Sarah's Faves

I often like to marry two of my loves, my son and tech. Because of that you get to read posts like this. Enjoy a few of my FAVE parent online resources. Have one to suggest? Email me at ilovefaves@gmail.com.

Petit Couture

For the parents of little girls, this is a great site. Submitted by FAVES reader Joe Chernov (@jchernov), Petit Couture is a fashion-forward children’s brand run by mompreneur Rebecca Kaykas-Wolff, committed to Fair Trade practices.

BabySteals.com

I’m hooked on BabySteals.com. They offer crazy good deals everyday at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. They also have an iOS app and will send you reminders when a new deal goes live. I’ve purchased everything from discounted Baby Legs to a diaper bag to fashionable bags to hold dirty clothes.

The Wonder Weeks iPhone App

Why is Baby K so crabby today? Could be because he’s in the midst of a developmental milestone. The Wonder Weeks gives you a pretty accurate prediction of when you can expect your little one to go through major life changes. There’s a site and an iOS app. If you want to know when they’ll actually move out of the house, you’re on your own.

Baby Legs

I’m mildly to severely addicted to purchasing Baby Legs legwarmers and socks. They make diaper changes a cinch and protect little knees when on the move. I say most of this to make myself feel better for owning so many pairs. While the site is great, the Baby Legs Facebook page is even better because they load you up on discounts. I have yet to pay full price for pair. Fist bump for savvy shopping!

Krinklz Baby

What little guy or gal doesn’t love the sound of crinkle paper? I know mine can’t get enough of it. Krinklz Baby create custom made toys or sends ready-made items that are as functional as they are cute.  Don’t judge Krinklz by their website (my tech friends will understand), just go straight to Etsy.

Hey new parent. Why are you still reading this? Go get some sleep.

Taylor Swift is taking Kevin McGuire from New Jersey to the Academy of Country Music Awards. The 18 year old has been battling cancer since the age of 13.

“Why you gotta be so…” Darn nice? Even if you’re not a Taylor Swift fan it’s tough not to enjoy this fairytale Facebook story and more than 122,000 people agree. When Kevin McGuire relapsed after being declared cancer fee on April 24, 2010, his younger sister took things into her own hands. Knowing her brother adores Taylor Swift she started a Facebook event page to get Ms. Swift to go to prom with Kevin.

Unfortunately, Taylor already had other plans. So sad. Right? Wrong.

Since Taylor couldn’t go to prom, she invited Kevin to be her date for the 2012 Academy of Country Music Awards on on April 1, 2012 (and no it’s not a joke).

She wrote, “I was wondering the ACM Awards are coming up. Would you be my date?”

How cool is that? Looks like Facebook is good for more than just reenergizing Betty White’s career.

Kevin McGuire talks about Taylor Swift – video (From KSDK)

It’s time to celebrate. In the past 30 days there have been quite a few major tech milestones. Here are the ones I think warrant a little extra attention.

So many social networks and tech companies, so little time. Here goes:

1. The iOS app Clear sells 350,000 copies in 9 days
2. Skype hits major milestone as 32 million people sign on at once
3. Facebook sends 60 million monthly visitors to 3rd party mobile apps. Wowzer! I’ll take some of that link love.
4. Twitter hits 500 million registered users, according to Twopcharts
5. Apple prepares to hit 25 billion App Store downloads and celebrates with $10,000 prize
6. Twitter opens ad platform to 10,000 Small Businesses
7. Apple sold more iOS devices in 2011 than it sold Macs in almost 30 years
8. Pinterest now has over 10.4 million registered users, 9 million monthly Facebook-connected users, and 2 million daily Facebook users
9. MySpace announces one million new users
10. Yahoo!’s C.O.R.E. creates 13 million story combos a day and gets to a million clicks
11. Reddit’s community is now 35 million strong
12. Flickr turned eight years old
13. LinkedIn hit 150 million registered users
14. The Daily amassed more than 100,000 paid subscribers on the iPad

Upcoming milestone: Oreo is about to turn 100 years old.

photo credit: Pixel Fantasy via photopin cc

Changing the face of culinary publishing? That’s what Babette Pepaj of Bakespace is doing with the new Cookbook Cafe.

