Mothers around the world rejoice! 

Have I got a find for you…

#mom (hashtagmom) is a service that automates calling or texting your mother when you arrive at a location using Foursquare and the #mom hashtag. That means anytime mom is worried whether or not you arrived safely, you can let her know immediately.

I have to tell you, even my own mother loves this! (And she recently boycotted the Internet to the point of cancelling her email account.)  To sign up,  go here, enter your mother’s cel number, select your preference of  a text or call, and connect it to your Foursquare account.

Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.

I got an interesting offer from a blogging colleague a week ago asking me if I would like to host a live Best Buy holiday event on the East Coast.

Um, let me see….  HELL yeah?

You see, we are Best Buy people. In fact, my husband may love Best Buy more than he loves me.  I’ve never really asked. I think it is because I don’t REALLY want to know the answer. Ahem.

In any event, we were thrilled to be a part of the holiday social media extravaganza. Our event was one of two live parties being held that evening in tandem with the SITS Girls #BestBuyHoliday Twitter conversation.

What a fabulous time we all had!

Not only did we get our own personal “geek” from their Geek Squad (who was hilarious), we also got a chance to play around with the Kindle Fire, Fitbit, Asus Tablet, Sony – Cyber-shot 16.1-Megapixel Zoom Digital Camera,  Hard Candy Cotton Candy Maker, HP – Laptop / AMD E-Series Processor, as well as Beats By Dr. Dre Limited Edition Headphones From Monster and tons more…

A techie’s dream holiday party, to be sure. The only downside? Adding to our holiday must-have list!

I’m at an impasse with Christmas.

I have absolutely no idea what to gift the tweens this year. All either boy wants is… TECHNOLOGY. Yep, that is pretty much it.

• Phones
• Video games
• iPads
• Computers
• TVs … and on and on and on.

Gone are the days of action figures and Hot Wheels. Now everything on their lists have micro-circuitry and price tags in the triple digits. How fun.

I pretty much need to take out a second mortgage to afford this year’s wish list.

The frustrating thing is that the boys can’t name one other thing they desire other than technology. I get the old “surprise me” phrase when I press the subject. They don’t even have a suggestion for Santa. They are giving him the same line.

Sigh.

The result of this conundrum is me feeling woefully unprepared while endlessly surfing the Internet for anything remotely cool,  unique and reasonably priced.

Hours of fun I tell you. Hours. Of. Fun.

Anyone else experiencing this? Got any tips for me? Or SANTA?

Calling all techies! Would you like an Android tablet under your tree this Christmas?

Who WOULDN’T, right?

How would you like to snag one for a mere $77?!

Not. Even. Joking.

Plum District is running a special today only that will enable you to get a $399 7″ tablet with Android OS for $129.  But wait, dear readers… You can save an additional 40% just by using this code:  cyber40

Want it? Yeah, so do I. CLAIM YOURS HERE! (This is a quick one and will probably sell out immediately so don’t hesitate, folks. I sure didn’t.)

Some official scoop from the Plum District website:

These 7” wonders have revolutionized our lives, and your friends have been raving about theirs. Now’s the time to see what the fuss is all about. This deal more than doubles your money towards a 7” tablet, running the powerful Android operating system. Make this holiday season one to remember.

Tablet specs include: A/C adapter/charger, stylus, manual, and external RJ-45 USB hub for adding additional devices. Slim and Lightweight Black Mini Laptop Android 2.2 FLASH 10.1, WiFi and external 3G 7.2″ digital touch screen, 800X480 pixels 3.0 megapixel camera / webcam.

Before blogging, scrapbooking used to be my biggest obsession. I loved being visually creative and compiling memories of  my family and our adventures together.

But somewhere along the line, I stopped having the time (or budget!) to be creative. And then I lost my passion for it.

Until digital scrapbooking came along.

At first I found the premise of digital scrapbooking to be a bit intimidating. I was worried about the difficulty in dealing with the technology. I was worried about the expense. I was worried about the time it would take.

No longer. Especially considering my recent discovery of Smilebox.

Smilebox lets you quickly (and easily) create slideshows, invitations, greetings, collages, scrapbooks , photo albums and tons more. I created this in less than two minutes just playing around with random pictures I had scattered on my laptop: (Push play and enjoy the music.)

A slideshow design by Smilebox

Pretty impressive for a two minute project, isn’t it? Just THINK of the possibilities for your family….

A little about Smilebox:

PC and Mac users can easily create slideshows, invitations, greetings, collages, scrapbooks and photo albums right on their computer. There are over 1000 customizable templates to choose from and an iPhone app. Plus, sharing your creations with family and friends is incredibly simple as well – Facebook, email, blog, print at home or a store, and even burning to DVD.

I’m also planning on working on some Smilebox creations for an upcoming event that will include video along with photographs. Very versatile!

A couple of things to consider before you start:

With a free account, you are able to use any of the designs and share them, but they will contain embedded ads. A premium account is $39.99 a year (or $5.99/month) gives you the ability to burn to DVD, ad-free viewing, not to mention more than 2000 songs to include in your projects. (Love!)

I didn’t like the app quite as much as the regular computer interface. I can’t give you much of a review on it because, honestly,  my phone needs a serious upgrade. Most of my issues with the app, I suspect, are because of my failing phone… sigh. (Desperately holding out for the iPhone 5… )

So, if you are looking to try your hand at digital scrapbooking, I suggest you start with Smilebox. A word of warning though… it can be quite addictive!

Disclosure: I received access to a premium Smilebox account for review purposes and will be compensated for sharing my honest feedback with the company. The opinions contained in this post are my own.