Monthly Archives: January 2010

Rather than talking about shareware, new sites or apps, I’d like to tell you about the technology in my home. Everything we own, we own because we love it. Not a little, but a lot. When I’ve made purchasing mistakes, I’ve returned the item. So here’s the hardware that lives in my home.

Cameras

Kodak Zi6: Pretty in pink this has full HD capability and it’s what we all use for Momversation. We do not use it at 1080 because not all internet connections support that much content

Kodak Z18: Just about the same, but smaller and a little more ergonomic, it has a microphone jack, and you can get much better sound. It’s really cool. All speakers at the 140 Conference were given these.

Leica DLux: This is my personal camera. I am the snapshot queen. It takes great pictures, and the shutter speeds are great for sports too.

Canon 7d: this takes my breath away. My husband takes amazing pictures with it. I have been allowed to handle it once, but that’s about it. The lens he uses is this.

Kodak Easy Share: This is my daughter’s camera, it’s perfect for kids.

Printers

HP Office Jet G85: It’s a dinosaur, but it’s not broken and I see no good reason to replace it. I’m pretty sure my mom bought it for me about 7 years ago.

HP Deskjet F4280: My brother bought this for Jane’s 10th birthday, she loves it. I love that she has her own, my brother gets brownie points.

MP3 Players

There are four nanos and two iTouches in the house. They’re all just fine, but totally overpriced.

Cellular Phones

iPhone 3G: This is mine, it used to work, now it sucks.

iPhone 3GS: This belongs to my husband, I want to make it mine, only it’s not working well for me.

LG Neon: This is my daughter Jane’s phone. She got it for her 11th birthday, she loves everything about it. My 24 year old relative has the same one, so it’s not just for kids. The slide out QWERTY keyboard is very cool.

Computers

HP TouchSmart IQ846 Desktop: Now that I’ve had this a while, I should re-review it. I’ve added netflix and I’ve called for tech support on a few occasions. It is,without question, the best computer I’ve ever owned. When my husband edits photos on here, I want to pinch myself. – disclosure this was given to me to review from HP

HP Pavillion dv3 notebook: This was also given to me by HP for review. It is stunning and lightweight, the sound and picture quality is amazing, and there’s no reason that this couldn’t be the only computer in the house. It’s a workhorse that’s pretty.

iMac: Oh yeah, sometimes I do make mistakes. I still don’t know why I bought that, no one ever uses it.

Macbook Pro: Each of the kids has one of these in the 13 inch version. Combined with the Leopard operating system, this is the computer that you want for your younger child (I include my 11 year old as younger) the parental controls are spectacular with Leopard, and frankly, the computer came with it.

Macbook Pro 17 inch: My husband uses this as his traveling work computer. He likes it. It’s nice to watch movies on when you travel.

Television

Direct TV HD+: Can you just trust me on this one? Get it.You can put football on the computer.

Roku HD: This was given to everyone at a recent television taping. I really like it a lot. If you are into movies and on a budget, you could forego cable in favor of the Roku and the $8.99 a month netflix subscription. I wouldn’t, because I really like a lot of cable shows, but someone could.

Miep Gies was an employee of Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s father, and helped the family hide from the Nazi troops. I don’t really have the words for it, but my friend Amy does. Go on over there and check it out.

In the interim, I know a lot of my readers are my age. Encourage your parents, Grandparents and extended family to give you their testimonies. The Shoah project is really important. I know we have video of my Grandfather. My Uncle Herbie submitted a few of us Wilzigs to the database at Yad Vashem. The Germans kept meticulous records though. This is one of the many pages of my family. I have stories about many of them, many stories were never told.

Every Wilzig was my relative. It was a small family, and it’s smaller now. There are 15 pages of just us and synonymous spellings.

If you go to the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC there is a picture of the ship Rosa Wilzig took to the US. Unfortunately it was turned away as the US was not accepting immigrants. You see here how that story ends.

I’m the luckiest woman in the world, simply because I was born on US soil.

