Educational Online Fun for Toddlers

Following on the post on educational PC games for toddlers, i thought id share the best online fun and educational activity website for toddlers you'll find. The site is called MINIMOPS

The site's sounds are awesome, the graphics are addictive, the games are fun.

Not saying your little one should spend all their time behind the PC, but i cant see getting them PC literate at an early stage being a bad thing at all, and doing it whilst using a service like MINIMOPS makes it soo easy as they are having the time of their lives while learning.

Do take the time to visit this site, even youll find yourself having some fun with the music composition game :-)

Educational PC Game for Toddlers

My little one is 4 and loves playing on the PC, i have a couple of games she likes but mostly they are a bit too complicated and only interesting because of the movement and sounds her hitting the keyboard results in :-)

I recently found Childsplay which is a tool you simply have to download and install for your todler. The interface is simple and the games are entertaining. Above this they are extremely educational and addictive.

I couldnt believe how quickly my little one improved her mouse usage ability, once forced to improve in order to get 'the game to work', as she says.

There are sounds and pictures and memory games.... And it is free as it is opensource.

Head over to their site and download a copy for either Windows or Linux.

Some screenshots;

Windows Live CDs (Predominantly used as recovery tools...)

The use of thin client computing lead me to the interesting aspects of linux live CDs, as per post 'Best Linux Live CD - Slax' , but the need for recovery and diagnostics lead me to the interesting aspects of Windows live CDs.

There are two mayor competitors in the field of Windows Live CD recovery/diagnostics tools and they are Ultimate Boot CD 4 Windows and Hiren's Boot CD.

[Reminder that a live cd is a medium enabling you to run an operating system from a cd, thus not needing to be installed to be used and doesnt need any harddrive to work!]

Both applications are burnt onto a CD and booted from. (Remember to change your bios startup options so that it boots from CD first)

Once booted up Windows XP is then loaded onto memory and you are presented with a desktop with SOME of the functionality of the fully fledged installed OS.

These windows live CDs are not viable solutions for everyday use though, as the OS is a cut down version of the original and it doesnt carry the needed drivers for auto installation and it most of the time does not have the correct network drivers installed so it makes it a huge mission to get it on a network once booted.

(Youll notice that these are all the aspects that make the Linux Live Cd SLAX the perfect live cd for every day use cause it does all of these. )

No, Windows Live CDs are not tools that can replace your day by day operating system, it is instead an extremely usefull recovery and diagnostics tool for your Operating System!

Advantages of Windows Live CDs;
* Allow use of a PC even if the machine hdrive is faulty
* Although named "live CDs" both tools can be run from a USB flash drive as well
* Allow access to crashed hard drives when you need to recover data
* Allow recovery tools to save crashed machines
* Allow hardware diagnostics to save crashed machines
* Allow the reset of forgotten passwords
*Countless more tools and operations available.....

Both of these tools provide the option to not just boot the cd into a live windows os, but also run tools from a displayed text-based menu, and you will be able to select the tool you want to run. The selected tool actually boots off a virtual floppy disk created in memory.

Between the two Hiren's definately has my vote, it is better in so many ways;
*Hiren's is simply an ISO you download and burn to disk. UBCD4Win is a compilation tool that you need to use in conjunction with your own copy of windows xp and then compile the ISO to burn to CD!
*Hiren's has the boot option of booting to windoes live CD OR to go to text based menu and run tools from there. UBCD4Win does not have this option, you have to download Ultimate Boot CD (Non Windows) for this! Thus you need 2 UBCD CDs to do what the Hiren's disk can do!

So get over to Hiren's and get the tool, youre gonna need it one day and wont regret hanging on to it.

Some screenshots;

i900 Omnia Applications (Any WM device really...)

As mentioned in my previous post i recently procured a Samsung Omnia windows mobile device.
My passion is technology and the amount of time ive spent ont he phone since i got is is scary, i just want to know everything the phone can do and how everything works, i just have to :-)

Needless to say i have found quite a bit of applications available for the device and thought id share it with you, saving you the time to go find it yourself.

On the following link you will find the below files;

(copy cab files directly to phone and run on phone to install)

* Application cab files

- Kevtris - Tetris Game
- Skyfire - Better mobile internet browser
- pmClean - CCleaner alternative for windows mobile
- TotalCommander - File explorer alternative

* Device functionality cab files
- Batti - Battery monitor
- Ftouch - Improve touch screen functionlity
- OmniaSIP - Change default keyboard layout on startup
- softkeymanager - change the today screen buttons

* Network tools cab files
- vxutil - ipconfig / ping / network info app

* Remote tool cab files
- good ftp - ftp software
- WM6 RDP - remote desktop for windows mobile
- hamachi - vpn client for windows mobile

* SMS tool cab files
- Omniathread - change sms layout from thead to standard layout

(.msi and .exe needs to be installed from windows)
* Active sync 4 - Latest active sync for xp proffesional
* MyMobile - Allows you to see and work on your device from your pc!

Try all of these, youll see it changes your user experience for the best! I cant believe som of these apps dont come standard with the handset!

p.s The disabling of sms thread view cant be done ANYWHERE in the phone settings! You have to use the app above provided or do some registry editing! Doesnt make sense.

Enjoy. :-)

Paperclip phone stand

Just got my i900 Samsung Omnia last month and had to quickly share this beautifull extremely simple sphone stand you can make for your desk!

http://lifehacker.com/5056913/diy-iphone-or-ipod-touch-paper-clip-stand

Bigups lifehacker!

Best Linux Live CD - Slax

Ive played around with some portable Linux OS distributions, but a more complete and extremely easy distribution for carrying around on your flash drive or CD has to be Slax.

Just a couple of features that interest me;

1. They provide an ISO and Zipped archive download, allowinf you to immediately burn the ISO to CD and extract the zipped archive to Flash and run a .bat file to make the flash bootable and your set to start using Linux!

2. The standard build is only 200mb!

3. Youc an customize your build, remove certian software and add other and then they compile the build and allow you your custom download!

4. To improve performance there is an option on startup to copy to ram, this allows you to for example remove the live CD from your drive while youre using the software!

5. Allows any VNC client connection to it (Once allowed in the software)

6. Havent found on board drivers not picked up by slax, everything just works.

6. Network immediately picks up an ip from available dhcp server on network

Been dealing quite a bit with a client using a server setup with thin clients connecting to it. The workstations(clients) dont have any cdroms nor drives in them, and the slax (or any live cd for that mattrer) allow a thin client setup in an instant! I tested slax with an extremely old machine at work, no drive, no cd rom, no cover even (!!) and only 64mb ram! And slax runs! Running the gui interface is admittendly bit slow but running console mode is lightning!

You say it doesnt make sense to use this type of setup on an ongoing daily basis in your workplace for instance, mainly due to the fact that your changes on OS is never saved and lost during reboot, but all you do is setup a file sharing service on your DHCP server and whenever booted into slax the staff immediately have access to the network and their network shares and aslong as staff save all their info on there nothing will be lost!

An extremely viable sollution, the moment you are confident that your staff will be able to use linux instead of windows.