Author name: Jenny Nicole

Memorial Day Celebration Parental Control
Events & Deals

Spruce Up Memorial Day Celebrations With a Neat Parental Control

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Happy Memorial Day! I, for one, love this part of the year. Nothing like the smell of backyard barbecues and alternative music to realize summer is in the air. I bet your backpacks are zipped and your tickets are booked for that trip to Vegas or your town’s summer festival. But before you start travelling with your family for that weekend camp out, make a checklist. Dancing shoes… check. Fanny pack… check. Barbecue cookbook… check. Security measures… not so much. As the authority figure, did you think about how you would keep the family together once the celebrations begin? What if your 12-year-old daughter disappears among a crowd of concert junkies and your 15-year-old son gets lost in a parade? Didn’t think this through, did you? So, what to do now? It’s okay, buddy. We’ve all been there. What you are going to need to keep the family together is smartphone spy software. What Goes on During Memorial Day? Memorial Day festivities can be a bit much. This infographic pretty much sums it up: You might have chosen the best campsite at your local summer festival, but there is so much going on, there is no way you can be everywhere at once. You look over to the other side, and there’s a music fest going on… And I can bet my bottom dollar there’ll be plenty of hamburger flipping throughout the area: And of course, there is the parade. If you’ve got kids to keep together in a place like this, you’ve got yourself a hard day’s work. But you know what? It doesn’t have to be. I’m going to tell you how you can use your smartphone spy app to your benefit. Know Where They Are At All Time One way to ensure your family stays together during the 3 day weekend festival is if you can view their current GPS location on a map all the time. This way, even if your kids are away from the campsite, you will have a way to know where they are. You map should look something like this: With this feature, your family will avoid embodying the Fellowship with assembles and disassembles throughout the weekend. Mark Danger Zones Of course, when there is so much going on around your campsite, there are bound to be some activities which you deem inappropriate for your kids or family. Instead of sweating over it, simply mark restricted areas on the map. You will be notified right away if a family member enters a restricted area. You can spend the remainder of the weekend at ease. Mark Safe Zones A good idea would be to mark your spot on the campsite as the safe area. This is what it should look like: You will be notified every time a family member comes back to your campsite safely. Remember What it is Really About Memorial Day has become all about the festivities and the barbecues and the beginning of summer. So just take a moment to remember its true meaning. It is about remembering the fallen soldiers and paying them our respects. Keep that in mind, have a great time, and more importantly, stay safe! So, what are your plans for Memorial Day? Firing up the grill or hitting the town festival?

Android Spy App Version
Android Tracking

Data Uploading Queries Addressed: Android Spy App Version

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I got a lot of questions regarding one thing in particular. Seems like for some of you, data from your target Android phone is not uploading onto your Control Panel. So I’ll be sorting out this problem for you guys today. Before I begin, I need you to make sure you followed the installation steps properly. Sometimes, your app doesn’t work like it is supposed to because you missed out a step. For a quick recap on the guide, watch the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWZ86BzRXbc Did you do everything right? Data still not uploading? Let’s delve further into this issue. Problem 1: The Settings Tab First of all, I want you to check your settings. While I was answering to some of your queries earlier, I realized that many of you overlook the settings tab altogether. Here’s what you need to do. Say you want to view call history of your target Android phone. You’ll go to the settings tab and then go to Toggle Features. Make sure you toggle on the feature whose data you wish to record. If your feature is toggled on and you still aren’t getting data, there is probably a connectivity problem. Which brings us to… Problem 2: Internet Connectivity If there is a connectivity problem, you’ll experience a data hang up. Here’s why: for the data from your target phone to upload, you need a stable internet connection. XNSPY would keep collecting your data for you, but this data cannot be uploaded without WiFi or Mobile Network. So there’s one thing. Another thing is sometimes if the internet disconnects while the data is being uploaded, the process is interrupted. Upon reconnecting, the process is restarted, and this is what causes the delay. So don’t worry! Your app is working just fine! A faulty connection is the problem here. Problem 3: Irrelevant Data Now, another complaint I got was that there is simply too much data being uploaded and that you have to do a lot of scrolling before you get to the call you wanted to monitor. To solve this, make sure you use the Watchlist to set alerts. This way, you will get a notification only for the relevant activity. Problem 4: Battery Life Some of you mentioned to me how the uploading process drains the battery life of their target phone. But don’t worry. XNSPY works silently and invisibly in the background of their phones, thus they have no way to trace back the battery usage to your monitoring. Got More Questions? Ask Away! I loved talking to you guys this week and finding out what it is that is troubling you. And I really appreciate your feedback as well. So go ahead and let me know if you have any more queries that I can talk about next!