If you’re like me, and there’s still a family to talk to, ask the hard questions now, because the heroes like Miep Gies won’t be here forever.

I have been an AT&T Uverse subscriber for about two months now. As Uverse becomes available in your neighborhood, you may be looking to add it in your home.

Let me tell you about my experience with AT&T Uverse.

I was very unhappy with Time Warner Cable, as it was unreliable at best. I spoke with the folks at the AT&T home office in Texas and I was assured that I would have a pleasant installation. I explained to them that I needed their installer to be respectful of my home and of my time.

Apparently we had a miscommunication.

I had an appointment with them for a Wednesday between 1 and 3. On Wednesday night at 7.30 I got a phone call from an installers cell phone saying he was really sorry that they hadn’t shown up, could they come at my convenience any day? He was nice and apologetic, and I asked them to send someone between 8 and 9 the next morning. He was incredibly enthusiastic and said, “we will be there at 8 sharp!”

At 11 o’clock the next day an installer showed up. He was a know it all. I asked for the the modem to be installed in my family room so that my wireless would work in the entire house and back yard. He installed it in my office, in the front of my house. That means that there is no wireless Internet in children’s rooms or in the back yard. He also used my bathroom twice. In fact the second time he used it he said to me, “I’m just going to drop a load and then I’ll be on my way.”

This is all happening while I’m alone in my house with him.

So, I deal with the improperly placed modem, the holes unnecessarily drilled in my walls and cleaning a toilet after the AT&T repairman. I call the offices, and they send someone out to reinstall. It’s done properly, he’s clearly senior and declines even a glass of water. It is perfect.

It is perfect for about 5 weeks. Now it is slow. I’m paying for an 18 megabit download speed and I’m getting an average of 8 to 11. It’s not okay. I spent 2 hours on the phone with their technical support a few days ago and once he got me up to 13 he was ready to hang up the phone. Again, not acceptable. If I wanted a 13 megabit download speed that’s exactly what I’d be paying for, right?

Then there was a whole song and dance about how the wireless wouldn’t deliver exactly 18 megabits all the time. I realize that, when it was installed, and for a full month thereafter I was getting about 17.5 to 18 Mbps in exactly the same location.

Today our internet is still very slow, but the bill arrives right on time. I’m getting about 11 mbps for download speed

and the queue for technical support is 51 people long

Of course there is always e-repair, right?

Although I can offer no alternative (I’m seeking one myself) I would not recommend AT&T Uverse. I had a few good weeks, but mostly it’s been a dismal experience.

This week Forbes created a list of 14 Power Women To Follow On Twitter. I am grateful, honored, privileged, and delighted to be on the list, but as with the other lists, it brings out people who are anonymous and aggressive.

I love this list, it’s kind and it’s diverse (meaning not just moms) and my confession to you? Well, I’m not even going to pretend to be humble. Not today. Today I’m just happy that I have even one reader and I’m going to pinch myself and twirl around the room while I celebrate.

Oh, and also, I’ll be dusting the room.

I had a three hour tennis match today. I won’t tell you about the first set, but the second set was 4-4 and then I choked. Bad.

There is no blogging, only weeping.

We have pets. We have Junior

Junior is a poodle. He is filthy and currently being groomed. Junior sleeps with the children and helps to wake them up each morning. Junior is a working dog.

Junior also catches birds. He is a five year old dog and he must have brought me a hundred birds, probably 20 a year is accurate.

Junior does not catch rodents. This is partly a good thing because we have a hamster in a cage, we also have a free range hamster. Currently we have a frog too, but I’m not feeding it so, hopefully it will die soon as did it’s friend.

Right now I’ve had it. There are three empty rat traps in my house, one of them was $50, the peanut butter has been nibbled off, but there are no dead rodents. At this point I wouldn’t even care if there was a dead hamster, I just want something to die and Junior is useless.

I was ThisClose to getting a cat and then I saw this. (more…)