Mom Central Technology

Five for Friday: Facebook user names, Internet safety and iPhone apps for kids

1. Starting on June 13, you’ll be able to create a username for your Facebook profile and the pages you administer by visiting www.facebook.com/username. Names will be available on a first come first served basis, so if you have a common name, you better sign up quickly. You can learn more about this new Facebook feature here.

2. As you may have noticed from my Palm Pre review roundup post, I’m still on the fence about getting a smart phone. If you’re wondering if it’s time to upgrade, check out the New York Times article, Smartphone Rises Fast From Gadget to Necessity, especially the very last sentence:

“But the key is to make sure this technology helps you carry out the tasks of daily life instead of interfering with them. It’s about balance and managing things.”

I couldn’t agree more. Do I really need to check email – and respond to them – when I’m grocery shopping or watching the kids at their karate lessons? After all, I need time to keep up my magazine subscriptions, too! ;)

Palm Pre review roundup

As you may have heard, Palm released their new smart phone, the Pre, last week. I’ve been putting off buying a smart phone since I wonder if I truly need one – and the monthly data plan bill to go with it.

Even so, I’ve been reading the Pre reviews with interest. Right now my conclusion is to wait awhile for more apps, for Palm to work out a few bugs, get more in stock, and maybe lower the price. After all, Apple lowered iPhone prices this week: The 8-gig iPhone now costs $99 instead of $199. The 16-gig version of the 3G S will cost $199, and a 32-gigabyte version will be $299. (When the iPhones came out two years ago they sold for $499 for a 4-gig and $599 for 8-gig version.) Then again, I’m hearing there are problems ith AT&T’s Network.

There’s something to be said for being a late adopter.

Facebook, sexting, and keeping kids safe online with Yahoo!

My friend, Marcy, recently found out that her 12-year-old daughter had a Facebook account (now deleted) even though she was expressly forbidden to have one. Marcy found out by checking her daughter’s email account when the filters on her home computers blocked access to Gmail. (She was helping her daughter get permission to use Gmail on the family laptop, and saw the emails coming in from Facebook.) Now Marcy is looking into programs that will email reports of her daughter’s online activity while she’s at work.

We’ve all heard about “sexting” in the news, the hysteria around it and what kids think about it, too. This leads me to wonder what parents are doing to teach their kids how to be safe – and smart – online. Do you tell your older kids not to put questionable pictures of themselves on Facebook? Have you friended your kids online to monitor them and their friends? (I have several friends who do this.)

What are you telling your children about online safety? At what age should you start the discussion? What rules are you putting in place to protect your children? 

Here at Mom Central Technology, we try to let you know about the latest programs to monitor your children’s online behavior from PGKey to Safe Eyes Mobile. Another cyber safety resource is Yahoo!

Here are Yahoo!’s top 10 links for keeping your child safe online:

1. Yahoo! Safely - a complete resource for all things cyber correct.

2. Create a family pledge for Online Safety.

3. Applying a filter to your child’s Yahoo! Mail account is simple by creating a family account to monitor your child’s use of Yahoo! and edit and maintain their account settings.

4. Yahoo! Mail uses the latest technology to combat spam and to help protect you from phishing and viruses. Yahoo!’s spam guard will filter out 97% of all things bad, so your child won’t accidentally click on something.

5. You can flag photos on Flickr for abuse via the “Report Abuse” link that’s available in the footer of every page.

6. Four things to know before your child goes online: info.yahoo.com/safely/us/yahoo.

7. Report abuse on any Yahoo! property at abuse.yahoo.com.

8. Keep private things private. Manage your online profile.

9. Yahoo!'s SafeSearch feature is designed to filter out explicit, adult-oriented content from Yahoo! Search results.

10. Keep up to date with our safety experts blogs.

Five for Friday: iPhones, Kindles and internet safety programs for kids

1. I’ve noticed that parents are using their iPhone as child distraction devices. I saw this on a recent field trip with my son’s third grade class. One of the moms passed her phone to her daughter so she and a friend could play video games on the bus trip home. Clever!

If this is something you do, check out the iPhone app Tic Tac Paddywhack, a cute take on the classic tic tac toe game for kids. Made with families in mind, you need two players so a child and their parent, friend or sibling can play together.

It’s currently on sale at the iTunes store for 99 cents, 50% off the usual $1.99 price.

2. I’ve been hinting around to my husband that I would love to get a Kindle . Then again, since it’s about the same price as netbook – and I really need to buy a netbook before I attend several conferences this summer and fall - I’m not going to get one. So when I saw that there was a new, less expensive e-reader on the market – the Cool-er – I rejoiced. Not only is it more than $100 less than a Kindle, it comes in eight different colors. (The Kindle is cool, but its white casing is so ‘90s.) Then I read in the New York Times personal tech section that it lacks many of the Kindle’s better features, feels cheap, the print is small, and there aren’t many books available for it. Let’s hope that the subsequent versions are better, because having an affordable e-reader in green or hot pink would be such a blast.

