Any tips on some good software that will block web sites from a PC? I am going to give my old laptop to my son as a Christmas present, but want to lock it down pretty effectively. Is there a gold standard?

As crazy as this sounds, I've got Norton360 v4 running on my daughter's system. Low system usage, effective anti-virus and anti-phishing and very good parental controls (use the Online Family feature vs the addon pack, both are free). It can effectively limit hours (with the option to have them "request" more, etc), show you what they're visiting, etc.

The filtering is moderate and can be a bit flaky. That said, the online family thing does a GREAT job making it seems like you're building trust as it's very obvious about what it does, and gives you the ability to expand your kid's privs as they use it. All in all, I like it. If you're more about monitoring and teaching, I recommend it. If you absolutely, positively don't want them to see boobies and dongs (and you don't seem that type to me) then get netnanny or something.

As for the "Norton" tag itself, Symantec products are now an entirely new deal. They're BY FAR, and I include NOD32/Kaspersky in this, the best performing AV I've used since Norton 2009 was released. Whatever thoughts you had about it being bloatware crap before (and it was) will disappear after you see the install finish in less than 30 seconds.

Yeah, Symantec endpoint is pretty clutch. In addition to AV it provides a firewall with an integrated HIPS.