My Top 5 techie gifts

It never seems to fail. Whenever the gift giving season comes around I'm at a loss on what to ask for and what to give. Sure I can ask/give the mundane gift card to a various store, restaurant or iTunes I mean that easy... right.  Do gift cards really say Happy Holidays? Ok, maybe they do but only because it is already literally written on the plastic card.  ;)

So without further to do a quick and simple top 5 gifts of technology, in no particular order.

#1.  A Streaming Media Player.
    Whether you Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime if you're still watching that on your computer or table it's time to upgrade to a media player. Several options are available in a variety of price ranges. As I'm partial to Apple products I can't help but speak to my love affair with Apple TV ™. With the release of the 4th version just in time for the holiday season it worth the while to wonder yourself up to a local retailer for a looky look. I current have 3 Apple TV's in my home and have been using them for several years now. I love the ability to access TV, Movies, Stream music directly from Apple as well as watch Netflix,  Hulu and sample other channels. An entry level device starts at just $69 while the new models start at $149. However if you're dead set against anything Apple a look at either Roku or Chromcast easily give some similar options.


#2 SmartWatch
          Now before you start telling me there is now what your going to buy an Apple Watch. Just take a deep breath. I don't blame you. I don't have one most likely for the same reason you don't. I'm not about to spend $350 for a watch. ( Disclaimer, if you do have an Apple Watch let me know, I'd love to talk to you. ) Any who... there are plenty of other options out there for you. Fitbit and Pebble both have reasonable options for SmartWatches. Want something to help track you in the health and fitness area, Fitbit Charge or Charge HR are great options that connect to your smartphone. Interest in just the smarter part of the smartwatch take a look a Pebble where you can still get you technology notifications and music right on our wrist and at a much more reasonable cost.

#3 Say Cheese!
     Now that most smartphone have camera that can rival most point and shoot camera's. There are a slew of accessories for your smartphone camera . Olloclip has a nice 4-1 lens kit that can slip right over you phone and hug the camera giving the option of Fisheye, 2 Macro's and a wide angle shot. Brilliant!! If your look for the adventure type a quick look over at Optrix gives you not just lenses but cases and mounts for the phone.

#4 Play the funky music caucasian youthful male.

      Remember the BoomBoxes of the 1980's They were HUGE, literally. While those large musical boxes have disappeared from the shoulders it can now be replaced with something that can easily fit in a backpack or purse. Portable Speakers come in all sorts of shapes, colors and size. In fact you can even find some that are waterproof in case you want to bring the beat into the shower.


#5 Super Sleek Storage

    It is probably one thing that is over looked because it is more particle than fun. Extra storage for you digital device. Maybe it's a new larger hybrid hard drive for your son or daughter. It could be an external hard drive case for your sister who has been working on a genealogy of your family. Maybe it's just something as simple as a USB 3.0 32GB Flash Drive for the kids school projects. It doesn't matter the reason or for who. Sometimes the gift has to be about need instead of want.


I could easily list many other gift options but if you didn't know where to start hopefully I've provided a little more clear path to set you out on your shopping journey.

Technology and the Holiday Shops

No sooner than did the ghost and goblins of Halloween get back to their homes to feast on their newly acquired sugar collection that Sleigh Bells start ringing. That's right the big push of the last holidays are upon us and wow has technology changed the ways we celebrate these times.

The holiday's seem to require 3 important ingredients. Shopping, Food, and Family. First let me start off by saying that I have never, ever participated in the Black Friday Madness. I have witnessed it but I haven't gotten up at 3am to make it to a store that was opening 5am so I could buy a $50 Blue-ray player for $15. I will admit to looking through the the black Friday ad's and even looking them up online ahead of schedule. In fact there is a website you can visit that is fully dedicated to Black Friday Ads. https://blackfriday.com post not just the ads for Friday's event but also the Toy books that retailers put out and other deal specific items, extra Kohls cash anyone?

