Protect Yourself While Online School Shopping! @CheetahMobile #Ad

    The final countdown has begun! We are officially about a week away from the start of the new school year here in New York City. This means that lots of last minute shopping for supplies and uniforms will take place between now and then. While I've already purchased almost everything my sons need, I still have some online shopping to do and I need to make sure that my phone is protected from potential hacking while I do so.     Many parents like me use their cell phones to do back to school shopping completely unaware that online predators can steal their sensitive information when they do so. They can potentially prey on you and compromise credit card account numbers, your identity, and even your address and contact information. It's so scary to think that, while you are busy shopping for new school clothes, supplies, or dorm necessities for your kids, hackers may be helping themselves to the data in your phone.     Thankfully, I'm one step ahead of the hackers because … [Read more...]

Monitor Your Child’s Mobile Phone Or Internet Usage! @WebSafetyInc #Ad

      As many of you know, my eleven-year old son just recently got his own mobile phone less than a year ago.  I really wasn't considering even getting him one until he started playing basketball for his school team.  Due to regular practices during the week and games on the weekends, it became important for his father and I to be able to communicate with him to find out when we should head out to pick him up.  Before we even purchased the phone, we had a long family meeting where we established the rules around him having a phone and asked him to commit to abiding by those rules at all times.     Although our son has done a pretty good job of using his new phone responsibly, there have been a few instances where I had to use the parental controls to limit the access to some of the websites that he was visiting.  Many of them weren't overtly inappropriate but I felt the humor or content wasn't a good fit for a boy his age.  As a parent and educator, I'm also worried about the threat … [Read more...]