TIME MONITOR v1.2.2 released
October 28, 2009
Piranha Designs, LLC announced today that the latest release of Time Monitor v1.2.2 parental control software for Windows is now available. The Piranha Designs Time Monitor™ program is simply the finest Microsoft Windows® parental control software available today for helping parents limit kids computer time. This release includes many small enhancements to the program's features and compatibility with Microsoft Windows 7. To read about features of the previous release read Time Monitor v1.1.2. The success of Time Monitor allows us to continue innovating and supporting our product.
Windows Vista and Windows 7 both now display Piranha Designs, LLC as the publisher during the UAC prompts. This is due to our inclusion of a digital certificate which we now use to sign our products, thus assuring our customers that the program they are attempting to execute is in fact a Piranha Designs program. If you do not see our company name when running Time Monitor v1.2.2 you either have a corrupt download package or the package has been tampered with.
The Time Monitor Administrator program can now be be found in the Piranha Designs Time Monitor start menu folder by all users. This is especially useful if you want to extend your child's time while he or she is currently logged in or if both you and your spouse will be modifying account settings. If you are launching the program from a standard user logon session then Windows XP users must right-click the Time Monitor Administrator program and select "Run as..." and choose their administrator account (Windows Vista and Windows 7 will automatically prompt for an administrator account and password). No password prompting will occur if run from a currently active administrator logon session.
A new edit menu has been added to Time Monitor Administrator. This menu provides the administrator with the ability to quickly copy user time schedules and apply the same schedule to other users. This helps parents set up multiple child accounts on one computer. Simply configure the time schedule for one account, select Edit->Copy, select the next account from the UserName dropdown list, then select Edit->Paste. You may do this multiple times as the last copy is remembered until the program is closed.
In addition, Edit->Block All disables user access while the Edit->Allow All enables complete access. These menu items affect the time schedule and maximum hours per day only for the currently selected user account. Note that, as a safety feature, the Block and Paste menu items are disabled if you are viewing your own administrator account settings.
The Time Monitor Administrator File menu now includes a Refresh menu selection. This menu item allows the administrator to reload user accounts and settings without exiting the program. You may want to do this if you've created a new Windows user account while the Time Monitor Administrator program is currently running. By selecting Refresh you can see the newly created account in the UserName dropdown list.
Time Monitor now takes into consideration Window's Internet time server synchronization settings. Prior v1.1.x versions would lock users during change of system time after synchronizing with an Internet time server. Time Monitor now contains settings within the new Advanced option that compensates for this. Read Time Monitor Administrator's help for more information regarding this new Advanced dialog screen.
For users in countries that observe Daylight Savings Time (DST) please be aware that Time Monitor will not lock a user's account when it detects changes to system time that occur during these dates only. However, be aware that Time Monitor will lock standard user accounts if Windows is performing the DST time change on a day other than the configured date. For example, in the United States DST ends in 2009 on November 1st. If the computer isn't logged on until November 2nd, Windows will adjust the time causing Time Monitor to notice the change occuring on a different date and lock that account. Simply reset the "hours:mins used today" field to 0:00 for the locked account.
Customers who have purchased a previous release of Time Monitor v1.0 or Time Monitor v1.1 are eligible to upgrade to this release at no extra cost. We do our best to support our customers and freely provide minor upgrades.
To get the latest release visit the Time Monitor Downloads section. Please read Installing Time Monitor for instructions prior to running the setup program.