Dad loves Surface

I have given a surface to my daughter. A lot of my friends/family ask me how I like using Surface and whether my daughter likes it as well. I can tell you that the killer feature from dad’s point of view is Family Safety. I am not an iPad/Android user, so I do not know how they do in this area, but I love the capability in Windows. In my humble opinion this is pretty under-sold and a lot of parents are unaware of this gem.

You just need to follow the steps at http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/set-up-family-safety to set it up either for a new account or for your child’s existing Microsoft account. Once you do just head onto https://familysafety.microsoft.com/

Tap/click into your child’s account and you can setup various things. I use all of them including time restrictions, app restrictions.

I get weekly email with her activity report and can ding her on the time she spends on Netflix.

Also I get an email when she tries to install weird games. And no I’m not going to allow her to use Gangnam Guy

Setting daily time limits and curfew hours is fun :)

 

When she goes out of this time range Surface locks up with a screen asking her to take the device to a parent to unlock. I can use my live ID and extend her hours if I so want. Now the main problem is to say no to such a cute face :)