“Family” collection
Navigate the intersection of family life and technology with expert advice on household gadgets, digital parenting, and home safety. This section focuses on tools and strategies that enhance family connections and simplify domestic logistics in a digital-first world.
HTD Tech Briefs
View all →June 5, 2009
Social Media Warning: Don’t Try Services like FlockToMe that Claim to Increase Followers!
This post is a Social Media word of warning. If you see any Twitter or Social Media service that claims it will get you hundreds or thousands of new followers or friends in hours…STAY AWAY! I have written about this before in tweets and articles that the only way you should grow your following is by your content alone. People…
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June 1, 2009
Save Money By Creatively Exercising At Home
We are all feeling the pinch of the Recession. It is causing us all to cut back on things that we don't need, subscriptions we don't use, products that are just luxury items and memberships that aren't helping. Who am I to talk though. Between work, family and this blog, I hardly have time to brush my teeth! My daily…
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June 1, 2009
Save Money By Creatively Exercising At Home
We are all feeling the pinch of the Recession. It is causing us all to cut back on things that we don't need, subscriptions we don't use, products that are just luxury items and memberships that aren't helping. Who am I to talk though. Between work, family and this blog, I hardly have time to brush my teeth! My daily…
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May 20, 2009
Phishing Scam Alert: “Information from Comerica Bank customer service team”
I just got the following email with the subject line: "Information from Comerica Bank customer service team [message id: 0715063392]" from "Comerica Bank" which, for me, was obviously a phishing scam. I wanted to quickly document what I found to alert others. While the English of this email message is not as bad as other phishing scams that I have…
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May 19, 2009
“Don’t Forget Your Day Job”
Note: I wrote this article for AddictedToSocialMedia.com (A2SM), an online blog that talks about how to get the most out of Social Media as a whole. A2SM has a series of luminaries writing for them and sharing insight on how to best use Social Media and how they use it. I was honored to be asked to contribute to their…
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May 11, 2009
HighTechDad – “I Am A Geek!” & Proud Of It!
My friend, Brian Solis, pointed me to the "Society for Geek Advancement" today, something which rings true to many of my thoughts, feelings and beliefs. Being a "geek" now is much different than when I was younger. Years ago, having a "geek" badge was something that was almost shameful, and people were ostracized because of it. Now, all of us…
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May 11, 2009
Crafting Your Company’s Social Media Policy
A few weeks ago, I offered to help our Human Resources department create a "Social Media Policy" for my company. While my company didn't want to impose draconian restrictions on Social Media, HR felt that some rules did have to be created for the good of both the employer and employee. Our head of HR and I spent some time…
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April 20, 2009
Twitter Threats and Negotiations
The Age of Twitter is upon us. All hail the all mighty and powerful Twitter! But also, the age of innocence is gone. There are spammers galore, people who are "social media experts" who have only 8 tweets to their name, and really attractive and scantily clad women who earned $1500 in just 1 day of work. Wonder how they…
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April 9, 2009
Conficker Worm- What You Should Know, Prevention & Fixes
It looks like the Conficker worm is rearing its ugly head today, downloading a mysterious payload that is heavily encrypted to infected Windows machines. As the information on this is just starting to hit, there is still a lot of speculation as to what the payload contains and what it does. This post provides a brief rundown of links, tools…
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March 16, 2009
Cabbage Patch Babies: Which one is real?
My wife reminded me this weekend of a picture we took about 4 years ago of our youngest daughter. I finally got my hands on it. Every time I look at this picture, I smile and laugh. Just as all of my daughters bring me and my wife joy, I hope this picture gives you a little happiness as well.…
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February 9, 2009
How to Easily Check your Blog for Security Breaches & Hacker Code
A few months ago, I got an email from a family member that told me that when they visited my blog, they received a "malicious software" warning. I found this very odd, since I visit my own blog fairly regularly and hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary. I found out that the issue only appeared with Safari for the…
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February 3, 2009
Social Experiment: Twitter Dad Tuesdays #twitdadtues
This morning I had some interesting Twitter conversations with a few Dads who are on Twitter about how frustrated their spouses are with them at times. The conversations and threads were brought on by reading through this interesting article ("Moms Everywhere are Pissed Off") as well as from my own experiences trying to be a "technologist", a loving husband and…
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