Just a little type A

Schroeder Family Challenge Zamzee Giveaway

Don't hate us because we're competitive.  I bet you thought I'd say beautiful, like that Loreal commercial? I almost went there...

 If you read my post about Zamzee, now's your chance to get your very own Zamzee, enter a Rafflecopter giveaway.  

Here are the players:

The Big One: occassionally rides his bike to school, on the cross country running team and practices 5 days a week including cross country meets on Friday afternoons

The Little One: occassionally rides his bike to school, on the cross country running team and practices 4 days a week including cross country meets on Thursday afternoons; on a competitive soccer team and practices 3 days a week including two soccer games on the weekends

Jeff: rides his bike to work adding in 10 - 30 extra miles on the way; rides @ 200 miles a week (not counting his commute) for pleasure (yeah, I agree, weird); runs about 3 days a week

 

Deb: still recovering from a broken foot, pretty much sedentary, occassion walk with the dog and have  made it back to Zumba twice

If you feel like taking a guess as to which Schroeder racked up the most Zamzee points, leave a comment.  

We're giving away a total of 5 Zamzee meters (1 brand new Zamzee meters and 4 used Zamzee meters).  

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Zamzee

Photo Credit: Zamzee/HopeLab

One of the sponsors at BlogHer '12 was Zamzee.

I can hear you thinking, "Zamzee. What the heck is Zamzee?" and immediately doing a Google search.  So I'll save you a little time.

"Zamzee is a social enterprise on a mission to make it easier for tweens and families to be more physically active."  

Social enterprise on a mission? What? Are we talking Star Trek? What?  I'm confused...

In other words, Zamzee is a cleverly designed, fun way to get your couch potato preteen off the X-Box, PS3, Wii or Nintendo, and out the door doing something a little more physical than moving their thumbs.

Zamzee is a Fitbit for tweens, without all the fancy graphs, calorie count, etc. that a preteen could care less about.  Zamzee is what Fitbit used to be: simple to use, tracks physical activity, plain and simple, nothing fancy.  And unlike Fitbit, Zamzee is FREE to use, after you've purchased a meter for only $29.95. Or you can get one (or up to 5) for free by participating in our Zamzee Giveaway. 

Setting up Zamzee is easy. Plug it in to the USB port on your computer or laptop and while it's charging, you can customize your avatar.  

Can you guess who is who?

Then you pop that little puppy on your body, you can clip it to your waistband, your shirt pocket, or leave it in your pocket. Zamzee likes skin on skin action best and tracks better when it's clipped on your waist.  

You can download the information each night to track daily progress or just wait until the end of the week.  Nightly downloads give younger kids more immediate gratification.

Badges are earned for different levels: Newbie badge just for joining, 1st Timer Badge for uploading your first activity, and the list goes on.

Badges aren't the only things your kids can earn, they can earn Zamz (Zamzee currency) which can be used to buy tangible items like iPod Nanos, Wii and X-box games (yeah that cracked me up too - here we have a system designed to get kids to stop playing video games and one of the rewards is video games, but you've gotta give the kids what they want), and $25 gift cards.

A drop down prepopulated list of activites are available for your child to select what they were doing, where they were, and how they earned pointz (yes, that's a "z" on the end of points to correlate with the spelling on Zamzee), all designed to capture your child's imagination and get them to become an active participant.  

What they were doing choices (well over 50 possibilities) range from the realistic "kickball", the silly "blowing bubbles", to the outrageous "taming ogres". 

Where they were choices (again, tons to choose from) include "at Hogwarts", "in disguise", and "in zero gravity."

How choices include "and using the force", "like a Zombie", and "with my BFFs." 

Perfectly geared to tweens, Zamzee was easy to use and fun.  For adults, Zamzee is too simplistic, by golly we want to know how many calories we burned.  Not having an option to create a field for what you were doing was also an issue. 

But again, Zamzee was designed for tweens and not obsessive, type A adults.

Speaking of obessive, since we had four Zamzee meters, we opted to do a family challenge to see who could rack up the most activity pointz.  

