1. May
    18

    Text Messaging with Family: Delilah Guest Blog Post

    The AT&T’s Unlimited Data & Messaging plan is the perfect way for me to stay in touch with my large family. My teenage and adult children keep themselves very busy, and a text message or two during the day keeps us all connected. You can see their personalities emerge in their words, and it often makes me laugh out loud, and at the same time, feel connected if we’re away from each other for hours through the day. I can call my teenage daughter three times in ten minutes, all of the calls going to voicemail; I can text her at the same time, and get a reply in 10 seconds!  Go figure! Texting is the way they often communicate, it’s that simple.     So the best way to stay in touch is often with a text message, sending or receiving a picture via text, and using our AT&T phones to do so.    And all of it can happen along with all the data I want to use, for about a dollar a day…that’s the cost of the AT&T Unlimited Messaging and Data Plan, just $30 a month.

    BTW, I picked up a few shortcuts for those of us that are bit slower at texting. While a full keyboard has made it so easy to text, I still look for shortcuts. U R right, I do.  Look for the shortcut clues that come from your teens – they’re a great source of them! LOL.

    About Delilah

    Delilah, the most-listened-to-woman on radio in the U.S., embraced the medium when she was a middle-schooler in Reedsport, Oregon, reporting school news and sports on KDUN-AM, a small station in her hometown. Today, her soothing voice, open heart and love of music has expanded her audience from the folks in Reedsport to more than eight million people on over 200 radio stations in the U.S. and Canada.

    Her distinctive blend of story-telling, sympathetic listening and encouragement – all scored with adult contemporary soft rock – makes her top ranked in most markets among women 25-54. Delilah says her show is a “safety zone where listeners take off their armor, slip into a ‘Mr. Rogers’ cardigan, sit around the electronic hearth and share their secrets.”

    She adds that her audience is “just like me and the two women working on the show, who were once listeners. We are single parents who work hard to strike a balance between family and work life. We also enjoy our friendships and remember to laugh as much as possible.”

    This blog entry was sponsored by AT&T.  For information on Deliah and AT&T please click here http://www.delilah.com/pages/att.html


  2. April
    19

    Timing My Contractions with an Application

    Before deciding on a guest post this week, I read through the comments on my last Calm, Cool, Connect blog post and found the perfect suggestion for connecting technology with my last month of pregnancy – thank you!  I had not thought to download an application for timing contractions. 

    Naturally once I searched “pregnancy” on my phone, a plethora of options came forward.  I opted for Contraction Master , which seemed worth the $0.99 investment.  Childbirth class taught us to wait for 5-1-1, contractions lasting for 1 minute, 5 minutes apart for at least 1 hour.  And now I have the perfect tool to track the timing and frequency of my contractions.  My husband walked by as I was downloading the app, and commented that he needed it on his as well.   This app will definitely eliminate the guesswork and provide a history of the contractions that can be emailed or at least shown to my nurse and doctor when I finally do arrive at labor and delivery.

    I also downloaded the What to Expect app.  Even though I only have a few weeks left, it’s calming to read that if I went into labor now, the baby is considered full term.  And fun to know that moms expecting boys experience more of an increased appetite in the third trimester.  Does that excuse the incredible sweet tooth I’ve developed as of late?

    Nicole Anderson

    Nicole AndersonHello, everyone! I’m Nicole, an AT&T employee and soon-to-be-mom of a baby boy. My husband, Justin, and I are expecting our first child at the end of April. It’s been a year of big changes for us, as I relocated with the company last April from the San Francisco Bay Area to Dallas. Thankfully, my husband was able to maintain his career, working remotely from Dallas. I’m jealous he gets to go back to California every month or so, especially during the summer to beat the heat! Just as we started getting settled in Dallas – learning the neighborhood, what road led where, and I was getting up to speed on my new job – we found out we were pregnant! It has been an exciting, if overwhelming, journey for us. Critical during our relocation was the use of our smartphones. If we got lost, or if we needed to find a restaurant, e-mail our realtor or send a quick text, our smartphones didn’t let us down. Now with the text4baby program, I can get quick and informative baby advice sent directly to my phone. With all the hecticness in our work and lives, these texts create a quick moment to reflect on the big change coming in our lives and learn something about the new life we are forming. I look forward to sharing this experience with you through my blog posts, and learning more about how to use technology as a new mom. Is there an app that helps your baby sleep through the night?!


