I do have my son’s password and I set up the account for him. I have friended him and I periodically go online and check who he is friending and his privacy settings, but I can’t be there 100% of the time to see every update that he makes. That is where Safely Social Monitor comes in.

Safely Social Monitor is part of a trio of Familyware including Safely Locate and Safely Drive software services that will increase parent’s awareness of activities when they are not with their child.

Safely Social Monitor Works

Safely Social Monitor provides both an overview of your child’s Facebook account including friends, pictures, average age of friends and more and a weekly email with all of your child’s status updates.

If your child publishes an update that is questionable, you will receive an alert via email, which I received last month. The update mentioned sex, but it was used in the context of sexual abuse victims, so the update was ok. But I was glad that I received the email because it gave me the opportunity to ask my son some questions and find out how much he knew about sexual abuse and we discussed what to do if you are ever in that position. This is a conversation I may not have had if Safely Social Monitor hadn’t made me aware of the update.

Sign up for a free Safely Social Monitor account at the Safely website. Safely provides Safely Spotlight,  has a free digital parenting guide with tips and advice, available on the Safely Facebook page. Follow @Safely on Twitter.

Disclosure: This review of Safely Social Monitor is a compensated post sponsored by Location Labs. All opinions of Safely Social Monitor are 100% my own.

Let’s Talk About Safely Social Monitor!

Are your children on Facebook? How do you monitor their activity? 

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Safely Social Monitor Increases Parents Awareness Of Child’s Activity On Facebook originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.

Future of Apple

First order of business, will Apple survive without Jobs? I know that Apple will survive. My hope is that Jobs has put enough of his “whatever it is that makes him a tech god” into the company. I am both a Mac and PC geek, but gosh darn it, Apple sure does know how to make technology sexy. I hope they continue to go above and beyond what all imagine they will do. They have forced other tech companies to think outside the box and make a product that people want. I believe that will continue.

Predicting the Future of Technology

Predicting successes and failures in the future of technology is no easy task. A few months ago if you asked me if Netflix was going anywhere I would have said, “no way.” They have positioned themselves to take streaming media head on and have mastered the DVD rental realm. But today, I’m not so sure. Netflix was a service I never imagined living without. Now I’m hoping I can figure out a solution so I can get rid of my Netflix service.

I find it easier to predict the future of technology in general than in companies specifically. (Yep, easy way out!) There doesn’t seem to be an easy formula for tech companies to succeed. What works for Facebook (completely changing it’s service without much notice), obviously doesn’t work well for Netflix.

Some companies can create demand for a new product (Apple and the iPad) where others are better off sticking with upgrading their current products (Microsoft and it’s tablet a few years ago.)

Secret to Surviving

I do know that if a company is going to survive the fast changing tech world, they need to be ahead of the technology changes and have a plan to weather the storms. As I tell my kids, making mistakes and failing are not bad. You need to learn from those mistakes, make changes and move on. Failing means you learned what doesn’t work. Now figure out what does work!

Disclosure: This post was written as a ChicaAmbassador for Chicalogic. I am compensated for my participation. All opinions are 100% my own.

Let’s Talk About the Future of Technology!

Which tech companies do you think will survive the future of technology? Which tech companies will not be around in the future of technology?

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Future of Technology Companies; Surviving! originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.

Using Verizon FiOS Twitter Widget

So, let’s say you are watching your favorite reality show and it’s the last episode. It is so much fun to see what everyone is saying about the show while you are watching. So, let’s bring up the Twitter widget on our Verizon FiOS box.

There are quite a few different types of widgets available from Verizon FiOS in categories like sports, news, social networking, games and more. I am going to show you Social Networking widgets today so that is where we will start.

We choose Twitter first and launch it.

This is what the TV looks like before the Twitter widget is launched. We are watching Wizards of Waverly Place today, but you would be watching your favorite reality show finale.

And when the Twitter widget comes up, you see a stream of Twitter comments about the show you are watching.

You can refresh the stream to see the new comments. You can sign in to Twitter and update your own status from the Verizon FiOS widget.

If you want to let everyone on Facebook know you are watching your favorite reality show finale on Verizon FiOS, you can do that too. Bring up the Facebook widget and sign in.