Five for Friday: Wal-Mart, Acer netbooks, The Beatles sign with Rock Band, parasitical bloggers, and Sony SLRs

1. Last time I was at Wal-Mart, I was very impressed with its electronics department. They had a full array of iPod and MP3 accessories, like hip looking ear buds. They also had iPhones, netbooks and all the gaming gear your kids are begging you to get. This was not your mother’s Wal-Mart, for sure.

So it’s not a surprise to read in the Wall St. Journal that Wal-Mart is looking to compete with Best Buy now that Circuit City has bit the dust. However, I’m surprised to hear that they want to compete with Amazon, which has the advantage of free shipping on purchases over $25, the ability to carry a larger variety of products, and no tax on purchases for most people.

2. In my ongoing quest for the perfect netbook, two new Acer Aspire One netbooks have come out, the AO751h and AOD250. Both weigh less than three pounds and are thinner than previous modes. Pricing for the 751h starts at $349.99 and $298 for the D250. (Here are the pre-order prices for the Acer Aspire One AOD250 on Amazon.) You can get more details on specs at Engadget and at Crave.

I was hoping that details on the Costco version of the Acer Aspire One netbook with 3G capacity would be officially released by now, but according to the comments in this Engadget post, the two-year plan costs $60 a month. Dang.

Five for Friday: ZulaWorld, business cards or Poken, Techmamas and more

1. ZulaWorld is a PBS kids show about science and outer space. They’re in beta testing for their new website, ZulaWorld.com and asking mom bloggers and parents to check it out.

Developed in conjunction with IBM, at ZulaWorld.com, kids ages 5 and older, along with their parents and caregivers can enjoy interacting with other like-minded earthlings online.  In Zula’s unique universe kids can create their own avatar, fly their own spaceship, and discover for themselves that when it comes to science, exploring is never boring.

The beta testing lasts until May 26th. They're asking that you log-on, create your own avatar, and try out the site. On the welcome page is a feedback button where you may leave your thoughts and comments about the site. If you like what you see, you can subscribe to the site (there is a monthly fee) after the two week testing period is over.

If you're interested, just click on this link.

Using Twitter to shop? Check out IMShopping

IMshopping announced the beta launch of their human-assisted shopping website and Twitter shopping service  where knowledgeable shopping guides respond to product questions and provide personalized recommendations for users.

How It Works

Twitter users can directly ask questions by tweeting @imshopping or on the IMshopping website . The shopping guides in the community and trained experts offer detailed responses within a short period of time, usually in less time than it would take to drive to Best Buy or Home Depot, wait in line and get your question answered. Shoppers can use these responses to instantly make purchases or save to their own folders before making a product decision.

As shopping guides craft their response, they review a detailed analysis of the product, including specifications, reviews from third-party sites, blog buzz and price. This response is then delivered to the shopper and also archived anonymously for review by future shoppers. All public questions and responses are searchable via Twitter or can be viewed by following @imshopping.

The beta site has launched with over 20,000 questions answered and available for public search. You can see an example of questions already at answered IMShopping here.

PC parental control with PG Key

We’ve all heard of parental control software that kids were able to get around by disabling the program, finding out their parents password, or using a different web browser. If you have a kid like that, you may want to look into PG Key to keep them safe online.

PG Key isn’t software, which can slow down your computer. Instead, it’s a key that you plug into your computer’s USB port. Not only does it filter unwanted content (you can control what that is), but records everything your child does while they’re online.  Parents can now watch, like a movie, everything their kids have been doing on the internet.

Since it monitors your child’s online behavior, PG Key creates accountability. Once kids know that their parents are monitoring what they’re doing, their online habits change. Also, hours can be set on PG Key to limit your child’s time online.

Five for Friday: batteries, Kindles, mini notebooks and web worker efficiency

1. Battle of the rechargeable batteries: Duracell vs. Energizer. Guess which one wins out according to Battlemodo: Energizer vs Duracell Rechargeable Batteries?

2. Speaking of batteries, I love this idea from LifeHacker on turning C batteries into D batteries. All you need is a couple of dollars worth of quarters – something to keep in mind on Christmas morning.

3. Did you ever sit down to do a blog post and find out – four hours later – that you haven’t gotten anything done? Well, here are 5 Simple Ways to Boost Your Efficiency from Samuel Dean at the GigaOm Network that may help.

Keeping inappropriate content off your child's iPhone or iTouch with Safe Eyes® Mobile

Most parents know about installing parental control software to keep their kids safe online. But now that almost 10% percent of teens and tweens own iPhones or iTouches, what about keeping them safe on those devices?

Luckily, InternetSafety.com developed an Internet filtering software for the Apple iPhone - Safe Eyes® Mobile. This iPhone app gives parents a tool to prevent their children from deliberately or inadvertently retrieving web content that you deem inappropriate or off-limits.

The $19.99 application is available through the iTunes store.