Category: Technology

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Cell Phones at the Dinner Table

Cell Phones at the Dinner TableDo you jump the second you hear your phone buzz or beep? Do you freak out if you forget your phone somewhere? Do you never leave a room without your phone?

I was always afraid to get cell phone in the beginning because I thought of them as an electronic leash. I don’t think it’s necessary for people to be able to get a hold of you every second of of day. I think it’s actually turned people into open books almost. People share everything or text a friend about the most random things throughout the day. I don’t think they would have shared whatever happened if they didn’t have a cell phone.

I think the challenge above is a great one.  To me it challenges everyone at the dinner table to actually be present and involved with the people that are partaking in the meal. Without this challenge you would probably see people checking and updating their Facebook status, playing some silly game, and or texting.

I know I have been guilty of using my cell phone when it wasn’t necessary and when I realize it I try to make a conscious effort to put the silly thing down. Whatever it is, it can probably wait until the meal is over, the television show is over, or you are done playing the board game.

Try this out with your family and friends and see what happens.

 

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Family Photo Books for Christmas

I was thinking it might be fun to get all of our relatives long lasting photo books of our family.  We could send them out instead of Christmas cards this year.  Our family is always pestering us for more photos.  One nice thick book might appease their appetites for a little while.  I’m looking at getting wholesale catalogs at zooprinting.com.

A nice glossy catalog of page upon page of the children and all of their silly shenanigans from the year is just what everyone needs.  They are nice and sturdy and will last awhile.  I bet I’ll even find them used as coffee table books at a few of my in-laws homes.  They absolutely love to share off their grandchildren to everyone that steps foot into their home.

We’ve made photo calendars in the past but I think these catalog style books will really stand out.  Plus, there will be more than just twelve pages of pictures in these. Now, the fun part is to gather all of our family photos and start putting it in order.  I’m soo glad I have saved all of our photos digitally. I don’t have to go digging through a bunch of boxes to find our photos.  They are all organized nicely on my computer in a file tilted, “Family Photos.”

 

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Toys Now vs. Then

Growing up I don’t really remember having a lot of electronic toys.  Yes we did have our game console but most things were not battery operated   I had crayons, markers and coloring books.  We had dolls and slip and slides.  Kids of today are surrounded by soo many technological toys.  It amazes me how young a child can figure out an electronic device like a smart phone or iPad.

I see kids in the grocery store playing on hand held devices whether it be made particularly for children or if it’s just their parent’s cell phone.  I’m grateful for our technological advances that we have but I don’t want our kids to miss out on all of the fun they can have without technology.  I try to encourage their imagination with dress up clothes, lots of materials to build castles and forts to let their minds go wild.

I love seeing the light in my kids’ eyes when they create something.  They look like they have the biggest sense of accomplishment.  It warms my heart to see all of the new things they make.  Just yesterday my daughter had me put a skirt on one of her dinosaur toys because she wanted a dinosaur princess.  That takes imagination if I do say so.  She’s a genius.

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Technological Advantages of Children Today

Kids growing up now live in a world where everything is instant or pretty close to it. No longer do they have to rely on things that take up a lot of time. The children of today have many advantages in technology that generations past did not have the benefit of. Microwaves have taken time out of cooking. The internet makes information accessible with the touch of a button. Telephones make communication with people across the world a snap.

Children today are growing up with everything around them happening soo fast.  It’s a wonder we can teach them to have patience at all.

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Gift Shopping

Sometimes I hate shopping for Christmas gifts.  It’s the crowds that bother me.  I don’t like walking into a store and being surrounded by a million people. It drives me nuts when I can’t move my cart through an isle without having to wait for someone to move theirs.

This year I’m finishing up my holiday shopping online.  I love the ease and conveninece of being able to shop at any time, day or night in the comfort of my own home.  And, I don’t even have to get dressed up to leave the house.  I did my shopping in my pajamas!  I got some great deals on Amazon and didn’t have to pay tax.  I love that part too!  I even saved on the shipping since everything I bought was eligible for the free Super Saver Shipping.  I love Amazon for that reason.

I’ve finished just about all of my shopping and an rest easily.  Now I just have to worry about wrapping everything.

