Uncomfortable, but Do-able is My New Mantra

Passwords for kids — this has been one area where I’ve had to compromise & it’s been uncomfortable, but do-able. It’s part of my job to teach cyber security to people, yet schools insist —and subsist— on using terrible passwords, but I get it. I don’t like it and I don’t agree with it, but I get it and I accept it even though I’ve worked very hard to teach my family the value of digital security and password hygiene.

When they have to use a site or platform that doesn’t allow for password changes, I remind them that it’s not how we do things, but for the type of educational service and limitations, we can compromise.

My kids have been using a password manager app since they were very little. But when it comes to using school laptops where personal apps can’t be installed, and for when they were too young to have their own smartphone to use as a look-up tool, we devised a plan. 

Normally, I advise against re-using passwords, but as in this case of compromise, I allow it to a degree. For each child, we come up with a password that is something unique, hard to guess, but easy for them to remember and develop muscle memory for typing. Once we’ve picked & practiced the base password, for each new site or platform they register, we use an abbreviation or short name for the service or product and tack it into the end.

Example:

MyGr8password becomes: MyGr8passwordGoog

MyGr8passwordScoolgy

MyGr8passwordIC

MyGr8passwordOffice

MyGr8passwordCanv

I still have them keep these logged into their password managers then, when necessary, we can print out a screenshot instead of hand-writing them each time to save on guessing whether someone wrote a 1, l, i, 0 or O. A spreadsheet or word processed document could work too, if that’s an accessible tool for parents. Be sure to choose a font that makes letters and numbers distinguishable from each other. Courier font is a good choice.

Here are some really terrific tips I love to share from Devorah Heitner, author of Screenwise. If you haven’t read her book already, I highly recommend it!

 

I Have The Power!

While at Macworld/iWorld this year, I visited the Powerocks booth and they gave me some of their awesome products to review for you here on my site. I'm very excited to tell you more about them!

So hey, do you remember SheRa? She had the power and now I do too because thanks to Powerocks, I no longer worry about being without power for any of my gadgets. It's like an anxiety chill-pill! Let's just say, whenever I reach into my bag, I now feel like this:

Image Credit: The amazingly talented Zephyri http://zephyri.deviantart.com

I've been using these Powerocks over the past week or so now, showing them off to clients and bragging to friends and family about them. They are slick-looking, practical and PURPLE! Of course, you can get them in several other colors, they have something for everyone. Mother's day is coming up so it might be fun to get a pink one for your mom or grandma! The colors are nice and bright so they're easy to spot when you're digging for one inside your bag. They come in a wide range of sizes and capacities.

Flash Magic Stick
The Flash Magic Stick is a 3000 mAh capacity charger. It's about the size of a lipstick tube and it has a built-in flashlight. I love, love, love that it gives me feedback on how much charge it has with its blue indicator lights on the side. The Powerocks designers are so smart because they made it so that you must press the button twice in order to turn on the light and twice again repeatedly to cycle through the different features: solid, blinking and strobe lights. It drives me nuts when products are designed with loose buttons that easily power on and waste energy for who knows how long inside your bag that by the time you need to use it, it's drained! Not so with the Flash Magic Stick. It's a bright design in more ways than one!

This little charger came in über-handy while I was at Cirque du Mac this year because my friend Barry was running out of juice on his iPhone. I had this handy Magic Stick in my pocket which charged my iPhone so I lent it to him for his ride home because Friends Don't Let Friends Power Down! The Flash Magic Stick came in so handy and I'm very pleased with this product. I think they will make fantastic gifts!

Next up is the big boy — The Magic Cub 2 — at 12000 mAh this mighty little brick packs a ridiculous amount of power!! I won't lie, it has a little bit of weight to it, but it's not overwhelmingly heavy. I love, love, love, how they think of everything. When you pop off the cover to reveal the ports, does it get lost? Nope! There's a string that keeps it attached! Brilliant! There are multiple charging cables built right in with a USB port to plug in your Apple devices requiring a bring-your-own Lightning cable. They tell me future designs will incorporate a Lightning cable built in, so check back for that, but in the meantime, this isn't really a big deal, because I always keep an extra USB to Lightning cable in my bag along with this bad-boy. This Powerock will be awesome for camping trips or long flights. I'll definitely be taking it with us when we travel out east to visit family because it's great for charging multiple devices — power for the whole family!

