Bloggy Carnival Giveaway!

Today Emma turned two-and-a-half. To commemorate this momentous occasion we decided to hold a giveaway in her honor. Since I am a big fan of automation, efficiency, and cycle-time reduction, I want to hear what software products or web-based services you use to get things done. You wanna know what you’re playing for? (Can you tell I love Survivor). Then take a look at the official rules below:

Bloggy Giveaways Quarterly Carnival Button

What is the prize:
$25 Target Gift Card

How you can win:
Leave a comment on this post telling me your favorite tech tip (i.e. any tools or web services you use that make you more efficient and productive). For an example of such services click here.

Who is eligible:
You must have a US mailing address. You don’t have to be a blogger to win, just supply a valid e-mail address (don’t forget to include this or I won’t be able to contact you if you are the winner).

When the giveaway ends:
Friday, April 25. I’ll e-mail the winner on the 26th. If the winner doesn’t respond within four business days, a new winner will be drawn.

Comments

  1. I don’t know if it counts as a tech tool, but I love getting images from freefoto.com. It helps me to find something quickly when I don’t have my own photo to submit, and I don’t have to pay the price of other services.

  2. google, photobook, kaodak easyshare software,

  3. combi is my new favorite..calendar…shopping list…photos great stuff

  4. Generous giveaway! And happy half-birthday!

    My tech tip is to use the calendar in Microsoft Outlook. This way it gives me popup reminders so (in theory) I don’t forget stuff;)

    Thanks for the contest! I’m hosting 3 contests this week. Stop by!

  5. I leave all the techy things to my husband but I love to use Picasa for photos and to downsize them…Not sure if that counts.

    Thanks for the chance to win a great prize! Happy two and half to Emma!

  6. Well, I can barely copy and paste–much less do any techy stuff. So I guess I am out of the running for the Target card. But still, wanted to wish Emma a good day. Happy Birthday Emma! You look very cute in that pic. My dog Woofie says Happy Birthday too. Ruff! Ruff!

  7. I’d have to say pretty much the entire internet . . . b/c I would never get any shopping/photo printing/knitting pattern collecting/coupon printing/etc done without it!

    suzzcq70 at gmail dot com

  8. I’m not technical-AT ALL, but I did just buy Pixelmator to edit my photos and I love it!

  9. I use Google Calendar to keep track of all of our activities and it is accessible to all family members so we all can use it.

  10. I use Google calendar to create a menu for supper that repeats every six weeks. I have six weeks worth of my family’s favorite meals and shopping list for all that week’s meals appear as an entry on Sunday. I don’t have to think “What will I fix for supper this week? ” All I have to do it print my shopping list on Sunday and all the thinking is done for me!

  11. Suzanne Lewis says

    First of all, EMMA is beautiful!
    Secondly, if you you know you will be filling out a lot of forms for some reason, I highly suggest Roboform.

    txhottie_86@yahoo.com

  12. What a precious way to showcase your giveaway! She’s darlin.
    I’d love the gift card as I frequent Target.

  13. I was going to say that my greatest tech tip is to have a teenage boy in the house. I may not be able to let him go to college if he wants to leave town to do it. . .

    But now, I can honestly say that my best tip is going to be bookmarking this blog, and trying out crazy-beautiful Emma’s suggestions.

    Thanks for this giveaway!!

  14. Spybot and adaware are must!

  15. Definitely picasa, helps me fix my photos quickly and post them directly!

  16. I bookmark A LOT of sites. So I use Del.icio.us to house all my bookmarked sites and I can organize them A LOT better that way too.

  17. I use Picasa and Shutterfly to purchase my digital prints and Online Translator to help me translate the Russian emails I get from friends. I also love Paperback Swap and McAfee.

  18. Google calendars make it so easy to coordinate schedules with my husband and work. Love it!

  19. RegCure to keep all of the bad stuff out of my computer.

  20. Seriously, the day I discovered Bloglines was the day that blogging became so much more fun.

    And I use the cut and paste shortcuts constantly. They are my friends.

    (Your Emma is a cutie!)

  21. I love dropshots.com I don’t know if that counts. I also use my Kodak Easyshare software to edit and send out photos…. A LOT! Both are quick and easy.

