By Deborah Porterfield
Gannett News Service

The big question used to be: Do you know where your children are?

REVIEW

eBlaster 5.0 Rating: 41/2 stars out of 5. Price: $100. Pro: E-mailed reports let parents monitor children's computer activities while away from home. Con: Stealth installation of the program raises privacy and ethical concerns. Bottom Line: Easy-to-use program lets nervous parents (and suspicious-minded adults) monitor computer use. www.eblaster.com

In today's tech-centered world, the more pressing question is: Do you know what your children are doing online?

Unfortunately, even the most diligent parents can't always be there to see everything their children do online. But the all-knowing eBlaster 5.0 can. Once you install SpectorSoft's program on your child's computer, it can record and e-mail you exact copies of all their e-mail, instant messages and chat conversations. It also can record keystrokes typed, Web sites visited and programs accessed.

If you plan to use the program on just one computer, it costs $100. If you want to install it on two to four PCs, each license costs $70.

The program lets you choose what you want to see and when. For example, you can choose to receive hourly or daily e-mail reports of incoming and outgoing e-mail messages and both sides of chat conversations and instant messages.

If you need immediate feedback, you can set the program to instantly forward copies of all incoming and outgoing e-mails, chat conversations and instant messaging sessions. You also can have the program send an instant alert should a certain word or phrase you've deemed unacceptable be typed on the keyboard or appear in a message or chat conversation.

All this information might seem like too much to digest. Fortunately, the e-mail reports arrive in an easy-to-scan format that lets you choose what you want to read, and which images, if any, you want to view. As you become more familiar with your children's online habits and the software, you'll probably want to exclude specific e-mail addresses, such as those of your children's grandparents, from the report, or opt not to get reports on innocuous activities, such as using an online encyclopedia.

Like other snoop-minded programs, this title's existence on a computer is not readily apparent. Access to it is only available by typing secret hot keys and entering a password.

Even so, it seems only right to warn computer users - even if they're only children - that their activities are being recorded.

With any luck, the eBlaster reports will prove to be a bore - unless you enjoy reading inane exchanges like "Wats up?" "NM." "Kewl." "GTG."