The following post is from Michelle of Mommy Misadventures:

source: Rick & Brenda Beerhorst

Computers are a fixture in many families lives and kids are learning to use the computer for both learning and entertainment at increasingly younger ages. Rather than allowing your children to sequestered themselves away with a computer in their room, consider setting up a single computer for your family to use. A family computer is a wonderful way to encourage your kids to learn and use technology in a safe, controlled environment.

Use a desktop or all-in-one

I recommend using a desktop or an all-in-one computer over a laptop as a central family computer. Laptops are easily brought from room to room which is convenient but makes it more difficult to supervise your family’s usage.

Actively supervising your children while they use the Internet is essential to helping keep your child safe online. (Microsoft recommends that children under the age of 10 be supervised while using the Internet.) The placement of a  shared family computer should be in a central location, like a great room or media room so that parents can more easily monitor what their kids are doing.

If the idea of a bulky desktop in the great room for all to see makes you cringe, consider all-in-ones like the Apple iMac or the Dell Inspiron 2320 which are great computers with a sleek, pleasing to look at profiles.

Personalize it

Get kids excited about using the computer by encouraging them to make it their own. Create individual log-ins for each of your children and allow your kids to choose their icon and personalize their desktop however they want.

If the family computer is actually going to be mostly used by younger kids, invest in a child-friendly keyboard and mouse. I recommend the Crayola USB EZ Type Keyboard which has HUGE colorful keys, perfect for a small child. For a mouse, you may want to try a small mouse that can more easily fit in small hands, like this Chester Creek Tiny Mouse.

Secure it

While no software enabled firewall can substitute for parental supervision, the right family controls can help you create a safer environment for your child.

Both Microsoft Windows 7 and Apple Mac OS X have native family safety tools that let you do things like allowing/blocking access to websites, setting time limits and log-in times. (You can learn more about Microsoft Parental Controls here and Apple’s Parental Controls here.) There are a variety of third-party Internet monitoring tools available that have more powerful monitoring and blocking capabilities, including NetNanny and Norton Online Family.

Use a kid-friendly browser

While your standard browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome, etc.) are fine for tweens and teens, families with school aged children or younger may want to take a look at some of the kids browsers out there. Unlike standard web browsers, where you can go ahead and enter the addresses of wherever you want to visit, browsers for younger kids allow you to connect to pre-approved kids websites. Kids browsers are designed with younger children in mind and are part activity center, part browser. They often feature easy to use interfaces, bright colors and offer kiosk-like, full-screen browsing.

KidZui

KidZui is a Windows-based browser that allows kids to browse popular websites, search online and play kids games. All of the content on KidZui has been pre-screened by the KidZui editorial staff and also  by parents and teachers. KidZui is free to download and use.

Zoodles

Zoodles is a kids browser that includes educational games and activities. One of the features I particularly like about Zoodles is the ability to customize your child’s Playground to their age. It offers a set of Premium features as well including promoting particular skills, selecting activities and the ability to block particular content. (Love this feature – My three year old loves Spongebob; I can’t say I share her adoration.) Zoodles offers a free Basic membership which includes Premium features start at $5.95 per month with a 14 day free trial.

KIDO’Z

This is a an Adobe Air based browser (compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux, Android) with a fun, kid-friendly interface preloaded with a bunch of kid-friendly content. KIDO’Z main feature is its very powerful parental control, including exit control (kids cannot exit KIDO’Z without a password), usage statistics and multilingual support. KIDO’Z is free to download and use for 30 days after which it is subscription based, starting at $4.99 per month or a one time payment of $59.99 for a lifetime membership.

Do you use a family computer?  What are your favorite websites and kid-friendly applications?

	Michelle Mista is an IT professional, freelance writer and blogger. A lifelong geek, she muses about motherhood at Mommy Misadventures. She is on the constant quest to balance life, work and geekery.

4 Tips for Family Computing is a post from Life...Your Way

© 2010-2012 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved - This feed is provided for the convenience of Technology Your Way subscribers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited. If you are reading this content elsewhere, please send an email to contact@yourway.net to let us know. Thanks.

source: Aaron Escobar (the spaniard)

I’ve been blogging in this space — first Organizing Your Way and then Life…Your Way — for over three years now, and there are some great posts in the archives that don’t get much attention anymore. This week, I’ll be sharing some of my favorites. Whether you’ve been around since the beginning or are a new reader, I think you’ll enjoy them!

