Photoshop – that single word can invoke a lot of feelings – fear (I have no idea how to Photoshop to save my life!), doubt (that’s been Photoshopped to death!), and curiosity (I wonder what I could do with Photoshop and a little time…). It’s the curiosity that will get to you and eventually you’ll move beyond pictures into video.

Adobe Premiere Elements 7 is all about video. And not just home movies meets a boring evening – but rather a way to quickly take video footage and turn it into something great, well frankly, turn it into anything you want.

Pros:

• Ease of Use – when using the software, using individual commands is simple (but see Cons below for more)
• Software runs smoothly – I’ve used some editors that hog up all the CPU power and move slow to boot. This is not one of them, thankfully!
• Tagging your videos is easy and saves a lot of time if you work with a lot of videos.
• Green screen – you are able to take any object from a solid background (use of green screen is common) and then you can set it in another scene. A LOT of flying scenes will emerge – and all in fun!
• Online backup with 2GB of storage space!

Cons:

• So many options! While it may be easy to use, when you first start it up – take it slow; there is a LOT to play with at first.
• Some processes take awhile to learn with a couple extra steps than I believe is necessary.

So, what should you do with all your time? Well, if you’re a Dad, you don’t have that much time to be wasting in the first place! Long story short, Adobe Premiere Elements 7 is a powerful tool that ends up being a lot of fun – plus, you get excellent results with little work. Just remember: you don’t need to do it all in one day!

We have plenty of other gift ideas for dads in general, but here are two good gifts for divorced dads, probably from friends or family interested in supporting dads’ relationships with kids who may not even be in the same city. Both are also wonderful presents for dads who “can’t be there” whether due to business travel or military service.

The first is the Vidtel telephone service. Vidtel is finally the telephone of the near future that AT&T promised to us at the 1964 Worlds Fair. Vidtel, using broadband (cable or DSL) connections, finally makes good on that promise.

Because it’s broadband, rather than POTS (plain old telephone service), the picture quality and voice are as good as any online connection using Skype or one of the many online video chat services. The big difference though is that the connection is made using what looks to be a traditional telephone. This means that any child can answer the phone, and even dial from it, making connection possible without an adult to set the connection up.

Vidtel is a bit expensive at $14.95 per month for each phone (other Vidtel payment plans available). At this price, it’s not for everyone, but in our tests, it does what it promises to do: makes it easy to make video calls, inlcuding video voicemail. For a divorced dad who doesn’t want to go through a ex-spouse gatekeeper for every conversation with his child, this might be a good solution.

Additionally, the Vidtel has an auto-answer setting making it possible to be used as a room monitoring device. We’d counsel against using this for spying, but there are very real situations (new babysitter) where this might be handy.

The ease of use of the Vidtel system also makes this a good choice for older grandparents who may not be able to use computer videoconferencing.

The second is the etendi BRIDGE,, available at etendi.com. BRIDGE is a website that provides a closed environment for families to communicate without fear of outsiders and open emails. The users of BRIDGE can only write, share photos, look at a shared calendar and see video of the specific BRIDGE users in their group. This makes it perfect for kids who might be too young to have their own email.

The desktop if set up for sharing photos and there’s even a shared whiteboard where you can imagine dads able to help on math homework. This is certainly not “ideal,” but changing family situations demand technology solutions, never to replace real dad time, but far better than no contact.

Key for dads right now: the service is FREE for four or fewer users. So dad and up to three kids can communicate. A more extensive plan is available for larger families and more users.

BRIDGE was the winner of the GreatDad Recommends program and MrDad Seal in 2009.

Today’s Twitters are often tomorrow’s quitters, according to data that questions the long-term success of the latest social networking sensation used by celebrities from Oprah Winfrey to Britney Spears.

Data from Nielsen Online, which measures Internet traffic, found that more than 60 percent of Twitter users stopped using the free social networking site a month after joining.

[From Many Twitters are quick quitters: study | U.S. | Reuters]

I tried it, found it interesting, but ultimately frustrating. I found lots of people doing kid stuff, writing blogs, selling gear. However, whenever I reached out to them with specific questions, I think they were overwhelmed with tallying their followers or lost in a pile of 140 letter haikus, because almost no one responded! And, these were legitimate business inquiries from people who said they wanted to hear from any time in their “thanks for following me” messages.

