It’s almost Halloween, and you have yet to pull together: A costume, plans, or even a shred of decent decor. In short, you’re losing at Halloween. Again. But if you can find five minutes to spare, you can get the magic of modern technology to do all the hard work for you.

Here are the top ten ways tech can help you not suck at Halloween this year.

10. Pinterest Halloween Hacker: Toss out that old sheet with two holes for eyes and play your hand at awesome instead. Open the app, pick a card and let the site randomly combine two words to upgrade “all the Halloween.” I scored “killer” + “cupcakes,” for a recipe both Martha Stewart and Morticia Addams would love.

Step inside a burning building in virtual reality.

9. Trumpkins: All the rage in passionate pumpkin carving this year, thanks to social media, where you can download directions for how to turn a big orange squash into a big orange presidential candidate. “Howl-Ary” Clinton pumpkin carving is a thing too, though not trending quite as high in overall Halloween hilarity.

8. KegWorks Pumpkin Tap Kit: If you can’t carve it, you might as drink it. This tap kit turns a plain old pumpkin into a super cool temporary keg, and it actually works! Just gut the pumpkin, securely install the tap hardware, and fill it with your favorite brew.

7. Zombie Booth 2: Because who doesn’t love a good sequel?!  This awesome app transforms that sweet selfie of yours into the animated undead. You can even choose from more than 200,000 ghastly variations and add a whole host of effects like growling and even snapping at your finger. Don’t like the gore? I used a combination of the Perfect 365 app’s Skeletal setting with the PicsArt app Flare filter to create a much more pleasant Day of the Dead face.

6. Frightgeist Costume Generator: No costume? No problem. Google’s got you with its online costume customizer. You can pick from one of the most popular costumes, nationally or locally, like Harley Quinn, Joker, or Super Hero. You can also use the sites’ costume wizard to find you something totally new.

5. AtmosFX Digital Decorations: These downloadable animations that you can play on your TV, computer, or projector are a real treat for last minute mood-makers. Just download them and then play the looping scenes to scare the pants off everyone who dares to doubt your mad Halloween skills.

4. VFX Attack Puppet: Made by a real special effects studio, Sally and many others, are life-sized zombie puppets that literally hang on to your body, like something out of The Walking Dead. Your arm controls Sally’s head movements, so you can make her “attack” you whenever you want. It’s insanely creepy, and also insanely expensive, but it’s a truly genius way to win Halloween too.

3. Spooky Spotify: Don’t even try to do the DJ-dash this late in the game. Libratone, a company that makes high-end portable audio products, put together the ultimate Halloween playlist and it’s now available for everyone on Spotify. It’s an epic mix, with 31 songs including favorites like Thriller, This Is Halloween, and Monster Mash.

2. #FakeHalloweenFacts: When you need a break from trying to save your own Halloween, perusing this trending Twitter # makes it all better. My favorites so far? “Candy corn is made from recycled baby teeth,” and “dressing up as a clown is a good idea this year.”

1. Dressing the Pet: When all else fails, putting a cute costume on your pet is sure-fire way to score major Halloween points. There’s no shortage of inspiration or adoration for the perfectly costumed cat, dog, horse, or even parrot.

What are your plans this Halloween? Be sure to share in the comments section below. Happy Halloween!

This post was originally published in USA Today.

Jennifer Jolly is an Emmy Award-winning consumer tech contributor and host of USA TODAY’s digital video show TECH NOW. E-mail her at techcomments@usatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter @JenniferJolly.

Posted in Digital Parenting, Girlfriend's Guide, In The Press, TechNow, Tips & Tricks, Top tech news, Uncategorized, What The Tech

The new High School year started today for my teenage daughter, while our neighbor’s college-bound co-ed doesn’t have to hit the books until just after Labor Day. And the Elementary school year is already well underway for my friends’ kids in Chicago.

You know what all this means, right? Parents are trying to figure out what new tech gadgets our kids really need—or in other words, what’s required versus desired—as kids everywhere gear up to go back to school.

WHAT THEY’LL NEED: Laptop/Tablet Hybrids
The main question most parents ask me is whether their kids need a tablet or a laptop. Why worry about one or the other when you can both — without breaking the bank. Lenovo’s Ideapad Miix 310 ($299) is an impressive cross between a laptop and a tablet, for a fraction of the cost of a full-fledged notebook.

