What admin says! Lay down the law.

Personally, if a child of mine said they would change their mac address to subvert blocks I had put in place, the pc would be confiscated for a month.

I'm going to be a horrid dad. ;)

Since the first part of your question has been answered by others, i'll take the second.

davidj wrote:
Second I want to allow each of them say one hours use per day to a particular website (Runescape.com).
Is this possible?

It's not possible to say "only allow an hour on this site" and then let the kids choose any random hour they want. However, using the schedule feature, you can set it up to only allow access during an hour you specify.

Also given that the game site uses Java will the restriction kick them out after the time limit.

No. Unfortunately the Draytek firewall is flawed in that it doesn't cut through already established TCP connections, only prevents new ones from connecting. This will apply to anything with an already established connection, not just Java applets.

I've encountered similar problems when trying to implement a curfew on my sisters' computers; Smallworlds and MSN continue to work right through the firewall. It's extremely frustrating.

Thanks for all your advice EXCEPT the parenting ones - perhaps best keep to topic or use an alternative forum.

Unfortunately the Draytek firewall is flawed [while trying to impose a curfew]... Smallworlds and MSN continue to work right through the firewall.

Oh no. Does this flaw apply to the Draytek Vigor 2820? I've bought a Draytek 2820 for my customer who requires exactly that. The job is to end MSN Messenger and game connections for a child's multiple PCs and hand-helds at a certain time... while not interfering with the parents' web-browsing activities.

David, to be fair, the "parenting ones" are relevant/on-topic, at least an aside - technology isn't the whole of the solution... If a child deliberately threatens to defy you, why wouldn't you withdraw the priviledge. I would only use router/firewall policy enforcement if the policy is known to users in the first place.

If they said they were going to speed, would you still let them use the car?

( Now we're at risk of getting into an off-topic debate...sorry, my point is that technology isn't the whole answer).

Hello,

I appreciate that I am coming into this topic alittle bit late, but if you are looking to enforce some control of your childrens machines, then have a look at this piece of software.

http://www.salfeld.com/software/parentalcontrol/index.html

You of course have to tie the machines down, so the children cannot install software, but I would expect that anyway. Any software you install you put in a category, like games, so that Games allowance could be 1 hr a day. Not 1 hr per day per game.

It's all account based. Of course if you lose your password to your sharp eyed children, then there's not alot you can do about that, apart from the clever use of shifted capitals.

There is a trial option so maybe worth a look. Obviously this doesn't handle xp/psp, but they can be controlled with IP control.