  22. I absolutely love Picasa…. it really simplifies things for me! (your little girl is precious!!!)

  23. I love bloglines.com. It makes checking blogs so much easier!

  24. Well if you are dieting a great site to keep track of your daily food log and stats is fitday.com

    Also Quicken makes my life so much easier on finances.

  25. i love my palm. thats not really online though. but i love having my calendar online!

  26. Stephanie says

    I love using my AOL reminder services that reminds me of things I have to get done that day or birthdays or anything else.

  27. I love to use bloglines to quickly read and catch up on all my favorite blogs. 🙂 Thanks!

  28. for blogging? use bloglines to get all your rss feeds!

  29. If you’re a fitness or diet person, try CalorieKing.com They have a database of
    hundreds of thousands of foods including most menu items from hundreds of restaurants. Also – for a 1x fee of $45 you can subscribe to their nutrition/exercise tracker that keeps track of everything you eat and all your physical activity. You can try it free for 7 days before purchasing.

  30. I hate to say this, but NOTHING makes my life easier! Can you automate my children?? 🙂

    Okay, just kidding. I do use Google Reader daily, and grumpily use flickr for my photos on my blog. What’s better than flickr for photo hosting and especially for adding into a WP blog? I really need to know.

    Thanks for the contest, and happy 2 1/2 birthday to Emma. We just celebrated my son’s 5 5/6 birthday on Saturday.

  31. Firefox has a neat plug-in called “Fire FTP” that I use constantly with web design to upload pages and images to my server. I love it because I don’t have to open up another whole program, its simple, fast, and easy to use!

    alaskawildrose AT gmail.com

  32. I am not a “tech” person at all, but, one website that I do love to use is http://www.myfitnesspal.com. It’s great for tracking your daily food intakes and exercise when you’re trying to lose weight. And, it’s free! Thanks for the giveaway.

  33. mannequin says

    Being a Mac user, i of course came from Windows. If you are running Windows, PLEASE make sure you use a firewall. I am a security nut and with good reason.
    Tip number 2: invest in an external harddrive incase of system failure. Back up nightly

    thanks for the chance to shop!

  34. Yay for Target! I’m actually giving away a Target card on my site as well.

  35. I just discovered a great site called Cozi – it’s family calendar is awesome and you can have reminders sent right to your phone even! And I can see their shopping list function coming in handy too. 🙂

  36. Google has changed my life. Seriously. I’m addicted.

  37. I can’t live without my psp 9 for my scrapbooking!
    palmersf@bellsouth.net

  38. I love using sellersourcebook.com for my eBay listings, and Picasa for my pictures. We have also just started our family tree with GENI. Love it!

  39. My favourite tool, if you would like to call it that, is Skype. I use it daily to communicate quickly with people, without the hassle of email. Skype also has very inexpensive telephone rates. I use them to call Canada for free (with the Skype to Skype) phone, but for just pennies, you can call a real phone as well.

  40. I use bloglines for knowing when blogs I read have been updated. I use winkflash for printing my digital photos you can get prints as cheap as 6 cents a print. I love target:)

  41. We use photobucket to share our pics with our family all around the country.

  42. okay, this is nerdy, but using basic keyboard functions to browse sites (for example, type in emmaswebpage and hit ctrl+enter and it will add the www. and the .com) Also using alt+arrow right to move forward to a page.

  43. I’ve always been a huge fan of spreadsheets for organizing information, now that google docs lets me have those spreadsheets accessible anywhere I’m in heaven! I also use the “publish” feature regularly to share lists & information with friends, family, etc.

  44. piknic for free 7 fast photo editing

    mcginnisfamily5(at)gmail(dot)com

  45. I want to win! For the longest time, I had zillions of bookmarks that I painstakingly clicked through to see if any of the blogs I read had updated. Then I discovered Google Reader! Phew, it’s so much easier. It may seem like everybody’s been using readers forever, but it has only recently made my life better!

  46. google reader – it keeps me up to date on all the blogs i read; love it!!!

  47. We like Avast on-access Virus Scan. Very easy and it picks up everything!

  48. Bloglines has saved me SOOOOOOO much time during my day. How did I ever live without it all these “blogging” years?

  49. I use a Google spreadsheet as my checkbook. It’s so easy to enter in all our debit card purchases and payments.

  50. I use shutterfly for my pictures and it helps to make my life a little easier.
    Your little Emma is beautiful, by the way.