Recent Posts By Kristin Brandt

When I was in high school and college, I really enjoyed reading comic books. I would read just about anything, but my favorites, all from Marvel, were X-Men and Daredevil (both before the movies), and the Avengers. Then I graduated college, got a job, got married, and the time I had for reading comic books diminished until it reached a […]

There is something strange, and a little funny, when the US government starts to use the tools and tricks-of-trade we in marketing and social media use to promote our products and services. Whether they are politicians raising money only (thanks to Howard Dean's success in 2004);  would-be presidential candidates sounding off on Twitter; or Barack Obama's staff posting weekly video […]

My husband drives a bright red Audi wagon which he bought, used, from a dealership in New Jersey through eBay. Every time I tell people that my husband regularly buys, and sells, our cars through eBay they look at me like I'm a little crazy. And there have been times when I thought he was a little crazy. Especially after […]

Since receiving our Nintendo Wii almost two years ago video games designed for the console have come, and they have gone. Some have been smashing successes that kept my family busy for months, others were dismal disappointments that were so bad they didn’t even make it into the entertainment unit before being sold online or traded at our local Game […]

As an Apple user (I have a MacBook Pro laptop), I regularly run into laptop compatibility issues when I'm on the road. Which is why, in addition to checking I have my charger and extension cable, I always check to see I have these three "must haves", along for the ride: Memory card readerBoth my cameras and the audio recorder […]

I have 16,691 photos and 609 movies dating back to August 2002 (right after my son was born) on my computer, which takes up over 32 GB of space. And I have to admit, I really haven’t known what to do with all of them. Since I began taking photos digitally, Apple’s iPhoto has been my photo-editing and cataloging software […]

Did you happen to notice how the Google logo changed on the 4th of July? How about on New Year's, Thanksgiving, Gay Pride Day, or the 20th anniversary of Tetris? I recently discovered that these little changes to Google's corporate logo for special occasions are called "Google Doodles" and they are created by a team of people led by the […]

I’ve never thought much about the search engine that I use because, most of the time, I use Google. Even when I don’t go to Google.com, I end up using Google because it is the default search engine for so many default start pages (such as the Mozilla Firefox page) or built into so many other pages (we use Google on ManicMommies.com for site search).

I say this all to explain why I didn’t understand why the launch of Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine, was such a big deal. And why I decided I needed to check it out.

If you are a regular blog reader you know that, generally, reading blogs is free. All you have to do is find a blog you like and start reading – easy, right? Unless you are someone like me, who often forgets to go check those fav blogs, and ends up months behind on the goings on of my favorite mom […]

This weekend the kids are attending two outdoor birthday parties. The problem? According to the forecast, it is supposed to rain in the New England area for the next week (or three). It is the nightmare of any party-planning parent – what do you do with the gang of hyperactive kids who, instead of running around in your backyard, are […]