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By Jason Reis
Most school age children in today’s society have full access to the internet. While it is true that the internet possesses an infinite amount of information which can help with schoolwork, it also opens up a whole new social world and brings together people from all over the world that may be preying on children.
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 1 in 5 children state they have received unwanted sexual advances while online.
And, a 2006 study by the Zandi Group of teenage students reported the following disturbing statistics:
54% of students surveyed said they frequently have private conversations with online strangers
42% of teens said they have posted personal information online
30% of teens reported that they have talked with a cyber stranger about
meeting in person
16% of pre-teens and teens discovered that someone online was an adult
pretending to be much younger.
33% of pre-teens and teens say that their parents know little or nothing about what they do online,
22% say their parents have never discussed Internet safety with them
42% of parents don't monitor what their children read or type in chat rooms.
95% of parents have stated they don't understand the shorthand lingo kids' use in chatrooms such as "A/S/L" which means age/sex/location, or "P911" which means parent over shoulder.
1. Create your own home computer rules that each child should read, understand and sign. Keep a copy posted near the computer.
2. Keep the home computer in a common space that can easily be seen by parent(s) as they do house choirs, not in a child’s room.
3. Look into purchasing filtering programs such as “spyware”, “adware” and anti-virus, and parental block software to safeguard web surfing.
4. If your child uses chat or e-mail, talk to them about never meeting in- person with anyone they first "met" online.
5. Talk to your child about who they are emailing and chatting with online.
6. Visit the websites your child visits on a regular basis. If your child has a MySpace or Facebook account, log in and become familiar with the site and review what your child has posted.
7. Type your child's full name, username and any alias you know your child uses into a search engine. Children often post on message boards and social networking sites. This is a good way to discover what your child is posting online.
8. Monitor where your child goes online. For example, all computers have a history folder and temp files folder which enable you to see what websites have been visited, as well as any files that have been downloaded.
9. Teach your child the golden rule of cyberspace: Never do anything online that they would not do offline.
10. Get involved with your child and stay in the loop of what he/she is doing online, while still allowing some level of personal space.
By Aaron J. SteinGreetings, all. Like most small businesspeople these days I have been very busy trying to make sure I do those things necessary to keep our office busy and profitable in tough economic times. So I thought this would be a good time to talk about how the financial crisis is affecting the insurance companies.
We have all been reading about the failure of many Wall Street firms and banks. Some even have divisions in the insurance business such as AIG whose a widely publicized problems have many people worried because of their insurance policies with various parts of that group. However while banks and brokerage firms were de-regulated a number of years ago which is part of the reason for the current mess, the same is not true of the insurance business.
Insurance is one of the most heavily regulated businesses and New York in particular is considered the model for other states and around the world in keeping New York insurance companies solvent and able to pay their claims. Even in AIG, it is the parent holding company not the insurance units that are having problems.
As long as you were insured with a New York licensed insurance company you would have nothing to worry about in terms of whether claim would be paid up to $1 million, which is a guarantee that is part of the New York State insurance guaranty fund. And if you are one of those people on Long Island who have coastal or waterfront property and have been forced to get your insurance with an unlicensed carrier such as Lloyds of London or any number of other carriers out there, you are probably even safer because these companies have been managed for the long-term as opposed to the short-term money making goals of some of the big American financial companies which is what caused them to get in trouble.
One of my biggest fears about the insurance industry is that up until recently, there was a lot of talk about deregulation for insurance. What we have seen in this financial crisis is that deregulation leads to sacrifice of long-term viability in favor of short-term profits. That might be fine if you are talking about selling TV sets, but insurance simply must be based on a longer-term perspective including reserves for catastrophes that might only happen every 50 years. If we allowed the same sort of short-term thinking that led the large brokerage houses to package up toxic loans and sell them to people and then run with their commissions, we could easily cause a similar disaster in the insurance business by allowing people to suck out this money instead of putting part of it away for long term catastrophe management.
What we are seeing is a huge drop in value of all stocks in the financial sector based on the problems of the banks and brokerage houses. There really is not much reason for this in the insurance industry but there are probably some great bargains to be had on their stocks right now because they have been trampled with the rest of the sector.
But for the average person just wondering if they would get paid if they needed to put in a claim on their flood insurance or homeowners insurance (or car insurance for that matter) then the answer is that in general there should be nothing to worry about and the vast majority of insurance companies have plenty of money to pay claims. What we will most likely see is some consolidation of companies who do have very strong balance sheets who will be out there looking for other companies they can buy at bargain prices.
Do you love nature photography? Well, if you do, don’t miss this show!
The NWPLI (Nature and Wildlife Photographers of Long Island) will have its third annual Autumn Exhibition beginning October 18th through November 22, 2008.
It is being held at the Castello di Borghese Winery in Cutchogue.
The exhibit will showcase the group’s best work in nature, wildlife and landscape photography.
NWPLI has been awarded numerous honors for its work, most recently winning the Nature’s Best Photography International Awards (Camera Club Category) sponsored by Nature’s Best Photography Magazine.
Visit the group's website: http://www.nwpli.com
The photography on display will include natural subjects that have been captured with digital and film cameras. Photos are from Long Island's own natural surroundings.
Some selected images will also be available for purchase.
The Show will run from Saturday, October 18 - November 22, 2008
The reception, with refreshments, will be Saturday, October 25 from 1-5 pm
For directions to Castello di Borghese…Click Here!
For additional information, contact Lou Buonomo at lou@nwpli.com
I hope you have the opportunity to stop by the exhibit on your yearly autumn visit to the wineries and to the pumpkin farms!
It’s nature photography at its best!
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