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! ;)

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.

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.

Five for Friday: space, external drives, internet safety and the Blackberry Bold Trade Up Program

1. Seek Out Extra Space on Your Drive With SpaceSniffer – SpaceSniffer is a free Windows app download that helps you figure out if you need a new external drive to store all your photos and music on – or not.

2. Speaking of external drives, should you get one for backing up your computer? YES, YOU MUST! (Don’t make me nag, but you should backup your computer regularly.)

I have a couple of external drives. My first one was Maxtor One Touch III Mini (100 GB). It’s as big as your hand thus portable enough to take with you while traveling to download pictures or backup business documents and presentations. However, I needed more space to back up my desktop, so I purchased a Maxtor One Touch 4 (500 GB). I did have problems getting the backup software to work with it unfortunately. Instead, I do a manual backup by copying all the files I want saved and pasting it. Why Maxtor, which is a Seagate company? First, the drives are very reasonably priced and older models are even cheaper. Second, I like supporting local companies and Seagate has a facility in Longmont, Colorado.

3. OK, now that we’ve backed up, let’s discuss online safety for kids with a guest post by Ask Marian - Symantec's Internet Safety Advocate at TechMamas: Free Online Safety Service From Norton Makes It Easier To Keep Kids Safe Online.

4. Lusting after a Blackberry Bold smartphone, but can’t afford it? The BlackBerry Bold Trade-up Program lets you trade in an old cellphone for some cash. Learn how Don Reisinger at the Digital Home got his BlackBerry Bold for $30.

5. And speaking of Don, he’s got some terrific geek blog posts that I had to share with you:

• Is the Wii as affordable as it used to be? about the June 8 release of the Wii MotionPlus that will cost parents $20 so their kids can have  "1:1 motion" to Wii gestures for new games like EA's Tiger Woods PGA Tour '10 and Wii Sports Resort. Great, more stuff to buy for the kids’ video heroin habit.
• It takes more to be a geek today – Seems that “if you have real interest in technology, you're not necessarily a geek anymore” since tech has hit the mainstream. (By mainstream, Don means gaming and using iPhones and the Amazon Kindle.) Then again, geek may be the new black.
• It was 20 years ago today that Nintendo taught us how to play (apologies to Sgt. Pepper) - Remembering the Game Boy: We loved you, man.

Five for Friday: free TV, timeline searches, Twitter, TiVo and podcasts - oh my!

1. Donald Bell, an editor at CNET, shows you How to get free podcasts in iTunes. I download everything from This American Life’s podcasts to NPR’s Planet Money and listen to them in the car or when I work out.

2. If YouTube and Hulu weren’t enough, PBS Launches Video Portal and PBS Brings Bugs, Presidents and Soufflés to the Web. As reported by GigaOm Network writer, Chris Albrecht, “…there are still bugs that need to be worked out.” Still, I’m happy to see some of my favorite PBS content like Nova and Julia Child’s cooking shows available for free online.

3. The New York Times offers two opinions of Twitter on the same day: What Annoys Me About Twitter and Why I Am Obsessed With Twitter. They also report on a woman in Northern Ireland tweeting recipes at Take 1 Recipe, Mince, Reduce, Serve.

4. Do you save TV shows to your TiVo on to find that you quickly run out of storage space? You may be interested in reading, Give your DVR a storage boost, by Dong Ngo, an editor at CNET. He recommends the Western Digital TiVo-verified My DVR Expander.

5. Google’s News Timeline is Useful for Bloggers and Writers by Samuel Dean at the GigaOm Network on Salon.com. His review of the Google News Timeline. I tried it out myself on terms like “Earth Day,” “food contamination,” and “Bruce Springsteen” and saw more news stories and blog posts of interest than I would have doing a search in Google News. Definitely something to bookmark.

Five for Friday: worms, opinions, free movies and apps - oh my!

1. Twitter users beware:  Seems that Twitter was visited by worms instead of bunnies on Easter weekend. According to Thomas Claburn at InformationWeek, “The worm can be blocked by disabling JavaScript in your web browser or by using the NoScript plug-in for Firefox.”

2. Do you do product reviews on your blog? Then you may be interested in reading the following posts on the proposed FTC changes to its policy on product reviews and endorsements:

• Parenting Blogs May Be Held Liable for Product Reviews
• Bloggers liable for statements about products? Maybe, says FTC
• Mommy Bloggers' Liability for Product Reviews - Will It Cause a Chilling Effect?
• Marketing to Moms who Blog: What You Say May be Used Against You in a Court of Law
• Advertisers brace for online viral marketing curbs
• Federal Trade Commission Looks to Regulate What You Say On Your Blog

Five for Friday: tech tips and news for moms and mom bloggers

1. Tired of getting speeding tickets on your way to work or to drop the kids off at school? If you have a smart-phone, consider downloading Trapster, the app that helps you avoid speed traps. When you see a trap, report it by pressing a button on your phone, or calling a toll free number. Other user's phones will alert them as they approach the trap. Trapster learns the credibility of traps based on how many users agree. It also learns the credibility of each user, over time.

Read more about it at:

• Susan Greene’s article, Full speed ahead with iPhone tool, at the Denver Post
• CNET’s Trapster turns your cell phone into a police detector
• GeekSugar’s iPhone App You Need: Trapster

Five for Friday: tech tips and news for moms and mom bloggers

1. I learned about Ping.fm at the Chicks Who Click conference in Boulder last January. What’s terrific about it is that you can update your status at several social sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn all at one time. That feature is also its biggest drawback since what’s OK for me to tweet about isn’t always what I want to say in my status on LinkedIn. One’s more personal, the other more professional.

One way to get around this is to use Ping.fm in iGoogle. The widget gives you a drop down menu so you can update statuses at only the sites you want. Let’s say I want to send out a update like, “Off to my Weight Watchers meeting. Hope I’m down a couple of pounds.” Type it into the iGoogle Ping.fm widget, then highlight and copy it. Use the pull down menu to set it to go out on Twitter. Send it. Then paste the same message, use the pull down menu to set it to go out to your Facebook status, then send it again. Repeat if necessary.

What I especially like about Ping.fm. I can use it with my Peek.