Email continues to increase as a mode of communication, with a 2011 report by The Radicati Group estimating that there were more than 3.1 billion email accounts worldwide!

We’ve all heard the stories of the tone of an email being misinterpreted or misunderstood along with the warnings that you shouldn’t send an email when you’re angry, intoxicated or otherwise impaired. Like any communication tool, email offers a lot of opportunities — and a lot of consequences if not used properly!

This is especially true in business and professional communication, but what about every day emails? What email etiquette rules should everybody follow?

Here are my top five email rules that you might be breaking:

ALL CAPS

Turning your Caps Lock on while writing an email (or anywhere, really) is just not a good idea. Not only does it come across as “shouting”, but it’s also genuinely hard to read. If you prefer not to mess with capitalization, try all lowercase instead, which is a growing style among minimalist email users.

I will make one exception to this rule. Several years ago I was part of an active homeschooling forum, and one of the members regularly put her titles in ALL CAPS. This was definitely a style thing (and an easy way to see which posts were hers). I think it’s okay to do something like that if you want to stand out, but be prepared for a backlash from people who still don’t like it. And be consistent or else it loses its appeal!

Readability

Another important aspect of sending emails is making sure your messages are easy to understand and read. Use proper punctuation and short paragraphs so that your user doesn’t have to read your message several times just to get it. I’m not saying you need to check your email against formal grammar rules, but I’ve received more than one email that contained a full paragraph without a single punctuation mark or capital letter, and it’s incredibly hard to make sense of those mega run-on sentences!

Sending Group Emails

We all have situations where we need to send group emails. Except in cases where your recipients are a close-knit group, you should always use the BCC field to hide the email addresses you’re sending the email to. The intent isn’t to keep the recipient list a secret (at least not in most cases), but rather to protect the privacy of those who don’t want their email address shared.

Responding to Group Emails

Similarly, when responding to group emails that use the CC field, think twice about who you send your reply to. If a group email is sent from an event organizer asking you to confirm participation, chances are that all 28 people on the email list don’t need to receive your response (plus the responses of the other 27 people). Again, this may be different if you’re emailing with a close-knit group of friends, but the important takeaway is to think twice before automatically using Reply All in your response!

Forwards

You had to know this was coming, right? There are three types of forwards: junk/spam emails, those that contain false information and interesting/cute emails.

• Junk/spam emails always say “Forward this or else…” or “If you really love Jesus…” They might include a picture or poem, but you probably can’t make out what it really says because it’s been forwarded so many times that the alignment and spacing are off.

• Emails that contain false information generally capitalize on a scare factor or lofty promise, such as “If you eat too many bananas, you’ll grow a tail” or “Forward this email and Microsoft will send you $1,000!”

• And interesting/cute emails include pictures of babies/animals, fun facts or information that is genuinely helpful.

The most important rules to keep in mind for forwards are:

• Never, ever forward them to everyone in your address book.
• Always check the claims of an email at Snopes.com.
• Never, ever forward junk/spam or false information.
• If you can’t resist forwarding something, you should only send it with a personal note and only if you would consider forwarding it to each and every person individually.

Finally, if someone asks you to take them off your forward list, please don’t be offended! In all likelihood, it wasn’t easy for them to ask you because they don’t want to offend you, but for people who use email professionally, adding a few extra forwards to their inbox can be very stressful!

Those are my top five rules of email etiquette. What would you add to the list?

	Mandi Ehman is the founder and publisher behind Life…Your Way and the co-author of All in Good Time, as well as a wife and the homeschooling mom to four beautiful girls. She lives with her family on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia and loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

Rules of Email Etiquette You Might Be Breaking is a post from Life...Your Way

© 2010-2012 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved - This feed is provided for the convenience of Technology Your Way subscribers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited. If you are reading this content elsewhere, please send an email to contact@yourway.net to let us know. Thanks.

source: Mandi Ehman

Last week, Sean and I traveled to Detroit, Michigan — courtesy of Ford — to attend the North American International Auto Show as well as Ford’s Design & Innovation Fantasy Camp. Throughout this week, I’ll be sharing some of the things I learned with you, not only about Ford as a company, but about the changing face of new media and innovation and creativity as well!

