by dana on January 15, 2008
Prior to channeling your inner HiTech Dad on gadgets let’s focus on music selection. The right kind of audio pumping out of your portable speakers in the nursery will make all the difference in your child sleeping successfully and long through the night.
My interest peaked when my sister, who has two toddlers, used music as part of their night time sleep routine. They employ a portable compact disc player with a CD that is either on repeat or standard one-time play. Music of choice? Either some type of Baby Einstein or even a standard classical selection.
So here’s the challenge, how do you give you child something to listen to at night that won’t keep them up? Additionally, if you’re going to play it through-out their entire sleep cycle, the music needs to be consistent, soothing and basically no vocals or loud AC/DC style guitar riffs. Maybe some Deep Forest? Sigur Ros? Only a few tracks out of 4 albums. Enya? What about the wildly popular bedtime classics as sung by some random women, or maybe even played by an entire symphony? Still no.
Most music compositions have beats per minute shifts, periods of quiet, then loud or mid-loud that is caused by a vocal range increase (low to high), stringed instrument, horns or guitar. All of these sounds will cause a child who may be in a light stage of sleep to waken up and perhaps tune-in. See where I’m going with this? The child will most likely not sleep successfully through the night, or at the least, sleep for long periods of time.
So, what kind of music is best fit for this situation? Simple, composition that carries a nice consistent, soothing tone with minimal shifts in tone, beats per minute and over-all “loudness”. The best example I can give for this is an band from Iceland called Amiina. This band is great because they do not employ any vocals and give a nice soothing noise. I have personally been using Amiina’s music on our night-time play list since my daughter was 2 months old and sleeping on her own.
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by bill on January 9, 2008
1. Use FireFox
Attackers like to go after the most people, it make their life easier. One attack can hack the most users, it is that simple. It helps to stay out of the mainstream as much as possible. FireFox is not only more secure it is faster and more stable. I have not run into a web site that does not work in FireFox. Get on board and surf safer!
2. Pick hard passwords and write them down
I choose passwords based on the type of sites I am using. I use the same password for social networking sites, forums etc. I then use totally unique passwords for any place that keeps my credit card data or my online banking data. I make these passwords long and basically impossible to guess, like J!3!dSDsfogur32%. I then write them down or since I use a Mac I put them in my Keychain. Really write them down, it is OK.
3. Apply patches right away
This is a no brainer really but I feel like I have to keep reminding people. Attackers don’t wait for you to patch your system. In fact they are generally ahead of the patch. If you use Windows set it up so that it updates automatically for you. Here is how to set it up. Do it right now!
4. Keep AntiVirus up-to-date
Goes hand in hand with the above. I recommend Norton AntiVirus or Kaspersky AntiVirus. Get it install it and keep it up-to-date!
5. Use one credit card for all online purchases.
Pick a card and use it for all your online transactions. Why? It makes it a lot easier to track fraudulent charges. When thieves get your credit card they don’t always go on wild spending sprees. More often then not they charge 1$-$5 on your card hoping no one will notice. They do this across millions of cards and can easily get over a million dollars in a month. If you have to pick this out of a 10 page credit card bill you are not likely to succeed, picking it out of a smaller bill is much easier.
Bonus tip - Get a Mac! I have converted all my neighbors over to Macs and they thank me every time they see me. Last I checked there where like 7 known viruses for the Mac. This will eventually change as the hackers change there tactics and targets but this is one time you can stay a step ahead of them. Really they are great, secure and a lot of fun. If you are in the market for a new PC you owe it to yourself to give a Mac a try.
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