  3. March
    19

    Staying Connected in the Delivery Room

    It’s hard to believe that my guest blogging is one month old and that I’m heading into the final 5 weeks of my pregnancy!  In preparation, I’ve been checking out what to bring to the hospital and packing my bag.  All the books refer to bringing coins for the payphone, extra film for your camera, address lists and phone numbers, and my personal favorite, a cassette player to listen to music!  Clearly, the pregnancy books are filled with good health advice but obviously a little outdated when it comes to technology. 

    When we toured our hospital’s labor and delivery wing, they pointed out the docking station where we could hook up our smartphone or mp3 player to play our songlist during labor.  The hospital is wirelessly enabled so you can send emails of your great news right away, and of course my smartphone already has all the phone numbers and contact info that I need to share the event.  I can even text photos, and post up to the minute updates on Facebook. However, I may decide that just for a few moments, I’ll enjoy the birth of my son with my husband, and hold technology at bay until the amazement has soaked in a little and I can imprint the memories of the phenomenal experience in my own mind’s eye. 

    In the meantime, I better figure out what kind of soundtrack to select to usher in the birth of my son – feel free to send any playlist recommendations my way!

    Nicole Anderson

    Nicole AndersonHello, everyone! I’m Nicole, an AT&T employee and soon-to-be-mom of a baby boy. My husband, Justin, and I are expecting our first child at the end of April. It’s been a year of big changes for us, as I relocated with the company last April from the San Francisco Bay Area to Dallas. Thankfully, my husband was able to maintain his career, working remotely from Dallas. I’m jealous he gets to go back to California every month or so, especially during the summer to beat the heat! Just as we started getting settled in Dallas – learning the neighborhood, what road led where, and I was getting up to speed on my new job – we found out we were pregnant! It has been an exciting, if overwhelming, journey for us. Critical during our relocation was the use of our smartphones. If we got lost, or if we needed to find a restaurant, e-mail our realtor or send a quick text, our smartphones didn’t let us down. Now with the text4baby program, I can get quick and informative baby advice sent directly to my phone. With all the hecticness in our work and lives, these texts create a quick moment to reflect on the big change coming in our lives and learn something about the new life we are forming. I look forward to sharing this experience with you through my blog posts, and learning more about how to use technology as a new mom. Is there an app that helps your baby sleep through the night?!


  4. March
    9

    What I learned on my Smartphone: My baby is a 2 lb cucumber

    With a hectic schedule at home, it was not realistic that my husband and I would be able to pick up any of the volumes of books published to help new moms and dads navigate through their first pregnancy.  Not that we didn’t want to soak up knowledge, we just needed a better way to get the information that we needed.  Thanks to the AT&T Smartphone app Pregnancy Tracker, we now track our baby’s development on a weekly and daily basis.  The app also provides us information on the radical changes my body is going through.

     As a first time Mom, I have heard of all the expected symptoms during pregnancy but not much is said about some symptoms that can make anyone worry.  Thanks to the Smartphone app, I knew that during the 2nd trimester of pregnancy it is common to have your heart race periodically.  This is due to your heart pumping blood for two.  Trust me, if my heart started to race and I did not have advance warning of the possibility of this occurring, I would have thought I had a heart problem. 

     The app also provides me great analogies for what is happening to my body – inside and out.  I knew when in the development stages my little bundle could hear me and when taste buds were developing.  This is when I knew to sing the Eyes of Texas and to be sure to eat my favorite veggies in abundance – brussel sprouts anyone?  Speaking of vegetables, according to the app, our baby is about two pounds and is about the length of a cucumber.  That is a mighty big cucumber.

