Missing Picnik? A lot of us are. These free alternatives might help fill the gap.

PicMonkey

FotoFlexer

LoonaPix

Photovisi

This service bills themselves as a photo collage maker. I added them because I love collages and they are great for making images to post to Pinterest.

More Powerful Alternatives

These mimic PhotoShop and offer more powerful editing options. Definitely great choices if you don’t want to drop hundreds of dollars for PhotoShop.

Pixlr

They also offer a simpler alternative, Pixlr Express.

Sumo Paint

Splashup

Alright, I have somewhat of an issue here and thought who else to ask but my smart tech-loving mom readers.  We had domains registered for each of our children and created email addresses for them there.

These were originally created for them to give out to friends whom they know at school or activities – in person friends. It worked well for a few years but this summer, thanks to grandpa, my kids now have a computer all to themselves. Because they are also older they are beginning to use game sites that require an account be created e.g. Disney, Club Penguin etc.

Creating an account also means you have to enter an email address and they’ve been using mine. It’s not a huge problem but it is a pain when they keep asking me to reset their password. Also, they’ve been begging to have their own accounts.

I’ve been thinking of finally creating a Gmail account for them because it’s easy to use but I’m still hung up on the ads. I just don’t want them clicking on those ads – who knows where they go to?

How do you handle your children’s emails? I could use some ideas.

Have you seen WordBloom? It is a really neat tool when you’re doing bible study or want to look up words, related words and where they might also appear on the bible.

You can start with a verse and it will pull up the words in that verse and display related words. As you click on each word, you will find other related words and a list of verses that also contain the word. Pretty interesting. I can probably get lost in a tool like that.

I imagine it would be particularly helpful when you’re trying to think of a verse, for educators, and church leaders.

The tool is not free though. It costs $37 a year which is not too bad. If you want to check it out they also have a trial. You’ll want to go to their home page.

Let me know what you think.

Games healthy? Yup. I found Playnormous. It is a really fun site with about 6 games the kids can play. All free. But it’s not just the games. I like what is in the game. I just played Lunch Crunch where you score points for filling the children’s lunch trays with healthier food options. It was pretty fun.

There’s a bunch more games that related to choices of food, exercise and testing their knowledge on staying healthy. You can also purchase the games on CD. I also spotted some recipes the kids can make.

I’m going to put this in our approved games bookmark list for my children. Something good to occupy them during rainy summer days.

Links:

Playnourmous

Hey I just saw this posted on Twitter and thought I’d share. Very simple and kinda novel concept. Makes you want to smack your head and ask why didn’t I think of that.

If you have an errand you need run but can’t do it, you can go to Task Rabbit,  post your task with the amount you are willing to pay and runners will contact you to offer their help or counter offer. Once you all decide on the rate, you hire them to get the task done. You can also be a runner and earn some extra pocket money.

Too bad there are so limited markets at the moment, only San Francisco and Boston. But from what I understand this is a start-up so it might likely expand given time.

Obviously children (and us too) can get lost on the Internet for hours without us interacting with each other. But instead of viewing it as a bad habit. Why not sit down the the little ones to do something together online? We also made sure these are free so no expenses involved. Here are some ideas.

1. Find a recipe to make together
   It is always so much fun to cook with the kids. Look up a recipe together to find something totally new not in your cookbooks. It will also help kids learn to search for information, and expose them to good websites.
2. Challenge each other to a game
   So many games to play together. Shockwave.com itself has plenty – you definitely want to be with them generally they are pretty clean. My little ones love to play the dentist and spa game. You can take turns playing and see if you can beat each others score for a prize of ice cream.
3. Watch a movie together
   Did you know sites like Hulu have full feature length movies that are totally kid friendly? Some examples are Puss In Boots and The Emperor’s New Clothes. Sure some are pretty old but hey it is free.
4. Write a blog together
   Blogs are so easy to start and free too! You can always go to Blogger.com or WordPress.com to get started.
5. Find a craft to make
   So many crafts, so many ideas online. Part of the fun is choosing a craft together.
6. Read a free book together
   You know I love eBooks. There are tons of classics and not-so classic ebooks out there. In Gutenberg.org itself, I am always coming across books appropriate for tweens and teenagers. Plus, since many of the books were written so long ago, I’ve always found them to be pretty clean. No foul language or explicit suggestions. Mysteries are the best – of course, I am biased here.
7. Research things to do together like plan an outing or find local attractions and events
   This ought to be fun. Teach them how to do local search and read maps and make their own local ‘tour’.
8. Watch video clips together
   There’s of course YouTube which you have to watch like a hawk. If your child is older and perhaps you want some more stimulating material, check out TED.
9. Look at Flickr pictures together
   Pick a topic that might be educational e.g. Sequoia trees then research all about the trees online
10. Bid on an auction together
    While spending is not always a good thing, but spending wisely is. Show them how to spot deals, look for something they want and learn to buy it cheaper than regular retail.

