Dispensing tech advice. Who, me?

Getting dressed up and going to work occasionally has its privileges.  Like today, for instance.  I was able to wear my favorite new sweater dress and boots (it’s finally dipped below 50 degrees in Chicago, yay!), and could easily justify sneaking away for a few to attend a mom blogger event.  Add to it that I was able to meet up with some blog friends and I nearly forgot that I was on the hook for at least 10 major client deliverables by the end of the day.  This adequately describes a luncheon I went to today put on by a large office supply company (not sure if my firm represents them so not listing them by name yet) to talk about cool tech-y stuff you can buy for the holidays.  Of course, the tech pro on hand to help us all learn about the newest gadgets and gizmos was none other than Beth of Techmamas. She is the tech savvy one.  Me? As I told the crowd: I can buy the gadgets but I can’t seem to use or fix them properly.

However, I am a good note taker and copiously wrote down some thoughts as you peruse the consumer electronic aisles of your favorite stores. 

1. If you’re going to buy a point and shoot digital camera, go for one with a lot of megapixels. 7.1 works. And an optical zoom of 3X doesn’t hurt either.  When the conversation turned to face recognition, though, I admittedly started eating my lunch and tuning out.  They served a good salad, I mean, chocolate.

 

If you look closely, you might see a teensy weensy bit of chocolate cake left. Just a little bit.

2. Digital photo frames are Paris-Hilton-hot right now.  And they’re not as expensive to buy as they might seem.  I want Wendy to buy me the one she has with the wireless card that updates the photos on the frame as they are uploaded to the computer.  Think she’ll pop for it for me?
3. GPS devices give you REAL TIME TRAFFIC updates.  And they’re easy to put in your car.  If you live in Chicago, this is a no brainer.
4. Contrary to popular belief, laptops can be purchased for less than $1000.  And they aren’t made of plastic.  They’re like from a reputable brand. If you’re going to get one of these machines, though, Beth says you should have 2MB of RAM and a 120GB drive.  (I sound so tech-savvy! I’m quitting my day job!)
5. Now, this one is serious.  We all should back up our hard drives to avoid major catastrophes like your computer going to a “blue screen” while your keyboard begins to smoke. (No, this didn’t happen to me, but it sounded good, no?) You can buy a back up drive or go online and back up your system.  Please ‘scuse me while I get up off of my lazy ass to go make sure the 71,000 photos I have of junior don’t just disappear now into thin air.

After all of this copious note taking we all then moved on to the display table.  Being the least tech savvy of the bunch, I went straight for the Crayola squeezable paint brushes and had my way with the fair princess.

At least I didn’t splatter the paint all over the new laptop, right?

Going back to my day job now.

Tags: techmamas, tech advice, gadget advice for moms, tech savvy moms,