If you’re a foodie with a craving to cook up your own ebook of delish dishes (trying too hard?) here comes your answer. The newly launched Cookbook Cafe from the pros at BakeSpace lets anyone create, market and sell their very own cookbook as a native iPad App and interactive web-based ebook.

Targeted towards grassroots cookbook authors, this is an amazing resource for independent authors and nonprofit organizations.

Each author determines his/her own price — from giving a cookbook away for free to selling it for a price ranging from $0.99 to $9.99 (in one dollar increments). Each cookbook is acquired by the end-user as either a free download or in-app purchase on the iPad, or as a simple download/online purchase on the web. BakeSpace.com collects a commission only when an author sells a book for profit or fundraising.

Of course, it’s not only for you social do-gooders. Commercial brands can also use Cookbook Cafe to create and market cookbooks themed around specific ingredients, types of recipes, events, etc. At launch, they boast an impressive partnership with brands Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, Driscoll’s Berries, Chobani Greek Yogurt and Sabra Hummus.

Chomping at the bit to get started? Go ahead and:

• Download in iTunes;
• Visit Cookbook Cafe; or
• Create a Cookbook

Want to learn more about Cookbook Cafe? Here’s Babette to give you the scoop:

Gives new meaning to awesomesauce, huh?

I’m thinking about creating a baby-led weaning cookbook and sharing all of Baby K’s FAVE foods.

ifttt puts the internet to work for you by creating tasks that fit this simple structure: if this then that. You either create your own “recipe” or use one another user created.

Make the web work for you

What does a recipe mean? An example might be “if I post a video to YouTube then a link to the video should go to a Dropbox folder.”

In order to use ifttt, you need to sign up for ifttt beta and click the confirmation link sent to you via email. Now on to the stuff you really came here to read. Here are 10 social tasks to help simplify your life:

1. When Facebook profile picture changes, update Twitter profile picture.
2. Send Google Reader feed to Evernote
3. Get an SMS alert before any event starts on your Google Calendar
4. Autosave Instagram photos to Dropbox
5. Post new Etsy listings to Twitter
6. When the official #foursquare blog is updated, send me a text  [Full disclosure: This is a recipe I created.]
7. When Free Music from Amazon is released, send me an email
8. Add YouTube videos to Storify
9. If I upload a photo to Flickr tagged ‘tweet’, post a link to Twitter
10. Save my email attachments to Dropbox

Feel inspired? Create your own recipes on ifttt.

photo credit: jenny downing via photopin cc

I just can’t get enough. Here’s part three of, “You know you work in social media when…”

Have one you’d like to contribute? Email me at ilovefaves@gmail.com.

Really like infographics but lack the ability to make one by your little old lonesome? Have no fear, Piktochart is here. Proceed with caution…

If you, like me, can’t get enough of infographics now you can make your own. Piktochart is like “Infographics for Dummies” (i.e. Sarah Evans) — a relatively simple way to create basic storytelling graphics for your online publications. How does it work? Choose from one of three templates and then customize as needed. It doesn’t hurt if you have basic graphic design knowledge or have tooled around in any design applications, but it’s not necessary. Every box in the template is moveable and text boxes are simple “double click to edit” format.

Why proceed with caution? Just because it’s available doesn’t mean everything you do now needs to be done in infographic format.

Used sparingly, or when visual best suits a message this could be an effective tool. There’s a reason visual storytellers like JESS3 are in business, it’s not easy, nor is it something that anyone off the street can (or should) do.

Just out of private beta, you can grab a 30-day free trial of Piktochart (after that you have to move to a PRO account). Don’t worry, they don’t ask for your credit card info, blood type or your first born.

Questions? Go ahead and give them a call  +1 408 600 2807 or hit them up on Skype at piktochart.

p.s. I’m eagerly awaiting the launch of Visual.ly’s new infographic tool. Once available you can bet a FAVE will follow shortly.

Make your Timeline truly pop with creativity…right from your iPhone. No graphic design degree needed. For artistic talentless people like me, that’s a win.