With a 10-inch touchscreen display, dual cameras, and the full Windows 10 Home experience built in, it’s got solid tech chops. It’s a hybrid in the truest sense of the word. Students can use the main unit independently of the included detachable keyboard, making it a great on-the-go companion in a pinch and a serious laptop too. Couple all that with battery life that can rock 10 hours of video playback without needing to be refueled and you’ve got a computer with brains and brawn, at a budget price.

The Miix 310 is a fantastic little machine, but for high school seniors and college kids, a little more power never hurts. Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4 ($749) fits the bill as both a full-fledged portable computer and a handy tablet for on-the-go note-taking. With a big 128GB SSD and 4GB of RAM in its standard configuration, it’ll fly through any task your student can throw at it now, and for many years to come.

The 12.3-inch touchscreen is crisp and responsive, and with the built-in stand, included Surface Pen, and optional Type Cover keyboard, it pulls double duty better than any computer before it. It’s great for messaging, web surfing with Microsoft’s new Edge browser, and word processing during the school day. Then, once all the papers and presentations have been conquered, it seamlessly transitions to a high-powered media center, running Netflix and streaming music with ease. It really is the most capable all-in-one laptop replacement around, and it’s more affordable than it’s ever been.

WHAT THEY’LL NEED: Sensible Smartphones
My daughter had an inexpensive, basic cell phone until halfway through her Freshman year of high school. I guess that makes me the mean Mom because on average, children are getting their first smartphones around age 10, according to the research firm Influence Central. With the insane number of high-priced smartphones floating, it might feel impossible to find something “cool” that doesn’t also happen to cost $500 or more.

One option I recently discovered is Sony’s Xperia XA ($279). I’m a big fan of its wallet-friendly price tag, not to mention its sleek, no-nonsense aesthetic, with a borderless 5-inch HD touchscreen that oozes awesomeness.

Inside, Sony packed a 64-bit, eight-core processor, high-powered 13-megapixel rear-facing camera, 8-megapixel selfie camera on the front, and microSD storage support for up to 200GB worth of apps, videos, songs, and selfies. It comes in four colors, and it runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow, with support for all the latest and greatest games (like Pokemon Go!). Two-day battery life will keep your student in-touch even if they forget to do their nightly charging routine.

WHAT THEY’LL NEED: Portable Printer
I keep reading news stories that say students don’t need printers anymore because cloud sharing and USB thumb drives have made them obsolete. That’s malarky. My daughter still has to turn in printed papers and projects nearly every single day. For an inexpensive answer to all kinds of printer-needs, take a look at the HP DeskJet 3700 ($69.99). HP calls it the “world’s smallest all-in-one printer,” and at the size of a shoebox, it is a nice size for a dorm room or desk. It’s also wireless, comes in different colors and lets you print, scan, and copy. HP’s instant ink feature delivers refills to your door step or dorm room too.

WHAT THEY’LL WANT: Backup Storage and Power
There’s nothing worse than having a high-tech gadget fail you simply because you ran out of juice or fell victim to any number of common data bugs. Wattzup has a huge lineup of adorable battery packs ($39.99) that look amazing and perform even better. They come in cute shapes, like emoji’s, ice cream cones and pizza slices, and pack a big 2,600mAh charge to refuel whatever gadget has run low. When it comes to peace of mind for data, you can’t go wrong with Seagate’s Expansion drives (starting at $49.99). They’re compact and durable but can store huge amounts of data — enough to completely backup a computer in the event of total hardware failure. It’s super portable and with the latest USB 3.0 technology, it’s also blazingly fast.

WHAT THEY’LL WANT: Headphones
With professors and teachers barking at them all day, you can bet that a nice pair of headphones will be right at the top of your kids’ back to school wish list. Monster’s Ghostbuster-themed on-ear headphones ($119.95) are eye-catching and built to last, and who doesn’t love that classic Ghostbusters logo? And if earbuds are more what they’re after, Skullcandy’s Smokin’ Buds (starting at $47.99) are built to last, and come in a bunch of different colors and styles — even wireless. The best part is that Skullcandy is right in the middle of its back to school sale, which means up to 20% off your order.

