From the category archives:

Tech

We’re giving away an HP TouchSmart 600. Just sayin’. (CLOSED)

by Mommy on November 27, 2009

Congrats to Lisa of stephie-stephsblog.blogspot.com!

She fullfilled her her mandatory entry:
New comment on your post #3058 “We’re giving away an HP TouchSmart 600. Just sayin’.”
Author: lisa
Comment: I love the HD as well as the 2 Duo processor. I wold love to own this computer.

She won with her daily tweet:
Win an HP TouchSmart 600 from @mommydaddyblog and @hpdirect ! http://tinyurl.com/yf82wld #hp #computers #gadgets

lisawonhp

When I first got my smart phone, I became so used to touching the screen that I would accidentally touch the screen on my laptop. This happened a few times in public and I felt like an idiot. The thought of being able to navigate through my personal computer by touching the monitor was a sweet idea, I thought. Unfortunately, HP beat me to bringing that idea to life with their the HP TouchSmart 600 PC.

HP TouchSmart 600

The HP TouchSmart 600 is definitely on my wishlist. I’m all about space saving. I hate clunky items. The HP TouchSmart provides everything that would be housed in a traditional tower in what is about the size of a flat panel monitor. The sleek design and the ability to get rid of my mouse instantly won me over. There are lots of features I’d love to try out, like Windows 7 and the touch enabled entertainment apps all in HD quality, or even taking a stab at illustrating since I could draw directly on the monitor. Since I have yet to try out the HP TouchSmart 600, I’ll let HP do the rest of the talking!

Giveaway

The very generous folks at HP have provided us with an HP TouchSmart 600 to give away to one Mommy Daddy Blog reader! Yes, you read right, we are giving away an HP Touchsmart 600 computer to one of YOU! Lets proceed to the rules!

Mandatory Entry: Learn about the HP TouchSmart 600 and leave a comment stating a feature that makes you drool.

Extra Entry (worth 1 entry): Grab the button and place it on your blog. Leave a comment letting me know that you’ve done so.

Extra Entry (worth 1 entry): Follow @hp_pc on Twitter. Leave an additional comment with your Twitter name letting me know that you’ve done so.

Extra Entry (worth 1 entry): Become a fan of HP for Home (United States) on Facebook. Be sure to post on their wall letting them know that Mommy Daddy Blog sent you!

Extra Entry (worth 1 entry): Follow @mommydaddyblog on Twitter. Leave an additional comment with your twitter name letting me know that you’ve done so.

Extra Entry (worth 1 entry): Become a fan of Mommy Daddy Blog on Facebook. Leave a comment with your Facebook name or URL.

Extra Entry (worth 1 entry): Subscribe to our Buzz feed. Leave a separate comment letting me know that you have done so.

Extra Entry (worth 1 entry): Tweet about this giveaway and leave an additional comment linking to your tweet (how to link directly to a tweet). You can write whatever you’d like or you can copy and paste the text provided below. You can do this once a day, just make sure you come back and leave a comment to your tweet each time you tweet!

Win an HP TouchSmart 600 from @mommydaddyblog and @hp_pc ! http://tinyurl.com/yf82wld #hp #computers #gadgets

This giveaway will run until December 15th, 2009 at 7PM CST.

Don’t forget to enter our Big Holiday Giveaway To Help Needy Families! We’re giving away an Epson Artisan 810 printer, toys from Hasbro and Playskool as well as some other awesome prizes!

Help Us Feed Needy Families!

This year, we are using our Holiday Gift Guide to help raise money for our Libby’s Virtual Canned Food Drive. This is something new that we are doing, so we’ve started our goal at $500. Hopefully we can meet that goal or even surpass it! It is our hope that through this giveaway, we can bring awareness to the food drive and you’ll be inclined to donate. We’d like to offer something in return, but legally we cannot. We hope that knowing that you are helping provide food to families in need is sufficient . Can you believe that by donating $5, you would be providing 35 meals to needy families?!