    Laura HernandezLaura Hernandez

    Hello, my name is Laura, and I am a wife and working mom who has been with AT&T for 13 years. I am a mom who is about to be a mom for the first time – sounds confusing. I have a stepson with a disability who lives with us, and my husband and I are expecting our first child together in May. My stepson is completely dependent on technology to communicate, so if we want to communicate with him when we are not at home, e-mail and texting is the way to go.  I use technology in every aspect of my life. Aside from using my Blackberry to stay connected to work issues, I use Navigator to get around my new city of Dallas, and I use multiple smartphone applications to manage grocery lists, get restaurant reviews or find important locations, like the shoe repair, tailor and, yes, even clean bathrooms. As two working parents juggling the demands our stepson presents us, we use technology to coordinate social schedules and yoga classes and to keep our friends and family up-to-date on happenings in our lives. More recently, I have used the internet to track how my pregnancy is progressing.

    Message & data rates may apply. 


  5. March
    4

    Listening to my baby’s heartbeat (Guest Blogger)

    My journey as a guest mommy-to-be blogger continues this week on Calm, Cool & Connected, as I found a way through technology to hear my baby-to-be as opposed to just feel him wiggle and kick around.

    At my prenatal check-up this week, my doctor measured my belly and listened to the baby’s heartbeat as per procedure. However, this time I thought it would be fun to keep the sound of my baby’s hearbeat with me instead of waiting another two weeks to hear it again. So I whipped out my Smartphone to use the Voice Memos app to record seven seconds of my little man’s heart beating away.

    After my appointment, I sent the recording via text to my husband so he too could share in the reassuring sound of our little miracle. Take a listen yourself!

    Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

    Nicole Anderson

    Nicole AndersonHello, everyone! I’m Nicole, an AT&T employee and soon-to-be-mom of a baby boy. My husband, Justin, and I are expecting our first child at the end of April. It’s been a year of big changes for us, as I relocated with the company last April from the San Francisco Bay Area to Dallas. Thankfully, my husband was able to maintain his career, working remotely from Dallas. I’m jealous he gets to go back to California every month or so, especially during the summer to beat the heat! Just as we started getting settled in Dallas – learning the neighborhood, what road led where, and I was getting up to speed on my new job – we found out we were pregnant! It has been an exciting, if overwhelming, journey for us. Critical during our relocation was the use of our smartphones. If we got lost, or if we needed to find a restaurant, e-mail our realtor or send a quick text, our smartphones didn’t let us down. Now with the text4baby program, I can get quick and informative baby advice sent directly to my phone. With all the hecticness in our work and lives, these texts create a quick moment to reflect on the big change coming in our lives and learn something about the new life we are forming. I look forward to sharing this experience with you through my blog posts, and learning more about how to use technology as a new mom. Is there an app that helps your baby sleep through the night?!


  6. February
    17

    The car seat: A big decision made the old-fashioned way (Guest Blogger)

    Walk into any baby store and you will find an endless number of infant car seat options. Every color is available, with a variety of accessories, head-rests, and sun shades, even different modes of installation. But how do you know what to buy?

    A car seat is supposed to keep your baby safe in an automobile. All models claim to have a variety of safety features. But not all are created equal, and much depends on your own vehicle, not the car seat brand. 

    We started our search with a handy book (yes, a book – does anyone use those anymore?) that rated all baby equipment. This allowed us to determine the seats that are highly rated on ease of use, durability and accessories. We then visited carseatdata.org, where we searched for the best car seat from those compatible with our automobile. By cross-referencing between the book and the recommendations at carseatdata.org, we narrowed our options to a few. We then made our decision based on aesthetics. After all the legwork, the final decision was easy.

    All of this sounds simple, but we have an extra step because our second car is a wheelchair van, which we use to transport my stepson. This vehicle is modified to meet my stepson’s needs and is not listed at carseatdata.org. For the car seat in this vehicle, we will visit a certified Child Passenger Safety Technician (CPST) to determine which seat will be best. Locating a CPST is easy – simply visit the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website at nhtsa.gov to get a list of locations for technicians in your area. You can look it up on your Smartphone and then use your Smartphone to navigate to the nearest CPST. 

    Believe it or not, this was much easier than deciding on how to decorate the nursery!

