Well, I’m all set up now, it’s just a matter of waiting awhile to make the inevitable tweaks (fixing pages that get blocked that shouldn’t, etc.).

TimeBoss seems to be working very well so far. My only beef is that the filtering/whitelist function didn’t seem to be working properly – I think it’s a matter of an Internet Add-on that goes with it not installing right somehow. But I added a free internet filter (from www.parentaltools.net) and that seems to work just as well, though it took me awhile to set all the settings so that each account is filtered to the right level.

So now my poor old computer has four accounts instead of two:

My roommate’s: No blocks or limits at all. She knows not to tell me her password.
My own normal one: Time limits and very lenient content restrictions (I just don’t need that stuff popping up when I don’t want it).
Restricted account: The one that’s always available, with access only to my primary email, word processors/office programs and a few carefully chosen web sites (eg. internet banking).
Boss/Admin: The account from which I can administer the two filter/limit programs. The password for that one will be getting hidden with the others.

If I ever have guests over I can always turn on a guest account for them, though this in itself will be a temptation for myself – we’ll see. If necessary I can always take away my own admin privileges, though it will drive me crazy if I do. I really, really wish that Windows vista had a better system of granting admin rights. Ah well.

We’ll see how this goes. Once I’m pretty sure I’ve got things the way I want them, the passwords will be changed and I’ll lock them up!