This has been a Hand-Made Mac Tip brought to you by TheMacMommy

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I didn’t make it until the last half of the show because we were out celebrating at dinner, but when I was able to make it on “air” for the last half of the show, I was greeted warmly by TUAW hosts and fellow comrades. Spending time geeking out with my friends on TUAW really completed my Mother’s Day.

Click here to listen to what was discussed on the TUAW Talkcast.
iTunes Link

Join TUAW each week for the live Talkcast over on Talkshoe.

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Social Networks & Recipe Sharing

Cooking with Kat: www.KatCurlee.com

The Kitchen Gadget Show

Facebook Fan Page

www.DaveCurlee.com

Kat on Twitter: @KatCurlee
Dave on Twitter: @DaveCurleee

Meal Planning

Kat’s Ten Back-to-School Meal Planning Tips That Can Save You Money

1. Make fewer trips to the grocery store—or fast food restaurants—and cut your fuel costs. Frequent trips to the grocery store waste time, gas and money. So, create your meal plans for the week and make all of your purchases in one trip to the store.
2. Eliminate wasted food that goes uneaten in your refrigerator. When you plan your meals you make better use of the food you purchase and reduce spoilage. For example, soups and stews are a great way to make use of extra vegetables, milk or cheese.
3. Buy fresh produce in season—when it’s cheaper. You’ll pay more for food purchased off-season so choose recipes that use seasonal ingredients.
4. Build meals around sale items featured at your grocery store. Take advantage of what’s on sale by searching our recipe database by ingredient.
5. Clip coupons and check store promotions for foods you buy on a regular basis. This is a money saving habit that can really add up over the long term.
6. Stock your pantry when items you can store in the cupboard or freezer are on sale. In addition to saving money up front, buying more of your kitchen staples when they go on sale will also ensure that you always have healthy food on hand for those nights when you don’t know what to cook.
7. Eat a healthy breakfast from home—decrease spending on expensive convenience foods eaten on the go or purchased from vending machines. Breakfasts do not need to be complicated. Having simple foods on hand, such as yogurt, whole-wheat bread, fruit and cereal, provide important nutrients often lacking in convenience foods.
8. Pack your lunch. Lunch and snacks prepared at home save money. Packing your lunch will keep you from feeling pressured to purchase expensive and often less nutritious meals or snacks from convenience stores, vending machines and restaurants. If you’re already making a lunch for your children, it only takes a few more minutes to make an extra sandwich or snack for yourself.
9. Buy in bulk. Purchase and prepare your favorite and frequently eaten foods in bulk—such as, purchasing two for one gallons of milk. Preparing dinner “in bulk” by doubling a recipe or adding another serving or two will cost very little extra and leave you with leftovers for lunches or another dinner later in the week.
10. Eat at home. Make time for family meals at home. Meals prepared at home are often more nutritious and less expensive than restaurant meals. In addition to providing your family with nutritious meals and cutting food costs, eating at home gives you the invaluable opportunity to talk to and connect with your family.

Creating Digital Cookbooks

DigitalCookbook.tv
PanDigital.com sells a Kitchen HDTV Digital Recipe/Picture Frame using Bon Apetite collection.
Can be used as a counter top device or install it under cabinet.

Favorite Sites

MealsMatter.Org
Hershey’s
Kraft Food & Family
FoodTV
GroceryGame.com
Quick Fix Meals with Robin Miller

Favorite Gadgets in the Kitchen

Sankotu Knife
Egg Slicer
Kitchenaid Mixer
Great Grandmother’s Cast Iron Skillet

Kat’s Favorite Tech Tools from a Mom’s Perspective

iPod Touch!!! “I can keep my schedule, pictures, music, check weather, etc. It’s my FAVORITE!”
“My notebook in my kitchen!”

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Allison shares her stories about life as a geeky mom and how she’s evolved into a popular podcaster with the support of her kids and her Soul Mate/Husband, Steve. You won’t want to miss the sage advice she has to offer — all this week on Moms Gone Geek.

Subscribe to the NosillaCast Mac Podcast hosted at http://podfeet.com

Follow Allison on Twitter at http://twitter.com/podfeet

Go see Allison is speak at the BlogWorld and New Media Expo 2009!