iPhone Hacks
iPhone

5 Tech Hacks for Your Brand New iPhone

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Managed to get your hands on a shiny new iPhone, have you? You are one lucky nugget. You’re probably dying to show it off, and we feel you. The iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus are beauties and we can’t wait for new releases to come. Good thing we’ve got a few neat iPhone hacks prepared just for you. iPhone Car Cradle You weren’t going to let your new phone just sit anywhere in the car, were you? Take a hint from this guy and make yourself a car cradle so you can charge your iPhone and drive without worrying it’ll scratch. You’ll need a base plate, and a USB cable that you’ll glue in place. So easy! iPhone Tripod Mount We hear the new iPhone 6 has a snazzy camera, so we’ve found a brilliant way for you to take lots of pictures. All you need to do is attach a T bracket onto an iPhone case and a tripod stand. Chris Sgaraglino has all the instructions you’ll need. Tribal iPhone Case If you want your iPhone 6 to stand out from the rest, try this tutorial by Expect the Unexpected. You’ll only need a plain white iPhone case and a few colored sharpies. Make straight line with different colors and fill with shapes and patterns as you go. iPhone Case Stand We love this idea by Made by Marzipan. You’ll need a chipboard that you’ll fold into the ‘pocket’ where your iPhone would lie. Cover it all with a fabric of your choice and you’re done! iPhone Macro Lens You won’t have to buy super expensive add-ons to take a nice close up. You can easily make one of your own using this technique from Inscrutable.  You’re just going to need a 12mm lens and a holder that you can modify into a slide on. Have you jazzed up your iPhone 6 yet? Share your own tips with us!

Employee Management App
Employee Monitoring

Working With Employees in Retail with Your Employee Management App

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Hiring and firing in retail tends to be the only constant in the manager’s life. Part of the reason why is because so many employees tend to be temporary. We did give you some advice on how to cope with temporary employees in an earlier blog. But making sure your employees are happy and doing their jobs in the right way is especially important in retail. You, the manager may not always be on the front lines. But your employees are quite simply the face of the organization. They are the ones at the forefront and they are the first people the customers come in contact with. Making sure they are engaged and feeling good about their jobs is very important. So before we go on with this blog, take a look at this rather informative infographic from Retail Doc to give you some perspective: So, here’s what you’ve got to do: Make Them Feel Like a Part of the Company The first important thing that comes to my mind, in particular with employee in retail, is that you need to make them feel part of the whole. Often times, salespersons are not treated by the management as equals. Their managers tend to be derogatory to them because they feel like they aren’t qualified enough, not educated enough, not experienced enough. And that’s just strange because you can sink your company with unhappy retail employees. They are the ones that ultimately get to speak with your customers face to face. When they’re unhappy, they won’t be very nice to those customers now, would they? So, make them feel like they are part of the company. Make them feel like their opinion matters. Include them in important meetings. Ask them what their firsthand experience with the customers is like, what improvements they think should be made. They need to think of themselves as more than just people hired to stack shelves or fold t shirts. Offer Compliments in Public If they’ve done a nice job, compliment them where others are listening. Be it other staff members or the customers, if you offer them compliments in public, they will feel like they’ve truly done a good job. They will feel validated because their achievements are being celebrated in front of strangers. Managers tend to be free with pointing out mistakes in public. Take the opposite approach. Give compliments in public; point out mistakes in private. Monitor, But Discreetly Lastly, yes, it is your duty to watch over employees and make sure they are doing their job right. But keep the monitoring discreet. This is why we encourage the use of employee monitoring app, which you can install onto their company provided phones. The app will work discreetly in the backgrounds of their phone, allowing you to track their activities freely, without it interfering with their performance. And they won’t feel like their manager is constantly breathing down their necks, either.

