Can you drive a stick?

I remember a time when it was a big deal when you can drive a stick shift. Know what that is? Car with manual transmission? No? Well that's how my kids were reacting recently when the matter of driving a stick shift came up in the conversation. They only know cars with automatic transmissions. Sad, eh?

Then we started talking about computers and how my very first computer didn't even have an internal hard drive. It had two floppy drives! Then when I upgraded to a 486, I thought that was a big deal! Hmmm... that was 486MB, by the way. LOL! It's funny when you think that a lot of these mini flash drives that people carry around nowadays have more memory in their little pinkie like bodies than my dinosaur computer back in the day!

Times sure are a changing, aren't they?

Phones for Teens

My daughter is waiting for her new Tracfone to come. She had dropped her old one in Mountain Dew and it started buzzing. Literally!

Get it? :D hehe! OK, I have juvenile humor. I can't help it.

Anyway, I hadn't really planned on making any kind of purchases for them since Christmas is coming up and they always have some kind of gadget on their list but she really needs a cell phone and Tracfones really don't cost much so I went ahead and ordered her one.

This Motorola 376g is presently on sale for $29.99 and it comes with the following features:

• * Features text messaging, voice mail, free caller ID, free call waiting*
• * Color display with screen savers and wallpaper
• * Compact Flip Phone
• * Includes Bluetooth Wireless Technology
• * VGA Camera
• * MMS Picture Messaging
• * FM Radio
• * External Call and Message Icons
• * Hearing Aid Compatible (HAC) Rating: M3
• * Contacts in phonebook stored on SIM
• * Battery life with up to 7.5 hours of talk time and up to 10 days of standby time
• * Handsfree speaker
• * Vibration Alert
• * 23 polyphonic ringtones included
• * Phonebook with up to 500 entries
• * Alarm Clock
• * Games
• * Calculater and stop watch
• * TracFone Airtime Balance Display shows you how much airtime you've used and how much is left, so you control your costs
• * Double Minutes for the life of this phone upon activation
• * Includes up to 20 minutes of starter airtime upon activation**

Who's tracking the GPS's?

There has been an increase in thefts of GPS devices in vehicles lately according to our local news. People are breaking windows, grabbing the devices and running off. They don't even bother with other valuables in the car like stereos or cell phones anymore. They just want the devices that they can resell for quick money. One young man that they interviewed said that he's not too worried because his GPS device is password protected so no one else can use it.

Nowadays though, I wouldn't be so cocky if I were him. It seems like anything electronic can be hacked so a password protection probably won't be much of a deterrent. Besides, the incidental damage like the broken window would not just be irksome to me, it would also be costly to replace.

Too bad that you can't install one of those vehicle tracking devices on the GPS units so you can track them when they are stolen. Oh wait, maybe you can! Can you?

Protect those Christmas presents

After my husband and I finished wrapping up the girls presents this year, we looked at the pile and both said, 'they don't seem as much as previous years'. Even though we spent more this year, (isn't that the case every year?) the number of gifts were less. That's because they are growing older and they have outgrown the ten dollar toys to more sophisticated electronic gadgets. Aside from gift cards, this year they got cell phones, mp3 players, digital cameras, flash drives, watches and clocks, and other electronic gadgets.

Jade who got her mp3 player earlier in the year for her birthday, was already commenting on how the back was getting scratched and wishing she had an ipod case. We found a place where you can get just the right protector for whatever brand new electronic toy you may have. You can get a shield for your cell phone, MP3 players, digital cameras, laptops and whatever else you can think of.

The Invisible Shield protects your surfaces and screens without making it look like it is encased in armor. One reason that you bought that ultra slim phone, after all, is because it is ultra slim. So if you put a thick hard case around it for protection, it kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it? This plastic looking material is developed for the military to protect the leading edges of helicopter blades. It is thin, clear, virtually invisible and yet tough as nails. You preserve the look and feel of your phone or mp3 player and still protect it from the elements.

The best part is, if they don't have a pre-designed shield for your device, just let them know and they can custom design one for you. The prices are really reasonable compared to the cumbersome cases you could get. But then you'd be right back to the 'armor' problem again.

Meizu MP3 Player

This is my daughter Jade's newest toy. If you have teenagers, you know music is a big part of their life. Before MP3s, CDs were on their 'want lists'. Now, it's MP3 players and a download fund. LOL! She just gave her dad a huge stack of CDs last night. She says she doesn't need them anymore because she has downloaded them all to her MP3. Now her dad is looking at his huge collection of CDs cluttering up his desk shelf and started wondering whether he should get an MP3 player! :)

If you'd like to know what a fourteen year old music fiend thinks of this product, read her review of the the Meizu MP3 Player on Found not Lost.

