Category: Summer Fun

If you're social networking-savvy and looking for a summer road trip, Pennsylvania could be the place for you. We know the Keystone State might not sound like the most appealing vacation destination, but, according to Ad Week, the Pennsylvania Tourism Board has partnered with Foursquare to give summer travelers extra incentive to visit restaurants, stores and historical sites across the state. ...

It wasn't supposed to be this way. May 23 was supposed to be the day Parisians could forget about their country's stagnant economy, their strenuous six-hour workdays and their oversharing first lady. It was supposed to be a day when thousands of anorexic sisters and effeminate brothers, brought together under a tri-colored Facebook flag, could sport their finest identical black and gray wardrobes ...

Share Hiking the Appalachian Trail is no small feat. Its 2,174 miles of winding trail is steep, rocky, and occasionally treacherous. If you manage to walk the length of it in one shot, it constitutes a badge of courage. If you do it without ever being able to see the ground in front of you, well, that's newsworthy. Mike Hanson is an avid outdoorsman, a bit of a gadget hound, and ...

When 24-year-old Graham Hunt of Essex, England first played 'Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2008' on the Nintendo Wii, he got hooked on golf. After mastering the game in his living room, Hunt decided that he wanted to take his Wii-mote skills to the real golf course. There was just one problem. Since a neurological disorder struck him three years ago, he's been paralyzed from the waist down. After a ...

Summer is roller coaster season, folks. Those extra hours of daylight means less time in the office and more time strapping into hard plastic seats in order to barrel down a track at the whim of nothing but gravity. We don't expect the dual threat of long lines and nausea to deter anyone from hopping onto Universal Studios Florida's newest thrill ride, either. That's because, according to the ...

Even in our ever-accelerating, technologically turbulent world, we can count on some things to remain the same. Baby boomers, the generation that virtually invented short-lived trends, experienced another one with Facebook. After joining in droves last year, they started dropping from it like flies this spring. At the other end of the generational spectrum, teenagers continue to do really dumb ...

In a pro photography world virtually owned by Canon and Nikon, Pentax's scrappy determination is admirable. Although it rarely grabs the headlines, this company consistently turns out well-built cameras at good prices. We're hoping that applies to the company's latest SLR, the Pentax K-7, which we got a hands-on look at earlier this month. Priced at $1300, it's priced against semi-pro cameras ...

Kids spend a lot of time attached to some form of technology -- be it an iPod, a cell phone, or just vegging out on MySpace. But summer is here, which means some kids will be shipped off to camp and forced to unplug. It's not surprising that this has tweens and teens (and parents) panicking. Kids are used to being in constant contact with their peers via text messages and Facebook, and parents ...

Question: I'm planning a vacation with my wife and kids this summer, and I want one camera to cover it all. Something small enough to take around with us wherever we go, and most importantly, super durable and waterproof so we can take it to the beach without giving daddy a heart attack. Any suggestions? Hey reader: "Tough" cameras have definitely been the rage lately, with several of the ...

Share You've probably heard a lot about Twitter, the white-hot microblog-cum-social-network that's growing even faster than Facebook. Still, you're probably either wondering what Twitter actually is, or, if you've already signed up, how it actually works. Good news -- we've been spending a lot of time on Twitter lately, so we've compiled a list of questions and answers on how to get ...

What else can I use Twitter for? Twitter is great for posting the daily ins and outs of your life, and keeping up with your comedian friends' (or actual comedians') ramblings, but Twitter really shows its usefulness when you venture beyond the basic messaging functionality. Dan York has detailed how to use Twitter as a "virtual water cooler" (for those of us who don't spend most of ...

What should I not do on Twitter? Much like any form of conversation, there are things you should do on Twitter and things you should refrain from doing. First up, don't tweet everything you think; sure, it might be funny to write about your refrigerator being empty once or twice, but we can't think of too many people, even friends and family, interested in those types of messages. Take ...

Is Twitter secure? Twitter is just as secure as any other Web site. So no need to be overly paranoid that someone is going to hack into your Twitter account. But be careful, nonetheless. Spammers, hackers and viruses have infiltrated the system before, either by hacking into existing accounts or by creating new ones, and are constantly posting links to malicious Web sites. If someone ...

What is ReTweeting? ReTweets are re-posted updates that give credit to the originator of the message. In other words, you're simply cutting and pasting someone else's tweet and posting it on your own feed, linking to the person who first wrote it. ReTweeting builds goodwill within the Twitter community, as long as you don't overdo it. There is no need to reTweet every update that makes ...

Can I respond directly to someone's tweet? What's the difference between an @reply and a direct message? You can respond to people one of two ways: with direct messages, which are private, 140-character exchanges, or with @replies, which are publicly viewable. You can send a '@reply' by simply adding the '@' symbol and the particular user's name to the beginning of your message (example: ...