Parental Monitoring App
Parental Monitoring

Study Finds Smartphones Are Distracting Parents from Parenting!

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A new study has found that one-third of distracted parenting is accountable to smartphones. Could you believe that? I definitely feel like our blog tells a story where kids are the menacing Gen-Y characters molded by the smart tech of today and parents are the Gen-X trying to rescue their children from the robotic claws of their technology. Oh, how the tables have turned. It appears that in some cases, it is the parents who are at fault here. Parents who are so immersed into their smartphones that they have become neglectful parents. A lot of it has to do with the pressure that hyperconnectivity brings. We feel the need to be connected with everyone at all times. Often, we prioritize our attention to those far away from us more so than the people we happen to be with at the time. For example, when you, as parents sit together for a cup of coffee with your friends, you tend to worry about your kids ringing up your phone rather than giving your friends their full attention. Then when you’re with your kids, you get on your phone with your friends to get a real conversation going. See the dilemma here? Smartphones makes the absent party the more important. As parents of young children, when your kids are supposed to be around you all the time, they may feel your physical presence, but your mental presence is nonexistent. Thus in the world with instant smart communication over phones is more valued, face to face connections start to become less important. As a result, distraction free parenting becomes all but impossible. To get a good overview of what children think about their parents being on the phone, here is an infographic from AVG: Now a new study has found that when children have to compete with smartphones for their parent’s attention, it can affect the child’s brain development, in particular those areas that feel pleasure. Children with distracted parents struggle with emotional development when parents fail to showcase consistent nurturing patterns; even when they may be providing them all other comforts. Being brought up in a comfortable home with enough food and shelter and security is not enough. Consistent patterns of parenting, which include caring, bonding and nurturing in one-on-one time with kids is just as important. (https://cozumelparks.com) It is not about how much time you are spending with the child. It is about how consistently you are spending quality time with them. Distracted parenting is slowly but surely showing to have great consequences. Who would’ve thought parents are just as much to blame vis-à-vis the smartphone craze as their kids are. So, while I give plenty of advice to you about how you can manage your children’s smartphone addiction, may be take some of that advice and apply it to yourself. Do not let you child be robbed of a healthy emotional development that comes simply from parents putting down their phones and giving them the attention they deserve.

Employee Monitoring App XNSPY
Business

Are People More Important than Organizations?

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Recently, I attended a rather insightful symposium where speakers included a lot of our industry’s best people managers. And they started a debate which roused us all: are people more important or are organizations more important? Naturally, everyone’s first instinct was to side with people. People make organizations after all. What good is a company’s strategy, goals, mission and vision if there is no one to actualize it? No one to do the day to day work that would ultimately drive a company to its objectives? The speaker listened to our input with great interest and did not disagree. Yes, people make organizations that much is true. But he had a knowing look on his face which led me to believe that he has heard all these rebuttals before. They were after all instantaneous rebuttals, one that we spoke off the tops of our heads. The speaker had instead done some deep thinking on it and he expressed his side of the argument with an excellent example The NBA Dream Team When the 1988 Olympics held in Seoul ended sour for the American basketball team, there was an appeal for professionals to be allowed to participate. When the appeal was granted, the NBA decided to put together the greatest basketball team the world has even seen. The best players from individual teams were selected to create an all-star team. Everyone, who would go onto become Hall of Famers and quite simply, basketball legends were on it. Michael from the Chicago Bulls, Magic Johnson from the Lakers, Larry Bird of the Celtics, Charles Barkeley of the 76ers… you name a basketball legend and the were on the team. And at the time, all these basketball legends were at their very prime. Throw in Chuck Daily as the coach, and it’s no wonder this was named the “Dream Team”. This was the handcrafted team created to bring home the gold at the 1992 Summer Olympics. A Surprising Turn of Events Can you imagine the caliber and talent of a team that has Jordan and Bird playing together? Everyone’s money was on them. Everyone on this team was the best player on their individual teams. They were loved by the people and were the darlings of the sponsors. So when the Gods of NBA would face off against a college team, the odds seem automatically against the junior team, right? Wrong. In a surprising turn of events, the college team destroyed the Dream Team in the playoffs with the final score being Collegians 62, Dream Team 54. So, what caused this failure? Voices Need to Harmonize Imagine the best singer in the world. Now imagine another singer. And another. Now individually, they could be the best singers that the world has ever heard. However, ask them to record a track together, and they might not be able to harmonize and showcase their own vocal prowess at the same time. That is what happened with the Dream Team. While they were amazing in their respective teams, they simply could not work together. They did not know how to play with each other. They stars of NBA, the sponsor’s darlings, the greatest players that basketball has ever had… they lost to a bunch of college kids because they didn’t know how to work together. Lesson Learnt And so the speaker ended this story with a very simple conclusion: people are important, but organizations are also important. Yes, people make organizations. But these people’s voices need to harmonize. In that moment against the college team, the people were important; they were the best players in the world. But the organization, namely the Dream Team did not work. Of course they found their harmony later on and went onto become Gold Medalists at the Olympics. They fulfilled the purpose they were created for. Take some time and think about how you can use this brain teaser in your own company. And let me know in the comments below what you come up with!