“I’ll be doing a talk entitled Podcaster Starter Kit where I’ll walk through all the tools to get started and some advice on why you need the different tools. My talk is Friday October 16th at 11:30am!”

http://www.blogworldexpo.com/

Allison is listed as number 224

Other Podcasting Contributions by Allison Sheridan

Mac Roundtable at http://macroundtable.com

Mac Reviewcast at http://macreviewcast.com

Just how geeky do Moms get?

Before there was Excel or iCal, there was this thing called a pencil and you could draw a hand-made graph of your basal body temperature. This is helpful information to have when trying to conceive. Here is the graph Allison saved when they were trying to conceive their daughter. (Hi Lindsay, you weren’t just planned, you were plotted!)

Allison’s anecdote on the memory attached to this graph, “The best part though is that I flipped it over and on the back was a draft of a love note to my husband after we had become pregnant with “Orsen” telling him how happy I was with our life and how excited I was about the upcoming adventure. Lindsay’s nick name in the womb was Orsen because of a joke by Dave Barry where he said, “Women who are pregnant often mention that they’re eating for two, but they don’t realize the other person is not the size of Orsen Wells.”

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In this episode we pay a follow up visit to a previous show topic: Digital Medical Records, also known as your PHR or Personal Health Record. We interview Lygeia Ricciardi from Clear Voice Consulting, LLC in Washington, DC about this increasingly interesting and timely topic. She has some fantastic insight and we encourage you to tune in to this episode and share with us your thoughts, experiences and ideas regarding digital medical records and the products that best serve you and your health as a PHR.

Follow Lygeia on Twitter

Lygeia also writes for Project Health Design

Topics

• What a PHR is, where and how you can establish a PHR such as health plans, health systems, employers and what functions they might have
• The relationship between EMRs (or EHRs) and PHRs and how in the future they will be increasingly linked together in ways that benefit patients and doctors alike
• How to choose a PHR, what to look for
• Medical Identity Theft – what can you do to protect yourself? Learn about an “audit trail”
• Potential benefits of PHRs and electronic health information like research, public health, quality improvement, genetic mapping
• The US Government’s role in implementation and accountability regarding digital medical records
• The future of remote health care using technology like video conferencing or mobile applications
• Aggregating medical data and the implications and benefits it can provide
• The affect of policies, politics and regulations on Health Information Technology

Tips

• Ask your health care provider if or what kind of access you may already have to your information that might be able to be ported into a PHR of your choice
• If you’re looking for a new doctor, ask ahead of time if they use digital medical records and if you might be able to use any of that information in your own PHR

Example: American Academy of Pediatrics Immunization Schedules

• Be sure to consider portability of the data you input into a PHR; Can you take it with you or move it somewhere else?

Some PHRs To Check Out

Mayo Clinic Health Manager powered by Microsoft HealthVault

My PHR

23andMe - At-Home DNA Testing service

Google Health

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We’re drinkin the Google Juice! It’s so yummy and refreshing! Won’t you join us? We discuss GTD with Google IMAP and CalDAV along with the myriad of apps and products that go good with Google. What the heck are we talking about? Listen to this episode to find out more and get your fill of geeky goodness!

Everything AND the Sync

What is IMAP?

This Nuevasync hack predated Google Sync, but you might want to take a look at it for comparisons. BusyMac was another tool that predated Google Sync, but it costs $25.(whatever blows your skirt up, if you think it’s easier!)

Getting Started with CalDAV Support for Syncing Google Calendars iCal and iPhone or iPod Touch

Syncing Google’s Mail and Calendar Products:

Household CTO Tools of the Trade

As part of my “Nesting” phase during this pregnancy, I became very determined to find a way to easily sync the communications and scheduling information my husband and I share between several devices. Those devices being: our iPod Touch (a.k.a. “The Practice iPhone” or the “Gateway Drug to the iPhone”), MacBook Pro and my husband’s PC at work. Between the two of us, we manage several work and personal email accounts and calendars. Now with children added to the mix, they’ll also have their own calendars for scheduling information like school activities and doctor appointments. I wanted a solution that would enable us to easily see the same information no matter which device was accessed for emails and calendars. I also wanted the ability to read as well as modify each others’ calendars.

click to enlarge image Fig. 1

For example, our first son now has his own Google account with calendar. He’s only 3, so we manage it for him and share that calendar between all of us. Some time after the baby is born, I’ll likely set up an account for him so I can easily manage his doctor appointments. For the time being, a secondary calendar will work fine. We also have another secondary calendar dedicated to our activities and events — things we do together as a family. This calendar is then shared with other family members like my mother-in-law.

