Thursday, October 2, 2008

Tracking the time kids spend online

I've got several machines downstairs in my basement office, of course, but in our family the others have computers too. Tove has hers in her office, and the kids share one upstairs (and we're getting to the point where I guess I'll set up a second machine for them one of these days: three kids and one computer works fine most of the time, but sometimes they have homework that requires it, and then sharing doesn't always work so well).

And obviously I'm happy with the kids being comfy with a computer, but we've set some basic rules for it. Notably, they can't just play all those flash games all the time. And sometimes, if they don't do their homework, we disallow it entirely, or - happily more commonly - we give extra time for good behaviour or for some homework that needs more googling.

But I'm a geek, and I'm not at all interested in trying to do any of this manually.

So I wrote (and recently re-wrote, since a disk crash destroyed my original) a simple internet usage tracker for them, which allows me to set usage limits per kid, and which tracks how much time they use online, and forcibly logs them off if they go over the limits. It's a stupid program, but it works pretty well (if you run Linux, of course ;), and since I had to rewrite it I asked some of the git people for help with the simple graphical UI that shows the kids how much time they have left.

So for any other Linux user with kids and git, and who wants to do the same, here's a pointer to the git summary page: tracker.git, and you can get it with
git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/tracker
if you want to play around with it. It's not fancy, it has no docs, no installation instructions etc, but if people are actually interested, I'll be happy to help. Why? Because I've always noticed that my own projects get so much better if others are involved, even if it's just as a user...

59 comments:

Anonymous said...

First! ;)

This project looks very promising.

Syntropy said...

I think it's a good idea. My brother and sister spent far too much time playing on the itnernet; he plays flight simulators and watches many Youtube videos, she plays Webkinz. (Which I still don't see the attraction to.)

Can I have your permission to add your blog to my blogroll? I find it's rude not to ask beforehand.

Anonymous said...

If "manually" means discussing with your children the reasons why these expectations are in place and trusting (instead of controlling through technology) them to take responsibility for their actions then perhaps, "manually" may pay better developmental dividends in the long-run.

Just a thought.

Christopher said...

If you set up a 'mechanical' regulator to control what your children do, imho it will have unfortunate effects, vis: Hinder, if not actually destroy the development of their self-discipline; present them with the challenge to subvert the mechanical controller; produce an illicit activity which, simply because it's illicit, becomes highly desirable.

I found that the easiest way to 'proof' a child against an undesirable, but otherwise harmless, activity is to insist that they spend a whole week-end doing it. Said child will become so absolutely sick of it, that they'll never want touch it again. Take time to talk with your children, and explain why devoting endless hours to pointless and addictive computerised gaming habits is actually harmful to their development. Instead offer activities which are developmental. The search terms "Alice" ( MS Windows only unfortunately ), "Scratch", "E-Toys", and "Blender3D" come to mind. Finally don't forget that it's not of much consequence to the real world if the next Linux kernel is released on Wednesday instead of Monday.

All that said, the IPCop firewall has the precise facilities you need available as an add-on plug-in.

Kaetje said...

@ Christopher
Ofcourse being open with your kids and learning them self discipline is a good thing.
For a child to grow up as a self-sufficient human being that also includes learning his/her limitations and trying to find solutions to live with those.
That might result in them asking for help when they have trouble controlling the urge to play flash games. Or the two of you together realizing it's not working. Then you might end up together looking for a tool like this.

Aaron Davies said...

I've always noticed that my own projects get so much better if others are involved, even if it's just as a user...

The above gets my nomination for understatement of the epoch.

Unknown said...

Please make it usable.

Hertz said...

I'll be a regular for the tech. I'd be a little worried about posting pictures of my kids - given the amount of nutters on the web, and I'm not famous. As for the
sanctimonious flob from gnuosphere! Well the two are not mutually exclusive, are they? And you wouldn't leave a loaded gun on your kitchen table, would you?

Parijata Mackey said...

Thanks - I am definitely going to use that to restrict my own time online. It's about to perform a self-help miracle...