Who can resist an opportunity to show off their most FAVE thing in the entire world? Shhhhhhhh. Don’t tell my husband. The new (and soon-to-be enforced for everyone) Facebook Timeline offers some prime real estate for photos at the top. However, one of the issues is figuring out exactly how to use the space. It’s even more complex because most standard photos don’t fit Facebook Timeline’s cover photo space. It’s what keeps me up at night. Just kidding…it’s really a crying baby.

Enter Cover Photo Maker for Facebook Pro+. Well, hello there.

****Before you read further, this is not a free app. Just thought I’d be up front. And no, they’re not paying me nor did they comp me the app. I paid the $1.99 just like everyone else.****

You know I wouldn’t post about it if it weren’t easy to use. Remember, I don’t post if I don’t think my mom couldn’t use it. No offense, Mom.

Here’s how it works:

Used a service like PicFrame or DipTic? It's the same concept.

The next part may take some time (especially if are a detail person). You need to select the photo or photos you’d like to use and begin to customize your look. You can change the background image, make the photo borders rounded, tweak the margin size, rotate photos…the choices could overwhelm some at first.But don’t despair. The outcome is worth it. Once you get your pictures in order it’s time to add text and there are a lot of fun text options. In my example above I used “3dumb” with a thick white outline. You can change both the text and outline colors and even throw in a drop shadow.

All done? Good. Now you can upload that photo direct to Facebook or save it to your iPhone’s photo album.

If you need some inspiration, here are 30 creative Facebook Timeline Cover photos.

Did you make a kick butt Timeline cover with this app? Send it my way to ilovefaves@gmail.com.

I’m down for this! What better way to do good and get something pretty cool for yourself? And by pretty cool I mean a pair of Knicks tickets and some one-on-one time with Reddit co-founder and all around good guy Alexis Ohanian. That really is #WINNING.

Do you have #Linsanity?

SeatGeek and Breadpig want you have a chance to experience the craze that is Linsanity firsthand. They’re giving away a pair of tickets to watch the Knicks-Cavaliers game at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, February 29.

What do you have to do? Lend a hand and help support some deserving basketball-related projects in New York City area schools. Any donation of $10 or more to a project on this page will give you an entry into the drawing for the pair of Knicks tickets – and will help local kids live out their own hoop dreams in school gyms and courts around the city. That’s good karma for everyone.

In order to be entered, get your donations in before midnight on Monday, February 27. 

I hope one of you FAVE readers wins! I expect lots of tweets and Instagrams if you do.

Time for your FAVE recap and mine… It’s the week-in-review in tech and social.

Listen, I know you’re busy. When I first started this blog I considered making the tagline, “Putting in the man hours so you don’t have to.” I enjoy doing this research and I want to make it as easy as possible for you to always be in-the-know on all things social. If you read nothing else this week, this run down will keep your social and tech IQ above the rest. Rest easy, busy one, I’ve got your back.

Go ahead and copy and paste your favorite links and send them to your boss, co-workers, peers. They’ll remember (in case they forgot) what a rockstar you are. (Or you can always forward a copy of this post.)

1. Apple is getting busy. Must be because they have so much cash available (almost twice as much in cash and investments as #Microsoft). Oh, they also acquired Chomp this week.
2. Sick of your online habits being tracked? There’s now a button for that.
3. You know how Pinterest is all the rage right now? Looks like Fancy is even better.
4. Looks like Facebook’s 2012 ad sales might top $5B http://bit.ly/x4Csq4.
5. Twitter just hit 500 million registered users, according to Twopcharts.
6. Apple announces countdown to 25 billion app store downloads with $10,000 gift card prize
7. Take control of the results people see when they search you on Bing (or screw with your friends’ profiles) with Linked Pages.
8. Twitter is ditching /#! in their URLs. I guess it wasn’t a well-thought out idea to begin with.
9. Big changes to Facebook Advertising on February 29. Here’s what you can expect.
10. Women are ‘more likely’ to make your social media campaign go viral.
11. Box bets on Android in business with new update, gives all users 50GB storage free.
12. Google quietly launches Latitude Leaderboards, threatens Foursquare under its breath…
13. Internet surveillance proposed bill would treat all who use the Internet as “unregistered sex offenders.”
14. Here are the 20 most popular sites pinned on @Pinterest.

Hope you enjoyed this week’s recap!