Simply Modern Mom

Archive for the ‘Intriguing Sites’ Category

Intriguing Sites: Beyond Snapshots

In Intriguing Sites, Photography on February 18, 2010 at 8:00 am

Many of us fantasize about the ability to take superb photographs but feel limited by our lack of knowledge, skill or equipment. Myself included. I am lucky enough to have a nice DSLR camera. But the knowledge and skill part is where I fall short. My photography experiences includes working one summer with a wedding photographer and taking a film photography and black and white developing class. Both happened while I was in high school. Everything else is pretty much self taught, practice and reading digital photography blogs.

That’s why when I discovered Beyond Snapshots, I was thrilled. The blog only began January 2010, but Rachel and Peta (the two masterminds and photographers behind Beyond Snapshots) has all ready taught me so much. They are sharing photography secrets and tips to help others take pictures beyond the auto mode. My favorite part about the site thus far? The Spotted segment where they take someone’s photograph and provide constructive criticisms. I’m learning how to really look at photographs in an artistic way. At the same time, it is improving my photography. Thanks Rachel and Peta for sharing your talent with us!

» Tell me… What has helped you improve your photography skills?

Intriguing Sites: Men in Aprons

In Intriguing Sites on February 3, 2010 at 9:00 am

I love it when my husband cooks. He may not be a gourmet chef, but don’t mind getting break from cooking. It’s a rare occasion when we eat out, so I am in the kitchen at least three times a day, seven days a week. It is exhausting planning meals, getting groceries, searching for recipes, preparing the meals, cooking the meals and cleaning up after meals.

Men in Aprons is a fun site with cleaver cooking ideas and recipes for men. But I think there are things from that site I would like to try. If anything, it makes cooking a little more of a lighthearted task. It’s for male cooks at any level whether he needs to learn to how make scrambled eggs or find tips to grilling. Ziploc omelette, Hatch Chile Baked Mac & Cheese or Mission Moon Rocks.

Hey guys! Here’s a Valentine’s Day idea… Make your wife a special Valentine’s Day dinner by using Men in Aprons. You’re welcome.

Ladies, does your husband/boyfriend cook? What is your favorite dish he makes?

Intriguing Sites: Poladroid.net

In Intriguing Sites, Photography on January 20, 2010 at 9:00 am

A series of thoughts and searches on Google led me to this awesome site that I am psyched about. It’s Poladroid.net. Nathan was telling me last year about how Polaroid is sooo early ’90s and the company is struggling to survive. I refused to put down Polaroid that way. Although I was not an 80’s child, I did own one Polaroid camera. The Polaroid i-Zone Pocket. I had it when I was in high school and I loved it. It had little thumbnail size Polaroid film. The best part: You could purchase film that had a sticky back. Picture turned sticker. Awesome.

How can you not like the click sound when you take the picture. Watching the thick film come out. Shaking it to make it develop faster. Anticipating the candid picture to magically appear in that square box. No other experience like it.

I kept my Polaroid i-Zone throughout college. Had it even when Nathan and I were first married. Finally he convinced me that I couldn’t find film for it anymore in stores. I got rid of it. Still wish I had it.

So, boy, was I glad to find Poladroid.net. Download their free application. Drag digital photos into the Polaroid on your desktop. Wait and watch it develop right before your eyes. Love it. Love it so much that I am dedicating a Tumblr site to it. Remember my goal to practice photography in 2010? This will help. See personal photos of my family at tiffanybird.tumblr.com.

I recommend visiting Poladroid.net. Download the application. Use it. Love it. Donate to support the Polaroid Project.

Intriguing Sites: Storenvy

In Intriguing Sites, The Gift Box on December 8, 2009 at 8:59 am


storenvy

Some of you noticed I am using Storenvy for my store. And others mentioned you have never heard of Storenvy. Well, they are pretty new. So I’m featuring them in my Intriguing Sites this week.

