Kinda wish there were smaller, lighter kids web sites and software. Especially educational ones. I finally set up networking on my one of my children’s computers. It’s an old, Windows 98 machine, first generation Pentium with the tiniest amount of memory.

She’s been hooked on Noggin.com and NickJr.com but boy do they run slow. So why not just upgrade? Well for one, they are still very young and they don’t need it for home work or something like that… yet. Plus, we have lots of still good computers around. Add to all that, there’s no good computer recycling center in these parts. I’ve only heard of one this year, it’s only day and I have to drive 50 miles. Sheesh!

So I’m on a quest for lighter, kiddie web sites and software. Kinda like portable apps for kids. Know of one?

While spring cleaning my Gmail today, I wanted to delete a bunch of unread emails that spanned many, many pages. Not wanting to spend time sitting there paging through like 20 pages and deleting from each one, I figured there must be a better way.

How do you pull up only the unread emails? Gmail doesn’t have a one-click button to do that. Then it occurred to me. Why search of course but, what do I search for? Thankfully there is a list of advanced search commands you can use. In case you’re wondering, you’d type is:unread in the search box and hit search. Easy.

There are also many advanced searches you can do in lieu of sorting. For example if you wanted to search for emails containing the word “movie” within all the emails labeled “sister”, you’d type label:sister movie. More super helpful search operators can be found here.

I love organizing and storage so when I saw this cableyoyo on sale - I knew I had to share! I bought a laptop about a month ago and ever since I’ve enjoyed a lack of cords surrounding my work station. I have yet to switch my music and podcasts to it though and every time I go back to the desktop to update my iTunes (and thus my iPod), I am annoyed with the cords. I never did buy a pack when learning about the cableyoyo’s before, but I am not letting this sale pass me up.

PS. Yep we have written about this product before - Lynette posted about it at Cable Organizer Solution Found.

One short day to go before we have to turn our clocks forward. But DST comes early this year. Will your computer know it?

If you’re not sure, run a system’s update right now. For those on PC, go to Start >> All Programs >> Windows Update. Or you could download the update from Microsoft.

On the Mac, it’s System Preference >> Software Update

While you’re doing this, don’t forget your other tools too. If you run Outlook or Office there are a bunch of updates. If you have Windows mobile, Palm or whatever PDA’s please check the manufacturer’s site. Not sure about phones though.

Technorati Tags: Mac, Microsoft, technology

One of my weaknesses when going shopping is not spending time in the clothing, shoe or beauty departments. Sometimes I’m stuck at the softwares. Something about new tools, are really interesting to me. I like to see what new ideas people come up with. The problem with that is, we can’t buy all the software out there or we’ll go broke.

So, when something like Giveaway Of The Day (GOTD). This site gives away a free software everyday. What’s so different. Free software is everywhere. Ah… but this is where the site is fast becoming my favorites. You see, they give away licensed software. Software you might otherwise have to buy.

You only have 24 hours to download and install the software if you want it. But it’s a great way to try out software we don’t have the budget for

While in Wal-Mart, I came across the d_skin, a cd scratch protector. Well actually not only for CD’s but discs in general. It’s like a plastic cover you slip over the bottom part of your discs. I thought it was an awesome idea and picked up a set of 10. I wanted to pick up more but my brother said, you don’t know how well it’s going to work so let’s try it out and so I did.

When a friend, Barb blogged about it recently recently, it reminded how much I didn’t like the d_skin. The reason I bought them was so my kids won’t mess up those oh so very expensive DVD’s we buy them. But the d_skin keeps falling off. Just a light touch and these things slip right off - kinda defeats the purpose. Other than that, at one time, I put in a DVD and it kept spinning, not recognizing the disc. Took the sleeve off and the disc worked.

They just didn’t work out for me. I resorted to making backup copies of the DVD’s.

I must admit to me this is the toughest part in our family’s life. While my parents are OK with computers, my in-laws are another thing. Let’s just say… not amount of convincing and educating will get them online. They just aren’t that type. We also successfully managed to get mother-in-law on WebTV for a while, but F-I-L doesn’t like her spending time online. Hmm… So, till today we rely on good old snail mail which is just great because my kids like to write letters and make cards. But that also means months
can fly by until I have time to kick back and send them some pictures. Not good and you know, it feels terrible when they ask you to send pictures. Anyway, I saw this little Presto baby and thought this is really what we need. It’s a printer that sits in Grandma’s house, hooked up to the telephone line. At certain pre-programmed times, the printer will connect to a secret email address (supposedly only certain people can email to) and print any emails out including photos. The printer costs $149.99 and the monthly
service is $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year. You can also email from any regular email from anywhere. Pretty neat. I so wish they had this when my grandmother-in-law was around. Psstt… the printer is $20 less in Amazon last I checked. email