I have a love/hate relationship with video cameras. On the one hand, it’s so great to have little video snippets of your kids as they’re growing up, because they grow up so freaking FAST, and there’s nothing quite like video. Photos are awesome, but video gets you right back in the moment, as you sit hunched over the video player sobbing to yourself and humming “Sunrise, Sunset” like a big sappy WUSS.

On the other hand, I think a video camera is very difficult to deal with in terms of finding the right balance between “capturing the moment” and “being an OCD psycho and whipping out the camera every time they do something cute”. I can personally attest to going overboard at one point and ending up with approximately 295739295 digital files of Riley engaged in such scintillating activities as breathing.

There’s also the question of what to do with your video files once you’ve got them on the camera. In my case, I have a super-neat little JVC digital camcorder that unfortunately records in a video format my Mac doesn’t recognize — so in order to download clips, I first have to run them through a program that re-interprets the data and barfs it back out in a format I can import into whatever editing app I’m using. Which is way too time consuming and definitely keeps me from doing as much with video as I’d like to, but that’s my personal problem, presumably your camera isn’t so fussy.

So! Assuming you capture video on occasion, what do you do with it? Here’s what I tend to do:

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I know the day will come all too soon when my son will be using his computer—by then perhaps a nanochip embedded directly into his cerebral cortex: the iLobe—to perform functions that will blow my crusted, hopelessly-behind-the-times mind, and when it comes time to needing help with his homework he’ll take one look at me and roll his eyes, because Mama still uses a physical keyboard instead of the latest basal-ganglia-implantation, GOD HOW LAME.

For now, though, Riley’s main interest in technology has to do with what sorts of interesting things might be happening on my Macbook screen, especially if they involve pictures of him (he LOVES Flickr). I don’t let him actually play on my computer, because my computer cost money and he’s, you know, TWO, but I do enjoy sitting with him and looking at stuff together.

I’ve found that looking at websites together is a good activity for those boring stretches of time when the prospect of reading “Eight Silly Monkeys” one more time threatens to make my head explode, Scanners-style. Plus, it helps assuage my guilt for trying to sneak in some work while he’s coloring or whatever—my rule is 1) it’s okay to do some work if he’s otherwise occupied, but 2) if he starts clambering up to see my laptop, I switch from TextEdit to a toddler-friendly site. Win!

Here are some sites I’ve found to be entertaining (for him, anyway), at least marginally cute, and not too heavily slimed with advertising:

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At my day job I work for a Mac company focused on productivity software, so I get a lot of exposure to all sorts of applications designed to make your life easier/more efficient/organized by shiny, colorful icons. There’s a thriving market of people who love software that helps them stay organized, and get downright fetishy about the methods they use to do so.

While I’m not exactly a software-life-hack junkie, I’m not a total Luddite either. There are a few applications/websites I do rely on on a weekly, if not daily basis.

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