picantel's Profile

One thing I recommend is to put your ICE information on the lockscreen of your phone.
That way, if you're in an accident, and you're incapacitated, someone can easily get to your ICE info. What good is ICE info on your contacts when someone else can't access it in an emergency situation.

I have a picture of my driver's license in my album. That way, I can whip it out in case I forget my wallet.

I also take pictures of recipes, and google docs will automatically convert it to text. I also scan barcodes for books, video games, anything that catches my fancy, and store that into Evernote or Catch for later use.

how about... i'm ditching printed books and ereaders for android tablet????

hey... what about the geek moms?

I'm a geek mom and proud of it.

I have 95% of my media in digital format. The only ones left in physical media are my Star Wars, Indiana Jones, LOTR, and Gipsy Kings collection.

I'll be adding a Harry Potter boxed set once a complete set comes out. Other than that, everything is digital and on hard drives. I have a PC that I use as a media server, so anyone in the family can access it, and I can also access it through my phone or tablet.

I love tech gadgets, but I don't always have the money to keep buying the latest and greatest, so before I buy any tech, the first things I look at are:
1. Is it upgradeable? Can I get add-ons or software upgrades down the line that will make it last longer?
2. How easy is it to upgrade or extend the life of the item?
3. How easy is it to maintain the item? Can I easily replace the batteries? What about the cost and availability of replacement items? Can I easily do it on my own?
4. Lastly, is are the features of the item good enough for what I want to use it for? Really think hard about the purpose of the item before buying.

A good example is when ipods first came out, people were buying ipods left and right. I didn't jump on the bandwagon, and instead bought a vosonic pmp/media storage device. It used a regular laptop hard drive that was upgradeable, it used regular rechargeable camera battery, and it played videos well before apple came out with video capabilities on their ipods. That gadget lasted 8 years before it finally clonked out on me. And after the unit itself stopped working, I could still salvage the hard drive and use it for storage!

I started using google documents for my recipes. I set up a folder for each collection (fish, chicken, beef, appetizers, etc.) and each recipe document, I've tagged it to the collections that they belong to. Makes it easier to search.

Since I have an Android smartphone, I also have GDocs as an app, so I can access the files any time. The cool thing is that I can take a picture of a recipe and GDocs will actually convert the text in the pictures to actual text in a document, so I don't have to retype the whole thing.

Barring that, copy and pasting the file into GDocs works well too.

If I'm taking a baked potato to work, I'll wet it, prick it with a fork, cover it with kosher salt, and wrap the whole thing in parchment paper.

When I microwave it, steam forms inside the parchment paper and really softens the outside, and allows the salt to make a nice crust.

My MyTouch phone came in this case that zippers up. Perfect for carrying all those usb cords, ac adapters, etc. for all my tech gadgets.

when the kids were toddlers and very prone to car sickness, I tried keeping plastic bags in the car to catch the problems, but I found a lot of plastic bags have a small hole at the end or a rip. Many trips were ruined by slow leaking yuckiness!

From that point on, I stuck to ziploc bags instead. Not only are they leakproof, but once zipped up, they contain the smells too. To this day I keep a box of ziploc bags that I bought at the Dollar store.

Not only can I use it to contain the vomit, but also to ziploc the clothes that happen to get some crap on it too. All without the smell.

If all else fails, reboot.