Web sites that help me be a mom

April 20th, 2008

I’m a (relatively) new mom of two little girls ages two-and-a-half and ten-months. I’ve always been able to upload photos, videos and send them out to friends and family via the web. I’ve had the ability to share new happenings to friends and family instantaneously via email and blogs. I’ve been able to attend a “virtual” Christmas via skype when we were unable to come home so that my family could feel somewhat connected to the girls during that special time. My two, almost three-year-old plays on pbskids.org and playhousedisney.com and I appreciate having another medium to participate in her development. It’s not something we let her do every day which makes it all the more exciting when she gets to have her “turn” on the computer. It’s hard to imagine a life without these newly added comforts and although I’ve never been a parent when these things weren’t available I feel it adds to the parenting experience.

The following are websites that have helped me as a parent (in no particular order):

Skype- I have nothing but love for skype. Love, love, love. For those unfamiliar, Skype is a free way to instant message, phone (anyone in the world) and live video stream. Rampant rumors are going around right now that they will soon be acquired (and I believe they’ve already turned down a couple of lucrative offers). I sincerely hope that whoever does end up acquiring Skype will remember that people…families all over the world connect through this portal that might otherwise not be able to because of cost.

Flickr - Admittedly, I’m really bad about keeping up with photos (it’s always on my New Year’s resolutions list) so I don’t use this site nearly as much as I should. I love that you can send someone a simple url to view your photos unlike other sites that require login info. And if you’re not careful those sites send unwanted emails (I believe they call that something like…spam )

Netflix- For the most part I like the Netflix interface (they seem to mess with their formula quite frequently) and I’ve never had a problem waiting long for a movie. It’s no secret that having a baby throws your social life into a huge hiatus. We had our second when our first was only two, which not only makes babysitters more expensive but increases the fatigue level (do I need to say more?)! Our weekend entertainment is now a case of beer and a Netflix movie. It’s hard to remember the days of browsing through the video store (well, not really) but can you imagine what a two-year-old would do to all those little shiny boxes on the shelf!?! No thanks.

Picnik - This is a new photo site that I recently reviewed and since that time I’ve used it a ton. It’s super clean and easy to use. It makes me feel like I know what I’m doing with photos! You really should try this one out.

ParentMap - We live in Seattle and I work full time. When the weekends roll around I want to to get our little ones out and watch them at play! But sometimes I need a little push of what kind of play we should do; ParentMap helps me think outside of the box for outings and activities. Thanks for all the great ideas ParentMap!

Babycenter - This is a great site for all things babies. They have a great store and a well organized informational resource for parenting, babies and beyond.

WordPress - I hope I don’t need to explain this one. This blog runs on WordPress. I’ve disclosed before in this blog that I really do enjoy this blog platform. It has a lot of potential and speaks to all skill levels. WordPress recently released a new 2.5 version. If you don’t want to host your own WP site then you can easily sign up for WP hosted blog on WordPress.com.

Facebook- This is my favorite social networking site. When you work full time and have two young kids it’s hard to be social. Facebook is one way to “sort of” keep up with friends.

Craigslist! - I know I said no particular order but damn…how could you live without craigslist. From finding cheap kids stuff to selling your kid stuff to finding childcare - Craigslist is a friggin lifesaver! Simplicity and accessibility at it’s finest; a tremendous thank you to Craig Newmark for keeping it that way!

I think I may keep this a running list and when I run across other websites (or remember more) that may help out with parenting, I’ll add a short review on here. In the meantime, if you have any you think I should know about by all means, leave a comment.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Online Publishing, Online community, Web 2.0, Web 2.0 for parents, WordPress | No Comments »

Where did that awesome 2.0 site for “writers” go?

April 7th, 2008

So there used to be a really cool web 2.0 site for the writing community, and for the life of me I can’t remember the name of this thing! It was super cool because you could sign up and create a profile that specified how often you were supposed to write to hold you accountable to that goal. If you didn’t meet that goal then it would state on your public profile that your accountability was poor. If I remember correctly your name was listed in green when your accountability was high and in red when it was low. I LOVE this idea because I love to write but I’m really bad about holding myself accountable so I thought that this was such a clever way to give writers a push. The other really cool thing about this writing community was that you could start a story (in a similar way you start a thread) and other members of the site could collaborate on your story. I believe you would be notified in your profile that others had collaborated as well. Once someone had collaborated you had a new deadline to contribute to the story. I created a few of these “story starters” and had some pretty good collaborators contribute. It was really fun to see where people went with your idea. If you didn’t collaborate by your deadline you were publicly shunned in the community….just kidding, I think your profile turned red or something showing that you contributer creditability had gone down. The members of this writing website who had the highest accountability were posted on the homepage enticing all the members to read their stuff. I can proudly say that I was on the homepage for a short time, okay a very short time.

Man- after remembering all the cool features of this site it really is a bummer I can’t find it. I wonder if it’s still around? Part of my problem is that I can never remember all my user names for these web 2.0 sites. I should just make one user name and I know a lot of people are starting to build up comment creditability from that user name (and that’s a whole other blog topic) but I kind of hate doing that. I’m not sure why. If I could remember my user name for that site I probably could find it that way. Does anyone know of the site I’m talking about? If so, please let me know!

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Posted in Blogging, Online community, Web 2.0, Writing & Editing | No Comments »