 

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Cord Blood Banking

I was watching a show on one of those educational channels last night. It was all about saving cord blood and storing it in a cord blood bank. It was pretty fascinating to watch as they showed us the process of storing the blood and keeping it in a ln2Freezer. Who knew liquid nitrogen could be so useful?

Not only did they go over the methods used for storage, but they also explained the benefits and uses that the preserved cord blood could serve. They said that cord blood could be used in the treatment of some cancers, blood disorders, and even some genetic diseases. They showed us how cord blood might have advantages over traditional bone marrow transplants when a matching donor cannot be found in that very critical time frame.

This program made me wish I would have looked more into the benefits of saving the cord blood from our kids. We donated it because we couldn’t afford it. It would have been nice to have as a back up and just in case.  Nevertheless, someone may get some benefit from it.

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BIG Screen

We finally went out and got a fancy new big screen tv.  It’s an HDTV even has 3D.  I’ve never seen a tv with soo many ports on it to plug in various items.  I swear this thing could run our house it is soo darn high tech.  My husband is totally infatuated with the thing.  I bet there will be a permanent indent in the couch where he sits now.  I just hope he is willing to share with the rest of us.  He wanted to watch the big games and fights on it so we decided we could splurge a little since I made a little extra money with some of the junk I sold.  I feel like we finally belong in the 21st century now.

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Internet Music

Sometimes when I am on the internet I log onto a free music streaming web site and listen to music while I work. There are some nice radios stations that share their music online, and there is a site called Pandora.com that is very interesting.

The  idea behind Pandora is to expose you to new music and new artists that are similar to ones that you already like. That is an interesting way to decide what they play and I like it. There have been some new artists that I would not know about if it was not for Pandora playing them on one of my channels.

Another handy feature on Pandora is that you can get a short biography of the artist whose song is currently playing or you can click to see the song lyrics. And if you want to buy anything that you hear, they make it easy to link through the Pandora site to do that, too.

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Sorry No Connection

So yesterday, I hopped on to my computer to post a bunch of pictures from the holiday weekend and I couldn’t get my dsl to work.  I tried everything to get it fixed, resetting the router, restarting my computer, and even unplugging every cable and then plugging them back in.  Nothing worked.

I ended up having to call my internet service provider. I sat on hold for some time before I found out that my entire city had the internet down. The customer service technician told me he wasn’t sure what caused the outage and he didn’t know when we would have our service back.

I waited a few hours and called the company back to see if things were in working order again.  The guy I spoke to kept asking me a bunch of questions about the lights on my router.  They all just kept blinking and I still had no service. Apparently my internet should have been working again but I was just a lucky winner and got to have mine not work for an additional 2 hours.

Eventually, I got my service back.  However, when I started to upload images online everything went REALLY slow.  It reminded me of the days when I had dial-up internet.  I never thought I was going to get all of the images uploaded.  It literally took 2 and a half hours to upload 50 images.  Normally that would only take a few minutes.  I probably should have called it a night and tried again today but, I wanted to have it done before I went to work today to show to my friends some of the great shots I captured.

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Special Night Out

We haven’t lived here long enough, nor had the special occasion yet, to go out and have a nice romantic dinner, just the two of us. But my sweet hubby just came home tonight with the good news that he’s been offered the new job and we want to go out to celebrate tomorrow night. We don’t have a local yellowpages because we did not get a new home phone when we moved here. Each of us has our own cell phone and I just didn’t see any reason to pay for a home phone. The downside to that is you don’t get a local directory with all the ads for nice restaurants and other places you might want to go after you get settled into your new place.

So, I used the internet for a local search on fine dining and was pleasantly surprised at how many choices there are within a 30 minute drive of our new house. Of course, choosing the best place is the hard part.

At least we both agree that we want a nice American food restaurant with a good reputation for their steaks. Sometimes I like to try other nice places – especially Italian restaurants – but we haven’t enjoyed a nice steak dinner in a very long time. So I picked three local restaurants that looked good to me and gave the list to hubby – he can pick from those three and then we’ll call in the morning to make reservations for our special dinner tomorrow night.