I woke up early on Friday, April 1st because I wanted to listen to a special radio program at 7am. I turned on the stereo in the living room and then I grabbed my iPad and none of my social media apps would work, I had no internet!

I turned on the TV morning news and found that there was a problem with AT&T cell phones (they were not working from about 7am-9:30am) but I have Verizon Wireless so that didn’t effect me. I knew that April 1 was the day Frontier Communications was taking over the Internet, TV and Landline service for Verizon so I texted Aaron, my son who works as an IT manager to see if he knew what was up. He said that the transition didn’t work for a large percentage of the Verizon customers and there was a lot of packet loss. He’d keep me posted. I took to Twitter and quickly learned the problems were centered in the 3 large markets Frontier was taking over, Tampa Bay, Dallas and Los Angeles. Since it was still early most of the trouble was notice in Florida because the other states are in later time zones.

A large part of the Frontier issue was fixed by 10:00am, but not where I live. I spent the majority of Friday on Twitter reading and responding to others using the hashtags #frontier and #frontierfail. Those that tried to reach Frontier’s customer service by phone were complaining of talking to people who did not speak English and who could not answer questions that didn’t follow their script. Many people often said they were hung up on after being on hold for 2 hours! The problems were similar for those trying to reach Frontier’s website on their phones. The chat didn’t work well at all.

I did receive an email from Frontier, based on my Twitter conversation and some DMs. They needed me to give them my Frontier account number. I don’t have an account number. I had received nothing from Frontier or Verizon telling me to create a new Frontier account prior to the switch over. This is another Frontier fail!

Our internet service was finally restored at 11:30am on Saturday, April 2nd 28.5 hours after it went down. I have since tried to create an account on Frontier’s website and every time I try I get error messages.

I work online from 11:30am-2:00pm on Saturday. By 2:00pm the cold front and heavy thunderstorms have arrived and I shut down my computer. At 3:00pm our electricity goes out! Really?!? By 5:00pm total boredom has set in and FPL is saying our power should be restored by 7:15pm. Hubby and I decide to head to the mall to walk around and get out of the house. At 5:50pm I get an update call from FPL telling me they had to call in professional tree trimmers and my power should be back on by 9:00pm. At 7:00pm we meet Jordan for dinner. We arrived home at 8:30pm. I take a shower by lantern light, which was very relaxing! At 9:30pm I check in with FPL’s outage service and it now says they no longer have an ETA of when our power will be back. Finally at 11:00pm, as we were heading to bed, the electricity came back on.

That was a total of 36.5 hours with no internet! Thankfully we have a lot of data in our cell phone package, while we didn’t stream or play games, we could at least keep tabs via social media without worry. I’m also thankful that I always keep my battery chargers for our phones charged. We all needed to charge our phones Saturday evening and we were able to do that.

Lessons Learned

1. Keep your backup battery chargers charged at all times.
2. Don’t obsess over the outage, take the screen free time to get other non-Internet work done (like house cleaning).
3. Keep an extra gift card on hand so you can afford to eat out if you have no electricity and no money in the budget to dine out.
4. Relax, don’t stress over things you have no control over.
5. Always have at least 1 fiction book on your Kindle app ready to read when the power goes out.

I know these were very #firstworldproblems and we are very fortunate to have everything we do have. This weekend proved to us how much we rely on internet and electricity and honestly, I think we rely on the internet even more than we rely on electricity! I hope that Frontier will get its act together because we didn’t choose them. We never had any issues with our Verizon FiOS and hopefully the rest will be smooth sailing with Frontier.

So, how was your weekend?

The post 5 Lessons I Learned During a Weekend in the Dark Ages appeared first on The Mom Maven.

from the  Teen Summit on Internet & Wireless Safety presented by Cox Communications

Want to improve the lines of communication with your children? These ten tips will help you get started immediately.

1. Listen

Listen to what your child is expressing and try to understand what’s going on with them internally. Don’t make assumptions.

2. Don’t Interrogate

Ask open-ended questions but avoid excessive questioning. Use general conversation starters like “How is it going?” or “What’s going on?” and then be silent. Most kids will tell you what you want to know if they don’t feel bombarded.

3. Be Honest

Practice honesty and respect. If a child asks something and you don’t know the answer, be honest. Say you don’t know and then find out. Conversely, if you do something inappropriate or make a mistake, be willing to apologize and admit it.

4. Keep Calm

Avoid yelling, making threats or using “labels” to describe your child or their friends.

5. Skip the Lecture

Don’t lecture your child or repeat the same thing constantly. Those tactics usually cause kids to tune you out.

