While filtering web and email content can help us shield our children from inappropriate material, it alone isn't nearly enough. XMission therefore strongly encourages parents to actively participate in their children's computer activities to ensure they always have a healthy and enjoyable Internet experience.
XMission President Pete Ashdown articulates it this way, "I take an active role with my children's access to the Internet. I spend a lot of time with them on the computer. I make sure they're educated and know what sites they should be going to -- there's no excuse for a lack of active parenting."
Not only are content filtering systems sometimes faulty but children need to be empowered to make their own educated decisions. Time spent with our children in their daily activities benefits everyone involved. Of course, we cannot necessarily spend every waking hour with our children when they are at the computer. Content filters obviously can help when you can't be with your child but they are not enough on their own, which is a key reason why it is best to educate your child through spending quality time with them at the computer. Good parenting includes teaching a child responsibility and trust, after all.
If a time comes where you think your child is not being responsible, it would usually be better to talk with them, and perhaps restrict their access to the computer, than to simply implement content filtering and hope that will be enough.
For a few years now, XMission has provided web content filtering with the help of DansGuardian (http://dansguardian.org/). Please note that it is primarily crafted for younger children and may not permit access to some sites that are appropriate for teenagers and adults. For details about Web content filtering at XMission, and how to freely use DansGuardian with your XMission account, refer to our Web Content Filtering help page: http://www.xmission.com/help/security/proxies/dansguardian_terms.html
XMission also actively filters spam for our customers by default but you can adjust email filters manually if you want further control by logging into our email filtering web pages using your XMission username and password: http://webmail.xmission.com/filter/
Once logged in, you can click the [Pre-defined Filters] button and add rules to do things like, delete email that scores "5 or more," as opposed to the more conservative default filter that deletes at a score of "8," or "Delete any mail with any 'porn' matches" if you are getting spam with adult content. Computer experts can choose the [Create advanced filter rule] button but should use caution when creating custom filters so they don't accidentally blocking wanted email.
In the end, you need to decide what works best for your family but we hope that we can help.
Alexander Graham Bell probably had no inkling his telephone invention would have evolved into something supporting a worldwide network like the Internet. He probably would find that the equipment used to make phone calls these days very foreign from his own invention. Now, with broadband access becoming more ubiquitous, the telephone is making another step forward.
XMission has recently switched its office telephone system over to "Voice over IP" (VoIP). Some of you may already be familiar with software and hardware that allows you to make telephone calls over the Internet. One popular package is known as "Skype". Skype works very well, and has software for Windows, Mac and Linux. I've heard from more than one person who travels frequently for business that Skype is becoming a viable alternative to the telephone when travelling abroad. Skype has no per-minute charge for individuals calling other Skype users over the Internet. It does charge per-minute for interfacing to the traditional phone network, but at much lower rates than most long-distance plans. Skype has one failing as I see it, the fact that it works on its own proprietary standard.
SIP is the emerging "standard" for making voice calls over the Internet. Placement of voice calls is merely one technology that SIP can handle, but it is probably the most popular. Most of the non-Skype Internet telephone services such as Vonage, are using SIP for their foundation.
It is important to know that SIP, like email, does not cost for usage. It is simply another protocol that is facilitated by the Internet. Most Internet telephone services do not charge for SIP to SIP calls, but rather like Skype, charge for gatewaying onto the standard telephone network to people with standard non-Internet phones.
Because XMission's phone system is based on SIP, you can call us directly over the Internet. The address for this is sip:xmission@pbx.xmission.com. Individual extensions/queues can also be reached directly. We will be publishing a directory of numbers eventually. Whether over the traditional phone system or using VoIP, XMission's service and support will always be available and happy to help you.