While a lot of people still trek out on that Friday more people are opting out and staying in. They are staying in for Cyber Monday. The first Monday after Thanksgiving is now dedicated to online shopping bonanza of epic proportions. Many of your favorite retail store put on extra sales this day but the online retail giants make there play for your holiday cash. Amazon being one of the biggest names in online shopping makes Cyber Monday a big big BIG event. Certain deals highlighted and change hour after hour. It's enough to make even the most seasoned shopper spin around with glee.

Smack in the middle of Black Friday and Cyber Monday now known as Small Business Saturday. A day in the weekend where your local small business owners hope to attract and entice you. This can be done in  a physical location or through a website as well. Just a quick search using the “shop local” option on Etsy.com allows me to see what some of our own neighbors have brilliantly made themselves. 

When all your shopping is done, the focus goes back on the two most important parts of the holidays, food and family! It seems like a no brainer that your going to need food. Food that you can make while you host the holiday at your home, or something a little easier to transport as you go through the woods to Grandmother's house. If you missed my article on technology in the kitchen you can find it here.

Then there’s family. It suppose to be the most important ingredient in the holiday recipe. While technology can help it can also hinder. Sure, through the power of Skype or FaceTime you can video chat with your niece or nephew who is serving overseas. However, is will also keep your 14 year old niece or daughter from looking up the entire time you're at Aunt Kathy's. 

So, a holiday challenge for you. Can you and yours set aside technology for the holiday gathering? Little to no smartphone or tablets while you are surrounded with extended family. No Facebooking, no tweets to be sent, and no text to be read. Some may find this hardly a challenge at all while others will struggle not to pick up their phone when there is lag in a conversation. Putting the technology aside might be tough at first, but the end result will be lifetime memories with family and friends!

Technology Fit

My sister in law confuses me. She likes to run...without music. I do not understand how she is able to do it. I have to have music in my ear when I'm attempting to run, jog, exercise. I have used several different apps in the past to help get myself in better fitter shape. Just as I've used different apps I've also had different products too.

Before I had a piece of technology to help it was the classic pencil and paper. Log your food and log for work out. Then I got an iPod Touch. My world changed. All of a sudden I had apps that would help me. Log your food in this app. Watch how to do weights on this app. Track your bike ride on this app. Apps..glorious apps everywhere. Then I realized as I was losing the pounds on myself my iPod was starting to become bloated. 

I see a lot of mobile devices in my line of work. What I see a lot when I talking to people about their device is that after a while it feels slow. Sometimes it is due to age but 8 out of 10 times their devices is bloated with data. For example if you have an iPhone 6 that has 16GB of data storage a few of those gigabytes are set aside right away for the software to run your phone. So now that brings us down to about 12GB of space. That is still a lot if you maintain the space. Devices work best when they have breathing room. I usually recommend a minimum of 2GB of free space. Photo's and video take up a lot of room. A LOT OF ROOM. It is probably one of the things I see the must. 600 photo's or more taking up space. and of the 600 photo's you probably only want 120 of them. Cleaning up your photos gives back precious space. Delete them from the phone or what I like to do is download them into my computer and delete them there, I find it to be faster that way. 

How about Songs. When is the last time you took a look through your play list. This is another thing I try and keep up on. I actively keep 3 playlist on my phone. 1 for the gym and 2 for the car. With the addition of iTunes radio and other music streaming services you may not realize that you are not using your playlist anymore. If your not using them get them off the device. 

Then there are apps. As I write to you today I have 50 apps on my phone. I like to review the apps on my phone every couple of months. There are apps I'm more likely to use in the summer than the winter. If I'm going on vacation I have more travel apps on my phone than when I'm just doing my usual business. Sure there are a lot of app that you use frequently and I'm not saying you have to take things down to a bare minimum but I'm suggesting that maybe you don't need to have every app on there. I use a guideline I made up myself. If I haven't used the app in about 1 month then I don't need it on my phone.

Also a reminder all this is true not just for our mobile devices but for our actual computers too. Your laptop or desktop machine store massive amounts of data. Quick! When was the last time you when through and deleted email? Not just the spam or the junk but emails. Imagine if all those emails were printed out and laying around the house. Can you see that in your house? The nice thing is that usually with your computer you have the option of upgrading your hard drive to add more space. Your computer likes some breathing room just like you. 

