Jon Jolly

Glubble is a great plugin for the Firefox web browser that gives totally FREE parental controls! There are essentially two criteria for using it:

1. you must use Firefox for web browsing
2. you must have children that use the internet

Aimed at primary aged children, Glubble changes the look of the browser to a simple kid-friendly interface when they log-in limiting their browsing to a variety of ‘glubbles’.

Glubbles are bundles of content from the web, either editorially selected and collected by our resident expert on child content and published in the library for you to choose from. Or they can be created by you directly.

When adults log-in, firefox works as normal giving control over the kid accounts. The great thing about this software is the interaction. Kids can send messages to other family members, request that adults allow certain sites, and search the web through Glubble’s filters.

Glubble won’t work for older children and teens who can navigate their way around a computer and launch another browser (IE anyone?) but is a great choice for allowing younger children on the web. All I need now are some kids…

Today is our 7th Wedding Anniversary! I can’t believe it’s been that long, where did the time go? Kirsty and I were talking earlier and it’s even been 2 years since we celebrated by going to see U2 live in Dublin.

We’re not doing much to celebrate today, just going out for a meal tonight. Here’s to another 7 years…

A few weeks ago, I forgot my mum’s birthday. Well, I say forgot. I actually remembered it was her birthday and bought a card. What I failed to do was to call her up, wish her happy birthday, or even post the card to her. This is even more unforgivable when you know that I live about a mile away from her. When I finally caught up with her a week later, I felt pretty bad about myself and was really embarrassed that as her son I could treat her that way.

But that shame got me thinking about my role as a son and quite what that means. I have to admit that it is very rare that I view myself in the context of a son. As a youth worker, I am used to seeing myself more as an adult, a leader, perhaps even a father figure as I go about organising programmes, enforcing boundaries and (hopefully) encouraging young people. The son thing rarely comes into it.

My wife Kirsty tells me that through her Psychology studies she learnt about far eastern cultures and how they view themselves in the context of their relationship to others. For example, the Japanese have no concept of ‘I’ as an isolated individual. If you ask who they are, all their answers are given in relation to their roles in society; I am a father, I am a brother, I am a co-worker.

Looking at myself in this way, I wonder what I can learn about who I am now and who I’m created to be. I may be doing OK as a ‘father’, but I’m certainly failing as a son. How do I measure up to my heavenly father? Am I far too busy being a grown-up to enjoy and appreciate the special relationship that comes from being a child of the King?

No I’m not jacking in my job, moving to a farm and living off my own home produce… rather Kirsty and I have finally taken the plunge after 6 years of saving and have bought a house!! It’s a lovely brick mid-terrace built in the 30’s and is just round the corner from work and part of the community I love.

Moving has been the main reason I’ve not blogged for a few weeks; the phone has been up and running but the internet connection is still not working (various technical explanations for this), so I’m writing this at work… It’s OK, the boss is away this week

There’s loads of other stuff been going on this summer, most notably the Festival Of Wick and our Mexican friends Mimi & Katy staying, but I’ll save those for another post. Just wanted to let you know I’m still alive!