If you are looking for a very affordable gift for kids ages 3 – 7, then you must get the Poingo. With the Poingo, you are able to touch pictures and/or the text, the their favorite characters are brought to life with either music, sounds, and words. The best part is that the Poingo starter kit is $34.99 and is available at Target, Toys R Us, Walmart, Costco, Sam’s Club, and BJ’s Wholesale Clubs. It comes with the pen shaped Poingo and two large hardcover interactive storybooks. This is definitely affordable, and the starter kit is awesome. You don’t have to automatically buy another $100 worth of books right off the bat. You have a working system right from the start. The book choices are excellent. The books that came with ours are Cars and Finding Nemo, so it was definitely right up my kids alley. These movies are favorites in our house, so my kids had a definite interest in the books. They also have Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Winnie The Pooh. The pen itself is simple to use. All you have to do is click it on the part of the book with the words, and it will read that whole section. You can also click on the images and for sound effects. There are words that are highlighted also, and you get a definition of the word. You can also click on images and find out what they are or get a cool sound effect. Madison is actually able to take this and read the book by herself. She loves having that kind of independence. My kids love to read, so this is really a naturally progression for them.
This is one of the best affordable educational toys on the market for kids. I recommend checking it out — you can even try a demo here.
If you are looking for a way to get some great deals this Christmas season, then you definitely need to check out Red Save. They have one of the largest gifts and gadgets UK websites out there for your Christmas goodies. They have one of the best navigation systems on any shopping site that I’ve seen in both the US and the UK. I love that you can pick exactly what you are looking for right off the left sidebar. That makes finding the perfect gift that much easier! For example, if you click the digital phone frames link, I was able to find this awesome deal on a Kodak Digital Photo Frame. My favorite part of this photo frame is that it is touch sensitive, so it makes browsing your pictures that much easier. I don’t think I’ve seen that on any other frame that is out on the market. If digital photo frames aren’t on your list, you can check out the toys & games section or even the grown up fun section. There is truly something for everyone here. If you want the newest and greatest gifts out there, make sure you check out the New Arrivals. There are a lot of really cool things in there too! They take Visa, Mastercard, and even Paypal, so you are set no matter what. Online shopping is the way to shop and Red Save makes it easy for you.
As many of you may know, the majority of my friends and family live about four hours away from me. That means, that it is a long distance phone call for me to talk to them. When I found out about Tokbox, I was pretty excited to try it out. Now, this is super easy to use. I tried it out with a few people, and they were all impressed with the clarity of both the image and the audio. I’ve tried other programs before (**cough**yahoo messenger **cough**) that the video was choppy. When you’ve got little kids using these programs (which I have Madison talk to her cousins with it), they don’t understand the choppiness. Mom doesn’t really care for it either. However, there was no choppiness, no lagging, and really I have no complaints about Tokbox. It took me less than 5 minutes to sign up for the service and get a chat started with one of my friends. Now, the coolest part is that you both don’t even need to have a webcam (though the person initiating the call does I think). Once you have your account set up, all you have to do is hit invite, and it will give you a link to pass onto the person you want to talk to. You can even put this on your blog and/or social network profiles. Then your visitors can click “Push To Talk” and connect to you in real time. I’m not adding it here, because I really don’t think you want to listen to screaming kids which is usually how my day goes. You can even record a video and email it someone too!
If you are looking to connect online, TokBox is the way to do it. The clarity of the video and the audio can’t be beat, and it is so easy to use!
What kind of cards do you send out for Christmas? Do you do a photo holiday card like you see on the left? In my family, that is exactly what I do. A lot of the people we send Christmas cards to only see my kids a couple of times a year. It is a great way to show them how much my kids have grown. I’ve done it both ways too — either just the kids or us as a family. I also love receiving cards like this, so I can see how their kids have grown over the last year.
If you are looking for a huge selection of Photo Holiday Cards, you need to go check out Tiny Prints! They truly have cards for every occasion that you could want. They have both regular cards and photo cards too. However, Tiny Prints and I are working together to offer you an awesome contest. You can win your holiday card package with matching postage (Winner to receive 50 of the selected card, 72 address labels and 60 stamps with the matching card design.). What do you have to do to win this?
1. You need to visit their Tiny Prints Holiday Photo Cards selection and tell me which holiday card has “slushy to chic” in the description. Once you have found it, put a fun and creative greeting on it.
2. After you have found the card, click “ask a friend” and enter my email lisareviewsATgmail.com. Also, click “save in favorites”
3. Then I just need you to put in the comments of this post your greeting!
I will be selecting the winner from those who pick the correct card and come up with the most creative greeting! Now, you can only win once, but you can enter as many times as you like. If you have won a Tiny Prints contest in the last 90 days, you aren’t eligible. The contest is to run from October 20, 2008 through Friday, November 7, 2008. Contestants also relinquish greeting text ownership and allow Tiny Prints to use their entries for promotional use. Stamps will be fulfilled separately from Tiny Prints order. Best of all, this contest is offered to everyone no matter where you live! I know that sometimes if you live outside of the US you miss out on a lot of these great contests. Tiny Prints understand that and has opened it up to everyone!
Well, the first question you need to ask yourself is how fast do you type? Personally, I type pretty darn fast (over 70 wpm). However, what Dragon Naturally Speaking does for you is allows you to talk, and it types what you say. You do need to “say” the paragraph breaks and punctuation. However, you end up with typing 150 words per minute! Most people I know cannot type that fast! It makes it much easier to generate more content in less time too. I know when I am composing a post like this I am actually saying the words in my head anyway. However, my head works faster than my fingers. That is why I love this product. Do you do podcasts? You can use Dragon to convert your podcasts into a transcript that you can also post on your site! There are just so many uses that I can come up with for this. I know people who use this and absolutely loved it including the New York times (click here for the NY Times Review of DNS10). Some other uses include people with disabilities such as dyslexia and even people with carpal tunnel who can’t type anymore. Heck, I’ve heard that John McCain doesn’t use the computer due to his injuries suffered when he was a POW. This is would even be helpful for him!
If you would like to see this in action, watch the videos below:
Don’t you want one of these to make your blogging easier?
If you are looking for a very affordable gift for kids ages 3 – 7, then you must get the Poingo. With the Poingo, you are able to touch pictures and/or the text, the their favorite characters are brought to life with either music, sounds, and words. The best part is that the Poingo starter kit is $34.99 and is available at Target, Toys R Us, Walmart, Costco, Sam’s Club, and BJ’s Wholesale Clubs. It comes with the pen shaped Poingo and two large hardcover interactive storybooks. This is definitely affordable, and the starter kit is awesome. You don’t have to automatically buy another $100 worth of books right off the bat. You have a working system right from the start. The book choices are excellent. The books that came with ours are Cars and Finding Nemo, so it was definitely right up my kids alley. These movies are favorites in our house, so my kids had a definite interest in the books. They also have Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Winnie The Pooh. The pen itself is simple to use. All you have to do is click it on the part of the book with the words, and it will read that whole section. You can also click on the images and for sound effects. There are words that are highlighted also, and you get a definition of the word. You can also click on images and find out what they are or get a cool sound effect. Madison is actually able to take this and read the book by herself. She loves having that kind of independence. My kids love to read, so this is really a naturally progression for them.
What kind of cards do you send out for Christmas? Do you do a photo holiday card like you see on the left? In my family, that is exactly what I do. A lot of the people we send Christmas cards to only see my kids a couple of times a year. It is a great way to show them how much my kids have grown. I’ve done it both ways too — either just the kids or us as a family. I also love receiving cards like this, so I can see how their kids have grown over the last year.
