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Showing posts from September, 2017

The Modern Family's Guide to Technology to take on a European Vacation

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This summer I took my Seattle-based family of five for a three-week trip to Europe. We had been promising the trip to our kids since they were little, and this year we were finally able to go. We had a wonderful time! Using our phones at the Eiffel Tower Here are my tech-related traveling tips. Disclaimer: I am not being paid to write this, and there are no affiliate links. I'm writing this to help me remember my trip, and in the hope that it will be helpful to other families (and maybe even couples and individuals) planning similar trips. Hardware Tips Take your mobile phones Take one modern mobile phone per person. Android, iPhone, either is fine, but you'll want something with a SIM slot and nice camera. Leave your laptops at home I didn't take any laptops with me, and I was able to do everything I needed to do using just my mobile phone. It was a relief to not have to lug around a laptop. A few times I had to request the desktop version of a web s

Family Computers, 2017 Edition

A quick update on my family's computers, as we start the 2017-2018 school year My family's current setup Google WiFi iPhones Macbooks Windows Gaming PC School-provided Windows convertible tablets  iPads AppleTV Wii Chromecast Audio Laserprinter All-in-One. High speed document scanner Nest thermostats Google Home Changes since last year Home Network I bought a set of Google WiFi routers. I love them. They have worked flawlessly since the day I plugged them in. Best Google hardware product ever! Phones I upgraded my kids to refurbished iPhone 6s+s in Incipio cases. They are happy campers. We kept their old iPhone 5s's as backup phones for science projects and vacation trips. No more Beats headphones I've been having problems with my kids' Beats headphones. I had two sets of headphones, and they both needed to be repaired twice while under warrantee. When they broke again after the warrantee had expired, I just threw them away. I no