Either my husband or I have the ability to modify each others’ calendars so that any changes made are synced no matter which computer or device is accessed. When my husband is at work, he can easily log in to his Google account and check all our calendars to see what appointments I’ve scheduled here at home. Since he doesn’t have time to make phone calls during the school day at work, if I schedule a doctor’s appointment for him, I can put it directly onto his calendar for him to see and email him a reminder. He’s already entered his work activities so that makes it much easier for me to book appointments when needed and make sure there are no conflicts. If he has an activity that needs to happen after school like a social or after-school meeting with a parent, he can enter it on his calendar while at work and then I will see it when I log in.

Accomplishing Sync Zen

click to enlarge Fig. 2

Let’s start with Apple Mail. Here is an example of how I’ve configured my Mail application to manage several accounts at once. (See Fig. 2 and 3) Log in to your Gmail account. Click on Settings in the upper right, then click on Forwarding POP/IMAP and then click the radio button to “Enable IMAP.” You’ll need to do this before you set up accounts in Mail.

click to enlarge Fig. 3

Follow the instructions from Google on how to configure your Mail application. Be careful when reading Google’s instructions for Recommended IMAP Client Settings. I got a little confused and frustrated in the beginning when my messages wouldn’t delete when I deleted them by pressing the delete button on the keyboard or by clicking the delete icon in the tool bar. Manually dragging each message to the Trash folder was annoying. Turns out you just have to ignore the information where it talks about deleting messages off the server. Basically, just leave the Mail trash settings as they are.

click to enlarge Fig. 4

Google does not explain how to make the Inbox, Draft, Sent and Trash Mailboxes in Mail act as one — or at least not where I saw in the instructions. (See Fig. 4) For that part, I followed the advice found at 5ThirtyOne by Derek Punsalen. Thanks Derek! Here is an excerpt from his instructions: Properly sort Drafts, Deleted, and Sent mail in Apple Mail

Highlight ‘[Gmail] Sent Mail’ in the sidebar and select ‘Mailbox’ (menu bar) > ‘Use This Mailbox For’ > ‘Sent’.

Highlight ‘[Gmail] Drafts’ in the sidebar and select ‘Mailbox’ (menu bar) > ‘Use This Mailbox For’ > ‘Drafts’

Highlight ‘[Gmail] Trash’ in the sidebar and select ‘Mailbox’ (menu bar) > ‘Use This Mailbox For’ > ‘Trash’

Highlight ‘[Gmail] Spam’ in the sidebar and select ‘Mailbox’ (menu bar) > ‘Use This Mailbox For’ > ‘Junk’

click to enlarge Fig. 5

If you’re like me and are managing multiple accounts in Mail, you’ll need to repeat those instructions for each folder in each account. I took these instructions a little further and manually dragged — what Gmail calls “labels” which are actually displayed as folders in Mail — to the parent [Gmail] folder in Mail. This is also referred to as an IMAP Path Prefix in the Mail Account Preferences. I achieved it by manually dragging those folders and it was much easier than trying to figure out what to type exactly in the account configuration.

Next, let’s take a look at Google Calendar, Apple’s iCal and the iPod Touch/iPhone Calendar layouts. The colors are consistent. Whatever changes I make on one device are immediately synced to the others.

Following Google’s instructions, I was able to set up several calendars in our separate Google accounts and then manage them in iCal and on the iPod Touch using Google’s CalDAV Calendar Sync. Similar to Gmail, while logged in to your Google Calendar (or anyone else’s), you’ll need to click on Settings in the upper right, then Calendars from the tabs at the top. Once on that page, you’ll need to edit the Sharing Settings for each calendar you set up and also in each account you have access to (See Fig. 6). For my family and I, my husband and I each have access to each others’ as well as Lucian’s Google accounts. I went in to each of their calendars and shared them with myself and gave myself the ability to “make changes and manage sharing.”