Seeing the technology that Ford is using — both in their cars and behind the scenes — was a bit like seeing into the future. Except it’s not the future; it’s the technology of today!

Truthfully, the geek in me loved the behind the scenes stuff the most, and I’ll tell you more about that in a minute, but first, let’s look at some of the consumer technology in their new models:

Ford SYNC and My Ford Touch

Ford SYNC lets you do more with voice-activated technology so that your hands stay on the wheel and your eyes stay on the road. With Ford SYNC, you can:

• Make hands-free calls
• Play your favorite music
• Get turn-by-turn directions
• Find businesses
• Ask for traffic updates
• Connect to your favorite apps
• Hear the weather, stock news, etc.
• Get vehicle health reports
• Adjust the thermostat
• Track your driving efficiencies
• And more

In addition, My Ford Touch offers an 8″ color touch screen so that you can access your radio, thermostat and more easily.

Safety

Technology isn’t just being used to keep us connected or add fun features; it’s also being used to make Ford cars safer.

MyKey
The MyKey system may be my most favorite development, especially as the thought of our four girls driving is already likely to give me a panic attack. With MyKey, which comes standard on most Ford vehicles, parents can actually limit the radio volume as well as the car’s speed. While speed and volume are not the only causes of teen accidents, they certainly play a role in many of them, and limiting these can help teens be more aware and safer on the road.

Lane Departure Warning
In addition, the 2013 Ford Fusion will include Lane Departure Warning technology that uses a dash-mounted camera to detect lane markers. When the driver drifts over those markers, the steering wheel will rumble — like classic rumble strips. In addition, if the lines are crossed too often, the car will actually sound an alert and suggest via a coffee cup symbol on the dash that the driver take a break from driving!

source: Mandi Ehman

That’s all really exciting stuff, and I can only imagine what other features will be released in the years to come, but getting a glimpse behind the scenes revealed some pretty incredible technology as well!

Digital Design & Testing

For instance, the car on the screen above is actually a digital model. You wouldn’t know that by looking at the smaller screen, and you still couldn’t tell when it was projected on the huge screen at the front of the room. In fact, many car commercials today use digital renditions of vehicles! I know I’m not the only person who is tempted to see if I can figure out which are which on TV now.

source: Mandi Ehman

It was also really interesting to see how Ford is blending new and old technologies in the development of their cars. They have digital labs where designers sketch cars, play with colors, test reflections digitally and more, but they also still use clay to create initial designs as well as full-size models of the cars they’re working on.

The clay cars (which we were unfortunately not able to take pictures of) seemed primitive compared to the digital lab, and at the same time, there’s an incredible artistry that goes into designing a car by hand, shaping it with tools and seeing it come to life in front of you.

On the other hand, the digital tools we saw were mind-blowing. For example, we were able to see how they use incredibly powerful cameras to capture light, colors and reflections so that they can see how the cars they design will look in various environments.

There’s no doubt that technology is having a huge impact in this industry — both from a consumer’s standpoint and a designer’s — and I’m not sure I’ll ever look at a car quite the same way again!

What technology do you think we’ll see in the cars of the future?

Ford invited us to Detroit and provided travel and accommodations. In exchange, they asked us to cover the event on our blogs; however, I walked away with so much more to share with you than I expected. All opinions — and the decision to write an entire series about our experience — are 100% mine!

	Mandi Ehman is the founder and publisher behind Life…Your Way and the co-author of All in Good Time, as well as a wife and the homeschooling mom to four beautiful girls. She lives with her family on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia and loves coffee, chocolate, easy meals, beautiful things and minimalist spaces.

How Technology Is Changing Cars from the Inside Out is a post from Life...Your Way

© 2010-2012 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved - This feed is provided for the convenience of Technology Your Way subscribers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited. If you are reading this content elsewhere, please send an email to contact@yourway.net to let us know. Thanks.

source: YayAdrian

Although it’s not as obvious as physical clutter, digital clutter can cause as much frustration and disorganization as its material counterpart, especially as we all move more and more of our business and personal lives into the digital realm.

From paying bills to recording memories to staying in touch with friends and relatives, our digital footprints are growing, evidenced by the increase in sales of e-readers, external hard drives and routers.

