First up is WordWeb.  WordWeb is a Dictionary, Thesaurus, Word finder that will work in almost any program.  If you are typing something up in say your WordPress Dashboard, you can highlight the word and find references quickly and easily.  Best feature?  It’s FREE! 

Google Earth is another great resource for students of all ages.  Geography class, science, even history can all be helped with Google Earth.  You can explore the ocean (which will be a favorite tool of my daughters, as anything that has to do with the Ocean becomes her obsession).  You can also view historical imagery, and even find your own house!  Again, the basic version is FREE!

This next tool is seriously awesome!  It’s called Reviewand you can create your own flash cards.  I remember when I was in school I would create 3×5 cards when studying for a test and take those suckers EVERYWHERE.  Just by creating these notecards it helps to remember the information.  Review takes this to the next level by allowing you to create them on your computer.  So much faster (and easier) than trying to cram all of that data on a 3×5!  Review is free for 90 days, but I think you’ll like it enough to keep.

Notalon is a free tool to help make taking notes easier.  This is perfect for a college student who will be using their laptop for notetaking, as it helps you to take notes quickly while you are listening to the lecture.  According to it’s website it is ”lifting the burden of formatting so that you can focus on taking notes.”

This last one isn’t necessarily a download, but an online student organizer.  “GradeMate is a powerful online organizer for teachers and students to keep track of their courses — from managing grades, assignments, and events to sharing files, course notes, and class discussions.”  Never miss an assignment again with this great organizer!

Definitely check out these tools to help make the school year a successful one!

When you are online it can be hard to separate fact from fiction.  One of the worst places to get information is wikipedia.org.  Many people don’t understand that ANYONE can edit information on wikipedia.  I can hop onto the article on Disney, and replace the CEO’s name with my own!  Look at that, I’m now the CEO of Disney.  When can I start picking up my paycheck? 

It would be hard to believe that you have this vast information resource, and not be able to utilize it though, right!  I mean, I was good at math when I was younger, but heck if I remember what the quadratic equation is off the top of my head (or even why and where you need to use it!).  Enter some great resources around the net that I found to help your kids of all ages with their homework.  If you check out the sites with your kids you’ll know that the site is legit, and you may even remember how to use the quadratic equation yourself!

First for an actual tutor, with a real live person to help, check out www.tutor.com (make sure to check out my TI-Nspire calculator giveaway, because the package includes 60 minutes free at tutor.com!)

Next for a great website FULL of links to sites of all subjects and age levels check out the Homework Spot.  It’s not the prettiest site out there, but the links are great!

The Salt Lake City library also has a really great page of resources for older kids and teens on a broad range of topics.

FunBrain.com is a great place for learning games of all topics.  I especially liked the Grammar Gorrillas where you click on the word in the sentence that is a verb or a noun. 

A really fun math website is Cool Math 4 Kids.  The site is really fun and interactive, and will help you learn (or re-learn for us adults) some basic and not so basic math concepts.

For science I really enjoyed checking out Science Bob’s website.  It has really fun science experiments you can try, videos, and great research links.

The last site I really enjoyed checking out was the Internet Public Library.  It’s just like it sounds, your public library, but online! 

So definitely check out some of these websites.  If you go to the right spots you can find good information.  Just try and avoid the sites that may or may not be very accurate… and hey where’s my check from Disney?

10/15/2009		12:45		Sarah				do you know of any other cool “mom” tools on the internet? I have a few already but just in case i’m missing something
10/15/2009		12:46		Brendan				organizedmom.net
10/15/2009		12:46		Sarah				LOL
10/15/2009		12:46		Sarah				well of COURSE
10/15/2009		12:46		Sarah
10/15/2009		12:47		Brendan				http://www.kitchenmonki.com/
10/15/2009		12:48		Sarah				i think i might be in love!
10/15/2009		12:48		Brendan				hehehe
10/15/2009		12:48		Brendan				i know!
10/15/2009		12:48		Brendan				i do the shopping so i have kendra find a recipe then give me the list.
10/15/2009		12:48		Brendan
10/15/2009		12:48		Sarah				that is AWESOME!!!
10/15/2009		12:49		Brendan				i knew you’d like it.
10/15/2009		12:49		Sarah				HOLY CRAP… WHY HAVE I NEVER SEEN THIS!!!!!!!!!
10/15/2009		12:49		Brendan				I’m just a normal mormon mom at heart.
10/15/2009		12:49		Sarah				ROFL