Once you have your Google Calendar settings configured, you’re ready to set things up in iCal Preferences.

click to enlarge Fig. 6

Here is what that may look like. (See Fig. 6) Once you have added the “Delegates” you can then make changes, edits, additions, etc. in iCal and they will all be reflected in Google’s web UI (user interface). You’ll notice the individual calendars appear in the left sidebar in iCal. I don’t like the fact that there is a parent for each item. It’s kind of redundant to have to click another triangle down to get to the calendar, but it is what it is for now.

Now let’s move on to configuring the iPod Touch/iPhone. This is where it gets a little tricky. In addition to Google’s instructions on configuring the settings for the iPod Touch/iPhone, you’ll also want to read this article on how to set up the secondary calendars. Google Calendars Sync Both Ways, Including the Secondary Calendars (Special thanks to Allister Jenks for this link!)

click to enlarge Fig. 7

For example, on our iPod Touch, I have added all of the accounts for myself, Lucian, and Nate — both Gmail and Google Calendars. I’ve found it’s really pointless to use POP mail accounts because it’s a pain to have to delete messages on different devices.

click to enlarge Fig. 8

Within my own Google Calendar, I have 2 secondary calendars that I share with Nate and Lucian. One is for my freelance consulting (TheMacMommy) the other for our family activities. I also plugged in the calendar for Moms Gone Geek that I share with Naomi for scheduling. Once they are all added and configured, it’s easy to see them all at the same time and see where conflicts and scheduling might overlap because everything is a different color. I LOVE color-coding everything! It just makes things so much easier to see when you have limited concentration and lots of dis…

click to enlarge Fig. 9

This all seems like a lot of work, and it was, but when you view it in the List view on the iPod Touch or iPhone, it’s all nicely color-coded and cohesive and flows nicely. It was worth all the work and tinkering. I feel much better now!

I hope you’ve found this helpful. Remember, you can right-click on the images and load them into another page to see them larger. I blurred out some of the information I didn’t feel comfortable sharing, but I think you get the picture. Ha ha! Picture!! Get it?!!

This concludes my review of how Google Juice does a body good by managing all of your communications as the Household CTO. I hope it’s just as tasty for you!

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Special Note: When Googling information on this topic use the following terms and acronyms: PHR (Personal Health Records) or PHRM (Personal Health Records Management).

There are a lot of applications and services out there for managing your personal medical records at home on your computer, up in the cloud for online access or both — so much that it’s overwhelming. We’ve reviewed just a few that we’ll discuss here, but please give us some feedback on services, methods and apps you’ve tried and liked.

Melissa reviews and discusses the current state of EMR for public and private sectors and what you should consider before investing the time and effort into the task of electronically documenting your medical records for the family.

What You Need to Know About Privacy in Medical Records

Understanding HIPAA Privacy for Consumers

Articles on Healthcare Reform in Politics and Technology Concerning EMR

State Privacy Laws May Undercut Electronic Medical Records (via ars technica)

Obama: We need EMRs; NAS Report: Be Careful What You Ask For (via ars technica)

NY Times reports: “Our experience here is that it’s just hard,” Dr. Mostashari said. “It’s not impossible.”

Personal Consumer Services & Applications for Managing Yours and Family Records

Polka

iPhone app for Polka Health
(called My Health on website)

Google Health

Review Notes

• Google Health is currently only available in the United States. Polka is available for registration outside U.S., however, all records are stored in the US where US privacy terms apply. (Probably a good thing?)

• Use Google Health at your own risk understanding that transmission to third parties, for example, a prescription service, is governed by THOSE sites, their technologies and security methods. You’re safe with Google, but you open a hole when you share with third party services, so be sure to thoroughly review their privacy and protection policies as well before sharing information.

• Section 4 Use of Your Information in the Google Health TOS states: ” Google is not a “covered entity” under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and the regulations promulgated thereunder (“HIPAA”). As a result, HIPAA does not apply to the transmission of health information by Google to any third party.”

• Polka discloses the following in their Privacy Statement under Use of Contact Information (emphasis is our editorial): “In addition, we may use your contact information to market to you, and provide you with information about, our products and services, including but not limited to our Service. If you decide at any time that you no longer wish to receive such information or communications from us, please follow the unsubscribe instructions provided in any of the communications.”

