Sponsored Post: Five Must Have Inventions for Modern Families
As I was sitting with a netbook in the middle of the park getting some work done while my younger son had his flag football practice, I looked up at some point and reflected for a moment how much things have changed in the 10 20 30 years since my own mom was shuttling me around to soccer and basketball. And boy, we’ve got it pretty good now, don’t we? Here are my five “must have” (relative to your budget) tech gadgets and inventions for today’s moms and dads:
- A 3G/4G Enabled Netbook
As all parents know, especially ones with older kids, we do a LOT waiting around. Whether at the above mentioned sports practice or killing time until a rehearsal is over with, there’s a bunch of thumb twiddling time — which, for someone like me who works from home, leads to a severe eye twitch as I think about all the tasks piling up back at home. That is, until I scored a new netbook with internet anywhere capabilities. For under a couple hundred bucks and roughly $25 a month for light users, you can bring your baby laptop with you and make the most of that inevitable idle time. - Smart Phone
Same idea as the netbook, but obviously not as big and more for on the go. My wife utilizes hers to check out reviews and prices while shopping to make sure she’s getting the best item at the lowest cost — something I can get behind, and with all the shopping she does I’m sure the phone has more than paid for itself at this point. - Induction Cooker
For those of us not fortunate enough to have a commercial grade Wolf range pumping out mega high BTUs, a standalone induction cooker is an awesome addition to the kitchen. Forget waiting 15 minutes for my crummy burner to boil a big pot of water for pasta, the induction cooker boils the water in under two minutes saving lots of time at dinner prep, and they can be found nowadays for under a hundred dollars. - MP3 Player
Except for you OCD folks out there, cleaning the house is a boring, boring task. So is folding the laundry, gardening, and pretty much every other household chore. One way to help the monotony is to invest in an MP3 player — the time I spend doing the dishes since to go by a lot faster when I’m rocking out to Soundgarden. And you don’t have to get all fancy and spring for an iPod Touch, there are plenty of MP3 players on the market for under $50 that will easily fit the bill. - GPS
Before we decided three years ago to opt for the GPS navigation system in our then new SUV instead of a built-in DVD player, my wife had a bit less sophisticated method of a GPS system — calling me on her cell phone and having me walk her turn-by-turn from directions I pulled up on Mapquest. Yeah, that got old fast, and the GPS system may have actually saved our marriage. If your car doesn’t have one built in, there are standalone models on the market, which in some instances are better as they continuously update while the built-in models require a DVD upgrade, usually at a fairly high cost.
America’s first 4G phone is also the first to deliver download speeds up to 10x faster than 3G and be a mobile hotspot for up to eight Wi-Fi enabled devices. Not to mention front and rear-facing cameras and the ability to stream live video to the Web. And you get access to over 65,000 apps you’ve come to expect from an Android. So the only question is, what will you do first with EVO? sprint.com/firsts
Disclosure: Compensation was provided by Sprint via Glam Media
The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of Sprint






Posted
September 14, 2010 at
10:00 am by

