HiTechMommy

A HiTechMommy's Mother's Day

Yay Yay Yay it's Mother's day!!  The time of the year I feel most valued and loved. Here are a few gift ideas for the HiTechMommy in your house!

 

With Sony Electronic’s new wireless digital photo frame, S-Frame, plays new and old memories without using a computer. The frame’s library of images can constantly be refreshed without the hassle of plugging into a computer and they have a new service called PlayMemories that makes sharing pics from your computer really easy. You can also asign your frame an email address and have frined send you hot shots.  It also has great features such as Pandora radio and can play video. You can find the Sony’s S- Frame in Sony stores/or online nationwide. 

Sony S-Frame, $159

The Nikon1 J1 is for Mom looking for a versatile camera that captures stunning pictures and video while striking the balance between performance and portability. It fits in between the classes of a compact camera and a D-SLR which is a great if you're looking to step up from a compact camera performance but don't want to carry a larger D-SLR. I love that face that the kit comes with a 10-30 MM lense and mom can feel like she's got a real piece of equipment she's working with. It also offers innovative in-camera features like Smart Photo Selector, Full 1080p HD video and quick continuous shooting speed plus autofocus which ensures accuracy and precise focus!

Nikon1 J1 - $649

 

Chances are, Mom probably has a lot of black or white at her desk, but her personal style is full of a color. These Logitech Global Grafiti Collection accessories feature modern colors and patterns, so you can choose a combination that helps mom express her personality. There's a great looking mouse and keyboard combo that takes mom's style up a notch. 

We also have a great gift to keep mom feeling like she's got the coolest phone on the block!The Droid Razr by Motorola is super thin and fits easily in a pocket or purse yet has a scratch –resistant display that’s crystal clear and big enough for reading everything. It comes in three stylish colors- your classic black, white and purple so you can match this smartphone with mom’s personality.  Because it's an Android based phone, if she’s into video chatting, taking pics, organizing the family or reading her messages it's got her covered.  

Is There A Right Way To Do Dishes?

My mom sent this to me.  I think she's trying to tell me something! Ha!

I love you mom!

 

XO

My 9-5

Not sure if I've posted about my 9-5 job so I thought I'd quickly let you in.  I'm now the Director of Talent for the celebrity only social media platform called WhoSay. I've been working here for a year and a half and although it was painful to become a full-time working single mom, I did it and I LOVE coming to work each day.  Yes, it's hard to miss out on certain mommy duties,  but lucky I have my mom/wife @PamelaDSchwartz to thank for helping me raise Jack. Although Jack misses me he loves my mom because  she's always there for him and is willing to do cool stuff like this and this with him. 

As far as my gig - Here's what my office looks like:

I work with about 150 high profile celebrities and I teach them about the power behind social media and how to use the WhoSay platform to retain the rights to the media they send out to their fans.  Having a background in presenting tech a-la TechTV certainly has helped me have the chops to do this job.  And although there's a lot of computing involved there's also a nice sprinkle of glamor to this gig.

The thing I'd say I'm most excited about working on at WhoSay is charity.  The network now has over 1000 clients and the amount of good that can come from that kind of reach is mind blowing.  @KevinBacon is our charitable ambassador and we'll be using his @SixDegreesofKB concept of helping multiple charities as somewhat of a guide to make sure any client that has a charity will feel the love. 

OK - back to work. 

Attention All Geek Dads - It's Your Time To Shine

Today’s geek = A cool geek dad who is the definition of cool.  He's a confident, tech-savvy, engaged father who shares his passion for tech with his kids, creating new family traditions in his own way.  Personally it's one the most attractive aspects to my man.  He's into making sure we have all the right tech, that it works properly and that we ENJOY using it!

I found this really interesting - The Confessions of a Geek Dad survey conducted by Cisco Linksys sought to shed light on the emerging generation of guys fed on technology as children, and is now passing on this passion to their kids. The survey conducted in December found that a lot of dads are straight up  Proud to be geeks!  Nearly 70% of geek dads consider themselves to be cooler than other dads, with 75% of them attributing it to creating a home their kids’ friends enjoy hanging out at.  I just LOVE this! Also,   70% of geek dads say their kids think they’re cool because they’re tech-savvy, and that makes 87% of geek dads proud or humored. 

