Helpful Tech Tools for New Parents

Parenting is most definitely something that parents are constantly learning more about. Our son is 11 weeks old today, and while Michelle and I are by no means experts, we've learned a bunch in that time. We've also found some techie tools that have proved incredibly helpful these past few months, and I wanted to take a brief break from database speak to share them. Here they are, in no particular order:

Baby Tracker. This awesome app helps you keep track of your baby's eating, sleeping, and diaper-ing. It's incredibly simple to use, and never again will you have to wonder if your spouse changed them recently, or how much sleep they've gotten today compared to yesterday. It syncs between multiple devices, and creates some really nice visualizations of your data. It comes in free and "pro" versions ($5). The pro version has no advertisements and better charting and has been well worth the cost to us.

Eye-Fi Mobi Pro WiFi SD Card. I've wanted one of these for a while, and wish I had bought it sooner because it's really been useful. Admittedly, most of the photos we take of our son (and in general) are on our phones, but for the times I need a real camera, getting those photos off of it has always been a (relative) chore involving removing the SD card, sticking it in a reader, and copying files to my computer. Getting photos off my phone is trivial by comparison; I just use Dropbox's camera upload feature. Eye-Fi makes getting photos from my camera to my computer just as easy. For an added bonus, it can also transfer photos to my phone, so they can be shared right away if I'm not at home.

Google Photos. Years ago, I was a huge fan of Picasa and Picasa Web Albums. Then the whole Google+ Photos thing really turned me off. Last year, Google unveiled the new Google Photos, and I've been a fan ever since. It's extremely easy to use, and while I hope they add a few more features, it does an excellent job of letting you store photos from all your devices in one place in the cloud. You can also create albums to share with others very quickly, thus keeping those rabid grandparents happy.

Foscam FI9821P IP Camera. Audio baby monitors are no longer good enough, now we need video ones. There's no shortage of options in this space, but rather than go the baby monitor route I decided to just buy a real web camera and stick that in junior's room. Not only was it cheaper, it's easy to watch/control from our phones and I'm sure I'll find a use for it once we no longer need to watch our son sleep. I also bought a PoE adapter so it can be powered by my network – no power cord necessary!

Anker Astro USB Battery. If you attend PASS Summit or any other conference, you probably know these things are pretty much indispensable anyplace where you need to charge a mobile device and can't be tied to a power outlet. The ability to charge our phones anywhere has proven very valuable since our son was born, and we've been using this almost daily. It's not just for conferences anymore!

Remember The Milk. I've been using this app to keep track of my to-do list for years. Now that I have less time to do things, maintaining a list of what needs to be done has become even more helpful. There's tons of apps out there for task lists; I've tried several others just to see what they're like, and RTM is still my favorite by far.

So these are our favorite tools. If any new parents out there are reading this, hopefully you'll find them helpful too! And don't worry, next week I'll be back to posting things more database-centric.