Has your experience been different? I’d love to know. I’ve read other articles on this now, and I’m a short-seller on Twitter, though our blog does post to it. Let me know your thoughts in comments.

Load it with the right apps and that shiny iPhone can come in handy for a great many things, including parenting. Your smartphone won’t change a diaper, but it can definitely help out with organization, stress management, and keeping family members entertained.

There are loads of apps in the App Store designed specifically for kids and parents, but surprisingly, we found the best family tools to be nonspecific to the parenting genre. Here are our top 10 iPhone app picks for parents, and how they can be adapted to make motherhood (or fatherhood) a less-complicated experience.

[From 10 iPhone Apps for Parents - Reviews by PC Magazine]

PC Magazine’s top iPhone apps for Parents might disappoint you. It’s more like 10 random iPhone apps for “people,” including a grocery list maker, photo sharer and a recorder. There was literally not one app specific to babies or kids. What kind of iPhone app would you like to see (or pay for) if you could have it? Poop and pee tracker? Baby Gap finder? Doctor finder? GreatDad news reader?

Please put ideas in comments.

A pox party is a party held by parents for the purpose of infecting their children with childhood diseases, most commonly chicken pox.

Would you, could you infect your child with a disease, to avoid the controversial avoidance of childhood immunizations?

For some reason, perhaps because of the title, I thought Eagle Eye was a simple film about a drone surveillance airplane gone mad. There is a drone plane or two, but the movie is so much more than that. Directed by D. J. Caruso from a story by Steven Spielberg, and starring Shia Laboeuf (Transformers) and Michelle Monaghan (Mission Impossible 3), Eagle Eye is a high tech conspiracy movie that plays on your worst fears about how computers track our everyday move. It pits two unwitting innocents against the Department of Homeland Security when they are set up to be the agents of an assassination plot. Without giving too much away, this movie draws on the best of 2001, The Parallax View, and War Games.

The pyrotechnics here are stunning with some new car chase scene ideas you have definitely not seen before. A chase scene in the baggage handling routing system of an airport will have you twisting and turning as the main characters ride conveyor belts like a beaten up piece of old uggage. This is a movie that will keep your attention just because it does a few things not seen before

Dads will enjoy this action thriller, but Eagle Eye is not a movie for young kids. There is no sex and very little profanity, but there is a tremendous amount of chaotic violence and heart-pounding chase sequences. The plot action also involves death threats on a mom and her son if she doesn’t participate in the action.

We do it. Our family computer sits in the kitchen, screen toward the crowd. I never have to worry about where my daughter is surfing, or what she’s looking at. Of course, she’s only 8. This will change at some point, but I think the findings of this are obvious, and projectable to other areas. My general parenting guideline for my four and eight year old is that supervision at all times will avoid a slough of problems. For example:

• don’t want your child to OD on cleaning supplies? don’t leave him alone playing under the sink
• don’t like the idea of kids having a party while you’re out of town? Stay home or find someone to stay in the house with them
• don’t like your kids watching inappropriate television behind closed doors? Simple. Don’t give them a TV in their rooms.

I suppose with kids as young as ours, this is probably very easy advice to follow. So far, I find that they like boundaries, as long as they are consistent. My daughter even reminds other parents that she’s not allowed to watch certain shows. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think we’re perfect parents, but we do try to stay as involved as we can and as present as we can. Obviously, as they grow, they need more independence, but each time you leave them alone to wander the internet, or watch whatever they want to watch, you take the risk that they will see things beyond their limits.

This would mean family computers being sited, wherever possible, in communal areas of the home rather than in children’s bedrooms or their parents’ private studies.

The review will also say that parents must bridge the technological “generation gap” by making sure they know as much about the internet and video games as their computer-literate children.

Mrs Byron, who is expected to publish her findings on Thursday, has talked to children, fellow psychologists, parents and industry experts after the Prime Minister expressed concern last year at the impact of violence seen by young people. While she is likely to recommend that rules on the certification of video games be streamlined - and made simpler to understand - she is expected to argue that there are benefits for young people from some games.

