Touch It: The Digital Camera Buyer’s Guide

Unless you're Ansel Adams, most new consumer-grade cameras will provide you with enough pixels and therefore, sharpness for the images you need. So how do you select a camera? First off, you need to touch some actual cameras and think about a few things:

• How does it feel? Might sound silly, but if it's too heavy or large (or small), you might not use it.
• Shutter speed: digital cameras are notorious for shutter lag time, but they are getting faster. When you press the shutter, does your subject move before the shutter clicks? Do you have children? Do you like candid shots? Does this matter to you? Finally: How many blurry photos do you have?
• Rear Panel LCD (that’s the screen on the back of most digital cameras): Most people don't look through the tiny little viewfinder anymore: it's so much easier to frame the image through the LCD. Which camera has the best LCD?
• Zoom/Lens/Image Stabilization: How often do you use the zoom? If often, perhaps image stabilization would be a good feature for you, since the closer in you zoom, the less stable the image. Is the lens decent?
• Check Out The Interface: Does the software on the camera seem intuitive to you? What about all the buttons? Do you have the patience to sit down with the owner's manual? If not, get a super easy-to-use camera. How do you know? Use it in the store!
• Batteries: Are they rechargeable, or will you have to constantly feed your camera new batteries?

When you are clear about the features you want, check out CNET.com. It's like Consumer Reports for electronics. Amazon.com has consumer reviews as well. One more thing to remember: Most cameras don't come with decent-sized memory cards (that's where you store your photos). Make sure to invest in a large capacity memory card – I’m talking 2 gigs, (see Tech Lingo in Chapter 4), especially if you’re shooting video with that camera. That way, you won't have to download your photos/videos after every dozen shots.

Now for the video camera: You want video of your children at this age. You want to remember how they walk, talk and smile. Let's step back for a moment and think about how you are going to use this video, how you are going to store it. I have a video camera that I barely use because downloading the video is a bear and viewing it is difficult (if it's part of a much larger block of video, I have to search). And editing? I mean, really, who has the time?

Most of my video is now shot from my digital still camera. It has great video capabilities and I have a 2 gig memory chip, so space is not an issue. I download the video whenever I download my photos and because each clip of video is separate when shot on a still camera, I can easily find the clip I'm looking for, once I've organized my inventory. Much, much easier.

So you want to know which camera I bought? I have a Canon PowerShot SD880IS. Why? It’s easy to use, it’s got image stabilization (I’ve got fast-moving toddlers), the price was right and the images look great. It’s my 2nd Canon in a row. My sister swears on her Nikon SLR because she can use her 35mm camera lenses with that camera. She turns her nose up to my Canon. To each her own.

Sidenote: What are you doing with your old digital camera? Why not give it to your kids so that they can learn how to shoot a camera? It’s a great project to do with smaller kids – they’ll feel quite accomplished when they see the images that they took all by themselves. You can even make a scrapbook – described later in this chapter.

Free and Reliable Wake Up Call

This past weekend, I booked myself a flight for 9am Sunday morning. I didn't realize it was going to be daylight savings time starting that day. So I was losing an hour. Ugh. 9am flight. At least I live close to the airport.

I was worried about being awakened by my smart phone, because I didn't know if the clock would reset in time. So this time I used Snoozester.com.

Snoozester is free and it works. I signed up online, entered my cell phone number and my time zone and told them when I wished to be awakened.

I got a call at 6:30 (which was really 5:30 in the standard time I was used to), followed by an ad. Funny, I don't remember at all what the ad was for. I was ASLEEP!

Note to self: don't buy ad space on Snoozester.

Music Playlists For Kids

You know when you're in the car with your kids and you can't agree on the music? Yeah.

We all have good intentions. We know what music our children like, more or less. So for the little ones, I put "their" songs on the MP3 player. And when we're in the car with me, they complain.

Here's my solution: even though I could make the playlist in about ten minutes flat, when I do it with my kids, we're able to sample new songs (to see if they are agreeable) and then they feel like they have created something. It's totally worth the time invested on the front end.

We use Rhapsody, which is a music subscription service. This means that I don't own the music, but I have access to over (something like) 5 million songs. It's plenty. They even have story-teller tracks -- a favorite is Mark Binder.

It's like I always say: do the heavy lifting up front and cruise later. (theoretically)

Low Tech Fixes for High Tech Problems

From reviving cell phones to credit cards to hard drives, this New York Times article is chock a block full of interesting fixes. I can't let this go by without a shout out... Check it out here.

Free 411 on your cell phone

How much do you pay each time you call 411 from your cell phone? It seems like ten bucks, am I right?

Google has a free, voice activated information system, whereby you can get business listings.
You don't need a computer, an Internet connection, or even the keypad on your phone or mobile device. GOOG-411 is voice-activated, so you can access it from any phone (mobile or land line), in any location, at any time. For free.

Dial (1-800) GOOG-411. Say where. Say what you're looking for. Example: Pizza. Then, say the city and state. GOOG-411 will give you multiple choices for pizza in the area. If you know the exact pizza place you want, then you can say it in the first place and it will connect you.
If you are calling from a mobile device, GOOG-411 can even send you a text message with more details and a map. Simply say "Text message" or "Map it."

Sometimes, it can't understand what I'm saying -- and it doesn't help that my children are talking loudly in the background, but it's been golden so many times that it has afforded us great eating opportunities in unfamiliar neighborhoods. (I live in Los Angeles, so there are a lot of neighborhoods -- and choices.)

Magic Jack! $40 for a year's worth of phone calls...

It's a friggin' miracle! No, it's MAGIC. Yeah. Magic.

So we got the Magic Jack and within 5 minutes of taking it out of the box (30 day free trial, by the by) and plugging it into our computer, we had a new phone number with voice mail, call waiting, call forwarding, three way calling blah blah blah. The works!

After the 30 day trial is over, we will pay $40 plus shipping and handling and that will give us a YEAR of free calling to the US and Canada. We provide the phone. Right now, we use Vonage, which is pretty inexpensive at $25/month. But folks: $40 a year is INSANE.

Here's the negative: the jack plugs into your computer, so your computer must remain on to receive incoming calls. Otherwise, they will go straight to voice mail. I haven't figured out the other negatives yet, but if I do, I'll let you know.

A no brainer -- and great for a new small business. I'm just saying...

YAPTA! Save on Airfare!

Yapta is a newish website where you enter in your flight information so that the website can track whether the price of your airline ticket is going up or down. It will send you an email alert every time the ticket fluctuates in price. When it goes down, you can decide that now is a good time to buy.

And that’s when the fun begins…

After you purchase your ticket, you let Yapta know at what price you locked it in — and it will continue to monitor the ticket price. If it goes down again, you will get the email alert and then you immediately contact the airline, telling them that you want a voucher for the difference in cost between what you paid and what the cost is right now. Yeah, they will actually send you a voucher.

Last Summer, I bought 4 tickets to Boise for $300. The price went down three times. The lowest eventual price was $240. Can you do math? I saved $240 on those tickets.

And when I bought tickets for Denver for this Spring, I was able to apply those vouchers to my next tickets (they expire in a year, so I had motivation). End result: we are flying from LA to Denver for $77 roundtrip each.

My arm hurts because I’m patting myself on the back so much.