Q Can you recommend a program for limiting the amount of time someone can use specific Internet services each day? When I'm at work, certain family members log on to the Web and stay there for hours. I don't want to eliminate Net access for my family, but I do want to control the phone bills.

Q Net Timer Pro from Simon Paradis (members.xoom.com/ntpdev) is a US$20 pop-up timer for Windows 95 that you can use to give each family member a daily allotment of Internet access time. (You will also find the utility on our cover CD). The timer is password-protected, so only one person is allowed to configure each individual's time limit.

Net Timer Pro works with any ISP. You can even configure it so that different people can use different ISPs.

Put the program in Windows' Start folder so that it fires up when the PC is booted. Beware that uninstalling Net Timer Pro is as simple as using Windows' Uninstall feature, so it can be thwarted by clever children.