So there you have it, my ACTUAL reaction to Kitchen Monki… “HOLY CRAP… WHY HAVE I NEVER SEEN THIS!!!!!”.  It quickly became one of my favorite tools for meal planning and here is why. 

Organize – First the site helps you to keep all your recipes organized and in one location.  Yes, it will take some time for you to get your recipes into the website, but it is really easy to do.  Also there are SO many recipes that are already there, that finding the perfect recipe or a new one to try is a snap! 

Plan – Here is where I fell in love with Kitchen Monki.  The website has a meal planner that allows you to “queue” up all the recipes you want to make, then click and drag those recipes to the days you want to make them.  From there  you can print out your plan for the week or for the month.  You can also include in the printout the recipes, shopping list, and the plan (which days you are making what).  What I really love about this part is that usually once I find a recipe in one of my cookbooks or a magazine that I want to make, I would write down the ingredients and purchase them.  When it came down to actually making the recipe I could never remember where I got the recipe from.  With my Kitchen Monki print out I have all the recipes right there on my fridge. 

Shop – The awesome thing about having your entire meal plan online is that you can access it from any location.  Kitchen Monki has a great mobile site that you can access your shopping list and your actual meal plan (including the recipes) from any web enabled phone.  You can also text the shopping list to someone.

Create – All that is left is for you to create your delicious meals.  All of the complication of sitting in a pile of cookbooks and compiling your shopping list is over.  Find new recipes, share them by embedding the recipe into your blog, and get meal planning!  I’m including my daughter’s favorite recipe in this post, Chicken Pillows.

*Disclosure – Kitchen Monki paid for my flight to BlogHer, but all thoughts are my own, and I clearly loved them, AND talked about them on TV long before they bought me a plane ticket.

We weren’t on the show on the same day, we were both “geeky” enough to make it to the big show on our own pop culture trivia knowledge.  We once even applied to be on the World Series of Pop Culture with another friend of ours, but that test was a little bit harder.  We still did well, but we had some stiff competition.  I completely digress…

So one of our “parting gifts” (which after I told my sister what they were she said she always thought people were saying “party gifts”.  We each got a free month’s subscription to Netflix.  This was a time when Netflix was still an itty bitty baby.  I believe it was 2001.  We signed up for an account and were instantly in love with this new service.  The disc’s came in the mail very quickly, and our queue continued to grow with movies that we wanted to watch.  I commented that this was going to eventually lead to the demise of the brick and mortar video rental stores.  So since 2001 we have been loyal Netflix customers. 

Recently (or maybe not so recent, since it’s probably been about a year or so), they added unlimited streaming to their accounts.  We have an XBOX 360, and immediately started to watch all kinds of videos!  We would find TV series’ that we always wanted to check out (like Jericho… SUCH a great show!  and it’s how we finally got on the LOST bandwagon, as soon as it was nearing its end).  We also were able to watch tons of documentaries.  We love watching documentaries together (if you know us, you probably can guess why).  Lastly, of course, is all the great movies too! 

Now we have Netflix also enabled on our PS3 and the Blu-Ray player on our upstairs TV.  We loved it so much that we were even able to cancel our cable!  We still got all the network shows through an HD antennae, so we didn’t feel like we were missing out on much of anything.

I really can’t say enough about Netflix streaming (and we do still get the DVD’s in the mail for the items that aren’t available on streaming yet).  If you have a Wii, PS3, XBOX 360, or a newer internet ready TV or DVD player then you NEED to hop on the Netflix bandwagon.  It’s fun here!  Once you are there check out Jericho… BEST TV SHOW!

