Tech savvy minions

Can you see the joy and excitement?

As you can see here, we have a new computer for the RV road school experiment. On my last trip to the local Wally-World with Dos, we looked at available and inexpensive options for buying a new laptop for Jen and the family to use along with the other 'tech' tools our children use for their education. I found a 'hodge-podge' selection of laptops that will fit our needs while not breaking the bank.

While not the Macbook air and the poor experience we received from Best Buy, this purchase was straight forward. No surprises waited for us. Jen actually picked out her new machine. While more expensive than I original was looking for, it was far cheaper than our previously mentioned first choice. I prefer Macs, won't stray from that idea, however this wasn't the computer I was going to be using on a day to day basis.

The computer booted up, I setup the user accounts and downloaded a few apps to help us get started. I spent the evening on my own setup with apps such as Evernote and Dropbox. Both accounts I use on a daily basis for storing notes, writing, and documents that I need to save. Evernote is my go to powerhouse. It is free and makes note taking and searching a breeze. I use it for day to day notes and messages to storing receipts that I scan in. There are a million ways to use the application. Some people have used it to write books to movie scripts. Others use it for grocery lists and daily task management. If you can think it, it is open and free enough to do it. Dropbox is an easy way to have documents readily available and shared at a whim. Need to send out a new resume to prospective consulting firms or clients, it is available to me via phone, Ipad, or computer. Evernote is much the same, synced via the 'cloud', I have access to all my notes, to-do's etc.

Other great ways of using these apps is for price shopping. Walking around and find something you want to buy but wonder if you are getting the best price? Take a snapshot on your phone via Evernote of the serial number, model, and price and then at your leisure, you can shop around. That is how we shopped for a new laptop. I took a snapshot of the different laptops we were interested in and shopped around. I found that the machine could be bought more cheaply online, but didn't want the hassle of shipping and the added costs. The two year protection was far cheaper than other options online, so our choice was pretty clear. That said, Jen did buy a different laptop than the one I was shopping for, but ultimately it was for her and she needed to be happy with her choice. Knowing that I wasn't going to pay a huge premium, and the alternatives were 'refurbished' models, my conscious was clear.