Unknown said...

Don't have kids but I would recommend that to nix pplz. Btw Is this real Linus or just another faker? U got my email :)

Zeth said...

So I assume you don't ascribe to the theories of the "one laptop per child people"?

It is Christmas soon, maybe Joulupukki will give them an EEEPC each...

Unknown said...

Funny thing is I am pretty sure I am the person who needs this. I might actually use it against my self.

Vahid said...

Hi Linus :)
welcome to blogging world. I just saw your post in Hacker News website...
Happy blogging!

shokora said...

Linus you're a geek yourself and you're letting your 3 children share a computer plus you're limiting their online time...

Looks like you're doing a nice job creating the next generation of computer obsessed coders... o wait, you're not ._.' You have to give children enough time to find out things on their own. Hell that's how computer expert (in whatever field) probably began.

Unknown said...

My teenager will spend every breathing second online yapping on AIM if I let him.

Jiff
http://www.Privacy-Center.net

無名烈士 said...

You shouldn't use blogger.com, because I can't submit a patch.

Here: http://web.mit.edu/mfwitten/Public/tracker/optimization.patch

Ivan said...

You should check out RescueTime. It tracks the applications running on your machine, and the pages visited in a browser. You can categorize the apps, like "work" or "waste", and track your productivity.

http://rescutime.com

umesh3034 said...

Was surprised to see the blogs link in the 2.6.27-RC mail... :-)

Hope it come out next week ... Happy to see some blogging at last from u ..

Unknown said...

I just want to point out that a man who just spent the effort of coding a brilliant access monitor, does his communicating through Blogger account.

Next we'll see Stallman using a GUI-based web browser, for shame.

1010011010 said...

I prefer the tactic of degrading the performance/access as the limit is approached as opposed to forcible logout. It's more of a gentle suggestion to go do something else for a while rather than a command to stop using the computer.

W. Brian Gourlie said...

Running Linux should be enough to deter the kids from playing flash games!

:)

temp1 said...

I suggest you drop "dummy" in check()'s sscanf() and use the assignment-suppressing character '*', as in "%*x".

Chris Handwerker said...

I noticed a few comments from some parents of teenagers. Speaking as a 17 year old computer geek and Linux enthusiast I think that if my father had limited the time I spent on the computer I would not be what I am now; computers had a very positive impact on my life. I realize all kids are different but for me I am so glad I had the freedom to explore.

Peter said...

The thought that came to mind when reading your post is the same that I saw same other commenters had already thought: "To much flash on linux? Isn't that a non-existing problem?"

I've used Gentoo for almost 8 years now, and the flash support really is like a rollercoaster. Now, when Firefox 3.0.3 is out and the new beta10 of Adobe flash, it is really unstable. My FF crashes all the time.

But maybe your kids are using the GNU version of flash? =)

Anonymous said...

@peter one word to rescue -- nspluginwrapper. Does it exist in Gentoo-land?

Unknown said...

@Ivan:

"Rescuetime" is a Windows software it seems?? Why would Linus Torvalds the father of Linux (or anyone else into Linux for that matter) want to use Windows or Windows programs?

:-)

Anonymous said...

That sounds interesting, you should check out http://www.glubble.ocm and look at our kids monitor. Perhaps we can integrate our services

Fri13 said...

I usually use dansguard for myself :-P
It comes preinstalled in Mandriva distribution and I like the UI what it has. It just makes easy to block wanted internet sites and set restricted times for my user account so I can easily stop myself using computer on the week when I really need just to study. Even that I know that I could anytime just turn it off because I am the only user of my machine, it just helps keeping using computer in good amounts :-)

-- Finnish

Itse käytän yleensä Dansguardian ohjelmistoa :-P
Se tulee esiasennettuna Mandriva jakelupaketissa ja pidän sille tehdystä käyttöliittymästä.
Se mahdollistaa helposti sivustojen blokkaamisen ja rajoittaa käyttäjätilini käyttöaikaa jolloin voin estää itseäni käyttämästä tietokonetta viikolla silloin kun täytyy todellakin lukea.
Vaikka tiedän että voin koska tahansa sulkea sen koska olen tietokoneen ainoa käyttäjä, se vain auttaa pitämään tietokoneenkäytön sopivina määrinä :-)

Anonymous said...