    Laura HernandezLaura Hernandez

    Hello, my name is Laura, and I am a wife and working mom who has been with AT&T for 13 years. I am a mom who is about to be a mom for the first time – sounds confusing. I have a stepson with a disability who lives with us, and my husband and I are expecting our first child together in May. My stepson is completely dependent on technology to communicate, so if we want to communicate with him when we are not at home, e-mail and texting is the way to go.  I use technology in every aspect of my life. Aside from using my Blackberry to stay connected to work issues, I use Navigator to get around my new city of Dallas, and I use multiple smartphone applications to manage grocery lists, get restaurant reviews or find important locations, like the shoe repair, tailor and, yes, even clean bathrooms. As two working parents juggling the demands our stepson presents us, we use technology to coordinate social schedules and yoga classes and to keep our friends and family up-to-date on happenings in our lives. More recently, I have used the internet to track how my pregnancy is progressing.


  7. January
    29

    There is an App for That (Guest Blogger)

    I am amazed at the apps available today.  Not just for work – but for our time outside work. For those who are practically minded there are apps that help you maintain your car, track your bills and ones that even act as personal assistance. There are sport apps that help improve your golf swing or track the results of baseball and football games.  For travel bugs, there are language translators and assistance with the conversion of money.  Concerned about keeping your mind active after massive amounts of time watching Barney with your kids? You can use your mobile phone do Sudoku and brain teasers to keep your mind active.  Even the White House launched an app that can be used to access streaming video of President Obama’s upcoming State of the Union address.

    My husband writes computer software — for fun.  Go figure…  The last time I wrote a computer program it was in graduate school and it was in Assembly Language.  This was just shortly after the Jurassic period.  I remember clearly when I erased my back up file, around 3 AM, for a key project.  That was when I determined that I, indeed, had a more colorful vocabulary than I realized — even if I did not actually say the words out loud.  More importantly, I found   I did not have the passion I needed to be a really good programmer.  Without passion, your job is just work.  I am glad that there are opportunities for programmers with a passion, like my husband, who can use their creativity to create applications and share them with others.  Sometimes they are silly, but sometimes they are very useful.

    There are apps on cell phones today that help people with Autism communicate and ones under development that may help older people anticipate when a fall is likely so they can prevent injuries.  This means that older people may be able to stay in their own homes longer rather than go to a assistive care or a nursing facility.  There are applications like Dragon that enable you to dictate your emails – useful to people with conditions such as arthritis and those over forty who do not have their reading glasses!  The work being developed today that is often offered at no cost by online good citizens who just want to help their virtual neighbors, is truly inspiring.  Many applications are accessible for people who have  vision loss like me and there are groups that talk just about those applications. 

    For those trying to juggle home and work, you can find healthy recipes and menu planners for shopping. And on the lighter side, or hopefully lighter side, you can find several programs that count or track calories or carbs. There are applications related to wellness as a whole and, I am told, ones that will help track your workouts as well. I should probably check into those…

    Of course, there are games for kids of all ages. The handset vendors I’ve met say these help people to use a keypad more quickly and efficiently.  I am skeptical.  I think they are really just for fun. And, if my observations are correct, they are there to help people waiting in airports pass the time without becoming belligerent.  For kids, there are educational applications that teach things like phonics and counting. There are even apps that provide a virtual experience of things we ACTUALLY did like skee ball, board games and spin art.  The only application that I have not been able to find is one that will soothe the overtired toddler.  But then, there is a nap for that…

    Susan PhotoAbout the author: Susan Mazrui, who just celebrated her 15th anniversary with AT&T, has two daughters, Sarah (23 years old) and Nicole (3 years old).  Sarah works full-time and goes to Law School part-time.  Nicole is a part-time preschooler whose current career aspirations include medicine and firefighting.  Married to Jamal, a brilliant software developer and civil servant, Susan enjoys listening to books, described videos and international travel.  Susan and Jamal also have a Cavapoo named Ginger (1 year old).  Ginger initially aspired to become a guide dog for Susan but later decided to become a watch dog as she thoroughly enjoys people watching and really did not want to work that hard.