What I want for Christmas...

I bought my first stand up mixer when I was single and first moved to my own place. I was just learning to cook then and that little mixer was the perfect tool for a kitchen. It was called the kitchen center. It did just about everything, and I still have it today. Almost eighteen years later my poor mixer is finally reaching it's end. It's like loosing an old family member. I almost hate to start looking for a replacement, but it's one of those inevitable things in life, you just gotta do it.

When I start looking at any Eclectrics® Mixer though, I start getting that first date flutter in the pit of my stomach. It could also be that everytime I start looking at kitchen gadgets I start thinking of food and start getting hungry. Who knows, but I do get excited over kitchen gadgets.

The Hamilton Beach® Mixer gets my hearbeat a skipping. This mixer has way more power than the one I have now and it comes in so many attractive colors. I am leaning towards the avocado colored one that they call apple colored. I like that retro color. I may even change the whole kitchens color motif to match this mixer.

I'm still not much of a baker, but I do like to bake every once in a while. One of our favorite cakes to make, and this is where Hamilton Beach® Stand Mixer can come in very handy, is my mother-in-law's Coconut Cake. The recipe is in our food blog. This is a holiday tradition in our house. My husband just has to have his mother's coconut cake.

To make the coconut cake, a stand up mixer is almost mandatory. Not only because the batter needs a good mixing in order to be fluffy and moist (it's three layers); its crowning glory is a meringue based frosting which requires whipping egg whites into stiff peaks, a daunting task for most cooks, but could be accomplished quite easy with a stand up mixer.

This mixer is definitely in my Christmas wishlist this year. Hopefully, Santa will think I am deserving of this gift :)

Cold Backyard Living

Fall is surely upon us. By the time I get home at the end of the day, the sun has set and the garden is dark. That doesn't stop me from sitting out to enjoy the twilight though. Thank goodness to outdoor lighting, we still spend a lot of time in the backyard. Now we are seriously considering getting one of those fire pits. The Clone for sure, is looking forward to roasting marshmallows.

SD card with Shutterfly

I just found this on the web this morning. If you own a digital camera and take lots of photos, you realize real quick how valuable a large memory can be. This deal on a micro sd card is a good buy especially if you use shutterfly to store and share your photos online. It comes pre-loaded with the PhotoLoader software which makes transferring photos from your sd card to your shutterfly account a breeze.

TV Wall Brackets

When TVs first came out, they given a place of honor in the living room. There weren't very many shows on, but whole families, whole neighborhoods in some cases, would gather every evening just to see the shows right in their own living rooms. Now, TVs can be found in every room of the house. Some houses have more tvs than they have bedrooms. Heck, some people even have tvs in the bathroom! We are a tv nation, afterall.

Now, tvs are not limited to entertainment units or countertops anymore. Now you can hang your tvs on the wall like a piece of art. Some people do, actually, use plasma screens to show off digital art. Plasma Wall Brackets allows you to hang your tv at a convenient height or position for better viewing.

Personally, I'm really thinking of hanging a small tv at a corner in the kitchen. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and it's nice to not have to miss some of the shows I like to watch, which usually come on during the time that I am making dinner.

Smokin' Signal

Our way of communication has come a long way since the days of puffing smoke to indicate an event. Now we have cell phones and, as irritating as it is sometimes, they are here to stay and they just get better everyday. There was a time when car phones were big cumbersome units that you plug into your car and only are able to use while in the car. Then there were those huge walkie talkie looking cell phones that weighed a ton, but if you didn't mind lifting weights, you can carry them around with you anywhere. Now we have sleek, slim, stylish and multi functional cell phones that can go anywhere easily, unobtrusively. The nagging problem though that has been since the beginning is connection. The "can you hear me now?" commercial is no joke. There are still services where poor connection and dropped calls are commonplace. So people resort to cell phone booster to improve their signals. It's a great idea, especially when you're prone to be in signal poor areas like the middle of the ocean or your own basement.

Smile, you're on a frame!

With everything being digital, it only makes sense that you should be able to display your digital photos in a digital photo frame. When you take a lot of photos, especially if you have kids like I do, the photographs and photo albums can start piling up on you fast. That's why I like digital cameras because now I don't have to print out multiple copies to send out to relatives and friends, now all I do is download the photos to my PC and email them to everyone. Now with these digital picture frames, I can also do away with photo albums. You can still set these digital frames on your desk or on the wall, but the only difference is, now instead of one photo for perpetuity, you can cycle a number of photographs so that not the same image stays displayed on the frame forever. And if like me, you are always short on space, then this is the ideal way to display all your photos and only use up a small amount of space.