For those of you with an online store and those looking to open an online store, you will want to consider Storenvy. Here’s why. It’s free! They don’t take a percentage of your sales. They use PayPal for their financial transactions and the PayPal fee is the only thing you pay to PayPal. No transaction fee or percentage fee to Storenvy. They don’t charge to post items in your store either.

What’s the catch? Why would they do it for free? Rather than making money through charging seller fees, they hope you will use them to print shirts. That’s their main business. Storenvy offers award-winning T-shirts and merchandise printing. Store owners are not required to use them to print shirts, but if you are in that business, they hope you will use them. That’s it.

Other benefits, you can do just about what you want with your store on Storenvy. It has fully customizable storefronts for you to design it the way you want it. They have a ton of amazing store features. And just like any other online store communities, it is a fun place to shop and support online small businesses.

And look at what I found last Saturday on their main page… Yup. One of the mustaches was being featured in their home page! Mr. Hugo is in the middle under ‘New & Interesting’.

storenvy feature

Intriguing Sites: Free Rice

In Intriguing Sites on November 25, 2009 at 9:00 am

free rice

Help feed the less fortunate worldwide by testing your knowledge. Free Rice donates 10 grains of rice for every trivia question you answer correctly. Not only will you be charitable when you play the free game on this site, you may also improve your vocabulary and knowledge of science, geography, math, art and languages (English and a few other foreign ones). Take a moment to exercise that noggin of yours and feed the hungry while you’re at it. They also offer a toolbar you can download to feed more people.

Intriguing Sites: Pomodoro, a Giveaway & Free Book

In Giveaway, Intriguing Sites on November 19, 2009 at 9:00 am

Pomodoro

Conquer time. Every parent, working or staying at home, knows time goes too quickly when you are juggling kids and a million other things. Thanks to the mastermind of Francesco Cirillo, he developed the Pomodoro Technique. During his university studies, Francesco found himself in a slump and needed a way to focus. His solution came in the form of a tomato timer from the kitchen, pomodoro meaning tomato in Italian. This pomodoro was his time tutor. Then came the technique.

The technique is pretty simple. At the beginning of each day, go through your task list and organize according to priority. Then set your pomodoro, a timer, to 25 minutes. Work on the task for 25 minutes then take a 5 minute break. That is the gist of it. This technique allows you to stay focus on the task you are working on, keep track of interruptions and calculate exactly how long it takes you to get something done. Simple. To the point. And that is how we like it around here. The short 45-page book goes into more detail while giving tips on how to eliminate interruptions, simplify tasks and so much more.

The Free Book

Available to everyone, a free PDF version of Francesco’s book, Pomodoro Technique, is available to download. Read and apply. Click on link to download.

The Giveaway

*This giveaway is now closed. Thanks for all the entries! Find out who won here.

The Pomodoro Team is offering THREE readers their soon to be released Pomodoro Kit. Yes, you’ll be one of the firsts to get it! The kit consists of the official Pomodoro 25-minute timer, Pomodoro t-shirt, pencil, and to do today pad.

pomodoro kit

To enter, do any of the following. For multiple entries, do more than one and make sure you leave a separate comment for each entry.

  1. Leave a comment below and tell me what is your biggest time waster.
  2. Go to Pomodoro Technique, look around, then tell me what you like about it in separate comment.
  3. Blog about this giveaway and leave a link to the post in your comment below.
  4. ‘Share’ this giveaway by doing one of the ‘Share’ options below (Twitter, Facebook, Kirtsy, StumbleUpon, or Email).

Good luck to everyone and the entries will close on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 26 at 10 p.m. EST. The winner will be announce on Friday, Nov. 27. I know it will be Black Friday and all of you will be out shopping.

Intriguing Sites: GOOP

In Intriguing Sites on November 2, 2009 at 9:00 am

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Gwyneth Paltrow has a site, GOOP, where she write about some of her favorite things. It’s fun to read about and learn some tips from Gwyneth on what to eat, makeup, places to visit, and so forth. I love the feel of her site, so down-to-earth.

