Grasshopper New Media Presents...

I was just tipped off - through a comment here - that this site was “kinda” mentioned in “the Times”. Not being able to find any direct mention of Great Family Gadgets, I hunted it down and found that a submission of mine to the Festival of Frugality became their “headline post” (yay!).

Still, I wondered exactly which “Times” referred to this site (there are so many, aren’t there… local ones, etc.) when I saw that the festival site had a welcome message to readers of the New York Times. My mind went “waaah” :shock: as I thought, “THE Times?”

Reading the post, I realized that maybe the reference to my post wasn’t so positive. Off to read Consumers Have Allies on the Web, I realized it wasn’t positive, but it wasn’t horrible.

“Ridiculous”, it calls my recommendation. But as I stated in my post, I’ve had that gadget for more than 10 years. So a $12 gadget to save pennies over more than 10 years (it’s showing no wear, mind you) is not ridiculous. And what it also saved me was time; being able to continue using the product until I was able to get to the store again to buy more of it.

Then I read other parts of the article and realized not much of it actually was positive. I wonder if the author was trying to impress Mr. Denton (Gawker Media’s owner - you’ll have to read the article to make the connection) with the “insulting tone” of much of his article.

While reading, I realized I was actually “kind of” listed in the same article as some of my favorite sites, like Lifehacker.com and Make: Blog - woohoo!! So I am “kind of” honored to have been “kind of” listed in the NY Times. I’ll have to go tell all my friends.

(And just in case you’re reading, Mr. Trump, I love your show! )

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CDs and DVDs become playthings in my house, like most anything else that my kids get their hands on. My husband and I are constantly chasing after our almost-2-year-old, disc in hand, who realizes that these are some kind of “treasure”. I can see the attraction - it’s shiny, colorful, and he’s got it and everybody else wants it.

It’d be great if we had things set up in a way that he couldn’t get them, but we don’t, and he does. (I know there are some gadgets out there to help with this, right? ). It doesn’t help that he has two older siblings who remove the discs from players and set them down wherever they are.

Which makes them a big target for damage. But I just learned of a product that’s available to keep your discs scratch-free: d_skin Protective Disc Skins.

The d_skin is a protective film with an outer ring (I think they’re only available in orange, but I may be wrong) that you snap on to your clean discs. That’s it - you leave them there! The discs can be read through the film without affecting the way it plays.

What a wonderful idea! I’m surprised nobody came up with it sooner.

The skins work on the following discs:

• PlayStation
• PlayStation2
  
• Xbox
  
• computer games
  
• DVD’s
  
• music CD’s
  
• and data CD’s

So they don’t make them small enough for our GameCube discs and I’ll have to keep reminding my oldest son to put them back in the storage box. But more than half the battle of keeping our discs scratch-free will be won with the d_skin covers.

Now I’m off to recommend these to my library system!

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A couple of days ago I updated to the latest version of Wordpress, thinking that it would make things work better, as it usually does. Like not letting me ever lose a post again, which is wonderful to have.

However, this latest version - 2.1 - had some major changes. These changes made it so that some “things” (geez, I’m so not technical, especially when it comes to the inner workings of Wordpress) with some themes and plugins would no longer work.

But apparently, there was no going back. Or rather, it would be easier for me - a non-technical WP user - to go forward instead of backward.

So I disabled some plugins, but only one really had an affect on the site and I never used it anyway. I also updated plugins, because the authors were quick to make them compatible with the new version of Wordpress.

And I only had to wait a day or two for a new version of the Cutline theme to be released, so I could update that as well. But I put off putting it into effect, as I knew I’d have some changes to make in the background, to make it look like it used to look (insert emoticon with grimace at the thought of having to do all that).

So my blogroll gave me an unexpected third column for a few days, until I got up the nerve to do the work. And to my amazement and gratitude, all I had to do was copy to old code and paste it in to the new theme. Okay, this isn’t a great explanation - I always go elsewhere online to tell me how to do these things, but suffice it to say it was easy, and I did it one-handed as my little one napped on me.

BUT… even though I did a quick check through, I’m not sure that everything is running as it should. If you should notice that something is off, please, please, PLEASE let me know. I would be extremely grateful to you.

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Woo-hoo - we finally made it to the first edition of the Carnival of Gadget Hacks, and I’m happy to say that there was more than one submission! But not too many to overwhelm me, as I’m also hosting the Festival of Family Flair at GNMParents this week as well (gah!).

Corey at myopiniononeverything.com submitted a post that wasn’t technically a gadget “hack” - using a product for other than its intended purposes. But I think that Corey submitted it because this is one of those multipurpose gadgets, which I greatly appreciate, for the most part. And even though I’m a bit outside of the 18-24 age range to which the Mylo is marketed, I could see this being a useful little gadget for parents. I’m gonna have to look more into it (and the Sidekick Corey mentioned as well ).

Michelle, who writes at Scribbit (and has very creative ways to deal with life - in Alaska, no less), had a great idea for something to do with those broken small home appliances when you know they can’t be repaired (or you’d rather update anyway). I have my own personal “junk bin”, as Michelle called it, as I believe many homeschoolers do, but I never would have thought to do this at a Cub Scout meeting. That’s an idea I’ll have to remember when my son rejoins the scouts.

This next contribution had me realizing that I should either give up this carnival or focus it more intently. Alan, at Hacked Gadgets (now if that’s not a site that should be hosting this carnival, what is? ), presents Making a Hard Drive Laser Oscilloscope. Um, this one was WAY over my head but I really enjoyed that he showed pictures of the project step-by-step. Wondering what use one would make of a hard drive laser oscilloscope, I followed the link to his post about the Top 5 Uses for a Dead Hard Drive and watched one in a video make lines “dance” to some music. Interested in what you can use an oscilloscope for? Check out How Stuff Works.

Unfortunately for us, I was not able to read my last submission. Chris at WiseBread.com submitted a post that, from the title, sounds as though it doesn’t belong in this carnival. However, the site was down each time I went to check on it, so I wasn’t able to tell. If you’d like to see for yourself whether this submission belongs at the carnival, see if you can find the post up at iPhone: Should you buy it? … and let me know what you think.

Well, that brings this first edition of the Carnival of Gadget Hacks to a close. Be sure to leave a comment at the sites listed above and let them know you came via the carnival.

And leave me a comment below to share your thoughts: should I have a second edition or should I give the carnival over to someone else? :oops:

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I look forward to hearing from you!

Barb

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