Here is a video showing my friend Michael Portis and I reviewing our Powerocks among other products in action during our Macworld/iWorld 2014 Wrap-Up.

Check out Powerocks and Go ahead, Get lost!

Macworld iWorld 2014 Wrap-Up

Join Michael Portis and I in our Macworld/iWorld 2014 Wrap-Up discussing what and who caught our eye at the Expo this year.


Products Reviewed
Square Jellyfish
PoweRocks
Pocket Tripod
Contact Patch
Studio Neat

and a BIG personal thank you to:
Michael Rose
Jack Hollingsworth

If you would like to join our community, please visit http://smartphone-photographers.com/ 

Siri Still Has A Sense of Humor

Either Siri still has a sense of humor or she's just been trained by many a parent who use her to play the "Bad Cop" in setting a timer for Time Out. By the looks of it, she's capable of assisting even Jeffrey's Mother.

Who remembers this (one of my all-time favorites) comedy skit by Bill Cosby?

MacJournal for iOS

I'm finally getting around to trying to blog from my iPhone using the MacJournal app. I'm disappointed right away by the fact that I don't yet see a way to add an image or place a text link. This is a severely underdeveloped app! I see I can "attach" an image. What is this? An email? Even emailing a blog post is better than using this app at the moment. Lets see how posting goes.

• Ok. That was awful. First off, I attached two images and neither showed up in this post on my blog. So, I headed back here to the MacJournal app on my iPhone to see if I can amend the post. At least that part works. Coming back to the post and making changes (as I'm doing right now) seems to work out alright without the need to re-authenticate.

Before I could submit the first post, I had to authenticate through my 2-step verification several times despite already authorizing the app to post to my blog. This is a major pain and I've seen other apps that get it right so why can't MacJournal? Come on!
Tapping out text in the app is a horrible user experience. The scrolling in portrait mode is unreliable. Tapping text in landscape mode is ok, but the tools are much too close to the keyboard which makes for east formatting mistakes while tapping fast.
Formatting text is not intuitive
So lets say you want to make a word bold. In this app, you tap the 'A' button and then toggle switches for bold, italic or underline. This is redundant since it's much easier to just highlight the word and use the built-in iOS formatting.
When coming back to edit the post, all the single spaces between periods have been removed and all the hard return in between paragraphs have also been removed making it extra work to go back though and put them all back.
Changing the font size does effect the published version, but only the size changes, not the typeface so no WYSIWYG editing there.
When choosing a typeface, they show up in a boring scrollable list but just in Helvetica, not their native typeface.

Sometimes while typing really fast, the text output doesn't seem to be able to keep up and it freezes while tapping out text.

When sending the edited post back out to the blog as published, there's no real indicator that the task has completed. You just have to go to your blog, load it into Safari and refresh to view changes.
I'm not impressed by this app at all which is a shame because I own all versions of the app including for iPad and Mac and feel it was a wasted purchase even if it was on sale. I had high hopes when I used the Mac version but the iOS app versions really fall short. I'll probably delete MacJournal for iOS off my devices to make room for something better.

Day One App As A Mobile Blogging Tool

How does Day One (Journal / Diary) app stack up as an integrated and mobile blogging tool?

I began this post by tapping out text directly in the Day One app with the hopes that it might serve as good on-the-go blogging tool. I'm always looking for ways to blog more efficiently from a mobile platform, hence I would actually blog more! I came to the conclusion that this app doesn't meet all of my needs yet, but I do believe it has huge potential for becoming a great mobile blogging tool if only to get a draft started so I can go back later and flesh it out more like I'm doing right now. What began as a quick, down and dirty app review is now developing into a more complete post that might benefit my readers a bit more than when it started out.

While the Day One app is a little slow to launch on my iPhone 4S, I love how easily I can type text in portrait and landscape modes. Those are two usability features I look at first when reviewing a mobile app. The ability to tap text in landscape mode can make or break an app for me.

Formatting

I appreciate the need for text formatting. I like that Day One has Markdown baked right into the text editor. It even has a built-in word counter. I am in the process of trying to learn more about Markdown so I believe this app will help me out with that quest.