Donations $5 or More
For donations of $5 or more, please donate directly to our Libby’s Virtual Canned Food Drive. You can choose to donate more than $5, but there is an option to donate a minimum of $5. Simply select to help provide as many meals for hungry families as possible and type in $5.00. Anything less won’t go through, we already tried, which is why we are presenting another option below.

Donations Less Than $5
For donations less than $5, please donate to our Chipin Virtual Canned Food Drive. You don’t have to have a Paypal account to donate; there is an option to donate via credit/debit above the card logos.

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Praise The Lightscoop!

by Mommy on November 16, 2009

in Gadgets, Reviews, Tech, photography

I’ve always avoided taking pictures in low light situations because they’d always turn out disastrous. I try my hardest to not use the built in flash because I get hot spots, shadows, and hideous glares. When I don’t use my flash, I hike up my ISO to the highest setting which results in lots of noise, blur, and not so sharp subjects. Because of this, I added a $300 external flash to my wishlist hoping it wold solve my problem. For a year I’ve been trying to work up the courage to make the purchase. Needless to say, that external flash has been sitting on my wishlist for, hmmm, a year? I am so glad that I waited because I found the perfect solution, the Lightscoop.

lightscoop

The Lightscoop is a simple device that creates natural light by redirecting the flash to the ceiling or wall. It attaches to the hot shoe of most DSLR cameras. By setting up your camera using the easy to follow instructions, you can shoot in low light situations in minutes! The Lightscoop works best in neutral-colored ceilings no higher than 8-12 feet or walls no farther than 3-4 feet from the camera. So if you’re needing to shoot in an open church or gymnasism, then the Lightscoop may not be for you. I am so grateful for this product. You guys just don’t know, I am a sap when it comes to my photography. Now, I can stop chasing the sun for natural light everyday and I can spend that $300 on a new lens and other photography goodies I’ve been wishing for!

Do you want to win a Lightscoop? Click here to enter to win a Lightscoop and other awesome prizes!

Price: $34.95

A sample of the Lightscoop Standard was provided for review.

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Epson Artisan 800 Experience Part 1

by Mommy on April 20, 2009

in Gadgets, Reviews, Tech

epsonartisan800

The Epson Artisan 800 All-in-One Printer does it all. It does so much that I haven’t even gotten through half of the features yet. I do however, want to touch on some features that I have been enjoying thus far.

Touch Screen – The large 3.5” LCD screen lights up to display buttons for easy navigation and previewing photos. I am fascinated with all things touchscreen. I often catch myself touching and tapping at gadgets that don’t have this capability, simply because I’ve grown so accustomed to the feature.

Copying & Printing Original Photos – It is so convenient being able to copy and print original photos right away. Back in October we attended a wedding and the photographer took a picture of us. Later on that month, we were outraged to see that a 5×7 print would cost $11 + shipping! Needless to say, we only ordered one. We made copies on the Epson Artisan 800 to send to family – they came out perfect, no scan lines. Take a look.

Printing From Memory Card – I usually shoot in natural sunlight to keep from having to edit the lighting in my photos. Just like the HP A826, I can pop in my compact flash memory cards and print directly from them.

Results With Different Brands Of Paper – Although Epson recommends using Epson papers for the best performance, I’ve gotten great results with Georgia-Pacific Copy Paper and HP Advanced Photo Paper as well. I’m such a rebel.

Upon, installing the printer, I did have a few concerns. So far, I only have two.

6 Ink Cartridges? – Ink always scares me. The Epson Artisan 800 requires 6 ink cartridges. Yikes! Each cartridge ranges from $15.99 – $17.00. Yea. We don’t print much in color so this shouldn’t be much of an issue.

USB Cable Not Included – Since we no longer have wifi set up, we needed to connect to the printer via USB cable. Luckily, we had a a cord laying around from a previous printer to use.