*Disclosure – Netflix probably doesn’t know I am alive and blogging here at my humble home.  They did not contact me or ask me to write this post in any way.  As always, if you are from Netflix and would LIKE to compensate me for this post, you are more than welcome to.  THANKS!

Personal Stuff – This varies for EVERYONE, but my rule of thumb is if you don’t mind the worst person you can imagine having the information, then it’s ok to put on the internet.  Because really, there are some pretty horrible people out there.  I know one of my friends doesn’t like to share as much as some others.  Because of her husband’s job it definitely makes sense for her.  For me though, I’m a little bit more free with my information.  First, I have a business that I run, and that doesn’t leave me with a lot of anonymity.  I am also more free with my information on my personal facebook page, because I know only people I have accepted as friends can view it.  That is one reason I keep my personal facebook page limited to people I actually know or have met. 

Be Vigilant – Now I’m not saying that you should watch over your children’s shoulder when they are online, but you SHOULD be involved.  A great quote that I can’t remember who said it is “Trust, but verify”.  If your children are on Facebook, make it a requirement that you are their facebook friend.  Also make sure they understand what is acceptible to share, and what is NOT.  Have basic rules posted near the computer for the kids to follow…

1. Never share your full name with someone you don’t know

2. Do not share your phone number or address online, even if you are giving it to someone you know.

3. If you see something bad, turn off the computer immediately and come tell a parent.

Talk Early and Often – Talk to your kids often about internet safety.  Make sure they know the rules.  We’ve even had conversations about what to do when bad things come up on the computer with our 4 year old.  It’s really never too early.  Having an open conversation about it, before it happens will help it to not be a big deal when it does happen, and it WILL happen.  The difference between them hiding it, and them coming to tell you about it could be in that initial conversation.  So bite the bullet and have it.

Stay safe out there!

So what is the feature really anyway?  Say you are on yelp.com and you “like” a restaurant from the site.  Then your friend visits yelp.com.  Your friend can see that you “liked” Old Spaghetti Factory.  Also if you are a Facebook Fan of (which is now just called “liking”) Weezer, then when you go to Pandora’s website it will start playing songs by Weezer. 

The thought behind this is that they just want to make the web a more personal place for you, where you can share the things you like with your friends, also to help make websites more about you.  It’s just like what Amazon does when you visit.  They show you the things you’ve recently looked at or purchased, and recommend other items based on that information.  So while the information it’s sharing isn’t a super big deal, you still may want to permanently opt out of it. 

To opt out go into your Facebook account and go to Account at the top right, and then Privacy Settings.  Click on Applications and Websites, and then click Edit next to the last item on the list called “Instant Personalization Pilot Program”.  Simply uncheck the box and you are good to go.

Foursquare uses location services to determine your location on your phone, and then gives you a list of places that are near there so you can select where you are.  You can then “check-in” to that location, view tips from other users at the locations (for example at one of my favorite restaurants I left a tip to try the Rodeo Burger, cause it’s really good).  You can also see who else is currently at that location.  This is pretty cool when you want to meet up with people also on twitter.  Like I just barely missed someone I follow on Twitter at Target the other day.  If I had gone there a bit earlier I could have met up with them in person and had a fun lunch!  It can also get a bit addicting!   You can unlock different badges like become the mayor of a location by checking in there more than anyone else, or how many times you have checked in, things like that.  The addicting part is when I start thinking to myself… where else can I go today? 

You don’t have to use Foursquare to tweet about your location.  You can send a simple tweet that you are going out to the store.  Tweeting about your location can be dangerous though!  Here are a couple good rules of thumb when broadcasting your location to the world.

1. I NEVER make it known that I am out if there is a babysitter home with my children.  For example, I will never say that my husband and I are out on a date until after we have returned home.  The reasons for this I think are obvious.

