semi-techie mom

Thunder and Fruit

Apr 032011

After three weeks of Droid-less existence, I happened upon an HTC Thunderbolt. By “happened upon” I mean I was waiting outside the Verizon store’s door the day it went on sale. It was kind of like this scene here except without any of the fanfare. Okay it was actually nothing like that at all.

So my review of the Thunderbolt is as follows – love it. It’s fast and sleek and has a big screen for my failing vision. It also weighs a ton and the battery life sucks, but that is the price to pay for such badassery. The ‘Bolt is Verizon’s first 4G LTE phone, and I hear that its download times are super fast in LTE areas, but alas, I am about 1.3 miles outside the perimeter, which is just my luck. Still, next time I head one town over I am going to be rocking the internet.

Anyway, on to the real story. Liam wants to give reviews of his favorite apps, which I will allow because he is cuter than me and I hate the sound of my voice on a recording because I sound like I could be a bit player on iCarly.

Requiem for a Droid

Gadgets, General, Phones No Responses »

Feb 252011

Droid, I only knew you for 15 short months but we shared some special times and you will be missed.

Remember the first time I rooted you? And how about the time you introduced me to the magic of flinging birds at spherical porcine adversaries? And how about when we went to Disney World and you told me exactly how long the wait was for each ride? Good times, my friend. Good times.

Well, it’s over now. Sorry for accidentally killing you. It came about suddenly, without warning, and now I am left with nothing but a Blackberry until your successor comes along.

Some remembrances from friends:

“You should get an iPhone.” (Upon learning Droid was dead)

“What the hell was that?” (following “Droooid!” ringtone in conference room meeting)

“You love your Droid more than you love me!” (said by child after not allowing him candy for dinner. Droid could have candy for dinner.)

Fare thee well, Motorola Droid A855. It was nice knowing you.

Unboxing Beyblades

General 2 Responses »

Feb 192011

My five-year-old has spent time watching Youtube videos featuring awkward teens with hairy legs talking about Beyblades. He, naturally, wants to make his own awkward videos, albeit with less hair and a much cuter voice. This is the latest in his series.

Nook Color’s Alter-ego

eBooks, Gadgets, General No Responses »

Jan 122011

By day he is a mild-mannered e-reader. By night he is a fully functioning Android tablet. Well, he can do that during the day as well, but you get my point.

How did this happen? Well, it was quite easy, actually. Nook Color fell into a glowing otherworldly substance which turned his meek e-reader technology into something much more powerful. Or, truth be told, I rooted it.

Now, this process is not for the faint of heart. If you don’t follow the directions to the letter your device will literally explode like that one episode of Lost where the freighter blew up and everyone thought Jin was dead only he was really floating on a log. Kind of like that. It will also send you traveling through the space-time continuum, but that’s less important.

In case you’re wondering why I should attempt such a risky endeavor – well, that answer is easy. To play Angry Birds. Isn’t that the reason people have gadgets these days, anyway?

Happy Boxing Day

eBooks, Gadgets No Responses »

Dec 262010

According to Wikipedia:

Boxing Day is a bank or public holiday that occurs on 26 December, or the first or second weekday after Christmas Day, depending on national laws. It is observed in Australia, Austria,Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and in some Commonwealth nations that have a mainly Christian population.

However, since I do not live in any of the aforementioned nations (although I do attend school in one), Boxing Day in my house means that my kids beat the snot out of each other due to Christmas present disputes.

Yesterday my household acquired the following technological marvels:

1. An Xbox 360 with Kinect. Fun. Lots of fun. But strangely enough, Xboxes do not play Blu-Rays, which is stinky. And Kinectimals, while adorable, was declared to be “too hard” by the 8-year-old because the poor Kinect was overtaxed trying to track his spastic movements.

2. A Nook Color. Also fun, but just for me. No one else cares.

3. Epic Mickey. Supposedly fun, but only for my husband. The children have long since lost interest and have gone back to fighting.

4. A Nintendo DSi XL. That’s a lot of letters. This is fun for the 5-year-old, but not so much for the 8-year-old who got a DSi last Christmas and thus wasn’t due for an upgrade.

5. A winning scratch ticket. That’s mine. 50 bucks, baby!

Also making an appearance is a blizzard, but Santa didn’t bring that. Nor did he bring any groceries in anticipation of it.

Anyway, happy Boxing Day to those of you who think it’s an actual holiday.

5 Christmas Carols that are horrifying, annoying or otherwise unsettling

General 3 Responses »

Dec 242010

I have been trying to get into the Christmas spirit this year by listening to Christmas music, but oftentimes I just find myself getting irritated. Some reasons why:

1. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

“He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so you better be good for goodness sake.”

Why more children are not terrified of Santa Claus is beyond me. This is a 1984-ish omnipresent entity who knows exactly what you’re doing at any time of day, and will punish you accordingly if you break ranks.

2. “Do You Hear What I Hear?”

“A child, a child, shivers in the cold. Let us bring him silver and gold.”

Do you really think the hypothermic newborn baby needs silver and gold? He needs a blanket, genius.

3. Baby It’s Cold Outside

“I oughtta say no, no, no sir. -You mind if I move in closer?”

Dude, no means no. Let her go already and stop singing about it before you cross some sort of line.

4. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

“I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus.”

Traumatic on two levels. First, because the kid’s mother is fooling around with someone not his dad, and second, because it makes Santa Claus look like a real a-hole. What kid could get over something like that?

5. Do They Know It’s Christmas?

“There won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas.”

No, there won’t, because it’s hot there. Is that really what’s important here?

Holiday wish list and other observations

Gadgets, General 2 Responses »

Dec 102010

Hi. It’s been a while. Since I got a job a couple of months ago, it leaves me precious little time to waste time.