Images

One place where this app falls short for me is in the ability to place images. I know it's not meant to be used the way I'm wanting to use it for mobile blogging so I don't expect a whole lot when it comes to image placement within the text, but what I do expect is multiple image capability. Currently, you can only attach one image per entry. The Camera+ integration is nice, but in my opinion, you're likely to be a bit of a shutterbug if you know what Camera+ is and vice versa. I've used other apps like Momento that allow for multiple photo insertion so I'm not quite sure why the limitation on this app.

Security

A feature I'm willing to be patient for is encryption. I want it done right. If you're going to spill your guts and journal your most private thoughts into an app, then you should feel secure while doing that. I think this is an area the developers will address soon especially with all the attention lately on NSA, data mining and secure mobile usage. If you're an app developer and your app deals with the storage of private information, security should be a laser focus for you. Currently, Day One gives you the ability to lock down your information using a 4 digit PIN. The ability to lock stuff up anymore is not just a requirement or feature but a necessity — even if it's only to keep Mommy's blog entries from being replaced with "areiu45%^##ergh;ad%&_OKDHWiwkw7&*&&&^a dfg[8a[reuw8245;oi24h5" by my 3.5 year old.

App Store Links

When I review apps it helps to give the reader a direct link to where they can purchase (free or otherwise) the app in my review. I'm still on the hunt for a better way to do this! So far, it's cumbersome at best but I have hope it will improve over time. Adding code while tapping this out on my iPhone in Day One didn't work out so well, so I had to edit it directly on my blog. That may be a user issue since I can see that there is an ability to enter code using the Markdown feature but maybe I just didn't do it correctly.
Day One is a universal app for iOS so get it here for your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad!


Day One syncs between all devices including the Mac version.

Export

One of my rules of thumb for data entry is: If you can get the data in, you must also be able to get the data out. PDF creation is another useful feature available in this app. I'm not sure how often it will come in handy for my own use case since I keep most everything digital, but I imagine it could become invaluable later if I ever decide to create some type of printed book or just want to store archives in PDF format. I don't yet know how much hard drive space this app will consume over time, so PDF export is something I'll need to investigate and report back on once I've amassed enough data to experience it first-hand. It will need to have selective export using tags and I haven't yet read the complete user guide available on the developer's support page.

The Verdict

Many times I feel like The Queen of Hearts when I'm reviewing an app. Something as simple as whether an app does not have landscape text mode can mean it's "Off with their heads!" and the app is deleted. When reviewing the use case scenario of a mobile blogging tool, Day One is good for getting a blog post started if only to go back and tweak the post later. This is all contingent on the ability of your blog platform to accept posts via email and whether or not that configuration automatically publishes the post or just queues it up for draft. Day One is a benchmark for journaling and diary apps with its ability to synchronize and port to other platforms.

I'm willing to allow Day One to keep residence on my iPhone's small hard drive while waiting for its developers to beef up security and features like adding multiple photos because it syncs up with other devices like iPad and MacBook Pro. You can pick right up where you left off no matter which device you're using and that is paramount to blogging while mobile. It's a well-designed app with a sleek interface. It feels good in the hand. Tapping out text in this app is very smooth and responsive. Day One will be sticking around for a while in my court.

I'd like to know what your favorite mobile blogging app is. Let me know in the comments!

Other Apps Mentioned In This Review

Momento is a rival for Day One, in my opinion — review to come


Camera+ is great for getting decent shots of busy toddlers

Words With Woz

I'm playing Words With Friends...With Woz.
Try saying that ten times fast!
Try playing this game – or any other game – against a genius and see how you feel!
#nervous

Hand-Made iPhone Tip:

Whenever you fear the memory zombies will make you forget your next potential move, Skitch it.
(of course, this also applies to iPad, but I prefer playing Words With Friends on my iPhone)

1. Take a screen shot of your current screen by holding down the home button then immediately press once on the 'lock' button at the top of your iPhone. You must press the lock button immediately while holding the home button because if you hesitate too long, SIRI will beep.