Can I just ask; how old are your kids?

Petri I. Salonen said...

I have been struggling with the whole "controlling" of kids thing. One of my kids is a teenager, the other one younger.. and so far I have just told that "I am watching". This might be naive, but a couple of times have have actually checked them out and they have done what I have said. Control vs. non-control...

Regards,

Your fellow Finn from Dallas, Texas with two Finnish kids (we have been here for more than 10 years as well). My wife used to go in the same school with your wife.

Anonymous said...

I'm interested. I have 3 kids, none of them use the computer... yet, but sometime I'll need to add a PC in our home... this programs seems to be perfect for them.

clemare

Faryshta said...

Wow, sounds a great application, which windows you use?

Jajajaja, glad to get "to know" the guy who builds my kernel and thanks to who I have a work right now.

That tools seems useful, the kinds of things windows or any proprietary system will never have.

BigAl said...

"Because I've always noticed that my own projects get so much better if others are involved"

;-)

Yes, we also noticed that!

Keep up the good work!

gigi said...

They are not comfortable with command line? :-)

crosvera said...

Hello Linus,

I will be greatful from you if you write a brief comment in each function explaining the behavior of them.

thank you beforehand.

PS: sorry if my english sucks :)

Mahesh Aravind said...

I cannot imagine what would have been the fate of that ‘terminal emulater’ thingy you were trying to write had your mom limited the amount of time you sat in front of your shiny new 386, and played Prince of Persia.

Forcibily logging off kids is not a good idea… on them at least.

(I wanted to thank you for Linux — but a few words alone cannot represent the amount of gratitude I have towards your work!)

[lol]2Fast4U said...

In Russia, very many children don`t controlled by parents. They even watch porn :D And playing games like GTA :) And parents don`t know about it :)
This program is not need in Russia :)

Markus said...

I wonder whether Linux existed today if Linus' parents had installed such a time limiter on *their* son's first computer ...

Unknown said...

Sounds good, even for me, a 14 years older boy. Thanks god my parents aren't going to install it in my laptop :P

Oh, another thing. Is there anyway to install it in linux to analyze a windows machine in the same net? I would like to do it since our internet connection isn't unlimited (only 4gb a month) and my sister spends a lot playing things like habbo and that kind of flash nonsense games...
Greetings

Christopher said...

http://www.ntop.org/

This will tell you all about the packets origins and destinations etc. etc.,, but not - as far as I can tell - the exact count for each machine on the home network.

Anonymous said...

"three kids and one computer works fine most of the time, but sometimes they have homework that requires it, and then sharing doesn't always work so well"

While I've not had a chance to try it personally, you might find something like Ndiyo's Hubster to be of interest:

http://www.ndiyo.org/systems/hubster/basics

http://www.ndiyo.org/news/samsunghubster

Unknown said...

as I understand this tool, he's not limiting the time the kids can spend on the computer, he's limiting the time they can spend on the Internet.

jyrge said...

Good idea.

Finnish:

Hyvä idea.

Bucknasty said...

If this is what you are interested in, I suggest you go here and get a very well developed program.
http://timekpr.blogspot.com/

Unknown said...

Looks like a nice concept.....just had a look at the code, will try to be a user of this project.....

GregH said...

To control on-line usage of my 14-years son I use software called Ez Internet Timer. Works just fine under Vista 64-bit.

GloryMiles said...

Thank you for the hint Greg. I just downloaded Ez Internet Timer from their website www.internettimer.net, that is exactly what I was looking for a long time. One of the most favorite features is the ability to set browsing and messaging timers separately from emails. And it's user user friendly :)

RocketLauncher said...

No.

dennacematthews said...

