Great Gifts for the Home, Kitchen, Garden & More

When it comes to giving gifts for the home, there’s nothing wrong with buying a blender or a toaster oven. But it might be more fun to give someone a gift they’ll love – but would never have actually bought on their own. These gifts are fun with a functional purpose – but four out of five of these gifts are actually under $100, and the fifth is under $200.


chokotto oasis paper humidifier portable home giftChokotto Oasis Paper Flower Humidifier

Sometimes the best gadgets are also the most low-tech. It seems hard to believe, but this is a portable humidifier that requires no batteries – just water. Just fill it up and the special paper disperses water into the air. It may not provide all the moisture a room needs, but it’s pretty and it’s unique – a perfect gift, and incredibly affordable at $22 plus shipping from Japan. Available at Japantrends.com.

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Get Your Pet Something Nice This Holiday Season!

Some people would say it’s silly to buy your pet a gift this holiday season. But if your dog, cat, bunny, iguana, fish or even elephant is truly a part of your family, they deserve the same loving kindness you show everyone else this season.

Here’s some great tech gifts I think you’ll love:

tagg tracker

Pet GPS

Sure, you’ve got the wristband that connects to your smartphone and the apps to track your runs and the heart monitor and the… But WAIT—Doesn’t Fido deserve some tech to keep him healthy as well?

The Tagg pet GPS system includes absolutely everything you’ll need to GPS location track your dog and also start tracking their activities as well! It’s a simple and easy way to make sure Fido isn’t just lounging around and putting on the pounds while you’re at the office. tracking for your pet. Useful even if your dog’s not a runner, and maybe lifesaving if he is! $99 for the device and three months of service from Tagg. Read More

HLN: Looking at Grand Theft Auto V’s record breaking sales

Grand Theft Auto V sales have set a first day sales record of more than $800 million in sales on Tuesday—which was its first day on the shelves. That’s more than 13 million copies sold in a single day!

Not only were those sales numbers were the biggest for the series, they also broke the previous first day sales record held by “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2” at $500 million.

Grand Theft Auto is one of the longer-running series of video games, with the first installment was released 16 years ago. An awful lot has changed in that time and the series has adapted with it. Originally a top-down 2D game with a fixed map and pre-set missions to follow, the games have steadily grown in scope to become huge, open-world games where you can either play to move the story along or just play by exploring the world and seeing what situation you run into.

Recently, the video game industry has taken a hit due to the growing popularity of online and mobile games—which are generally either free or low cost. But big-budget games that go on to become best-sellers have continued to buck that trend. Just take a look at the best selling video game of ALL tim, Call of Duty: Black Ops, which has sold 28 million copies since 2010! The next game in that series, The Call Of Duty: Ghosts, is just around the corner as well and is due to come out in November. Read More

How to Use Apple AirPrint

AirPrint reverses the normal mobile trend. A lot of the hype about mobile technologies has centered on “augmented reality”—letting you see the world with additional data provided from your phone or a special device like Google Glass. But we don’t just need to bring reality into the digital realm; sometimes we need to bring the digital realm into reality. Apple’s AirPrint technology is supposed to do just that—let you print from your phone or other iDevice—to an AirPrint enabled printer on the same wireless network.

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The Best Tech to Prepare for Severe Weather

September is National Preparedness Month, and on my blog we’ll be taking a look at all the different ways you can leverage tech to stay safe and protect yourself and your family. One thing you should always be prepared for is severe weather, especially if you live somewhere that’s prone to regular flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes or tornados. However, even if your location isn’t disaster prone, there are steps you should take to be prepared in case of any kind of emergency!

While there’s plenty of tech you should already have available just in case (things like hand-crank operated radios, extra batteries, duct tape), today I’m going to take a look at a few great pieces of tech you probably haven’t thought of but will definitely come in handy should the big storm hit your home this year.

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What the heck is Chromecast anyway? A peek inside

You’ve probably heard of Google’s new $35 Chromecast dongle. And if not, here’s the elevator pitch: a small device that plugs into a free HDMI port on your HDTV and gives you a smart TV that can play content from your smartphone, tablet, or computer. Half the price of a Roku that supports 1080p video, and a third of the cost of an Apple TV, the Chromecast is certainly the budget smart TV dongle many have been waiting for, but what the heck is it anyway and what’s inside?

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HLN: Know your neighbors and use Nextdoor.com

According to a June 2010 survey by the Pew Research Center, only 29% of Americans know some of their neighbors and 28% know none of their neighbors by name! So this week through this weekend, Mario Armstrong is appearing on HLN to talk about what YOU can do to meet and get to know your neighbors and use that knowledge to better connect with people, reduce crime in your neighborhood, and just keep tabs on what’s going on!

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$35 Google Chromecast device beams music and movies to your TV from your smartphone, tablet or laptop

Chromecast is a little device you plug into your TV that allows you to seamlessly connect video and audio from your smartphone, tablet or even laptop to your television and home stereo system. And you can buy one for just $35, a price affordable enough to connect up every TV in your home. You can order it today at Amazon, Best Buy, and play.google.com. It will also come with 3 months free of Netflix.

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