My favorites

I have a favorite blog, and no it's not this one, that I visit at least 4 times a week to check up on the woman who writes it. Not only is she amazingly smart and funny, but she has created a way to use her blog as a vehicle for work. Her job is her blog. Several times a week she opens up about her life, her children (she just had her second girl), her pets, etc.

Another neat element about this blog is that her husband and her are both tech geeks and every now and then you can obtain information on some of the newest gadgets they have purchased.

One downside to her blog is that it is most definitely for adults. I personally don't believe that teens or younger children should read it as there is profanity and adult discussions posted. I'm going to post the link to it here.

So if you want to explore other blog options, get some ideas for making a living off of blogging, or just want to be entertained, please visit her blog. She also is a contributor to a website called momversation where specific mothers who blog, share information on being mothers in video conversations. You can read all of the other mothers' blogs and watch various videos depending on what you would like to learn about their motherhood experience. That site is here.

Just thought of something

I was sitting at the computer, wrapping up some emails, when I remembered that I hadn't told y'all about something that I had meant to. It's been a challenge for me remembering that I even have this blog, much less remembering what I wanted to add to it, and I can't believe that I forgot this when I posted earlier! I've been trying to keep up with the whole blog, but having never done it before, it's not as easy as I had thought it would be.

But we had a networking issue with one of our other computers, I had mentioned in a previous post about the wireless router issues with my Mac. Our desktop was not picking up our wireless signal either (I know, we have the darndest luck with that) and we couldn't plug it directly into a phone jack in the room that we wanted the computer set up in because, well, there was no phone jack. So my husband went online and did a whole lot of researching and figured out a great way to solve the problem.

He purchased a new cool tool for us called a Powerline Network Adapter and it has been splendid. We have one made by Cisco: http://www.linksysbycisco.com/US/en/products/PLTE200

It solved our problem beautifully and we were able to put the desktop in any room that had an electrical outlet, even though it lacked a phone jack. So if you have a similar problem, take a look at this handy little device.

Spread of information

My family recently received bad news regarding the health of my mother-in-law. Despite my concerns about her physical well-being, I found myself distracted by how word was spread of the news. Beyond our immediate family, many people received the news or expressed their support/concern through email, Facebook, blogs, etc. Some people may even have used twitter.

It still amazes me that news is shared in this way now. Sure people still call and sometimes write letters, but it's not done as often. When I invite friends out, I've learned now that one of the easiest things to do is create an event on Facebook and send out the invites. My sister-in-law invited us to my new nephew's dedication at their church via evite, an online invitation site for parties/events.

I still remember how revolutionary it was to use email and message boards to spread the word. Now protestors in Iran are communicating via twitter and YouTube because their government has imposed silence.

I know this is a topic I've addressed previously, but with so much happening recently, personal and throughout the world, it's just so amazing to me that our communication has become both more enhanced and at the same time, less personal.

Podcast

I created my first ever Podcast over the weekend and then tonight I struggled to export it as an MP3. The creation of the podcast uncovered yet another incompatible element between my Mac and the rest of the world. For some reason, the application I needed to download so that my other application (Audacity) would be able to change my file to an MP3 would not work properly. I was finally able to burn the file on to a disc and use my husband's computer so that I could complete my podcast. Technology once again shows that while it has almost limitless possibilities, some of the actual workings themselves are quite limited.

I was pretty pleased with my first podcast however. I chose a topic that was dear to my heart - marriage and football - and a background song that could apply to either topic discussed during the podcast. I was going to try and insert the podcast into this blog, but my options appear to be photos or video with nothing for audio (again technology seems to be limiting me today, must be one of those days...).

I would absolutely recommend that others make their own podcasts. It was such a fun and rewarding experience. Even if the technology briefly fails you, if you try a few other options, you'll get there and you'll like where you end up better.

New Phone and the Internet

In October, I get a new phone through the "new every two" system with Verizon Wireless. I currently have one of the most basic phones that was available two years ago and I hate it. It's too basic, but it was free at the time and I thought I could make do without some of the snazzier elements. I was wrong.

I can't even take videos with my phone!!!!

So I've been checking out other people's phones whenever we go out, checking out my options. And there are a lot of options. Most of the cooler new phones seem to focus on mobile Internet access and applications, like the iPhone. But I don't want Internet access on my phone. I'm not paying extra for it when I have a laptop and computers at work and home and at any local library. I don't see the point and I love the Internet. I'm addicted to it. But I don't want to carry it around in my pocket.

Several of my friends think I'm absolutely nuts for refusing to jump on this bandwagon, yet the same people hardly ever use it themselves. It's just that they expect it and I want to know when that happened? Was it when Blackberrys really took off? Or the ads for all of the smart phones in general? When did it become socially unacceptable to not want to use a web browser on a screen smaller than my palm?

At any rate, I will not be getting a smart phone and certainly will not be paying extra to browse. But here are some phones I might be getting:

Motorola Rapture VU30

LG enV 2

LG Chocolate 3

You Tube Videos

I've never been a huge fan of YouTube although I'm not really sure why. Part of it is that I'm sometimes simply too lazy to dredge through all of the information that is contained there. It seems like each time I want to find something on YouTube, it takes forever (realistically maybe 5 minutes, but it's the Internet and the time expectation is different) to find something even remotely similar. Maybe I'm looking for less popular content, but I never find what I want in the first few results. However, I'm well aware of the popularity of both viewing and creating YouTube videos. It seems that more and more people are using this type of digital media to share experiences and content that they enjoy.

I recently became a fan of the show "N.C.I.S." and as I was watching reruns the other day, there was a time in the case where they discovered important information from a YouTube video. It made me think of applications for YouTube that I had never thought of before. When I think of YouTube, I think of silly stunts, funny videos, music videos, etc. I often forget that there are YouTube videos used for educational purposes, for connecting with others far away, or that some videos might even be used to catch criminals.

None of my favorite YouTube videos are all that educational and valuable, but they are amusing:

Wireless Router Woes

My husband and I recently purchased our first home. Which meant that once we moved in, we had to figure out what our setup would be in terms of computers. We have two laptops and a desktop. Now the laptops aren't a problem because they can go anywhere once we have the wireless router in place. But we have run into a small problem with our wireless router that I understand happens to a lot of people. I have a Mac and it is not compatible 100% of the time with our current router. So there are days when I come home and all I want to do is go on Facebook and laugh at pictures and set the language to Pirate English and have fun. Just to ruin my fun though, sometimes my Mac refuses to recognize that we have Internet and that it comes through the air through the wireless router.

So we've been playing with the idea of getting Mac's wireless router so that I have uninterrupted Internet bliss whenever I want. The only problem is that the wireless router made by Mac, like all things Mac-related, is expensive. More so than the router we already own that works fine on the other two computers. So how do I justify making a purchase for something we already own that just sometimes needs to be restarted so I can enjoy the Internet? Would you consider this worth purchasing?

It would be easier to decide if Mac gave repeat buyers some sort of discount (unless there's one I don't know about) since so many people who own one Mac product own like 239235928523985 others of them too. Yes I am guilty of the Mac craze as well and have been included in that outrageously inflated number. So we will see. We haven't decided yet what to do since the problem is random and some days are better than others. But just imagine how frustrating it is to only want to get on the Internet on YOUR computer (the other two in the house are technically my husband's) and be brutally blocked by the simple fact that your computer hates that the wireless router was not produced in the Promised Land of Apple.