Technology

Reading on a Kindle vs. an iPod Touch

by Barbara Feldman April 16, 2010

Since getting my Kindle in August, I have become a fiction-reading machine! I am loving it. The odd part, that I didn’t really analyze, was that BEFORE the Kindle, I was reading mostly non-fiction. I never really thought about why I made the switch, but a friend of mine pointed out that he prefers fiction [...]

My Facebook Decision

by Barbara Feldman April 3, 2010

It took me awhile to gather all my thoughts about how to use Facebook, and I’ve made a few bloopers, but now I feel like I am on track. Here’s the story. Because I am an online publisher, I feel a need to test and participate in major social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, [...]

Should Your Teen’s Cell Phone Be Public?

by Barbara Feldman March 8, 2010

I become completely apoplectic yesterday when I stumbled upon a public Facebook page (in Google) with the phone numbers of 70 teens in my town. I won’t tell you what I was searching for, because I don’t want this page to get any additional attention, but the story goes like this. One teen puts up [...]

Oh No! Not Another Social Platform!

by Barbara Feldman February 9, 2010

Today Google announced Google Buzz, a service that integrates social networking into Gmail and the rest of the Google’s products. To check it out for yourself, login into your Gmail Account and look for Buzz in the left-hand column. Or for more info, head on over to http://buzz.google.com. Although I haven’t done but a cursory [...]

My Kindle Review

by Barbara Feldman August 16, 2009

My Kindle arrived on August 4 and I love it. I have wanted one since they were announced in November, 2007. But the price seemed high for its functionality. I mean, I can already read books. What would it REALLY add to my life? But when they announced Kindle 2.0, and then dropped the price, [...]

Gravatars Come to BarbaraFeldman.com

by Barbara Feldman July 31, 2009

A “gravatar” is a globally-recognized avatar, a small photo or image that follows you from site to site. It will appear next to your name when you make comments or join in social networking conversations, such as those on Twitter. Now, gravatars have come to www.BarbaraFeldman.com, and if you have a free, easy gravatar set [...]

I Love My Roku

by Barbara Feldman May 19, 2009

What’s the most number of movies you’ve ever watched in a single day? I think I hit a new high on Saturday when I watched five movies. I wasn’t feeling great and laying around on the sofa was about all I was good for. And since I bought the Roku box and have a Netflix [...]

What is Twitter? Part Two

by Barbara Feldman January 30, 2009

So, seeing as I have only skimmed the surface of Twitter, and have not specifically addressed many of the more technical issues, here are some additional resources. But first, a video from CommonCraft, Twitter in Plain English. Now .. Another video, this one from Biz Stone, one of the Twitter founders: Okay… I promised more [...]

What is Twitter? Part One

by Barbara Feldman January 30, 2009

Twitter is commonly called a micro-blogging platform, because it limits all posts (called tweets) to 140 characters. Another way to look at Twitter is as broadcast text messaging. Instant Messaging (IM) is a message sent to one person. A tweet is a short message broadcast to all your followers. As a social media phenomena, there [...]

Kids Spend More Time Online, Less Time Watching TV

by Barbara Feldman August 25, 2008

For kids ages 10 to 14 who are online, the Internet is a bigger time sink that TV. This is not surprising, but was recently released in a study by Google’s DoubleClick Performics. I think most parents probably already knew this. For example, my high-school student watches about 2 hours of television per week, usually [...]

Google Sites

by Barbara Feldman May 27, 2008

Although this will appear in my “Internet Tip of the Week” blog next week, I decided to share it with you here, because I think it will be a great tool for classrooms and families. Google Sites, a free website creation tool, is now open to everyone. Google Sites makes creating and sharing a website [...]