Quirky Idea: Locking up your PC/OS for a time?

[scarfbind]

There's actually a very good and fairly secure/predictable solution for this: Parental Controls. Both Windows 7 and OSX have a good "time limiter" built into them. The key (haha) is you need to prevent the user from having the administrator password during times the curfew is in effect. There are a couple ways to do this:

Put the admin password somewhere not readily accessible (at work, a friend's house, written down somewhere you can't easily get to right away)

Set your own account as a "standard" user (that's the Windows term, not sure about OSX)
Go to the control panel and use "set up parental controls", and enable time restrictions. Under Windows, there is the option of allowing access at certain times of each day of the week. In OSX you have the option of setting up both 'time of day' and 'time allowed per day'.

Both systems make it pretty difficult to log in once the time restriction takes effect, and since you are no longer an "admin" user, you can't change the settings.

(yes, there are ways around it, but they involve a good amount of work, and you might just trash the OS completely if you miss a step.)

Make sure you write down the password, print it out, save it on a USB drive, and maybe even mail it to a trusted friend.