The bad news: You'll have to stay tuned to find out the winner of the Schroeder Family Challenge.

The good news: You can win your own Zamzee.  

Read the Schroeder Family Challenge Zamzee Giveaway post to enter and win.  

Note: Other than receiving 4 Zamzees to review, I was not compensated in any way for this post.  All views are my own.  

 

 

iPad vs Laptop

Photo credit: Apple

 

Photo Credit: Apple

 I've been coveting an iPad for the last 2 years.  So lightweight, so versatile, I want.  But I've been good and have been holding off.  

Keeping those desires at bay, while thoughts of scoring an iPad run through my head. Like an addict, wanting a fix, knowing they shouldn't, yet the desire is still there.

But now the thoughts of want, want, want, have become a crescendo, threatening to drown out all logic and reason.  

I need an iPad.  Or rather, I need a laptop. But which one?  iPad vs Laptop?

I have a great laptop that works. But...

• It's 8 years old
• It's very slow
• The hard drive is only 74 GB
• The battery can only hold a charge for 30 minutes so it has to be plugged in
• I can't work on any of my blogs (Traveling Well For Less, Fun San Diego, or even this one) since the platform is so old. And yes, I tried updating IE, even installed Firefox, but no go.

So it needs to be replaced.  But do I get an iPad or a laptop?  And do I go with a MacBook Air or an ultrabook?

I've spent the last 3 months trying to decide, reading everything and anything on exactly how much I can get done or not get done with an iPad.

What I need:

• lightweight (4 pounds max)
• long battery life
• ability to work on my blogs

But I'm cheap.  I want an iPad since it can do all those things.  Although, uploading photos is tricky and I would need several writing apps, so it's not an end all.  And for $829, I can almost get a MacBook Air or an ultrabook.

With a MBA or ultrabook I could also do my court reporting.  And that is the question. Since I'm still in school, do I hold off completely until I finish and then get a MBA or ultrabook?

Or do I get the iPad that will serve me now and cost a little less?

Or do spend a little more to get the MBA or ultrabook, but I can use it for more things?

I can't decide: everyday I change my mind; one day I'm getting the iPad, the next day a MBA, the next an ultrabook.   Aaargh...

What do you think?

 

BlogHer'12 Recap

 

Sparklecorn's lone unicorn

BlogHer'12 has come to an end and it's time for a BlogHer'12 recap.  

This is the first of twelve short posts about my BlogHer'12 experience.   

1. Hilton New York - The Mother Ship
2. Transportation - Cheap or convenient
3. BlogHer '12 - 5,000 Attendees (4,992 women and 8 guys)
4. Food - Options for all
5. Sessions - Don't bother taking notes
6. Geek Bar - Geeks rule
7. Parties - Sparklecorn, it's no joke
8. Sponsors - Only if you were one of the chosen
9. Swag - Vibrators Galore
10. Roommate - Sharing a room with a stranger
11. Bloggers - New friends and blogs to read

Although this post isn't on the list, it counts.  Check back or make it easy on yourself and subscribe via RSS feed.

 

Internet Shutdown July 9 - Are You Infected?

Photo Credit: Gizbot

This morning on KUSI Good Morning San Diego, there was a feature on the worldwide shutdown of the internet.  (And no this wasn't presented by Ron Burgundy.)  

The DNSChanger Malware Trojan horse infection has affected 4 million PCs worldwide; of those, 500,000 are PCs in the US.

Worried that your computer might be one?

The FBI has created a website http://www.dcwg.org/detect/ for people to check to see if their computer has been affected and what steps to take.

You can use this link http://www.dns-ok.us/ to check your computer.  If it comes up green then your computer is fine, if not, follow the steps outlined in the first here.

DOA

Did you know that an Apple Magic Mouse can die?  Neither did I, but apparently they can and mine did. It only took 45 minutes on the phone with tech support, running through a barrage of tests including replacing batteries, etc., and a visit to the Apple store, to confirm that yes, indeed, my Magic Mouse was DOA.