Just watched this video. I haven’t checked it out yet. On the surface sounds good but doesn’t it need you to be logged in in order to work? Anyhow, thought I’d pass on this video.

I’ll still take it over nothing. Wonder if it works on AppleTV. Will find out soon. Meanwhile, watch the video to see how it works and how to turn it on.

I’ve recently become a co-leader of a Girl Scout Brownie troop. Another co-leader suggested Brownie bucks that the scouts can earn for various things throughout the meeting – like helping out or paying dues or being on time and paying attention. It has worked remarkably well!

At the home, since I planned on starting the kids out on an allowance, I went ahead and used real money instead, giving them a set amount and deducting if they missed a chore or mis-behaved. Thing is… I like the idea of rewarding positives more than punishing negatives. And, I had read somewhere that it’s best we don’t pay kids to do chores because in real life, we all don’t get paid to do chores – wouldn’t that be swell?

So when I saw this personalized money generator today, I knew I have to give it a try. I bet they’d get a kick out of that too. Generate money with mom or dad or their own pictures and ‘pay out’ to them for positive behavior and chores. You can later set up a ‘store’ of your own or maybe set up a ‘cash in’ policy. Maybe, you could even draw up a chart with pictures of the things/toys they really want and put your own price on them.

On the site, you can generate Singapore Dollars, US Dollars, UK Pounds, Canadian Dollars and a whole list of other ‘currencies’. These are NOT legal tender of course.

How often you have come across a great article in a magazine and wanted to save it? Too often! I know a many of you have your own system. From cutting and pasting into a journal or putting them in clear plastic holders in a binder. Hey, whatever works right?

Me, I’m too lazy to cut them out so for the longest time the magazines have just piled up. Yet I must do something – quickly, before A&E’s Hoarder’s come knocking on my door but how? I don’t want to cut them and I don’t want to physically store the cutouts because let’s face it that’s just shifting or downsizing the problem a little bit. I still need to find storage for the binders etc and oh so important, computers have really spoiled me I can’t search them! Don’t know about you, but this momma isn’t growing younger. She’s doing good if she can remember what day of the week it is some weeks.

Enter Evernote – not sure if I’ve written about it here before but oh how I love this tool. You can clip literally EVERYTHING on the web, take photos, record an audio note, even drag PDF’s and scan stuff into notebooks. You can also create lists. Use it to store snippets of information from store or restaurant hours to ideas for blog posts to receipts to research notes for that fab and upcoming book you’re writing.

So… here’s the thing. You can take a picture of anything like a magazine on your phone and upload it directly to Evernote. Evernote will try to recognize the text in the picture which means it can search images too. Works with the stuff you scan as well. How sweet is that?

With all that being said, I started to scan a bunch of magazines. But it was soon obvious the normal method of scanning and adding the images to Evernote was too time consuming. That’s not going to work. There’s got to be an easier way and happy to say I found it! Thanks to the other smart users of Evernote as well. From their blog, I found you there is an ‘automatic add’ feature in Evernote (desktop). To lay it all out, this is what I did to make sure every magazine item I scan will automatically get picked up into Evernote.

1. I was fortunate that my scanner, a Brother Multifunction machine allows me to set up custom scanning profiles. This means, I can set a special folder to save the images to every time a scan is performed using that profile.
2. Once I had that done, I went into Evernote >> Tools >> Account Properties >> File Import tab



3. From here, I click Add, select the browser I want Evernote to import files from then click OK. I can then check the Subfolder box to ensure any images saved inside the sub-folder of that folder also gets imported. Finally, select the default notebook to save the image to.
4. That’s it! Now every time a scanned image is added into the folder, it will also be loaded into Evernote. My only wish is I could assign tags in addition to notebook for finer control but for now I won’t complain because it has eliminated a very big problem for me. You can also do the same thing for receipts, invoices, bills etc.

Oh and if you’re the type who prefers to outsource this stuff. You might want to check out Pixily or Shoeboxed. They will scan stuff directly into Evernote for you. Not sure if they do magazines though.

The ultimate dinner tool would be one who would plan and cook dinners for me Sadly, that’s not possible yet so I’ll settle for anything that makes dinner planning easier and saves money. I’ve not been a fan of online menu or recipe boxes. For some reason, they just haven’t stuck with me. Maybe because I don’t have a computer in the kitchen or dining area and I do not like the idea of putting a laptop in the kitchen where spills and messes are apt to happen. Besides, our kitchen is kinda cramped. I need as much counter space as I need already. No space for one.

So, when I found out about Dinner Tool, I wasn’t all that thrilled and ignored it for a while. Later, after checking it out, I realized it’s more of a menu planner than a recipe box. Now that I can get used to but what’s even more intriguing to me is, it finds printable coupons and links to them right in the recipe. Which means I can plan next week’s menu and save at the same time.

I already do this on my own to a certain extent. Having an automated method instead of manual matching is definitely a bonus. Oh and in case you’re wondering, Dinner tool is a free service.