Archives For Links I Like

freeset

One of the things we find difficult to do every year is find a gift to give our mothers on Mother’s Day that is more than a trinket. We live in a culture that spends millions on souvenirs. We used to give fathers key chains and mothers carnations, both are fine but eventually end up in the junk drawer of your home or the city dump. We had this thought a few years back what if leveraged these 2.00 trinkets to make a difference in someone’s life forever. So in the past few years we have made donations to Love146 and smile train.

This year we found a company called FreeSet that helps women who have been freed from sex slavery by giving them a meaningful skill that gives hope to them and their family where they can earn a decent wage in dignity. When you buy bags these women make you are  not just buying a bag you are giving hope. We bought all our mom’s makeup bags. They were a huge hit. So if you are looking a mother’s day gift for next year or a conference tote for this year consider FreeSet.

Here is a video that shows a little of what FreeSet is all about.

 

 

feedly

After looking online for other options due Google killing it’s still very popular Google reader I settled on Feedly.com.

1. It’s Free – I didn’t want to pay a subscription for my RSS service.
2. It’s Web-based and mobile
3. The workflow is very like Google Reader but with some welcome changes.
4. It’s social media integration is better than google’s
5. Syncs across all devices.
6. Seamlessly imports all your google feeds

Importing your Google Reader account
To import your google reader feeds and categories over to feedly, simply login to your feedly using your google account. Feedly will automatically sync your Google Reader account with feedly.

7. Allows for minimalistic reading (my favorite) or a more visual approach (love the flexibility)

Overall have used feedly for the past week and so far so google who?

rip-google-reader

In case you missed it last week Google decided to kill google reader. Lots of my readers use google reader as I have for the past 5 years. I see RSS readers as functional so I have never really looked for anything other than google reader. When I heard that Google was killing their RSS reader I started looking for new options for the first time in 5 or 6 years.

If you are going to continue to subscribe to my blog how are you going to do it?

There are two ways to still receive content from my blog. 

1. Email subscription. 


 

2. New RSS reader. 

Here are the top 5 RSS readers in my opinion -

1. Feedly - Really like this one. like the interface and options to share content.

2. The Old Reader - Probably the closest thing you will find to Google Reader.

3. Newsblur – Another close cousin to Google Reader. Great user interface.

4. Flipboard - very interactive interface iPhone, iPad and Android only.

5. reeder - Mac app, iPhone and iPad versions as well.

 

Check them out for yourself and consider adding my feed to your new reader Thanks!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/samluce/sUyT

yancy not nancy

My three year old daughter has a new hero. It’s “Ancy” well actually it’s Yancy but my daughter calls her Ancy and walks around the house holding here CD cover and you know what that just fine with me.

Here is why I want my daughter to look up to Yancy and why you need to buy her new album.

1. She loves Jesus. – All of Yancy’s songs are saturated with passion for Jesus.
2. She loves her family – Yancy is in her early 30′s and she still loves her daddy that is rare and amazing.
3. She loves the local church – For me these three are huge. The three most important things that shape you are What you believe about, Jesus, family and church.

Check out Yancy’s website. She offers a free shipping code good anytime on our website www.YancynotNancy.com and that’s : yancylovesme

Lastly but not leastly Yancy has agreed to allow me to give away her CD/DVD combo. Register below I will pick a winner next Friday.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

appcertain

Like it or not the digital age is here to stay. As parents we are immigrants to this digital world that our kids are natives of. Despite its many benefits all the digital devices our kids are connected to require more from us as parents. So any time a tool comes along that makes monitoring what are kids are doing digitally I am for it. With the rise of Android, iPod, iPhones and tablet devices knowing what apps our kids are downloading would be nice.

Enter Appcertain

At AppCertain, they are passionate about computer security and motivated to discovering what behavior apps show. They are dedicated to helping us as parents understand and trust our family’s mobile devices by providing a window into the behavior of mobile apps. Recent advances in the business world have given companies greater insight into their employees’ mobile devices, and they believe we parents deserve a similar insight with respect to our families.