WHAT THEY’LL WANT: Smart Waterbottles
Moving from high-quality headphones to high-tech hydration, Gululu ($99) is part water bottle, part virtual pet. The bottle actually reminds your kids to get their recommended daily water intake by turning it into a fun, simple game. Every time your child takes a sip, the colorful virtual character displayed on the built-in display grows, kind of like those Tamagochi pets that everyone was addicted to years ago. For older kids, the Hydra Smartbottle ($59) is like the Swiss Army knife of water bottles. It’s a 20-ounce water bottle that charges gadgets – can fully recharge an iPhone about 2-and-a-half times, Bluetooth speaker and there’s also multicolor LEDs that turn it into a safety lantern or to add color-changing strobe lights for those impromptu dorm room dance-off’s.

There’s more students will want and need, and this is just the beginning out of our back to school gadget news. Next up, how to tech-out dorms on a dime.
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Posted in Connected Kids, Digital Parenting, Girlfriend's Guide, Great Gadgets, In The Press, TechNow, Top tech news

Read Jenn’s latest New York Times column here: Smart Desks to Keep You Moving

Posted in Great Gadgets, Health & Fitness, In The Press, Tips & Tricks, Top tech news, Uncategorized

**I wrote this as a sponsored guest post for WorldMate and it originally appeared on their blog site.**

The best travelers are totally organized. They have their itineraries at their fingertips, like magic, and know exactly where they have to be when, every step of the way. And then, there’s me. I forget to check-in early, lose important information – like my flight number – and have even shown up at the wrong airport on the wrong day. I could blame it on mommy-brain or on being blonde, but the truth is, I’m frazzled and busy and tired – just like a lot of people traveling these days. I just need a little extra help from time to time. Or a clone.

You know that movie with George Clooney where he travels all the time, Up in the Air? That’s kind of my life, minus the grim-reaper firing people part. I travel an average of 10,000 miles a month for work as an on-air consumer technology contributor for USA Today, the Today Show, CNN, Meredith Vieira, and many others. Sounds glamorous, right? Ha!

As you may very well know, traveling for work is often downright brutal. I’m a mom first and foremost – which means that I try to make work and travel have zero impact on my family. I’ll take the red-eye to New York, appear on a show, and fly back to San Francisco that same day (unless I accidentally go to LaGuardia instead of JFK – been there, done that). Or, I’ll do 30 appearances in five cities in three days. I’m also a small business owner, so I have to run a tight ship – keep on top of everything and try to keep costs down. I not only try to find the best travel deals, but I make all my own arrangements. Nope, no assistants. Just me and modern technology … juggling it all. I like to think of myself as a Road Warrior Rockstar. (That’s what I secretly call myself to weather anything that comes my way up in the air, or on the road. Don’t judge, it helps, it really does.)

What tools do I use to stay (mostly) sane on the go? Here’s a quick list of what’s on my smartphone or in my bookmarks bar right this very second:
· I love using Hopper to predict the best time to snag a flight deal. It analyzes billions of airfares daily to sniff-out a price drop – then alerts you so that you can grab it.

· For a small fee, site Options Away basically lets you put a flight on hold. You can lock in an airfare as much as three weeks ahead of when you actually buy the ticket. Then, if the price drops, you automatically get the cheaper faire.

· For booking that trip of a lifetime, I like Zyppos – an online sight where registered experts (aka travel hackers) help you find the perfect flight, best itinerary, and lowest fare – all in exchange for a $20-$40 finder’s fee/reward.

· GateGuru always leads me right to the closest XpresSpa so that I can get a quick neck massage before jumping on the plane.

· And for traveling like a local, there’s Localeur. It solicits advice from the people who know a place best – the locals – to find awesomely authentic places to go, where to eat, and fun things to do.

And of course, there’s WorldMate. You already knew that I was going to say that because why else would they let me rant about all my travel on their blog – right? Yep, it’s true, I actually can’t imagine how I could travel so much without it. I use it to automatically organize all my flights, hotels, car rentals, meetings, and every other pesky trip detail into one single itinerary. I also rely on the abundance of other tools within the app as well, including exclusive hotel deals and car rental offers, integrated weather forecasts, local hot-spot searches, flight schedules lookup, and even social integration with LinkedIn. It’s this kind of technology that lets me navigate my always-changing, chaotic, challenging, and downright frenetic travel schedule – so that I still have time left to be hands-on mom, successful businesswoman, Road Warrior Rockstar, and generally cool human (in my own mind at least).