Furthermore, they also state in their Information Sharing and Disclosure regarding Service Providers: “We engage certain trusted third parties to perform functions and provide services to us, including, without limitation, hosting and maintenance, customer relationship, database storage and management, and direct marketing campaigns. We will share your personally identifiable information with these third parties, but only to the extent necessary to perform these functions and provide such services, and only pursuant to binding contractual obligations requiring such third parties to maintain the privacy and security of your data.”

These are just some things to consider when signing up for these services. Both services are extremely similar in their TOS and Privacy Statements, just worded slightly differently. Polka clearly states they may use your information for direct marketing campaigns which may be kind of disconcerting no matter how carefully your information is closely guarded. It may be that Google Health does the exact same thing in a different way, but they have not chosen to word like this. As always, use at your own risk and know your mileage may vary.

Another thing to look for when deciding if a particular service or application is right for you is what kind of continued support you can reasonably expect. If a service loses focus or goes belly-up, where does your data go? There have been applications released in the past few years, but when I went to their site for a review, the information was grossly outdated or the link had a bad address. Look for services that have a large following, lots of reviews (and positive ones at that) and also look at their help or support section. Check to see what, if any kind of exporting features exist. If you’re able to export your data into a PDF or text file, at least you’ll have a backup in case the service fails your expectations. Think carefully about sharing your digital information with third party partners or affiliates. Do the same kind of homework on them as well. Review their privacy policies and TOS.

It would be a good idea to have a printed hard copy of the most important emergency medical information in your wallet near your ID because what good is digital data on your phone if your device is either locked or too cumbersome to access by hospital staff? Think of a mobile app as a handy way for YOU to access the information you need at the time you need it, but don’t think of a mobile app as something to be accessed by emergency personnel. Research in public forums concludes that most EMTs will not be checking your mobile device for information in a crisis situation so do not count on an app to assist in saving your life. Google Health does have a print wallet-sized feature and I thought that was handy and a good idea.

For you non-Google supporters (we still love you) there are other PHR web services out there, but we’re only going to list a couple:

Microsoft HealthVault

PassportMD

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Are we just fickle when it comes to new social networking services and apps? Do we give each one a fair shake? What makes us stick around or move on to the next new shiny thing? Developers will want to pay close attention!

Kids and money — let’s not forget about who might be deciding our living arrangements when we’re old! It’s never too early to start teaching kids about money. We’ll discuss some tools and tips we’ve discovered in our parenting journeys thus far. Let us know yours!

Dead and Abandoned Web 2.0 Services

Social Media Services that were once in the cloud but have since kicked the bucket. Pownce, Rejaw, Ma.gnolia, Dodgeball, I Want Sandy, Jumpcut and Google Video have all gone away. How do you know when to invest your time in a service? Are there any warning sings for when these apps and services will go under? What about all your data and posts?

What about those services that we in the social media world were so hard pressed to get invites for, but then abandoned them? Remember Chandler Project, Orgoo, Social Thing, 30Boxes? We were all once so excited about these services, but then dropped them off on the doorstep of a church with a note that said “sorry, we’re just not that into you anymore.” Even MySpace has taken a hit to their staff and numbers now show Facebook is King.

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Kids & Finances: Some Tools to Check Out

Smarty Pig

Teen Visa Buxx Card

Mint.com

Parent Hacks discussions: “Give Your Toddler His Own ‘Credit Cards’” and “Introducing Money Management to PreSchoolers”

Kids Cash Connection

Cash Cache

Just Thrive

Tips to Teach Kids

• Pay yourself first!! Put 10% aside for savings.

• Teach little ones about money, math and denominations
by playing with coin & money stamps in TuxPaint

• Tessy & Tab Printables

• Book Pick: The Power of the Penny

On this epsisode of Moms Gone Geek we talk about traveling while geeky. We talk about what kinds of tools and technology we like to use while on the road for ourselves as well as the kiddies to keep them entertained and us from going insane!

Check out Lisa Loeb on Twitter

Check out her new album – “Camp Lisa”

What’s in Your Bag?

We all talk about what gear we carry in our bags. Melissa is in Boston at one stop on her summer cross-country road trip. She talks about her gear bags including her laptop backpack as well as her fancy, new diaper bags and how they measure up to carrying tech gear. Never mind about the baby stuff they’re really supposed to be carrying!!!

