Tips from a tech-savvy dad, Part 2

This week's focus in my newsletter: instant-messaging. "Rachel," 11, does a lot of it with her friends. So I asked our Calif.-based tech executive and dad "Tom" (changing their names to protect Rachel's privacy) how he helps his daughter keep her IM experiences positive. He offered some precautions for fellow parents of young communicators - with a heads-up about "spim," the pesky new IM version of spam now coming to instant messenger users everywhere (this week Reuters had to shut down its whole corporate IM network because of a worm circulating via instant messages purporting to be from friends on people's buddy lists, ZDNET reported).