6. Pay Attention

When your teen is talking, give them your complete focus. Stop whatever else you are doing and use eye contact.

7. Be Gentle

Avoid power struggles. You might hold the power, but you lose ultimately when you break your kid’s spirit.

8. No Judgements

Express your opinions without being judgmental. Remember to be concise so your comments don’t turn into a lecture.

9. Use Positive Reinforcement

Don’t dwell on your child’s mistakes. Focus on their accomplishments to demonstrate support and build self-esteem.

10. Take a Walk

Create situations that allow you to communicate with your kids. Whether it’s riding together in the car without playing the radio, running errands together or taking a walk after dinner, this one-on-one time will strengthen your relationship.

If you do not have a good relationship with your teens/tweens that is the place to start. The saying goes “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” is very true. Take some time over the next week to get to know your teen/tween, get on their level. At first don’t talk about the issues that divide you, focus on building them up. Talk about what they like, what they are good at. In my 20+ years of working with youth I see so many parents that don’t even know their kids, and it is sad.  Yes, it takes time, parenting takes time. The benefits of taking the time to get to know and build up your kids are huge.

Spend time with you teen this week. In the next few weeks we will talk about television and the media, cell phones-texting and sexting, social media and more.

The post Communicating with Your Tween or Teen appeared first on The Mom Maven.

How it works is simple—when you are surfing the internet you are already seeing ads that corporations are paying for you to see.  By joining Better The World and downloading its tools, you still see ads, but now 90% of the revenue from Better The World ads goes to a charity you pick.  And, as an added bonus these ads are all from companies that have social responsibility programs, social products and services, have products of interest to our members, or are non-profits.

By going to www.bettertheworld.com you can immediately start raising money by:

1.      Choosing a charity you are passionate about.
2.      Downloading a sidebar and Google-powered search toolbar (both seamlessly integrate into Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox).
3.      Surfing the Internet as usual.

So, for those of you interested in bettering the world, whether you are someone who already contributes but wants to do more, or you just can’t afford to donate to a cause quite yet, Better The World offers an opportunity to help the charity of your choice.  It’s a simple, but highly effective way of combining the power of the Internet and your desire to help make the world a better place.

Better the World is a new site I signed up the other day, chose my charity, downloaded the sidebar and periodically click on the ads in the sidebar. It only takes a moment to do something good. I am currently supporting The Children’s Miracle Network and my first goal is to raise $50 to pay for a nurse’s time comforting a sick child.

Please visit Better the World and check it out for yourself. If you choose to sign up please come back here and leave me a comment letting me know that you did, that way we can support each other in making the world a better place.

The post Tuesday Tip-Make the World a Better Place appeared first on The Mom Maven.

Packetel’s Online Fax Service allows you to receive unlimited incoming faxes in your e-mail inbox for only $3.95 a month.

According to my friend, who works for eToro Erfahrungen, Packetel’s Online Fax Service sends faxes to multiple e-mail addresses, alerts you via text message when you have a new fax, and allows you to view your fax in PDF format. This service is perfect for small, at home businesses as it eliminates the need to buy and maintain a fax machine and eliminates the need to file away large amounts of paper.

How would you like to try this service for FREE for one year? Two lucky people will win just that! Here’s how you can win:

1. Blog It!

a. Blog about Packetel’s Online Fax Service and link the text “online fax service” to http://packetel.com/fax/faxservicemain.asp

b. Fill out this entry form: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cFFrTmlWY0lsMVFZalBHUWJIWkF4ZFE6MA

2. Facebook or MySpace

a. Write about Packetel’s Online Fax Service on your Facebook or MySpace page and link the text “online fax service” to http://packetel.com/fax/faxservicemain.asp

b. Fill out this entry form: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cFFrTmlWY0lsMVFZalBHUWJIWkF4ZFE6MA

3. Flickr Group: Show us your cluttered office, your broken fax machine, or even just the space where you wish you had a fax!

a. Join the Flickr Packetel contest group and upload a picture: www.flickr.com/groups/packetel

b. Fill out this entry form:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cFFrTmlWY0lsMVFZalBHUWJIWkF4ZFE6MA

4. YouTube: Do you remember that scene in Office Space where the employees destroy their fax machine? Here’s a refresher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzGWvZAd228

a. Make your own video of how much you hate your broken fax/printer and upload it to YouTube with a link back to http://packetel.com/fax/faxservicemain.asp

b. Fill out this entry form: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cFFrTmlWY0lsMVFZalBHUWJIWkF4ZFE6MA

Want a Bonus Entry? Become a Packetel Facebook Fan here:http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Packetel-Online-Fax-Service/77071701974?ref=s

Then fill out this form: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cFFrTmlWY0lsMVFZalBHUWJIWkF4ZFE6MA

Contest is open to all U.S. residents. The contest runs from Sunday, April 12th to Friday, May 1st. Two winners will be chosen by random number generator. Winners will be chosen out of all eligible entries not just from entries of The Mom Maven readers.