Then you can update your status, find out what everyone else is doing and even look at pictures.

A few other fun widgets available on Verizon FiOS TV are traffic….

and “Hot on TV”…..

and the weather.

You can access so much from the comfort of your couch with Verizon FiOS services.

Want to know how to use your smartphone as a Verizon FiOS TV remote? Check out my other Verizon FiOS TV post.

Verizon FiOS Availability

Verizon FiOS is not available everywhere, so please check the availability in your area.

Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in a brand team campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Verizon FiOS.Verizon will send me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate. All opinion are 100% my own.

Let’s Talk About Verizon FiOS!

Do you have Verizon FiOS? Do you use the widgets? What are your thoughts?

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Verizon FiOS Widgets; Twitter Talk During Your Shows originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.

So, here is my list of 11 iPhone apps that I use most days. I am not including the apps that come with the iPhone like mail and Safari because that’s not any fun and you all know those.

7 Free iPhone Apps Used Daily

Twittelator Free

Twittelator Free is a Twitter app. I have tried most of the free Twitter apps and this one works the best for me. I like that I can do everything I need to without having to access many screens. Price: Free (but there is a Paid version too)

Facebook

I love the Facebook app so much that I almost exclusively check Facebook on my iPhone. I like that I can sync my Facebook friends with my contacts too. Price: Free

Instagram

Instagram is my newest obsession. Below is a sample of a picture taken with Instagram and I added an Instagram filter. The filters are underneath the picture. You can scroll to see more.

Instagram makes just about every picture look awesome. Then you can add a note, a location and share on several sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr right in the app. And if that wasn’t enough, you can friend people and see their Instagram pictures in your stream and “like” them or add comments. It is quite addicting.

Friend me on Instagram, I’m ScrappinMichele.

Here is an Instagram Tips Free App too. Price: Free.

Path

I have not quite figured out the purpose of Path, but I like it because I can see a picture and add who was there, where I was and what we were doing. I do not share my pictures with anyone. It is more for my own purpose. You can add friends, but not many people I know are using it, so I think the true potential of the app is when you add friends. Price: Free.

IntoNow

IntoNow is a fun app. You open it up and let it listen to what you are watching on TV. It will find the show and you can share it with your friends. You will also get links to more information about the show. So far it has never been wrong. I even try to fool it during commercials and it always knows it’s not a TV show. I’m not sure how it works, but it’s fun. Price: Free

SparkPeople

I start out every morning putting my breakfast in SparkPeople with all intentions of tracking my food. Some days I make all the way, but most days, I never make it past breakfast. I’m working on this!! You can track your food, water, weight and exercise all from the iPhone app. Price: Free

WeatherBug

WeatherBug is the first app I look at after my alarm goes off. That way I know how to tell the kids to dress when I go into their room to wake them up. I also use this when I travel so I know what to pack or how much warmer it is where I am than at home. Price: Free

4 Bonus iPhone Apps Used Daily

CCal

I use Google Calendar to keep all my calendars on my dozens of places synced. For some reason it wasn’t working well with my iPhone calendar, so I downloaded CCal which syncs directly with Google Calendar. There are a lot of added features that the iPhone calendar won’t do. Price: $5.99

MobileRSS

MobileRSS is what I use to read blogs. I rarely read them on my desktop. I either use my iPhone or iPad and I use the MobileRSS app on both. I like that I can directly send any post to Evernote or in an email. Not the link to the post, but the whole post. I send myself posts that I want to either remember or that I want to follow up on or comment on later. MobileRSS syncs with my Google Reader account. Price: $2.99 (There is a free MobileRSS version)

GoodReader

GoodReader for iPhone is where I keep PDF or Word files that I want to read. I have purchased many PDF e-books and I use GoodReader on my iPhone and iPad to read. I can also add notes and organize them into folders. Price: $2.99

Momento

I use Momento for Scrapbooking. You pull many of your social feeds into Momento and you can add notes or pictures directly within the app. Then I can look at any day and see what I posted on Facebook, Flickr, my blog, etc. It’s fun to go back a year and see what you were talking about. Price: $2.99

Let’s Talk! What apps do you use every day? Leave a comment and let me know. I’m always looking for new apps.