Kik Messenger Monitoring
Child Monitoring

Why Parents Need to Know About Kik Messenger—Part 1

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Ever heard of Kik Messenger or simpy, “Kik”? If you’re a teenager, you probably do. But seeing as the audience of this blog tends to be parents of those teenagers, the answer is probably no. So as always, I am here to get you up to speed with this app which is quite popular with kids today, so that you can be well informed. What is Kik? On the surface, Kik is not much different to any other instant messaging service, like WhatsApp or Skype. For starters, it is available for free on most operating systems and smartphones. So kids don’t have to pay for a text they send or buy data plans. For the other it is, well, instant so the instant gratification need of the generation are satisfied by it. Other than that, it makes media embedding within text messages really easy. Kids can share pictures amongst themselves, share memes, selfies or anything else. Is it Really that Popular? Kik is definitely a fast growing messenger service. As of 2016, it has 247 million users compared to just 75 users in 2012. Is there a reason Kik is growing so fast? There certainly is the aspect of anonymity that we’ve covered on this blog on a few occasions. On Kik, you don’t have to register with your own name. You choose any username of your liking in the same way you choose any twitter handle you like. This invites a lot of random chatting opportunities to kids. Because they are hidden behind a created username—not their actual name—their interaction is not confined by their contact list. What’s There to Worry About? That’s exactly where the cause to worry exists. Your kids are not confined on Kik by their real life social circle or the people on their contact list that they speak to everyday. On Kik, with an artificial username to hide behind, they can be whoever they want to be and talk to whoever they want. So they speak to the people of the internet—the good and the bad. More often than not, Kik has become synonymous with sexting. We’re not exaggerating… the understanding that Kik means sexting has been the butt of many jokes in popular culture. Simply asking someone “Kik?” is taken to be an act of flirtation, or “Kik me” is an invitation that shows your interest in the partner on the other side of the computer screen. Because of this anonymity, Kik has been used by many a predators and online solicitation of minors. Anonymity gives them the fearlessness, the escape from accountability so they feel like they can steer the conversation in any direction they feel, no matter how reckless it is. This infographic from Smarter Parenting sums it all up: So, yes, parents do need to know why Kik exists because of what it has come to stand for. In the next blog, we’re going to talk about what parents can do to remedy this problem and how they can help their kids stay away from predators or malicious strangers.