**If you choose to participate please use the Google Docs link to enter the contest AND leave a link to your entry as a comment to this post so I know who has chosen to participate.**

The content of this post has been provided by Momfluence.

The post Could You Use a Year of Free Online Fax Service? appeared first on The Mom Maven.

Cyber bullying is when a minor is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another minor using the Internet, digital technology or cell phone. Legally once adults are involved on either side-it is no longer cyber bullying. Cyber bullying takes many forms such as IMs and text messages, blogs and websites, pictures shared via camera phones, polls, sharing malicious code, stealing passwords and impersonation. Because cyber bullying doesn’t take place in person weaker and younger kids are involved. Most cyber bullies do not fit your typical bully profile.

Cyber bullying starts as early as 2nd grade and usually peaks in middle school. Statistics show that 58% of 4th-8th graders who have cell phones or Internet have been cyber bullyng victims. Also 53% of them have said or shared things that qualify them as being cyber bullies themselves. Kids who are texting and IMing at young ages seem to accept this behavior as normal, because “everyone is doing it”. Many have been on both sides of the offense at such an early age it has become almost acceptable. For teens the statistics are slightly lower 40% of all teens say they have been cyber bullying victims.

One of the most prevalent and seemingly innocent form of cyber bullying is polls. They come via text message, IM and e-mail; I have seen them, my son has had them forwarded to him. They say things like Do you think (insert name here) is fat or ugly or whatever? Then press 1 for yes and 2 for no and forward this to 10 of your friends. Eventually it gets back to the person that is being talked about and they are hurt by what has been said about them.

Sending and/or forwarding IMs, texts and e-mails that speak maliciously about another person is a form of cyber bullying. Writing mean, angy, untrue, gossipy blog posts is cyber bullying. Spreading lies about someone via any electronic medium is cyber bullying. This is where our incident has come to. It started a few weeks ago-I was actually made aware of it by another mom whose daughter wasn’t comfortable about what she had read about my son. (Yay for her!) The mom called me and I spoke to my son. In a nutshell a 6th grade girl has decided she can’t live without my 11th grade son about what was said. His response was-You know she is annoying, It will go away, and I’ll block her on my cell phone and IMs. Because he has refused to “acknowledge her love for him”, she is spreading vicious rumors about his character through the church youth group. The other day I get a call from our youth pastor’s wife informing me that another girl mentioned to her what was being said about my son, (Yay for her!) and wanted to make sure I knew. Ugh! The drama. I will now be contacting the girl’s mother to discuss the problem. Fun, fun.

Anyway, other form of cyber bulling are spreading compromising photos-often taken in school bathrooms and locker rooms with camera phones, forwarding malicious code and viruses, stealing passwords and trashing the victims web page/blog/social media profile and impersonating the victim. This makes the victim look like the perpetrator as they say/do mean things about yet another victim.

Preventing cyber bulling is a lot like preventing other bullying. Make sure you have open communication with your children. Occasionally check your child’s text messages, IMs and online profiles-my kids are not allowed on MySpace or Facebook. They are on FaithFreaks.com and so am I. I can and do monitor their IMs and chats. They know I am doing it for their protection and they also know that if they don’t allow me to monitor one of their accounts-they lose all Internet/texting privileges. Keep all family computers in open places so that you can see what they are doing at any given time. Teach your child to respect others so that they won’t want to hurt others. In extreme cases of cyber bullying you can lose your ISP and IM account if you are reported too many times-make sure your kids know this.

The National Crime Prevention Slogan for cyber bullying is “Delete Cyber Bullying-Don’t Write It-Don’t Forward It!” Teach your child that when/if they read or hear something that was written about them instead of attacking back-take 5, breathe deep and walk away. Don’t attack back. If your child see’s a friend being attacked remind them that remaining silent when others are being hurt is not acceptable. Tell an adult.

The keys to stopping cyber bullying are BRR.

• Block people who send/forward mean messages
• Refuse to forward messages (bad things won’t happen if you don’t send it to 10 people in the next 5 minutes)
• Report people who cyber bully to adults/teachers etc

Parents, please educate your kids and monitor their online and text messaging behavior. It is not a violation of their freedom, it is your responsibility as a parent to raise respectable kids.

The post Cyber Bullying appeared first on The Mom Maven.