Intriguing Sites: Poloppo

In Intriguing Sites on October 15, 2009 at 9:00 am

Poloppo

My Kaye creates the cutest stick people, especially for a 3-year-old. Then I found Poloppo. Intriguing. You purchase a T-me kit where your child draws a picture on the paper provided with special markers, also provided. Then pick out a style of shirt from their catalog. And return the artwork in the pre-paid envelope, also in the kit. In a few days, your child receives his or her personally designed shirt in the mail. How fun is that? And now that it is getting into the cooler weather months, they will be offering long sleeve shirts available sometime next week.

Can’t wait for it in the mail? You can upload the picture from your computer use their direct order service.

Poloppo Even if you don’t have a child at home, this would be a great gift idea for any child who is old enough to draw. The ideas are endless. The best part: A portion of Poloppo’s revenues is donated to an art education support program for children around the world. And they have a blog.

Exclusively for SMM readers… Poloppo is offering you a 15% discount. Use promotional code SMM. The offer is good until Nov. 14, 2009. So go now… right now.

SMM was not paid by Poloppo to feature their products or services on this site.

Intriguing Sites: Bloggled

In Education Week, Intriguing Sites on October 7, 2009 at 9:00 am

LWM copy

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A friend of mine referred me to Bloggled last year and I have been a customer ever since. Although I have yet to have a problem with losing information on my site or have my site deleted, I don’t want to risk the chance. As of right now, Bloggled can backup unlimited Blogger (Google) and Twitter accounts you own. And they backup up to 10 versions of it, so if something gets erased, you can always retrieve it from their site. The backup is done automatically on a weekly basis. You don’t even have to think about it.

Intriguing Sites: Mint

In Intriguing Sites on September 23, 2009 at 9:00 am

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Keep up with the family budget and monthly spendings with Mint. It’s a free online, secured, service that tracks where every penny comes and goes in all your accounts – credit cards, checking accounts, savings accounts, any bills, all spending transactions, investments. It even suggests ways you can saving more money. It will send you alert when you are over spending or if any of your accounts are getting low on funds. It’s the way to keep finances simplified. That’s how we do it around here.

Intriguing Sites: Dude Craft

In Intriguing Sites on September 10, 2009 at 9:00 am

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I love the fact that crafting is not only for women. However, if you want something cutsie, you’ll have to make it yourself. If you leave it to the guys, they’ll make crafts like barrel monsters, DIY solar lamps, cannibalistic seed table, and a bike table. Dude Craft is a site that should inspire all the guys out there to be more crafty in their own way.

Intriguing Sites: Ohdeedoh

In Intriguing Sites on August 25, 2009 at 9:00 am

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Family friendly interior design ideas. Super duper cute rooms from all around the world.  In fact, their mission is, “This is a site for people who care about good design, but happen to have children.” Ohdeedoh is my place for great inspiration to Kaye and Elle’s rooms.

Intriguing Sites: Cozi

In Intriguing Sites on August 17, 2009 at 9:00 am

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Back to school time. As we all know, this is when our schedules get hectic. It seems like everyone has their own schedules and the mom has to try to keep up with it all. Cozi is a free calendaring service where yours and everyone else’s schedules can be combined and color coded. The site tries to help you live simply by taking care of the calendar problem. There is even a place on your homepage where you can jot down a few feelings and notes of the day as a quick family journal. Attach a picture to remind you what was special about your day. Write your shopping list and retrieve it on your phone. So this year, get back to school with a simple schedule for the family.

Intriguing Sites: Kuler

In Intriguing Sites on August 5, 2009 at 12:10 pm

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My husband introduced me to Adobe’s Kuler, a wonderful color pallet site that helps you explore different colors. Find color themes, match a base color, create your own color themes from an image, see the colors others in the community are creating. This would be the source for anything color – painting, designing, sewing, photography.

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