how-to

This week I looked at my definitely plugged-in MacBook, and realized it wasn't charging. Surely the entirely frayed wire at the base had something to do with that? Mac users in particular are famiilar with the annoying ease at which the …

Over the weekend, my two older kids plunged head first into the world of Minecraft , and save the couple of desperate tweets and Facebook posts asking for help, I was pretty much on my own getting them started. If you've got a kid who wa…

Now that I've started posting photos of my family on the Internet, I've been thinking much more about how to watermark my photos. Thankfully, it's not nearly as complicated as I thought, especially with the help of my go-to photo editing…

If you're like me, you've got tons of family videos on your smartphone and lots of aspirations to do something with them all. But then "one of these days" turns into months and years, because who really has time to sit down and edit toge…

If you're like me and you've spent way too long trying to figure out how to cancel your accounts or magazine subscriptions, then you will love this awesome new site I discovered that gives you simple, quick directions in a click. Think o…

IF YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEM AT THE POLLS please call 866-OUR-VOTE Not sure where to vote today? That's no reason for not voting! Find your polling place online in just minutes. Rock the Vote has about the best page we've found for voter info…

I am intermittently craft-crazy, with bouts of knitting and jewelry-making fever. Unfortunately, my skill set doesn't always match up to my enthusiasm, as evidenced by the sweater I knitted for my son that took two years. (Yes, two years…

With our long drives to and from school every morning, I've been meaning to grab some audiobooks for us to enjoy. Well lucky for me, just yesterday I scored over 20 popular classics as e-books and audio books on both my Kindle and my iPh…

Since my job is primarily on the Internet, I'm pretty vigilant about my family's privacy. So every now and then I'll search my name to see what comes up. And even though I removed myself from the Spokeo database a few years ago, I was sh…

I was obsessed with getting the very best photos of my kids on my iPhone on their first day back to school. But since I happened to be away, my husband had to stand-in as family photographer--which doesn't sound so bad until you see some…

When an IKEA opened a few miles from me, I became one of those devotees who believes one can never have enough EXPEDIT bookcases--provided you can figure out how to put them together. Not all of us have that gene (or understanding of Swe…

Every year during the back-to-school season, I can't help but get nostalgic whenever I see those black and white composition books. Which is probably why I buy a bunch, and now have a stack in my closet. Well, now I can feel that way eve…

I'm pretty sure we can claim to know cool mom, author, and photographer Tracey Clark "when," since we featured her first book way back when we first started our site. She even took our first official Cool Mom Picks photo, back when we ea…

A few years ago, I ditched my point-and-shoot camera for a fancy DSLR, and while I was almost instantly taking better photos of my kids, I really had absolutely no idea how to use any of the actual settings. Without time to read the huge…

If you've recently noticed a lack of updates from your favorite brands, bloggers, or fan pages on Facebook (or maybe you haven't realized it until just now), it may be because of the introduction of Facebook's new Promoted Posts . But we…

This month I received several ominous warnings from my ISP, popping up to interrupt my web pages as I was browsing - We are replacing your wireless router! Order now or your service will be interrupted! You have T minus 14 days...13 days…

It doesn't even phase my kids anymore that my camera is always in front of my face like an extra appendage growing out from my nose. And while I give them the occasional photographic direction, " Can you please zip up your zipper before …

I stumbled upon this lovely tutorial for a DIY Kindle cover, and I thought, what a smart idea! If you have the chops, and the materials, that could be a really fun project, or a great way to add a personal touch to a tech gift. At the Ca…

If you follow us on Twitter, it's pretty clear from our links that we're completely addicted to Pinterest, a virtual cork board that allows you to "pin" online inspiration and share it with others. We've been using it both for Cool Mom P…

Even though I'm not cooking the turkey this year (hooray, hallelujah, amen!), I'm preparing a few side dishes and desserts. And because I'm not necessarily known for my kitchen skills, you can bet I'm going to be relying heavily on my sm…

We're so appreciative of our Cool Mom Picks community on Facebook , but thanks to recent major Facebook changes the site has made, we're hearing that a lot of you aren't seeing our updates. We feel for you! We're not seeing a lot of our …

Want to have the coolest pumpkins on the block? We think we've got you covered this year. Grab this free Angry Birds printable pumpkin templates courtesy of Brenda Ponnay at Alpha Mom, and just trace them onto your pumpkins to create a w…

Well one thing is clear about the new changes on Facebook--none of it is clear! At least according to our community, who bombarded us with questions on our Facebook page and our Cool Mom Picks Twitter account his past week, at our reques…

I'm a pretty avid Mozilla Firefox user, but only recently have I entered the amazing world of Add-ons. While we've covered a few that we really love, like PriceBlink (amazing!), this week I asked our Twitter followers for their own favor…