For your reference: Magic Desktop
We've recently purchased a lifetime license of this product. The premise was quite simple. At home, our youngest son is now starting to show interest in computers. His sister is just about to grow out of preschool, so she already has her own netbook. And he wants to play with it all the time. Conflicts arose. So we had to convince him that the office computer was way better because it was "bigger".
But then the key concern came to light: Is windows really the safest option for him? So me and my wife went ahead and looked for operating systems for children. There are a couple in Ubuntu. I know nothing about Linux, so there's the first obstacle. And then, this company appears on our search hits. Their tall claims of being "Windows for kids" and being a safe, fun and educational software for children, struck a cord with us. We went in blind. On a retrospect, I think we were just desperate, because the search had already gone for too long and our two children were simply not getting along with the whole issue with the netbook.
So we took the plunge. Here are our findings:
- It is simple to install, the starting wizard explains everything from the outset, little reading required. In a couple of minutes, it was ready to use;
- It is the safest thing we've seen yet. All features from Windows are hidden away and protected via a main password. Just put something in there they will never guess and all they get is Magic Desktop;
- Brings tons of content. Games, educational exercises for the little one and a myriad of bells and whistles;
- It loads upon boot. Windows takes a back seat to the entire experience from start to finish. We still like to be around to help them and guide them through the process, but it is not required. From powering up the machine to shutting it down, the system is confortably kid-friendly;
- It allows pretty much anything that runs on Windows, we safely approved Windows Media Center for his cartoons and animation movies and it runs from this environment;
- Has a safe browser and e-mail client. The browser is based on a content approval system only, no search bars. The e-mail client is still a mystery to us, and rightfully so, we think our children are too young for this, but that's just us;
So, the bottom line: My daugther now wants to use office desktop because of this! So it seems we'll have to install this on her netbook too.
We see testimonials on their page and some modest hits on google, but it appears that they (EasyBits) are not very well known. Given that we are so happy with this, we want to share this with other parents. We feel this is the definitive operating system for children, a great and easy to use parental control system, and it simply looks the part. It looks made by kids, for kids.
Any questions about features and whatnot, ask away. We'll answer to the best of our ability.
David & Luisa
We've recently purchased a lifetime license of this product. The premise was quite simple. At home, our youngest son is now starting to show interest in computers. His sister is just about to grow out of preschool, so she already has her own netbook. And he wants to play with it all the time. Conflicts arose. So we had to convince him that the office computer was way better because it was "bigger".
But then the key concern came to light: Is windows really the safest option for him? So me and my wife went ahead and looked for operating systems for children. There are a couple in Ubuntu. I know nothing about Linux, so there's the first obstacle. And then, this company appears on our search hits. Their tall claims of being "Windows for kids" and being a safe, fun and educational software for children, struck a cord with us. We went in blind. On a retrospect, I think we were just desperate, because the search had already gone for too long and our two children were simply not getting along with the whole issue with the netbook.
So we took the plunge. Here are our findings:
- It is simple to install, the starting wizard explains everything from the outset, little reading required. In a couple of minutes, it was ready to use;
- It is the safest thing we've seen yet. All features from Windows are hidden away and protected via a main password. Just put something in there they will never guess and all they get is Magic Desktop;
- Brings tons of content. Games, educational exercises for the little one and a myriad of bells and whistles;
- It loads upon boot. Windows takes a back seat to the entire experience from start to finish. We still like to be around to help them and guide them through the process, but it is not required. From powering up the machine to shutting it down, the system is confortably kid-friendly;
- It allows pretty much anything that runs on Windows, we safely approved Windows Media Center for his cartoons and animation movies and it runs from this environment;
- Has a safe browser and e-mail client. The browser is based on a content approval system only, no search bars. The e-mail client is still a mystery to us, and rightfully so, we think our children are too young for this, but that's just us;
So, the bottom line: My daugther now wants to use office desktop because of this! So it seems we'll have to install this on her netbook too.
We see testimonials on their page and some modest hits on google, but it appears that they (EasyBits) are not very well known. Given that we are so happy with this, we want to share this with other parents. We feel this is the definitive operating system for children, a great and easy to use parental control system, and it simply looks the part. It looks made by kids, for kids.
Any questions about features and whatnot, ask away. We'll answer to the best of our ability.
David & Luisa