[From Computers should be kept out of kids's rooms - Telegraph]

Here’s good food for thought on the whole dangerous playground that the internet has become. This dad just turned off his Net Nanny software, in favor of more active parenting.

Despite my wife’s initial disapproval, I have removed all forms of net nanny software from the kid’s computer. They now surf unhindered by the arbitrary limits of the ambiguous cyber-morality-police. The experience has been great for all of us because they do not need my approval to visit every new variant of Disney.com or Cartoon Network.

We started out with a few basic rules and have expanded slightly on them. First and probably most important, was the speech about “bad things” on the internet. I explained that just like on TV, there are things on the Internet that children shouldn’t be watching. If they find something they don’t understand, or think is inappropriate they should click Home and go back to Webkinz.

[From Bad Dad: No Net Nanny | Geekdad from Wired.com]

This is good advice, in the main. Nothing takes the place of more involved parents who actually are watching, talking, listening, communicating. However, you have to be free and omnipresent to make this work. And, I think there are several caveats that the author, Anton Olsen, does not mention.

First, if your kids are little, little, all this talking and communication isn’t going to help them if they see something that is really way beyond their comprehension. I don’t want my eight year old (or my four year old son for that matter) to be exposed to graphic sex just because she went searching for “doll toys” on the internet. That’s why we use a separate account for her on our home computer. She can only visit and add sites (in her Safari browser) as we see fit, and then can switch easily between Webkinz, Club Penguin or SeaPals to her hearts content.

Second, place the family computer, or the child’s computer, in a place where everyone can see and the community becomes the monitor. If your child strays, there is a good chance that nanny, brother, mom or dad might see.

That said, this is a good discussion on an approach for allowing 12+ kids to use the internet for free browsing, school research, and fun, without using software that takes the place of good old-fashioned parenting.

Our computer DVD has been having problems and little by little we lost the ability to run any kids games that need a DVD to run. Now that it’s fixed, the kids are re-discovering their old friends,
I Spy Mystery and I Spy Fantasy from Scholastic. Both of these games keep them spellbound literally for hours. And, like a good crossword puzzle, they can jump back into them at any point without losing interest. And like a crossword, they can ask for help (and they do!) all the time, and it’s easy, and fun, for adults to peak in and join them in their quest for objects and words hidden in fantasy landscapes and setttings.

If you enjoy the I Spy books, you’ll also enjoy these fantasy games. The illustrations, mini-toys, and riddles, while simple enough for a small child, can even keep an adult interested and involved. My kids, at just four and just eight, enjoy these games and play together finding things. My young son needs some help reading the clues, but even this is made easy by the software that re-reads the direction with a simple scroll-over. These games are good at teaching basic computer skills, but also problem–solving, cause and effect, reading, following directions, and logic. I’d recommend these as a great gift for young kids, or as a diversion for kids during long trips. Since the illustrations are chock-full of tiny images, the software alters the game each time making each playing a new discovery.

$19.99 and less (some even at $6 at Amazon) and most run on both Mac and Windows.

As a dad you may have gotten on Facebook. It’s not a surprise - they are adding thousands of new users a day (or is it a minute?). However, you should be aware of privacy issues that relate to your use of Facebook even if you don’t think you’re giving out data to more than your friends.

In a report in the Wall Street Journal, and then picked up on Public Radio and elsewhere, some of these dangers have been highlighted. The biggest problem relates to other plugins you or your “friends” may have downloaded. The user agreements on most (or all?) of these plugins for games, photo sharing and the like, state that you agree to share your data, AND the data of your friends, by using their software. So as a user, you may have posted your age, favorite books, maybe even sexual preferences, thinking you are sharing with a very small group of friends. However, if even one of these friends has downloaded another application, your data is now public. It’s a word to the wise. Not all of us are privacy crazy since so much about you is public anyway (jobs, schools, address, political donation). But would you want your health data or worse to get out because you shared it in some group on Facebook?

Me, I’m limiting mine to the schools I attended and taking down my age tonight. Another thing you can do is tweak your privacy settings by clicking on Privacy in upper right hand corner of screen. This functionality is pretty complicated. Be prepared to spend ten minutes figuring out what to do.

And my daughter doesn’t get on until she pierces her ears and learns to drive at eighteen.