Today I took my CompTIA Security+ exam and passed.  Per the instructors at TechSkills, I am now an MCSA-s.  Once all the credentialing has taken place, I’ll pop the appropriate logo up here on the site.

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A recent client asked me to help lock down a single laptop, providing a work profile and a play profile. After several installations and removals of trial versions of applications, I found the right combination of applications: Webroot Parental Controls and Tropical Software Secure Browser. This combo fulfilled the most of the client’s requests of all I could find.

TropSoft’s application is controlling where the work profile can browse on the internet. While there are many apps that do that, this is one of few that allows TLD filtering rather than relying on a company’s list of approved sites or filtering on content. The work profile needs to access .org, .edu and .gov sites, needing access to only a couple of .com sites.

Webroot’s application is being used to control the work profile’s access to programs, denying access to applications like Internet Explorer, Firefox, games and media players. It’s also limiting the amount of time the play profile can be logged on each day.

Both applications are relatively inexpensive, running $40-45 each.