HOW TO CHECK YOUR COMPUTER’S HISTORY

The history provides a list of the websites that have been viewed from your

computer. For safety reasons, we recommend that parents review their

computer’s history to stay informed of the places their children visit online. (If the

history is consistently empty, it is possible that either your child is deliberately

erasing the history to keep you from finding out where they go online, or perhaps

your computer is set up to automatically delete the history each time you exit out

of the Internet. We advise that you disable the auto-delete feature).

To check your computer’s history, follow these steps:

· Find the long narrow box (called a Navigation Bar) at the top of the screen

where web addresses can be entered.

· To the right of this box, is a little drop down menu with an arrow. By

clicking on the arrow, you can see a list of the different websites that have

been viewed from your computer.

· AOL automatically saves the last 300 places visited.

· Internet Explorer can be customized to report a list of the places visited in

the last 999 days.

· After you view all the entries in your computer’s history, you can clear it.

ARE THERE OTHER WAYS TO STAY INFORMED ABOUT

WHAT MY CHILDREN ARE DOING ONLINE?

Beyond checking your computer’s history, you can also search your computer for

any pictures that have been downloaded from emails or the Internet.

To look for downloaded photos or images, follow these steps:

· Click on your computers Start menu (look for the big word “start” at the

bottom left of the screen).

· Click on Programs or All Programs.

· Click on Accessories.

· Now click on System Tools and finally click on Disk Clean Up.

· When you click on Disk Clean Up, a window will pop up to tell you whether

there are any items stored in the category of Temporary Internet Files. If

you click on Temporary Internet Files, and then select View Files lower

down in the box, you will see a row of documents or folders. By clicking

on these, you can quickly find out if any photos or images have been

downloaded to your computer. To erase the contents of Temporary

Internet Files, just go back to the Disk Clean Up window and click OK.

It is also a good idea to check the Recycle Bin on your computer to see if your

offspring have discarded anything that you need to know about.

WEB WISE KIDS

“Equipping Today’s Youth to Make Wise Choice Online”

P. O. Box 27203 • Santa Ana, CA 92799 • Tel (714) 435-2885 • Fax (714) 435-0523 • www.webwisekids.org