Online Shopping Addiction
Business, Cell Phone Tracking, Mobile Phone Spy

How to Help Someone With an Online Shopping Addiction Through Mobile Monitoring—Part 2

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In the last blog, we talked about compulsive buying disorder and how it has been aggravated with the proliferation of online shopping. Sure, online retail is an amazing development in tech which has benefits millions of people who would otherwise not have access to certain goods and services. But for people with CBD, they’ve become yet another avenue to feed their addiction. Because the source of their addiction exists in the palm of their hands—in their smartphones and tablets. Which makes us wonder… There is a more direct, active way you can help someone with an online shopping addiction. Of course, emotional support and encouragement will play an important part in your role in their road to recovery, but you also need tools and techniques to support their greater, strategic functions. And in this case, mobile monitoring will be that tool. What is Mobile Monitoring? Mobile monitoring is a tool—or software we should say—that is installed onto a target phone and records all of its activities, often uploading collected data onto an online control panel. The data collected pertains to the activities conducted on the phone such as call logs, text messages, photos, GPS location and the like. Sounds simple enough? The true scope of how a mobile monitoring app can be used is left to your imagination. In this case, you can use the features that the app provides to help some with their addiction. How Can it Help With a Shopping Addiction? With you mobile monitoring app, you can also watch over a person’s web activity. You know exactly what websites they visit and how much time they spend on each webpage. Therefore, when you’re helping someone out with their CBD, you would know anytime log on to make a purchase. That’s when you can step in and help them through with your counsel and emotional support. Moreover, you also have the ability to set alarms. These would be trigger activities that give you the heads up anytime there is something related to their addiction happening. How Accessible is Mobile Monitoring? This is basically a mobile app which you can download onto any smartphone—so really, it is as accessible as they get. You won’t need any fancy add-ons, you unnecessary set ups. All you have to do to help out someone you love with CBD is to install an app on their phones. If your child or someone you love is falling into the compulsive online shopping pit, take a moment to figure how out you’re going to help. Remember, mobile monitoring is only going to be a tool to assist you. Think through how you’re going to help them in greater detail.

Online Shopping Addiction
Business

Recognizing the Early Signs of Online Shopping Addiction—Part 1

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You may have heard of compulsive buying disorder. Also sometimes known as oniomania, this particular disorder entails compulsive buying that comes with an uncontrollable urge, resulting in excessive spending and ending with negative feelings about oneself. This is a serious situation that affects one’s life and overall wellbeing. This is no cutesy retail therapy we’re talking about either where you validating yourself with a day’s worth of shopping is a one-time occurrence. On the contrary, this is impulse pathology akin to gambling, binge eating and even alcoholism. What Happens in Compulsive Buying Disorder? Basically, people with CPD can’t think before they buy something. The urge, the impulse to purchase something, no matter how inconsequential, is so strong that they are unable to stop themselves. Often, this ends with them feeling horrible about themselves or the amount of money they have ended up spending. However, while they are shopping, they feel lifted up, their spirits are temporarily high… they may even feel a sense of strange euphoria over their purchase. The reason they shop is to satisfy emotional gaps that may have settled in due to anxiety, depression or sometimes even loneliness. But the “pick me up” so to speak is quite temporary because as soon as the urge subsides, it is followed by guilt, low self-esteem or anger. A person suffering from CBD finds themselves in this vicious cycle over and over again. Here’s a quick infographic to help you understand CBD in a nutshell: Now that Online Shopping Exists Imagine what the proliferation of online shopping would do to a person with CBD. Where before their impulsive retail therapy behavior may have been momentarily subsided in the confinement of their homes, that sense of security is now gone. How can they hold onto their compulsions when purchases can be made at the click of a button? Before, what you bought was limited by where you were. Obsessively buying scarves you would not wear would end at Forever 21, candles you will never burn would’ve ended at Walmart. Now there’s Amazon, where everything money can buy exists on a singular platform. Imagine what that does to a person who is already struggling with their purchasing behaviors. Signs of an Online Shopping Addict Let’s talk about signs. How can you tell if you or someone you love is addicted to online shopping? This doesn’t seem like something that would appear on the outset. So, what can you do to recognize symptoms early on? There are a few things you need to look out for: People that tend to shop online are not very sociable. They try to avoid social interaction where they can. Of course, there are exceptions, but online shoppers like the anonymity that comes with shopping at home. The compulsion to buy can be all-encompassing where one does not realize why they are spending… just that they have They may get online and buy useless things they don’t even need to feel validated for the time being. These people often find themselves in heavy debt or lagging behind in paying back their credit card bills. They probably think about shopping online when they are not. So, now that you know how to spot an online shopping addict, you would want to know what you can do about it. We’re going to cover it in the next blog, so stay tuned!

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