The Survey also pointed out that being savvy still comes with some trade-offs.  They found that 35% of geek dads say their partners get annoyed when they spend time alone playing with technology, yet 92% say their partners expect them to be the ones to maintain the home tech.  One in five geek dads admit to using technology in secret to avoid being discovered by their wives.  This cracks me up because I know this happens in my house but I don't care.  

 The last stat I found interesting shows an interesting redefinition in what's considered "quality time" with the kids. The numbers show that  71% of geek dads spend more time doing activities with their kids than their fathers did with them. 72% are more excited about teaching kids how to use tech tools than traditional tools, like a hammer or power drill.

 The survey showed that slow Internet (25 percent) and Wi-Fi connectivity issues (19 percent) are the top frustrations geek dads face when it comes to home technologies. Cisco says its  new Linksys E4200V2 Maximum Performance Wireless-N Dual Band Router, might be the answer to that,  geek dad or not, users get maximum streaming speed for HD/3D quality video streaming, superior wireless coverage, and faster USB hard drive disk performance for streaming media.

Also Geek Dads, check this out.  Cisco is giving away $10,000 in cool geeky tools to a lucky winner on their Facebook page!  Go to their Facebook page and tell them "What kind of new family tradition you or the Geek Dad

in your life is creating that demonstrates geek cool and helps develop your kids love and fascination of technology."

 

My question is - What's it like in your home? 

 

CES 2012

CES

I've here at CES 2012 and am very impressed with, well, everything!  It's exciting to see tech getting smaller, cooler looking and able to do even more. I'm working with the following companies to keep you informed on which tech coming out of the show is mom approved. 

Samsung DV300F Digital Camera

Portability, ease of use and smart design come to mind with this digital camera. I've loved digital cameras since they first came on the market and have fallen for this new one - The Samsung DV300F DualView 16 Megapixel camera. There are 3 bad-ass features about this one that I really love 1- It solves that problem of not being able to bend my wrist in just the right position to get myself to look hot in an image. This camera actually has a second viewing area on the FRONT!  2- It's wi-fi capabilities allow me to instantly post pics to Facebook, email them out and post video on YouTube. 3- It has "Child" mode where the screen on the front plays funny animations that will get your kids to smile in your shots!

The Slimport by Analogix 

2012 is the year of bringing sharing back to the family TV screen and thanks to some very cool tech, The Slimport by Analogix , it's easier than ever to share the images and video you take or store on your devices with people via TV or monitor. Literally it connects your smart phone and tablets with uncompressed theater quality video to your television!  It’s so simple- you just plug and play and enjoy all the great content from your phone or tablet at home!

SanDisk Memory Vault

Parents have hundreds of great photos and memories - how do we ensure they’re still going to be around in 100 years? The moments we've captured are so valuable and irreplaceable that we need to take care of them, and doing it on the right device is crucial so they will last until your children are old enough to appreciate them. The new SanDisk Memory Vault is the way to go.  It's a tiny device which holds thousands of photos and truly is the photo album for the digital age.  It's designed with proprietary technology that is designed with long-term preservation and convenience and will keep your digital photos for 100 years. Definitely something every mom will want.

MOTOACTV

Many of us have made the “get healthier resolution” and the new MOTOACTV truly takes your workout routine to the next level. This thing is rad! It's a wearable GPS fitness tracker AND smart music player all packed into one gadget making this your ultimate fitness device. Along with tracking your exercise progress ( time, distance, speed)  it's actually smart enough to play the music that gets you working harder by detecting what tunes make you move faster!  How cool is that? 

Cisco LinksysE4200v2 Wi-Fi Router

One of the most crucial devices to families is a wi-fi router.  Think about it. This is the gadget that assures that no matter how many pieces of tech you have trying to connect to the Internet at once, no one is getting buffering issues or interruption while trying to access the web.  Take a sec and think about how many gadgets try to connect at once... phones, computers, TVs, gaming devices, tablets...all trying to get online.  To assure my home's wi-fi signal is always rocking I use the the Cisco Linksys E4200v2 Wireless Router.  It's one of the fastest on the market and was super easy to set up. And check this out, Linksys is holding a $10,000 tech makeover giveaway on their Facebook page at Facebook.com/CiscoLinksys and you can also win a E4200v2 router!