2. Launch Skitch and tap the plus + sign in the upper right corner.

3. Navigate to your Camera Roll in the photos (yes, you want Skitch to have access to your photos) and select the screen shot you just snapped

4. Use Skitch to annotate your screen shot to remind you of your next move

You can use Skitch for so many occasions. I use it all the time for tech support. It's so easy to say, here, see this? Tap here and then draw and arrow or circle something. Most times when people are lost, so are their eyeballs, so it's helpful to show them exactly where to look. It's one of my very favorite apps and I've been using it for years now since it was a baby website!

Get Skitch for iPad

Get Skitch for iPhone

Get Words With Friends for iPhone

Get Words With Friends for iPad

My Toddler Loves Photo Booth on iPad

And here I was wondering why the iPad was running out of space! Attack of TheKeaganator!

You're Shipping Me

I Just Shipped My Mom

My kids know how to crack me up and I especially lose it when sleep-deprived.

We get such a giggle from this KMart commercial. They don't understand the double entendre so that makes it just that much more hilarious to me.

Happy [early] Mothers' Day

Enjoy a giggle, it's on us.

Make A List and Tap It Twice

  ...gonna find out who's naughty or nice...

Need a last minute gift for a friend or relative who is also a parent to small children?

Here's an idea just in time for the holiday to help show children the importance of being good for goodness sake (and also for a cookie or extended game time with their new toys after Christmas Day!)

You can gift an app from the iOS App Store!

(I've been known to 'speak for the treeeees!')

Go to this link in the App Store or type "ireward chart" into the search box.

,

Then, after you've logged some good deeds, you can have your child email their iReportCard to Santa directly from within the Share feature of the app. Even Grandma on Facebook can see when they have earned a reward.

My kids love the sounds the stars make. Keagan calls them "good stars" (since he doesn't yet say 'gold' quite right)

When they hear a "red star" sound, it really gets their attention!

Ah Pavlov would be so proud!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/irewardchart-reward-tracker/id580042542?mt=8

First Tooth

Sent from my iPad

Created using Pic Collage. http://pic-collage.com

No Voice? Use Big Words!

I recently had laryngitis for two weeks. Not only was it painful, but an even bigger challenge during our summer vacation while traveling with my two young sons to visit family and friends with even more children!

This app became invaluable for me during that time. I was able to communicate with people using this on my iPhone and iPad. I had to carefully choose my words when trying to talk to my six year old who is just learning to read, but this was a great exercise.

Big Words is a must-have tool on all your devices!

Big Words DollarApp Category: Social Networking Updated: Oct 4, 2011 16 Ratings

What did you do 1 year ago today?

Timehop: What did you do 1 year ago today?

Ever thought about time travel? Moms think about this stuff ALL THE TIME. What did I do one year ago? I can't even remember what I did one hour ago. We also think about cloning ourselves so we can get more done and get more sleep too.

Well, since cloning humans hasn't quite caught on yet, how about we just focus on time travel for a moment? Check out this service. It's a fun way to take a peek back into your recent history and reflect. Timehop makes it as easy as checking your email. If you know how to create an email rule or filter, you can just make yourself a folder called Journal, for example, and have your email service automatically deliver messages from Timehop to that folder. Then, when ever you're feeling like you need to reflect on the previous year, just click on that folder and see an archive of your previous posts. If you micro-journal your life in 140 like I do, this can be a useful way to look back and remind yourself of projects you may  have left slide. Tweets are archived with links which can come in real handy when you want to revisit a project.

They just added support for archiving your texts from your mobile phone and I'm looking forward to trying that out. Many times I get questions about how to save texts and I think this service may just fit that bill.

Just think of all those kinky little love messages you've sent to your special someone over the course of a year. When you look back on those messages, do you think you'll say to yourself, "Yeah, rock on!" or "Ew. Seriously? So gross."

I think it's an especially great service for scatter-brained moms like me who juggle so many things that a lot can happen in the course of a year. I can read a Timehop message and think, wow, seems like just yesterday when I tweeted about my kiddo's first day of school and awww, look at the snapshot I posted! Cool!

Review: Generic 5 in 1 Card Reader for iPad

Did you know that you can compose a blog post on your phone using an SMS text?
This is pretty cool the way it's working for me. Of course, it has its limitations like lack of formatting or the ability to add an image (it's not MMS).

Probably the best part is that it's free. Right now I'm composing this post on my iPhone 4S. If Hubby weren't sleeping right now, I could even use Siri to dictate this text.