gHacks technology news » crazy little fingers http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:31:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Kid Key Lock http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/19/kid-key-lock/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/19/kid-key-lock/#comments Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:09:13 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=10668 If you got little men or women running around in the house you are used to all strange things that can happen to your computer system if you do not pay attention. Those little ninjas like to touch anything that beeps and blinks and the computer is usually one of their most desired targets in the household. Some are masters in pressing key combinations that even experienced admins did not know about.

To avoid damage to a computer system it is always a good idea to lock it up as best as possible. Our advise would be to turn it off whenever a little one runs around but this is sometimes not possible. Kid Key Lock is a protection software for the Windows operating much like the formerly reviewed program to lock optical drives, Toddler Trap or Crazy Little Fingers.

Kid Key Lock is able to lock the computer mouse and keyboard. It can be customized further to suite the needs of the user.

kid key lock

The left, middle and right mouse can be locked individually as well as the double-click and the mouse wheel. The degree of the keyboard lock can be customized using a slider which ranges from no locks at all to a complete lock of the computer keyboard. In between are options to only lock system key combinations or all keys except characters, space and enter.

Kid Key Lock uses a little bit more than 4 Megabytes of computer memory while running.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/02/19/kid-key-lock/feed/ 4 Protect Your Computer From Crazy Little Fingers http://www.ghacks.net/2008/12/28/protect-your-computer-from-crazy-little-fingers/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/12/28/protect-your-computer-from-crazy-little-fingers/#comments Sun, 28 Dec 2008 09:18:58 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=9403 Children are attracted to computers. They love the blinking lights, the computer screen and the changes that happen on that screen. It does not take long before they realize that pushing buttons on the keyboard might have an effect on the computer screen. Adults usually do not think that something bad can happen if their children hammer on the keyboard but they sometimes find the kill combination that does something unexpected.

Crazy Little Fingers steps in and offers a rewarding experience for the child while keeping the computer data safe. It is a fully portable application that assigns images to keys on the computer keyboard disabling all other keys that are not assigned. If a child presses a key an image is displayed, the image can be anything as it is possible to exchange the default images with others.

This could make for some interesting experiences. It would be possible to create a set of A-Z and 1-0 images that show the letter or number and something that begins with them, say an apple for A, a bee for B and so on.

The author mentioned sounds in the introductory post but those do not seem to be implemented yet. It would be nice to be able to combine images and sound so that pressing a key would display an image and play a sound at the same time.

There is one key combination to get you out of the state. Pressing [CTRL ALT DEL] will remove the lock and disable the application.

We have covered a similar application before: Toddler Trap suppresses the keyboard and mouse when activated. This is not that rewarding for the kid however.

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