And the weird thing, when I went in to the Apple store, it took all of 1 minute to diagnosis the problem, 

Cool Apple Employee: "So, what seems to be the problem today?"

Me: "My mouse isn't working. I've already spoken with tech support and run through a bunch of tests including Command - Option - P - R, but that didn't work."

Cool Apple Employee: "Great. We'll get you a new mouse."  turns to another Cool Apple Employee and hands him my mouse and says, "DOA."

So I'm guessing this is not an uncommon problem.  Next time my cursor is locked in position at the left corner of my iMac, I'll know to avoid the 45 minutes of trouble shooting and just head to the Apple store for a new Magic Mouse.

 

Steve Jobs is Dead

Just heard on the news that Apple co-founder, Steve Jobs, died today.   :(

Just Call Me a Geek

Since I went to a Mac I rarely turn on my "old" PC.  Mostly because it's a hassle to get it running; it turns on fine but I would have to open Outlook Express, send an email and only then could I launch Internet Explorer or use other programs/applications.

Obviously it was an OE problem but no one could figure it out.  Yesterday I stumbled across some articles that talked about file corruption in OE and provided solutions, one of which was to rename the Folders.dbx file and then try to restore it.

Even though I'm not very technically inclined yet in my brilliance I choose to fix my PC. It must have been the heat: 107 in the shade at my house, no air conditioning. (Ok, we do have A/C but only in the new part of the house and I'm really cheap and didn't want to turn it on.)

 So I renamed my folders.dbx file and then closed OE.  Then tried to restart and viola, all my subfolders vanished.  So not what I wanted.  I create folders for each item and then subfolders, makes it easier to find what I need.  I also tend to keep every email that I might need in the future.

Given that I have/had two businesses (Days Off Travel, Crop Addict and Scrapbook Cruises (scrapping division of Days Off Travel so it doesn't count as separate business ), am on the Board of Directors forRancho Buena Vista Little League, going to school fulltime, both boys are in multiple sports, etc. etc. To say that I have a LOT of email is an understatement.

So in my wisdom to attempt to do this on my own I successfully managed to delete all my subfolders. Oh the primary folders remained but given that I don't store any emails in them, it did me little good.  Since I use an external backup (Carbonite) on my PC, I was a little stressed but knew they could be recovered, or so I thought...

I did a restore files, selecting only the folders.dbx, was given a successful message from Carbonite but when I launched OE again, no such luck.  It was back to the Internet (Thank you Al Gore) to find an answer.  But I was stymied and now seriously stressed.  I'm not talking, stressed because I couldn't recover the "great to see you the other day" emails but stressed because I'm talking the emails with invoices (since everyone is going green and no no sends paper invoices anymore) that are required for my tax returns stressed.

Thankfully, in my OCD wisdom I had backed up all my emails on a physical EHD and had downloaded it all to my Mac.  I realized I could email my folders.dbx file to myself, save it to the appropriate location and I'd be golden. 

Not as easy as it sounds.  I tried an extraction program and that didn't work. Back to the internet to find the answer. Thankfully found a completely different thread and answer.  Left out a crucial step...to import my files.  Imported my files and viola, all my emails back.

Patting myself on the back, yes, just call me Chuck or Chuckette. Maybe I can get a job with the Nerd Herd.

And if you're wondering exactly how many emails I'm talking about it, I have exactly 75,503 emails in my OE on my PC. And yes, I do delete emails but apparently not enough. But I know what I'll be doing this weekend....

 

 

Venturing to the Dark Side

I've been a PC user for so long that Mac wasn't in my vocabulary. But when my last PC began to act whonky and show signs that it was struggling for life, I decided to see what Apple had to offer.  Hard to not be enticed by the lure of how pretty Macs are...

I am now a Mac convert, proud owner of a beautiful iMac, and loving every minute and bit of it.  Of course, I haven't completely cut the cord since I'm running Windows via Parallels on my Mac but I've taken a big step.

Isn't she a beauty?

I'll write a full review soon...