Nintendo DSi questions

[jfoofj]

SO... my mother bought my DS and DSS Nintendo DSi's for their upcoming birthdays... they have the DSlites but they are a few years old and my DS's lower screen doesn't always work, and DSS's hinge broke so his is either always closed or always open all the way... they have been begging for the DSi's.

I have a few questions...

Am I able to set it so they can't go online? Or at least put parental controls on it?

Will they be able to connect with each other when one is here and one is at their other parent's house? (approx 20 miles away) Is this for game playing only, or is there an instant messenger type function?

What else should I, as a concerned parent, be aware of? They are good kids, but they are kids, and I don't want them to be doing anything they shouldn't be doing or looking at stuff online they shouldn't be looking at.

Thanks in advance!

 

[laurie31]

Do you have a wireless network in your house? I pretty sure you can't connect without one. If you don't then, voila, no internet. And even if you do, unless your kids know how to connect, I don't know if they would easily figure it out.

My DD10 got online on her DSi without any help from me, but she was used to connecting to our network on the laptop, and I presume it works the same.

She doesn't really like to go online on her DSi at home, though. The screen is so small, and it's slow on sites with lots of graphics, so she prefers a "real" computer. However, she likes doing it when we're out someplace and she's bored. Of course, I'm with her then, so it's easy to see where she's going. 99% of the time it's Webkinz, and the other 1% is her email. She only gets emails from her cousin and her grandparents - lol - so it's not like she has huge volumes of mail to go through.

I don't think they will connect at a distance of 20 miles, unless it's via internet, but I have no clue where DDs instruction manual is, so I can't look it up right now. I'll look around for it and see what I can find out.

 

[luvmy3]

You will be able to disable internet access by using parental controls. They will only be able to connect to eachother 20 miles away is if they are doing it through your home's wireless connection like you would for the Wii.

 

[TheGoofster]

Just a word about the Internet on the DSi.

First, like has been mentioned, yes you can put a parent lock on it (a four digit code) that pretty much blocks all Internet activity without you unlocking it.

About the Interent connection itself, unlike many computers I don't believe there is any way to make it kid friendly, that is to say if they have access to the Internet, than they have access to pretty much everything out there, including the garbage.

My son has a friend (not a close friend thankfully) who has a tendency to visit bad sites while at people's houses (he thinks he's smart, but he doesn't understand the concept of cookies and internet history pages). But, with the DSi, there isn't any kind of browsing history either, so if someone were to decide to check out some bad sites, there would be no way of knowing about it.

So, it might be well worth your time to put the parental lock on the DSi as soon as you get it, especially if they take it with them when they go about their day. It does require a wireless access, but I believe you can pick up any available unlocked access point (even though it doesn't have that strong of a pickup strength). If it has open access to the connection, and they are within reach of a router, any of their friends could use it to browse everything out there.

 

[jfoofj]

Thanks so much... while we don't use a wireless connection here at home, my neighbors do and I know my DBIL can get on with his laptop when he is here somehow (not even sure if that is ok or legal, I don't want to know...). SO, we will probably just make it so they can't use the iternet on the DSis. I thought it would be cool if they could play each other or even say hi while DSS was at his mom's and DS was at his dads, but it really isn't that big of a deal. I can't wait to play with the camera and change the pictures, THAT seems pretty cool!

 

[TheGoofster]

Thanks so much... while we don't use a wireless connection here at home, my neighbors do and I know my DBIL can get on with his laptop when he is here somehow (not even sure if that is ok or legal, I don't want to know...). SO, we will probably just make it so they can't use the iternet on the DSis. I thought it would be cool if they could play each other or even say hi while DSS was at his mom's and DS was at his dads, but it really isn't that big of a deal. I can't wait to play with the camera and change the pictures, THAT seems pretty cool!

The camera feature really is fun. My son has had his DSi for over 3 months now, and he still uses the camera feature all of the time (his favorite thing to do is to take a picture of his sister and her friend and warp it around).
You can also record voices, and have fun changing that around as well.

 

[laurie31]

The camera is DD's favorite thing about hers. She plays with it a lot and it's really fun.