Ice Land Adventures

By Jean Parks

iLearnWith understands that children are using their parent's iPads and that they are doing so at younger and younger ages. They've come up with a series of unique fun and educational apps to meet the needs of children 3 to 6 years old. The iLearnWith program offers seven different apps focusing on the literacy, science, language and math skills your children will need when they start school. For this review, I'm going to focus on Ice Land Adventures.

This app is devoted to developing literacy skills and consists of three different games:

1. The Bears – Your child will get to help cute bears down ice slides by matching upper and lower case letters. The bear gets a nice ice cream cone in the process.

2. The Penguins – This level involves throwing snowballs to put together vowels and consonants to form syllables. This level gets bonus points from me because it includes a two-player mode.

3. The Seals – Your child will get to spell words by correctly arranging seals who are wearing letter hats.

Comments | Permalink | Print | Email | Share |

Tweet

|

App of the Week - Word Mess

By Sarah Combs

I have to admit, I played Word Mess for much, much longer than it took to review it. The game is super addictive and incredibly fun, especially for such a simple concept. If you love puzzle games like Sudoku, crosswords, word scrambles, or just enjoy a bit of a brain tease, this is the game for you. But be careful, you may want to block out some time to dedicate to this engaging and entrapping game.

The player is tasked with finding words in, you guessed it, a mess of words that match the criteria she is presented with. There’s the most basic task of finding one specific word such as “shiny,” “delirious,” and “pit” in the jumble. You can also choose the Category mode where you find words that fit under broader terms such as “ships,” “soups,” and “mythology.”

Comments | Permalink | Print | Email | Share |

Tweet

|

Tech Gifts for Mom

A recent survey of Mother’s Day gift-giving plans found that while Moms would prefer a tech gadget over the traditional gift of flowers by a three to one margin, most of them are likely to be disappointed. Flowers remain the most popular choice of probable gift-givers this coming Mother’s Day, with only 12 percent of those surveyed saying they were going to buy tech.

While the ever-popular iPad remains at the top of the tech-loving mom’s wish list, the $499 starting price tag probably puts it out of reach for most families. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t dozens of other great tech gifts for Mom. From e-readers to smartphones, from headsets to portable speakers, there has never been a better time to pick up a gadget at a bargain price.

Here are a few suggestions that will brighten Mom’s day without breaking your bank:

Comments | Permalink | Print | Email | Share |

Tweet

|

Protecting Your Kids Against Identity Theft

Today’s highly communicative, mobile world has made connecting with friends and family around the world easier than ever before. But it’s also created many ways for thieves to access your credit and other personal information for their own gain.

This makes it essential for you to protect yourself and your children and also to explain to them what you’re doing and why.

Here are some of the ways you can talk to your family about identity theft:

Comments | Permalink | Print | Email | Share |

Tweet

|

Tech Report – BIG JAMBOX Bluetooth Portable Speaker

Every so often, a device comes along that’s so well-designed and engineered that it transforms an entire product category. The iPod did it for the fledgling MP3 player and the iPad did it for the even younger tablet industry. However, introducing a device that sets a new benchmark for a more mature product category is a lot harder. There are usually too many established players and too much money invested for an upstart outsider to make much of a difference.

That was the situation that Jawbone faced last year when it went up against industry giants like Bose and Logitech with its revolutionary JAMBOX Bluetooth portable speaker. At just 2.25 inches high, 6 inches wide, and 1.5 inches deep, the JAMBOX was the little speaker that could. Looking stylish with an embossed geometric pattern that came in four distinct colors, the JAMBOX connected with any Bluetooth-enabled device to blast out a full and balanced sound.

Comments | Permalink | Print | Email | Share |

Tweet

|