But I couldn’t let the holiday season go by without discussing what I want. After all, that’s what Christmas is all about. So let’s get started.

1. iPad.

2. Nook Color.

3. Labradoodle

However, as I understand it, if you’re a grown-up Santa doesn’t just give cool things away, like Google does. And there are supposedly quarantine regulations that prohibit the importation of puppies from the North Pole.

So that leaves me with the less desirable:

1. Socks

2. Fruit Cake

3. Humidifier

See, the key is to keep your expectations low. If you go in expecting a new 52 inch 4D TV with augmented magical abilities and a sentient remote control, and then you get a single Lego in a large box, you will be undoubtedly disappointed. My motto is: always think fruitcake.

I’m back, and fun with Google Voice

Phones 1 Response »

Sep 122010

Gee, that was a long trip into the bowels of an active volcano and then into the jungles of Africa where I came face to face with a brain-eating beast. Oh wait, that wasn’t me; that was the season premiere of Destination Truth. I’ve just been busy.

Of all the marginally effective but terrifically fun inventions of the last few years, I would rank Google Voice right there at the top, even above Sham Wow! Google Voice is a service by Google (duh) wherein you can receive a totally valid phone number that can forward to any number of other phone numbers. The gist of it is that when you need to give out your phone number, you can just give the one instead of saying, “Well, on Wednesday mornings you can call my cell between the hours of 9:15 and 10:45, and then on Tuesdays call my work phone but not after 4:00, and you can also reach me at home sometimes except when General Hospital is on.” Google Voice provides the phone number which will then ring any one of those phones at the same time, or whatever else you tell it to do.

In addition, you can also make and receive calls directly from your computer, through your Gmail account. It’s handy if your cell phone is waaaay on the other side of the room, or if some spirited child hid your home phone in a couch cushion.

But that’s not what makes Google Voice fun. Nope, voicemail transcription is what makes it fun. Someone calls you and leaves a message, and Google automatically transcribes the voicemail into text so you don’t even have to listen to it. But here’s the thing – the transcripts are usually wrong, and the results are often hilarious.

For example, the superintendent of my kids’ school district is named Dr. Joel DiBartolomeo. It’s a mouthful, so you can’t really blame Google for transcribing the name as follows when the district has sent out automated messages:

Hello, this is Doctor golden parts woman Superintendent of the OJ Robert school district..
Good Morning. This is Joe will be part of my nose Superintendent of the on, J. Robert School District…
Good Morning, this is Jody, Bartolo, the superintendent of the OJ Robert School District…
This is John about on my own Superintendent of the OJ Roberts school district…
Good Evening, this is joe will be part of my nose Superintendent of the O N, J. Robert School District…
Good Evening, this is Jody park and I was just going to run into the oven, J. Robert school district…
Good Evening, this is John at the park and i was Superintendent of the OJ Robert school district…
Good Morning, this is Doctor, Catherine 3rd or the assistant superintendent of the OJ property school district…

As you can probably well imagine, there was quite a bit of amusement mined from the seemingly endless spat of blizzards last winter. It got to the point where I was looking forward to school being canceled just so I could hear Joe will be part of my nose’s messages.

Anyway, Google Voice also comes in handy if you have a smartphone. First of all, you can use the Google Voice app for free visual voicemail instead of paying your carrier $3 a month. Also, you can use it for free texting. I don’t even have a text plan, just use the texting feature whenever I need it, although if you do this you have to inform people to text your GV number and not your cell phone number.

Learn more about Google Voice here, and read some funny transcriptions here.

MacGyver in the wild

General 3 Responses »

Aug 182010

Dear Audience of 4 (Hi Dad!) -

My dad reports his computer to be slow. I am heading into the trenches with the following items:

One screwdriver.

One roll of packing tape. (We are all out of duct tape.)

One can of air. No huffing.

One Silly Band.

And this guy.

Wish me luck. I shall report my findings.

Mini-me

Computer Stuff, General 1 Response »

Aug 172010

So what do you do when you feel the overwhelming desire to be totally connected to the internet at every conceivable point in time? “Why, get a smartphone, of course. Duh.” may be the most accurate response. But there may be some occasions where a smartphone isn’t really up to the task. Just don’t tell my Droid I said that, because I’m beginning to suspect it is self-aware.

A netbook is the perfect in-between device between a smartphone and a regular laptop. Its main appeal is that it is tiny. You can even fit it into a purse if you have one of those extra-large, kids-no-longer-in-diapers-but-you-still-need-to-tote-a-lot-of-stuff-around, not-a-diaper-bag bags. Or a diaper bag.

Netbooks can run full operating systems like Windows XP or Windows 7 (most of them cannot run Vista, but who really cares anyway? Vista is Microsoft’s version of Cousin Oliver). Or even Ubuntu, if you want to walk on the wild side.

On a netbook you can do almost anything you would do on a standard sized PC. I say almost because if you are into World of Warcraft you’ll probably be out of luck. Any graphics-intensive game would be better suited elsewhere, but if you really dig Farmville on Facebook you should be okay. Netbooks typically don’t have optical CD or DVD drives either, which is why they can be so small.

I have a Dell Mini 10v myself, and it’s been handy for keeping in front of the TV for when my husband is bogarting the TV with his 1000th episode of How It’s Made, or when my kids are in their drama class at the Y and I am too lazy to exercise, or when Comcast internet fails yet again and I have to go to the Wegman’s to use their free WiFi to get my work done by the deadline, or when I leave the country.

A netbook is also a good deal if you want to get your kid a computer but you don’t want to spend a lot of money on it knowing that it would be one cup of milk and a screwdriver away from doom. Dell even makes a green slime version of the Mini if you would be so inclined.

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