You’ve read this far? Well then you get a big fat reward. WorldMate is giving the first 50 readers who email them a free GOLD membership – just for reading this blog post. Email jennifergavemegold@worldmate.com with “yes,” then download the app, and you’ll be on your way to become a Travel Warrior Rockstar too. Or you can give yourself your own fierce name. Either way, it’s a cool tool that you’ve just gotten for the price of reading this post. Happy Travels!
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Be sure to follow me @JenniferJolly on Twitter.

Posted in Girlfriend's Guide, Great Gadgets, Sponsored, Tips & Tricks

Posted in Girlfriend's Guide, Great Gadgets, Health & Fitness, TechNow, TechStyled

Whether you’re heading out this spring, or just enjoying a break at home– Spring into action with some of the hottest new tech that will make the season blossom.

1. What’s hot right now are these – Intel-inspired Ultrabook Convertibles like the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga : Starts at $1049
• It’s a full, powerhouse PC that goes from laptop to tablet mode by flipping, folding or twisting the screen.
• Just over 3.4 lbs with up to 8 hours of battery life

Here’s another great multi-tasking gadget with built-in flexibility:

2. iHome iDL45 Clock Dock : $99.99
• Spring forward with a clock that charges and plays all your old and new i-devices with a Lightning connector, 30-pin and USB.
• What really sets this iHome clock apart is the sound quality:
• Reson8 Speaker gives you crystal clear sound that can really fill a room or office.
• According to the NPD group – iHome is the #1 for digital audio and #1 for docking stations

Time for some spring cleaning:
3. iRobot Looj 330 Gutter Cleaning Robot : $300
• You may know iRobot for the Roomba vacuum cleaning robot – they also make robots that clean outside your home
• The Looj is super easy to use: just climb up the ladder, place the robot in your gutter, and use the wireless remote to drive the robot while the augur spins at 500 RPM, kicking out all the debris, leave, and muck.
• It stays charged for 3-hours and can clean 30-feet of gutter in 5 minutes.

… Which means more time for fun!

4. Sony Action Cam (HDR-AS15) Built in Wi-Fi $269 / $199 (no Wi-Fi)
• POV camera’s are all the rage and I recently tried out Sony’s Action Cam on the Zipline at the Canyons Resort in Park City, Utah. Action Cam is the perfect name for the incredibly small, lightweight video camera that will mount anywhere and stream video from anywhere, including during the middle of a 2,000 foot zipline, some 300-feet above the forest floor.
• With the Wi-Fi remote – you can actually frame, shoot, and watch right from your smartphone in real time – or stream video to YouTube or Facebook.
• Works great in low-light
• Is complete with SteadyShot image stabilization, a 1080/30p capture mode and a 720p option at 120 frames per second, enabling some pretty slick slow-motion effects.

5. Playstation MLB The Show 13 PS3 – $59.99 & PS Vita – $39.99
• You can’t talk about Spring without thinking about Spring Training and Baseball.MLB 13 The Show is the most realistic baseball video game I’ve ever seen.
• Its jaw-dropping detail captures the mechanics and the raw emotion of Major League Baseball.
• What’s really cool – you can play other people on the go through Cross-Play with your PS Vita in Home Run Derby mode.

Perhaps the most important spring tech gadget of them all –

6. Motorola P4000 Universal Portable Power Pack – around $70
• This is the MUST HAVE gadget for all spring-breakers – stop getting caught with your battery down.
• You can recharge your devices at the beach, at your kids’ little league practice, working from a café or anywhere in between.
• It’s compatible with phones by all manufacturers, so will work with any device you use.
• It provides up to two full phone charges, so you can keep the movies rolling, listen to hours of music, browse the Web, text or tweet without skipping a beat.
• In as little as 15 minutes, your smartphone can be recharged with up to 2.5 hours of talk time.

For more information, you can go to jenniferjolly.com or see my reviews via TechNow at USAToday.com/tech – or watch the TV segment here:
Chicago News and Weather | FOX 32 News

Posted in Great Gadgets, In The Press, TechNow, TechStyled, What The Tech