Here are some of the things in Melissa’s bags for an extended road trip:

• Laptop
• Phone
• Headphones
• iPod
• Camera
• Cables (neatly wrapped)
• Battery Charger & Recharchable Batteries (NIMH for digital devices) with car adaptor
• Hands-Free Earpiece
• Power Brick
• Extra laptop battery (check out battery warehouses for better deals on prices)
• Surge Protector
• External Hardrive for Backups
• USB Card Reader for SD chip in camera
• Laptop Power Supply
• Outlet converter

Note
If you have a video iPod, load it with lots of pictures and some kid-friendly movies for long car rides.) (Be really careful about the volume if you choose to use earphones on a small child. Make sure the volume is very low so you don’t damage their ears. You can change the settings to lock the volume. Even if you think it’s barely audible, remember, their hearing is much more sensitive than ours!

Liana recommends some software to consider: TubeSock or HandBreak for getting video content onto the iPod

Liana recommends Western Digital and Iomega drives.

Naomi recommends the Nickelodeon Video Now.

Melissa recommends sitting in the back seat with a young child to entertain during a long road trip. This way you can use your laptop as a DVD or movie player in a pinch. Unless you have an EVDO card, plan for being off line and download your RSS feeds, podcasts and movies ahead of time. Load up your iTunes so you can play movies on the laptop during meltdown times or during driving in the evenings. Do a search on iTunes for Sesame Street and other kid-friendly titles you’re familiar with. You can find lots of free content in iTunes.

Melissa also recommends NetNewsWire to download your RSS feeds ahead of time so you can read blogs off-line. You won’t be able to see photos that have been linked, but you’ll at least be able to read the text.

Naomi Reviews Feed Journal

Packing Tips

• When packing your bag, keep it organized and communicate with your traveling partner what goes where. If you take something out, put it back where it came from so you don’t lose things in hotel rooms or in between sofa cusions!
• Pack together so each person knows where things are located.
• Pack the night before!
• If possible, used colored containers to store things.Use Eagle Creek or comparible plastic cases or smaller bags or compartments for itty bitty little items that can get lost easily. Get them in different colors so you can just say “it’s in the blue one!” when traveling with a partner or kids and ask for help with packing.
• Use colored velcro cable wraps for cables
• Feed your RSS Reader for offline time

Keeping in Touch While On the Go

Liana asks how we manage keeping in touch with family and friends while on the go. Melissa can’t live without her blog, Picasa Web Albums, Email, and Social Networking sites like Twitter and FriendFeed.

Melissa Reviews Dopplr

Links

http://www.dopplr.com/

http://www.tripit.com/

http://brightkite.com/

http://fireeagle.yahoo.net/

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Members of Moms Gone Geek are:

Liana Lehua, the über-geeky auntie, a.k.a. fittorrent

Melissa Davis, mom to pint-sized toddler geek, a.k.a TheMacMommy

Naomi, (formerly known as GeekCyberMom) mom to two teen gadget girls – now a.k.a DigitalFanGirl Naomi is also host of Tales of a Single Parent.com.

Let’s Get a Handle on It

Melissa likes her Wenger backpack – a portable “office” on the go for the traveling IT Consultant. She also recommends George diaper bags to tote your precious cargo – oh, and the baby stuff too!

Liana loves her some Jill-e bags.

Naomi needs more bag recommendations!

Gadget Picks

Melissa puts the Nikon Cool Pix through its paces.

Naomi rocks the Xacti.

Get In Touch

Delicious is an awesome public bookmark sharing service. If you want to share a link with us, just tag it MGGideas and we’ll see it. We’d love to give you a shout out! Tell us what bag you like to tote your gear around in. Price ranges and links are super helpful not just to us, but other subscribers to the show.

It was so awesome to meet Pat Fauquet! What an amazing experience for Naomi and Melissa.

We would like to thank all of our “MomsGoneGeek Beta Testers” who hung out with us on the Friday afternoon before our first recording on TheMacMommy’s UStream Channel to test out what a live show might feel like. Thanks for all the live feedback on what was working and what wasn’t and for giving us ideas on what to do to make it better. We really appreciated that. We loved just goofing around together. Here is the pre-recorded video.

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