So how do you stay organized and maintain access to all of this important information?

It can be a challenge if you don’t already have a plan in place, but there are simple steps you can take to gain control over your digital clutter. (And once you have that control, you can then take steps to eliminate more of your material clutter — such as paperwork — by digitizing it as well!)

Pick a System

The single most important step you can take in organizing your digital clutter is to simply pick a system. Any system. There are so many programs, apps and hardware configurations available that you could spend the rest of your life evaluating them — coming close to a decision over and over again only to discover a new product or service on the market!

Read a few reviews, talk to people you trust and then bite the bullet and pick one.

You might end up choosing the second best system, but chances are it’s still good enough. And once you are organized, it’s a lot easier to upgrade to a new system anyway!

Connect Your Devices

One of the most frustrating aspects of organizing your digital life in this day and age comes from lack of access to important information across various devices. For a long time I would start a project upstairs on my desktop during the day only to end up frustrated in the evening because I couldn’t access it on my laptop downstairs.

These days, I have access to all of my files no matter where I am — from my laptop, desktop, tablet or smart phone — and even when I use other people’s devices.

I’ve shared how I use Dropbox to create my own personal cloud, as well as the unprecedented peace of mind it gives me because I no longer have to worry about losing any of my data, but Dropbox is not the only solution available. You may prefer a wireless hard drive or any one of a number of personal cloud computing services available, but the important thing is to have a system that allows you to access the information you need, no matter where you are.

Backup, Backup, Backup

Which brings me to my third point…

As you move more and more of your personal data and records online, it’s incredibly important that you have a backup system in place. This goes not just for pictures, but for your financial records, medical files and anything else you store on your computer.

The great thing about setting up a cloud or external hard drive is that you are essentially setting up a backup system as well. Just make sure it’s set to sync regularly (mine syncs in real-time, so my data is never more than 5 minutes out of date) so that you’re not relying on memory to get it done on a regular basis!

Digital Organizing 101

While accessibility is an important part of this topic, convenience and organization is just as important. Being able to access your files from anywhere doesn’t do you much good if it still takes you 20 minutes to find the file you’re looking for. Organize your files in a way that makes sense for you and makes it easy to find things quickly when you need them:

• Folders are your friend. Never underestimate the power of folders. By grouping your files into folders and subfolders and sub-subfolders, you can more quickly navigate to the correct location. It’s much easier to browse a smaller list of closely related files for the one you want than it is to browse through hundreds, so I tend to use fairly broad categories for my top-level folders and very detailed ones inside each of those.

• Use clear, descriptive file names. Inside those folders, it’s incredibly important to use descriptive file names that clearly define the contents of the file. Ambiguous names such as 1, 2 and 3 or untitled really do you no good at all (the exception being temporary files that you are using for a very short period of time), and taking an extra second or two to add a descriptive title (including dates, image size, version, etc, if applicable) is well worth the effort.

• A file system is only as good as its owner. Creating a file system and then shoving all of your files into an Untitled folder because you don’t have time to deal with them kind of defeats the purpose, don’t you think? Make a habit of regularly moving files from your Desktop or Download folder to the correct folder. As they say, “A home for everything and everything in its place.”

• Don’t forget to declutter. While digital files certainly take up less space (for the most part), which makes it easier to keep things even when you’re unsure whether you’ll ever need them again, it’s still important to declutter those files from time to time. Extra versions or copies of the same document can often be deleted once it has been finalized, and some files simply become obsolete over time. Even if you’re not comfortable deleting a file altogether, consider using a generic archive folder (mine is called “Old”) to hold the files that you don’t need regular access to so that you don’t trip over them when searching for more important information!

	I am so excited to be partnering with Intel, the sponsors of tomorrow, to bring you my opinion on some of the issues that affect our lives today. Join the conversation on Twitter with hashtag #IntelEMP!

How do you organize your digital files? Do you have a personal cloud or backup system?

Digital Organizing for the New Year is a post from Life...Your Way

© 2010-2012 Purple Martin Press, LLC | All rights reserved - This feed is provided for the convenience of Technology Your Way subscribers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited. If you are reading this content elsewhere, please send an email to contact@yourway.net to let us know. Thanks.