Our phones( and our computers) are a machine, just like our body, and it needs to be taken care of to run at its peak. Sure, on vacation we like to let ourselves go a little bit and enjoy the trip - taking pictures and downloading new apps - but we don’t live everyday life that way. Watch what you put into your phone and make sure to trim the fat when its needed!

Technically.... in the Kitchen

One to my favorite places to to use technology is in the kitchen.  I've brought my laptop,  an iPad and  my phone in the kitchen to use as a reference while cooking. Just recently we delegated a first generation iPad to the kitchen. While the iPad itself is considered out of date, it doesn't run the current iOS. However some Apps still function on this old piece of technology.

So what still works? Well first the web browser still functions with no problem so I can pull up an cooking website or blog I want. I was also able to download older versions of apps like Pinterest, How to Cook Everything and Allrecipes' Dinner Spinner to name a few.  I was very pleased to be able to access Pinterest so I can access all the great recipe links that people share there. I also have my Kindle App from which I can bring up cookbooks that I have purchased from Amazon's website. The the ones I've downloaded I was able to get as a free download. 

Of course before I even get to the kitchen I try and have my meal plan already in my calendar with links to the recipe I'll be making. I try and list the main dish with 1 or 2 side dishes that I would like to make with it. Sometimes the recipe link is the main dish sometimes a link for the side dish.

While the iPad is a great technology to have in the kitchen it isn't the only one. I also subscribe to a grocery home delivery service. Doorganics is a local company at delivery fresh local and organic food to your home. I took the option to get deliveries every 2 week. The Thursday before my delivery I get an email with a list showing what is planned for my delivery. I can login to their website and change the order or add too it.
I also rely on my digital scale. Everything from measuring the correct amount of flour from Great Grandma's recipe to the correct portioned size piece of steak to have for dinner. 3 ounces isn't as big as you think it is! 

Of course some of the basic apps on your phone can be helpful too. The clock app has a built in timer and when I cooking a lot of items for let say Thanksgiving, I've even used the Alarm setting in the app to keep watch on multiple items. Lastly is the camera that is built into my Phone. Yep I'm one of those people that shares their food. I usually post it on my Facebook page with a link of the recipe. Occasional the picture might be shared on Instagram but I promise it is few and far between. 

*Price changes frequently

Technically...getting Groceries

A few years ago I would have to get the Sunday Press in order to start the process of building my grocery list. What foods were on sale this week and what dinners will we eat because of what was on sale. While my questions haven't changed the process did change slightly.

When I got my first iPod Touch back in 2008 on of the very first app's I downloaded was Grocery IQ. The app allowed me to build my shopping list and have several lists according to which stores I wanted to shop at. It continues to be one of my favorite apps. I can save certain items as favorites. When I search for an item it has auto-suggest. So if I'm looking for a yogurt it will suggest very cherry or vanilla. I can also search for coupons and then email them  to myself so I can print them out. If I'm sending the hubby to do the grocery shopping I can email the list to him. You can also build the list online with their website and it will auto-sync with your mobile device. 

I mainly shop at Meijer. I like my one stop shopping and being a Michigan based company I have no problem rooting for the Home team. If you follow Meijer on Facebook you can get a preview of the upcoming ad every Friday. It helps me get a start on my meal planning and sometimes I will wait to buy something when I know it will be on sale in just a couple of days. Family Fare also does this but releases it on Saturdays. Meijer also has their own app. Use it with your Perks number and you have digital coupons at the touch of a finger. My house loves a good Mperks weekend when you can save 5, 10 and even 15%. It a little Dutch girl's dream. Don't forget to jump on to Meijer's free WiFi when you are in the store to use either of these apps. The Mperks app was just recently updated to be added to Passbook for you Apple lovers, like me.

After I've made my trip through the market I may or may not have had the thought about picking up a bottle of wine to help me relax after all that stressful shopping. Vivino is an app that my BFF told me about while she was stationed overseas in Germany. Use the app to snap the picture of the wine bottles' label and the app pulls up information and gives you a rating. The more you tell it about what type of wines you prefer the more helpful it is. I've also used this to snap a picture of a wine list in restaurants. The app will give the ratings of the wine on the list.