Perhaps you could also give your children some more productive fun things to do with the computer, other than just games -

You could install some music software, like Rosegarden, or something.
It might turn out that they really enjoy composing or playing with music.

Or you could install art software, but I'd assume that GIMP is already installed.
Do they ever play with it? I remember that I used to play with the Paint program on my family's Acorn computer a lot when I was very young.

Anonymous said...

酒店喝酒,禮服店,酒店小姐,酒店經紀,制服店,便服店,鋼琴酒吧,兼差,酒店兼差,酒店打工,伴唱小姐,暑假打工,金錢豹,日式酒店,舞廳,ktv酒店,卡奴,酒店公關,酒店小姐,理容院,日領,龍亨,學生兼差,酒店經紀,酒店小姐,酒店公關,酒店打工,酒店領檯,酒店小姐,假日打工,酒店經紀,伴唱小姐,八大行業,假日打工,酒店經紀,禮服店,酒店上班.酒店上班,酒店兼差,酒店上班,酒店經紀,酒店打工,酒店兼差,酒店經紀,酒店經紀,酒店上班,酒店兼差,暑假打工,酒店經紀,酒店上班,酒店兼差,暑假打工,酒店經紀,酒店傳播,酒店兼差,酒店經紀人,伴唱小姐,伴唱小姐,酒店上班,酒店經紀,酒店經紀,酒店上班,酒店兼差,制服店,暑假打工,寒假打工,假日打工,酒店上班,酒店經紀,酒店打工,酒店,酒店兼職,寒假打工,假日打工,酒店傳播,酒店經紀 PRETTY GIRL,酒店經紀 彩色爆米花,爆米花,酒店經紀,酒店兼差,酒店打工,禮服店,經紀 PRETTY GIRL,經紀人 PRETTY GIRL,經紀 彩色爆米花,經紀人 彩色爆米花,酒店傳播,愛情顧問,離婚,分手,失戀,擘腿,爬牆,第三者

Anonymous said...

海綿寶寶小遊戲,,海綿寶寶,微整型美容,笑話大全,酒店經紀,微整型,星座運勢,曼雪兒免費小說,十二星座,視訊聊天室,星座配對,愛情配對,,愛情運勢,視訊聊天,情色文學,瘦小腹,瘦腿,瘦身餐,酒店經紀,笑話,網頁設計,網站設計,酒店兼職,ktv酒店,酒店兼職,,酒店上班,酒店經紀,,ktv酒店,兼差打工,酒店上班,酒店經紀,酒店小姐,ktv酒店,酒店兼職

,兼差打工,酒店上班,酒店小姐,酒店公關,ktv酒店,酒店兼職,,酒店上班,酒店小姐,ktv酒店,酒店兼職,兼差打工,酒店上班,酒店小姐,酒店公關

Anonymous said...