Since the Epson Artisan 800 has soooo many features, I’ve decided to address them in a series of posts. Until next time!

Epson received five prestigious Hot One 2009 Awards from Professional Photographer magazine for the Artisan 800, Epson Stylus Photo R2880, the Epson Stylus Pro 7900 and Epson Stylus Pro 9900, and the Epson P-7000 Multimedia Photo Viewer. A panel of 18 judges, all independent working professional photographers, participated in the 2009 voting process. This year, special attention was placed on value for the price, and Epson came out ahead in consumer, enthusiast and professional ink jet printing.

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Earth Month: HP’s Earth-Friendly Products

by Mommy on April 18, 2009

in Gadgets, Green Products, Tech

To honor Earth Day (April 22 2009), HP has decided to offer more earth-friendly products. Check them out!

hpecoprojects

To help families celebrate Earth Day, HP launched the new Eco Kid Kits on HP’s Creative Studio. Kids can print out fun little projects such as, light switch covers and garbage can signs, to remind them to conserve energy around the home.

hp-deskjet-d2600

The HP Deskjet D2600 Printer Series is an affordable, easy-to-use, high quality printer that is perfect for everyday projects. The printer is made of 50 percent recycled materials and its HP 60 ink cartridges are made from 50 percent recycled plastics. The HP Deskjet D2600 Printer Series also has a paper-saving printing option that allows customers to print on both sides of the paper.

To eliminate paper waste, the included HP Smart Web Printing software allows users to select and organize text, graphics and photos from multiple web pages to print only what is needed on a single page.

snapfishcommutermug

Using the stainless steel commuter mug from Snapfish.com is a perfect way to reduce the use of paper coffee cups while jazzing up your morning cup of Joe with keepsakes.

Related Green Links:

Earth Day Every Day Challenge – Your school could win a $500 Wal-Mart gift card and the chance to compete for a $20,000 grant, to be used toward activities and projects that are helping to make the school more eco-friendly.

Keep My Earth Green – A “green-living” guide to saving beautiful Mother Earth. Have more fun in your life – naturally!

Ideal Bite – Fun, free eco living tips delivered M-F to your inbox.

Design a Reusable Shopping Bag Contest – Design a reusable shopping bag with Kroger for a chance to win a $1,000 gift card and see your bag in stores!

Rainforest Rescue – This game is part of a larger effort Tropicana has undertaken to help save the rainforest. They have teamed up with Cool Earth, an international trust dedicated to protecting the rainforest, where people can save 100 square feet of rain forest for each Tropicana on-pack code they enter online.

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HP Gabble: A New Private Video Messaging Service

by Mommy on April 18, 2009

in Reviews, Tech

hp gabble

HP has launched a new web based video messaging service called Gabble which allows people to feel better connected through free video messages.

Gabble can be a great tool for families who want to share video updates when they don’t have time to web chat. It makes video messaging safe and private because conversations you create are only viewable to the people you invite to your group.

To get your Gabble on, visit http://hp.com/gabble* and register for an account in Gabble. There’s no downloading of software required. Once registered, you can start inviting your friends and family to join your video message groups and create their own groups. All you need is a broadband connection, a browser and a way to record videos (web cam or digital video camera or cell phone w/video capabilities). Best of all, you save hard disk space on your devices since your videos go start to the HP Gabble server. You also don’t have to worry about converting crazy file formats!

hpgabbletest

Jayden and I were able to test out the service using the web cam on my HP Mini 1001, it was so easy to use. I wish I could share the video with you guys, but that would defeat the purpose of private video messaging wouldn’t it? In the future I hope to see an option to save the videos to the computer. I can see Jayden’s grandmothers wanting copies of conversations that they have with him.

*the URL www.gabble.com is not owned by Hewlett-Packard and has no affiliation with the Gabble beta web service. For more information on Gabble, visit www.hp.com/gabble.