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7 Free iPhone Apps I Use Daily originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.

You start the game by naming your character. I am ScrappinMichele (friend me if you’d like in the game). You can make some modifications if you’d like.  Here I am:

I’m not sure what is up with my ears. Maybe I have ear muffs on because it’s so cold. LOL! You can decorate your house. You get a few basics to start with. I gave some of my stuff away to friends to share the wealth. I like to play the Thump the Thoughts game.

See those red nasty thoughts. You earn points by thumping them. Much better way to take out your frustrations. It’s a fun game and it brings out the competitor in me. I want to thump more and more bad thoughts away.

You can leave thoughts of gratitude and visit your friends that play the game also. The more you play, the more you earn and the more you can spend. The premise is the same as many of the other games on Facebook, but I like that this game involves doing good instead of killing and stealing.

You can check out the game, by going to the A Better World Facebook Page.

Disclosure:  I am receiving a gift card from Likeable Media in exchange for testing and writing about the game.

A Positive Facebook Game, A Better World originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.

Personal security is an important issue whether locking the doors to your home, relying on your car’s security system to deter intruders, or ensuring you computer’s antivirus protection is up to date.  With all of the recent news about Facebook privacy, it is even important to safeguard your social network from prying eyes and e-threats.

BitDefender is looking to protect your Facebook account by creating a robust application that will protect users from prying eyes and e-threats while also allowing you to safely access shared pictures, videos, and files. safego is designed to curb threats to personal privacy, spam attacks, and malware distribution campaigns that have been found to occur through this popular social networking platform.

How does it work?

Installing safego provides:

• Privacy protection- You’ll be warned when you should modify your Facebook privacy settings so that personal information isn’t exposed.
• Automatic scanning- Just press the “scan now” button to get a snapshot of your Facebook security status.
• 24/7 protection- Your account is protected even when you’re not logged into Facebook.
• Protection for your friends- You’ll have the ability to warn your friends about infected links in their Facebook accounts.

Since safego is in BETA version, BitDefender invites you to be a part of this new product by sharing your opinion during this final testing phase. Direct feedback will be used by the company to make final tweaks.

Here’s how you can help:

• Visit BitDefender’s safego Facebook app page to take a look at safego
• Submit any feedback via email to safego@bitdefender.com

For more information about keeping yourself and your family safe online, visit BitMoms.com, a community dedicated to providing free resources and a place for parents to seek advice about keeping children safe on the internet.

Disclosure: I am sharing this information as a BitMom Blog Network Member.  No compensation was received for this post, however, I do receive a stipend to attend a blogging conference of my choice.

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Your Privacy on Facebook Protected with safego by BitDefender originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.

• @noradsanta - Norad will be tweeting Santa’s location
• NORAD Santa Tracker -The official NORAD Santa Tracker website. NORAD has been tracking Santa for over 50 years (yes, same ones who were on the radion back when I was a kid).
• Facebook Page - NORAD’s Facebook fan page
• Google Earth 3D Santa Tracker – Track Santa in 3D.  They have video for some locations too. Here is a direct link to the page to download Google Earth.

iPhone Apps

All 3 are 99 cents. I have not downloaded any of these because we set up one of our computers in our home as the official Santa Tracker computer and it displays Google Earth all day. It keeps my kids busy while we wait for Christmas Eve to be over and they know they need to go to bed as he gets closer to the United States. I included these in case you are traveling today and can’t be near your computer. I wouldn’t want any geeks out there to miss out on tracking Santa.

• Santa Tracker 2009
  
• Santa Tracker: Countdown & Journey GPS 2009
  
• Santa Track

How will you be tracking Santa this year?

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Tracking Santa the Geek Way originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.

iPhone/iTouch Applications Organization

You can FINALLY organize your apps from within iTunes. You can grab them from the large screen and drag them to any of the smaller screens on the right. I am finally able to organize my apps in a way that is logical to me. THANK YOU Apple!!  iTunes also shows you how large the apps are.

Syncing TV shows & Podcasts

You can choose a specific episode of a TV show or a podcast. In the above example, I was previously syncing the 3 most recent episodes, but now I can pick and choose exactly which episodes I want to listen sync to my phone. Now I can easily go back and listen to Jen’s shows that I missed right from my iPhone. This makes the syncing process much easier.

