Let's face it: There's no way to be the perfect parent. No matter which books you read or what advice you follow, every home is different. Which is exactly why I say you deserve to use every single resource available, including technology.

Of course there are all sorts of opinions on what age is the right age to get your kid a cellphone, but I'm here to tell you that handing them an iPhone or iPad can actually make the whole parenting gig easier. And no, NOT just to play with or as a distraction.

There are loads of cheap or free apps out there that make connecting with your kiddo a breeze. Whether you're trying to potty train your little one or have a picky eater on your hands, you'll be WOWed at the kinds of tools out there that can help you and your family around the house in your day-to-day.

Check out these 5 great, cheap apps that can make parenting easier:

Sharing photos on Facebook or Twitter is fun for, say, a weird rock you found in your salad or a strange bird that appeared in your back yard. However, it's not so great for sharing baby's first steps or first poopy. That's what Eugene Murphy created Tweekaboo. 

This app is fantastic because it lets you pull a lot of your baby pictures off of Facebook and Twitter. Those social networks are essentially black holes for content and my parents, for example, rarely use them. However, Tweekaboo encourages the entire family to connect to see the kiddos via an iOS app.

Vine is the latest video-sharing app to hit the iPhone and it's pretty amazing. Whereas most social video apps force you to think of video as a two-minute endeavor involving titles, a three-act action sequence, and credits, Vine is quick and dirty: you take videos of up to six seconds. The videos loop endlessly when you view them later and you can stop and start the recording of a new video just by tapping the screen. This lets you take quick shots from multiple angles or even make simple animations.

In short, it's my favorite video app right now. Here's why.

About a month ago, I quit Facebook. I was over it. It had run its course for me. And I'm happy I did it. However, like with everything in life, there are a few things I miss about it. Things that sometimes, maybe, possibly make me even want to go back. I'm going to continue to stick to my guns and not go back (for now!), but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss a few things about the ol' social networking site.

Here are 5 things I miss about Facebook. 

SOPA, iPhone 5, Apple's crappy Maps app, oh my! Doesn't it already seem like these things were news forever ago? As we stare down the barrel of a brand new year, let's take a moment to revisit some of the hottest tech moments that happened in 2012:

Facebook went public. Facebook's much-anticipated IPO happened in May, drumming up so much media hoopla in the process it earned its own Wikipedia entry. It opened at $38/share, as of today's writing it's worth $25.91.

So Christmas is over and your house is full of gadgets. Now what? As the proud owner of far too much gear, I don't often follow my own rules of the road, but here are a few quick tips to keep them safe for you and yours this holiday. 

Honesty, it turns out, really is the best policy. Especially for one woman who 'fessed up and told Best Buy that instead of sending her one iPad, as she'd ordered, the company made a mistake and sent her five iPads.

A woman named Alexa contacted The Consumerist to talk about the dilemma. Her boyfriend's mom ordered him an iPad and received a giant box with five iPads inside. What should they do with them? They felt bad keeping such expensive things they didn't pay for. But guess what? They had every right to.

Well, you'd have to have been living under a rock if you didn't spend most of 2012 inundated with talk of the 2012 presidential election or Apple's much-anticipated iPhone 5. A very big rock somewhere on an island that magically had no communication with the outside world. The election, the iPhone 5, and famous-for-what-exactly Kim Kardashian grace the top of Yahoo's list of most-searched terms in 2012.

It's just the third time in the 12 years that Yahoo has been compiling the list that a news event was the year's most popular search term. In 2010, "BP Oil Spill" had that honor. In 2009, it was "Michael Jackson's death," which I guess counts as a news event. Last year we were iPhone-obsessed. What else were we searching for?