I recently finished building a new PC from scratch; and then I decided to treat myself to a new widescreen monitor. I'm left with a bit of a conundrum with what to do with my old box.

I'm considering a few options such as a file server, putting Linux on it, putting it elsewhere in the house or giving it to a member of the family and so on. But to be honest, I don't really think it would get much use.

I've started thinking about putting together something for my kids. The oldest is coming up on 4 in a couple of months and he's used my PC and Macbook (supervised!) before for playing jigzaw puzzles, babysmash and so forth. He's also uses the computer at his nursery (Kindergarden for North Americans!).

So, its got me thinking about setting something up for him (bonus for his brother who is 2). I was wondering what others had done when trying to put together something for their kids?

Some points for consideration:

• Operating System?
• Software?
• Anti-virus
• Internet (probably blocking?)
• Hardware (I've seen some keyboards designed with kids in mind)