Microsoft announced in March 2021 that Power Automate Desktop is now free with Windows 10 as they expand the Power Platform into other forms of automation. Could we not just.turn the controls off?'Īfter the 86th iteration of this conversation, I decided to spend a weekend looking at Power Automate Desktop for this since it does web automation.

Trust me, I'd like nothing more than to never visit that thing again or have notes shoved under the bedroom door when I'm on calls - but that's life son.' There are no APIs either, so it's not possible unfortunately. Despite using a company who claim to be the UK's leading ISP and paying them through the nose each month, they chronically underinvest in their management portal and it was built by interns in the 1990s.

It's so unfair! Can't you schedule it or something?'

Kid - 'Well, you're always on calls when it's 5pm on a gaming day and we're losing lots of time.

Kid - 'Dad, you know how you block our gaming websites when it's not gaming time so we can't sneak on?'.

A recurring conversation in our house goes something like this: Unfortunately with my ISP (Virgin Media here in the UK) there's no scheduling capability for this, only for parental controls overall - which means I have to manually go the portal and tap in the sinful URLs many times per week, and then unblock later on. So, our tyrannical regime approach essentially grants them a certain amount of time per week, with controls put in place through our ISP which allows me to block or allow individual websites. Like many families, we have annoying kids who would spend all their time gaming or on screens given half the chance.

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