Tips from a pro for taking better family vacation photos. Good timing, right?

by Cool Mom Team | Tips and Tricks

If you’re like us, you’re counting down the days to a summer vacation, whether it’s a weekend at the grandparents’ place or something bigger. Either way, hopefully it means sleeping in late (kids willing), lazy days, catching up on books and of...

Setting up email for kids: 11 essential things to teach them first — that you probably haven’t thought about.

by Liz Gumbinner | Tips and Tricks

When I finally broke down and got my daughter an email account (all my friends have one! actually does work sometimes) we had the long, requisite discussions about safety, etiquette, and responsibility. But wow, it turns out there’s so much more than that....

Life management tip: How to turn off Twitter notifications during certain hours using sleep settings

by Liz Gumbinner | Social Media, Tips and Tricks

I was going through my settings on Twitter recently to tweak something, and I never realized it, but there’s a way to turn off your Twitter notifications during pre-set hours only. And if I just discovered this for the first time, then I’m probably not the...

#SelfieWithMom for Mother’s Day: A selfie we can all get behind. And in.

by Kristen Chase | Social Media

If there’s one thing that I love about selfies, it’s that I’m in more photos with my kids now than I ever was before. And as I get older and my kids get older, it’s those photos I treasure the most, even more than their sweet homemade gifts and...

5 smart ways to live greener without making major changes to your life. (As in, no turning your bathtub into a hydroponic garden.)

by Cool Mom Team | Tips and Tricks

We are always looking for ways that we can live a greener lifestyle with our families, but trust us, we know how overwhelming it can be. As we’ve discovered over the years, it’s the small things that can really add up — in effort and attention...

Boomerang: Maybe the best Gmail management tool ever.

by Liz Gumbinner | Tips and Tricks

When my friend Anna, who is my go-to source for everything related to time management mentioned Boomerang for Gmail, I figured it was worth a shot. And wow…consider my life changed. If you’re a Gmail user who finds yourself sometimes drowning in email and...

Home decluttering tips: 6 smart ideas using tech that keep you from doing it all again later.

by Kate Etue | Tips and Tricks

Spring cleaning fever has hit hard at my house and this week I’ve purged closets, vacuumed under furniture, and checked the expiration date on every canned good and spice in my pantry. Goodbye, can of beans that expired in 2012. Now I’m tackling all the...

How to use the iOS 8 audio message feature: It’s like it was made for parents.

by Nicole Blades | Tips and Tricks

Hold the phone! No, seriously. Hold the iPhone, because there’s something new(ish) and neat and cool happening with its Message app that you’ll definitely want to hear about if you haven’t yet. While this fun feature has been around since September,...

5 things to knock off your tech to-do list, and how to find the time. Thanks to Gretchen Rubin.

by Nicole Blades | Tips and Tricks

Do you have some basic tech chore to do — say, deleting old digital photos — but you just never seem to find the time to get to it? It’s like permanently etched in your to-do list, and every time you scroll through your loaded smartphone camera roll,...

Location Services on smartphones: Why does every app seem to want access to it, and when should you turn it off?

by Nicole Blades | Tips and Tricks

I’m always a bit leery of apps the moment they ask to have access to my location. Sure, it makes sense with Google Maps, weather apps and certain social apps that help me locate a specific store or get a restaurant review. Those kinds of apps are more useful and...