2. I also NEVER make it known that the house is empty, if I’m tweeting that I’m out, you can be sure to bet that my husband is home.  OR it’s after the fact and we’ve already returned home with the family.

So be safe out there, and hopefully I will meet up with you at a location in the future!

Really, I’ve been in the tech industry long enough to have a story for just about anything.  Like have you heard my backup horror story?  Here is my fun little webhosting story.  I used to have my sites hosted with a company that kinda rhymes with smoohost.  I have a PLETHORA (one of my absolute favorite words, which I love to use whenever I can) of websites.  I am constantly coming up with new ideas, and rushing out to get the domain name as soon as possible.  So one of these such times, I had a GREAT idea for a Blog scavenger hunt.  It spanned many blogs, and was super fun!  We had awesome prizes and it was really a blast to do.  Day one of the scavenger hunt was huge, and traffic was through the roof.  What do you know?  My site (the first stop on the hunt) went down!  After that my site was VERY hit and miss and would be unavailable at least once a day.  There was also a day that my database went completely missing, and they had to restore it from a backup and I lost several posts.  My sister who was also with smoohost was not having any of the same issues I was.  I called bluemost to see if they could move my site to a different server, since clearly the server my sites were currently sitting on was failing on a regular basis.  They said that they could not do that, and that “uptime” was not a guarantee!!  WHA??  WHA TO THE WHA WHAT??  I’m trying to build a following here, I’m trying to grow my brand, I’m trying to sell products!  No guarantee of uptime!  What am I paying for??  So when they said that, and refused to transfer my site to a different server I said good bye, and never once looked back.  (as an fyi, my sister’s site, which is still hosted there is now having similar issues to what I had… going down for abut 30 minutes at least once a day)  Now that you know who NOT to go with… who SHOULD you use for web hosting??  That is super easy!  Twenty70 Hosting! 

What I like about Twenty70 is that first, they are women owned.  Women in the tech industry is just obviously a passion of mine.  Their “help” is not outsourced to some othe country.  It’s VERY personal.  The technology they use make it super easy to get your blog or website up and running, and the server’s they are running on are totally solid. 

Since I want to get to the giveaway part, I’ll discuss the reasons for getting your own domain tomorrow….

SOOOOO…. The GREAT news is that Twenty70 is giving away $500 towards going to BlogHer!!  Find out all of the fabulous details on their website https://www.twenty70hosting.com/blog/2010/03/blogher-sponsorship-lets-begin-twenty70-blogher10/ Good LUCK!!!

**Disclaimer – Twenty70 hosting is NOT paying me for this review, they may potentially give me a flight to BlogHer depending on their budget**

My personal Facebook page is just that.  A place where I post personal information about my friends, family and life in general.  My cell phone number is listed there, among several other personal items.  I only accept friend requests from people who I have actually met, and know personally.  Sometimes, however, it comes time to purge some of these friends.  Maybe they post too much, or play too many games, or maybe I really didn’t know them that well to begin with.  Whatever the reason it’s time to delete some friends.

My word of advice on this is DON’T FEEL BAD abut deleting a friend from Facebook.  I would bet that the person won’t even notice that they have been deleted.  Along with this line of thinking… don’t feel bad about rejecting friend requests either.  I know SO MANY people who will just accept requests from people they barely know, just because they don’t want them to feel bad.  Trust me, it’s not a popularity contest.  The amount of friends you have does not equal self worth.  It’s YOUR page, and YOUR information, protect it!

So my husband (who is actually cleaner/more organized than I am) came to me the other day and asked how in the world you are supposed to delete Facebook friends. I hopped onto my Facebook account and was truly baffled. It used to be so simple. You go to your list of friends and then you had the option next to each name to delete. Well, they’ve gone and made it difficult now!  Now you have to go to your friend’s profile page, scroll to the bottom and then click “remove from friends”.  So go ahead, and delete that person you spoke to once in high school, who plays every single Facebook game and updates their status 100 times a day!