搬家 搬家 搬家公司 在職進修 婚紗 新娘秘書 彩妝造型 新娘秘書 票貼 室內設計 外遇 抓姦 應收帳款 徵信 徵信社 外遇 徵信 徵信社 外遇 植牙 牙齒矯正 坐月子 宜蘭民宿 婚禮佈置 宜蘭民宿推薦 催眠 派報 太陽能熱水器 Shade sail nike shoes 關鍵字廣告 租屋 搬家 搬家 買房子 花蓮民宿 租房子 xo醬 房屋貸款 搬家公司 減重 床墊 創業加盟 團體服 學英文 英文 補習班 勞工體檢 安養中心 資源回收 生日禮物 團體制服 塑膠 日立家電 體脂計 飾品批發 自吸泵 化工泵 离心泵 磁力泵 螺杆泵 水泵 隔膜泵 气动隔膜泵 MBA 在职研究生 在职博士 婚禮佈置 婚禮佈置 婚禮佈置 酒店經紀 酒店經紀 室內設計公司 室內設計公司 室內設計公司 金門高梁酒 變頻洗衣機 學英文 花店 花店 好玩遊戲 好玩遊戲區 女生遊戲 失眠 澎湖民宿 女人我最大 女人我最大 花店 花蓮民宿 花蓮民宿 視訊會議團體服班服
睡眠障礙 憂鬱症 躁鬱症 減重 瘦身 中醫減肥 台北中醫減肥 台中中醫減肥 高雄中醫減肥 產後減肥 下半身減肥 下半身瘦身 高雄眼鏡 屏東眼鏡 名牌眼鏡 太陽眼鏡 隱形眼鏡 鐵氟龍 PTFE 中壢花店 林口花店 南崁花店 金莎花束 歌倫比亞 飲料加盟 太陽餅 月餅 口袋秤 度量衡 吊秤 吊磅 電子秤 磅秤 口袋秤 度量衡 吊秤 吊磅 電子秤 磅秤 招牌製作 招牌設計 廣告招牌 大圖輸出 電腦割字 招牌看板 廢鐵 廢銅 廢不銹鋼 廢電線 廢鋁 廢棄物 廢電纜電線 廢塑膠 制服 成衣 戒指 耳環 項鍊 對戒 手鍊 銀飾 飾品 對鍊 護理之家 台中花店 考試 塑膠箱 塑膠容器 工具箱 物流箱 拖板車 自動倉儲 倉儲設備 自行車衣 自行車背包 自行車手套 車衣 債務更生 債務清理 法協 蜂蜜 蜂王乳花粉 農產品 草本膠囊 促進新陳代謝 排便順暢的方法 體內環保 塑膠射出 塑膠製品 塑膠箱籃 物流塑膠箱 休閒傢俱 庭園圍籬 高雄棺木 高雄壽衣 高雄禮儀用品 台北花店 台北網路花店 代客送花 線上訂花 情人節花束 便宜搬家 台北網路花店 代客送花 線上訂花 情人節花束 壓克力盒 壓克力製品 網版印刷 雷射切割

Dean Spirov said...

I would be really insulted if my father tried to install that app on my computer. anyway, the only way he can do it involves reseting the BIOS, since he doesn't know my password and using a repair CD to change it requires making the computer boot from it, and yeah...that's disabled and the BIOS setup is password-protected. But it would be useful if you want to control yourself, infact I made a python script to remind me to take breaks.

Unknown said...

Linus,

how long before your kids figure out to spoof a proxy? Or write an app that spoofs the IP?

:)))

Anonymous said...

翻譯|醫學美容|汽車報廢|童裝批發|家教|催情性藥品|清境民宿|電波拉皮|減肥

Anonymous said...

lace wedding dresses
cheap prom dresses
evening formal dresses
cheap cocktail dresses
party cocktail dresses
cheap bridesmaid dress
cheap flower girl dresses

Anonymous said...

wedding dresses
wedding dress
cheap wedding dresses
discount wedding dresses
cheap evening dresses
plus size wedding dresses
beautiful wedding dresses
designer wedding dresses

Anonymous said...

Through google search engine, when you put in "discount cell phones", you will find more than 15,000 pieces of related information. Cell phone china has been concerned in the world. Many international sellers can get a considerable profit by ways of wholesale cell phones from China and switch selling. So it is a very good job on cell phones wholesale in the current financial crisis.Cellphone , it's not just talk tools.it make life easier.

Unknown said...

As a child who sought to be more attractive links of london chains , it is a little peculiar that I didn t like links of london animal charms such as ornaments, animal charms earrings and rings in the opening. links of london classic smiley To tell the candor, I didn t think charms is unusual and classic smiley charm I thought that the designs were too related. For example, links of london letters charms many charms were just minimal chains and they couldn t letters charm magnetize my interest at all. links of london heart charms So I seldom bought or wore a section of rings. heart charms In statement, lacking an exclusive instance of bracelets, friendship bracelets I had gone much.I couldn t judge that I fell in adore with links of london heart bracelets That was one of my big changes. heart bracelet After all, I didn’t like ornaments at all in the launch. Since I fell in dear with links of london Sweetie necklaces , I had realized that an instance of links of london Sweetie rings could bring me much more links of london watch charms