Syncing Photos

If you have a Mac and are using iPhotos, you can also sync pictures from certain events, albums or faces.

Genius Mixes

This feature is similar to the genius in the iTunes store, except that it mixes the music in your library. Here are 6 of my mixes. This could make for some interesting playlists and I’ll probably find songs I didn’t know I had.

iTunes Store

The home page looks completely different. I like the way it looks, but I did have a hard time finding the different categories within Music, TV Shows, Applications, etc. The main categories are along the top. And here is how you find the separate sections within each top category. If you mouse over the top category, then an arrow appears, click on the arrow and this is what you see.

Music Sharing

This is the Top Charts list on the Home page. If you click on the arrow next to the Buy and price, you see this. It allows you to do several things.

1. Give the song as a gift to someone instead of just giving them a generic gift card.
2. Add to your wish list. Now you can keep track of the songs that you would like to purchase when you have the money.
3. Copy Link. This lets you copy the URL of that particular song so you may include it in a post, e-mail, etc. Example – Miley Cyrus
4. Share on Facebook. It appears like this in your newsfeed on Facebook.
5. Share on Twitter. It appears in your Twitter stream like this.

This is what the music page looks like for an individual song. I like the clean look on the white background much better than the colored backgrounds of previous versions. If you click on the arrow next to the Buy Album, you get all the same 5 choices as above plus you can Tell a Friend via email.

If you move your mouse over any song, a circle appears to the left of the title. Click on that to listen to a sample.

Overall, I am really happy with the new features in iTunes 9. I am not the kind of person who wants to read a tutorial to figure out how to work my new software (or upgraded software) so I want it to be easy to figure out. Most of the new iTunes has been easy for me, but it will take some getting used to for me. I’m a creature of habit. If you like tutorials, Apple has a lot of them on their website.

Let me know what you thought of the new version.

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The New Useful Features of iTunes 9 originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.

There it is. Twitter and Facebook on my Verizon Fios TV. I added Twitter first. I can not update my own twitter status, but I can see what topics are trending and see any twitter comments about the show I’m watching. That sounds pretty cool, but it has a flaw. I was watching the Today show, so Verizon searched twitter for all mentions of the word today.  I saw a lot of comments like, “Good Morning! What are you doing today?” I couldn’t find one tweet about the show I was watching. Verizon need to search for hashtags instead of just words to make the tweets more relevant. I can see this as being a lot of fun during some of the shows, like American Idol or Biggest Loser for example. I love to tweet and watch those shows at the same time.

Next, I moved onto Facebook. I was able to add my username and password and view my own account. Both Twitter & Facebook appear on the right side of the screen with the show I’m watching on the left.

The only thing I could see this morning was my Friend’s Status Updates. The other options timed out. If you click on “What are you watching?” you can update your status on Facebook with the name of the TV show you are watching.

Next time you are watching TV and think, “I’m just too lazy to get up and go to the computer or grab my phone, but I really need to check Facebook or Twitter,” you can just click on the widget button on Verizon Fios and never leave the couch. All my time suckers in one place. How convenient!

How useful do you think these features are? Will you use them?

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Facebook & Twitter invade my TV watching time originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.

We are starting out very very slowly. Yesterday we walked 15 minutes and today we walked 5, ran 1 and repeated and ended with a 5 min walk. We are following Nike’s walk to run plan. When I sync my iPhone with my iTunes after our workout, it will upload my information to the Nike+ website and I can share with everyone. If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you’ll see my updates on the days we run. If you use Nike+, add me as a friend. I’m scrapmichele on the Nike+ site. You’ll be able to follow my progress over on the left (look for the Nike+ widget).

I have never been a runner, but the geeky side of me loves how I can track my progress and use my iPhone to help me workout. And working out with my daughter has been fun too. I’m considering buying her some Nike+ shoes and the sensor so she can track her runs on her iPod.

Tell me about your Nike+ experiences. Do you like it? Were you a couch potato before and now a runner? Any hints or tips?

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Starting a couch to 5k today originally posted at Scraps of My Geek Life.