Ideas from Mark Stout

Have you planned on things going wrong in your tech life?  They will.  Better to plan on it now and be ready. And if you are sending a student away to school with a laptop, plan now on it breaking or getting stolen or some other catastrophe. In July we talked about backup options.  Have you started using one yet? Have you setup your student with an automatic, offsite backup system so they do not have to think about it? You will need it. That is almost a certainty. What about anti-virus, for the the PCs at home and those going to college?  Get them installed now, and if there is a subscription, make sure it is paid through the end of the school year. For the college students, check the school’s bookstore or website. Often schools have requirements for anti-virus software for all PCs that use their networks, and site licenses to provide it to students for free. Before you buy any software for students, check with the university. Besides site license...

Soon, some of last month’s high school graduates will have those excited yet fearful knots in their bellies as they head off to colleges and universities. The days of sending them off with a manual typewriter are long gone. A tradition of this column is to consider what we should equip these new freshmen with before they go. It seems this year the picture is clearer than in past years. I think a student needs primarily three devices. Foremost is a laptop. A laptop to today’s young person, and I don’t really need to tell any parent this, is their window to learning and also to entertainment. They will use it to research and write papers, interact with their professors and coursework through sites like Blackboard, and use a variety of online services and software needed for classes. And they will use it to watch videos on Netflix, Hulu and network television websites. Many students will not want to haul a TV to a dorm, content with a laptop. The risk of losing or breaking a laptop that i...

Everyone has a compelling story. Just in the last couple of weeks, I’ve talked to a retired Marine about his service in Vietnam. And another told me about being a young bride in Germany and her move to the U.S. with her GI husband. The next several weeks brings family together for Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is an opportunity to ask family members to tell their stories. StoryCorps, an organization that has made an educational project for adults and children, is holding “The Great Thanksgiving Listen” project. The nonprofit has long gathered individuals stories on video in kiosks in New York’s Grand Central Station, and other cities. It also has an app for iPhones and Androids that videos an interview, and if you choose, uploads it to its site as well as to the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. A man at a Woodbridge continuing-care facility recorded interviews with residents about their World War II memories. The interviews were submitted to the Library of Congre...

This week's Family Tech column is about sending your children off to school.  While parts are specific for the county the Prince William Today newspaper covers, it has elements parents in any school district can use. Soon the tykes and teens of Prince William County will head back for a new school year and the logistics of life for their adults will be complicated by bus schedules, snow days, after-school events, car shuttling, etc. Thankfully, technology can make some of the issues easier. The Prince William County School website ( www.pwcs.edu ) has a plethora of information from bus schedules, meal plans and much more. Parents should sign up for the Parents Portal to better stay on top of their child’s school lives and communicate with the schools and teachers. The parent’s page has a lot of valuable information. Even if you’ve been shepherding your kids though the district for years, it doesn’t hurt to review the information on these pages. The same is true for the s...

Of course, Evernote figures prominently.  And there are some Evernote like products out there specifically for research. A new Family Tech is online.