we will NEVER add to the littleye Safe Sites List. We believe that parents should decide, not littleye, if these sites are appropriate for kids in your household. These are some of the popular sites, not on the littleye Safe Sites List, include:
- Youtube
- Myspace
- Facebook
- Craiglist
- Xanga
- Friendster
- Skyrock
- Orkut
You get the idea, and you decide what should be filtered for your household!
Tags: internet filters, kids online, online safety, parental controls
Posted in littleye Information | Leave a Comment »
April 21, 2009 by littleye
littleye works on both Mac and PC and Linux! We are browser based, so when you sign up for an account, littleye automatically detects which browser you have installed and placed in the browser. littleye places a simple on / off button in the browser, so you can lock the browser for your kids with one easy click.
So, if you have a hybrid household or looking for a simple product that works on all platforms, littleye is for you!
Watch how littleye keeps kids safe online!
Tags: internet filters, kids online, online safety, parental controls
Posted in littleye Information | Leave a Comment »
April 21, 2009 by littleye
With all the chatter about kids online, it seems to be growing more and more negative. Yes, there are dangers and threats, but there is alot to say about what kids can do online that is POSITIVE. Kids are going to school online now, yes, K-12! There are so many great resources for learning material on Discovery.com,NationalGeographic.com, History.com, PBS.org, Starfall.com and thousands of university sites that provide research studies and learning content. This is just a handful of sites to show you that there is great stuff on the Internet made just for you kids.
In late 2008, a 3 year study came to a close with research findings that the Internet is good for kids to LEARN, HANG OUT, MESS AROUND and GEEK OUT – but all within a controlled and safe environment.
As long as you have some kind of protection, we think you’ll find that the Internet is a great place for your kids to learn and play. At littleye, we believe in the Internet and we are committed to keeping kids safe online and providing parents an simple control to monitor and manage your kids online activity. It’s pretty simple and we want to spread the word that the Internet can be a positive experience for everyone!
Tags: internet filters, kids online, online safety, parental controls
Posted in Marketplace | Leave a Comment »
