May 2009 Archives

Do your kids use your iPhone as much as you do? Want to load up before your summer vacation? If so, you may want to check out the list of child-friendly apps ranked by Internetsafety.com, the developer of software called Safe Eyes, which blocks inappropriate Internet content for children.
The top 10 titles are listed below with Apple's App store prices. Full descriptions and links for purchase are listed at http://blog.internetsafety.com/2009/05/12/kid-friendly-apps.

Games

• Memory Match Kids by Jirbo, $.99 (animal-based memory game, 4+)


• Wheels on the Bus by Duck Duck Moose $.99 (sing-along game, 4+)


• Baloonimals by Ideo Soft Lab $1.99 (interactive balloon animals, 4+)


• DisneyZZTO Fairies Fly by Walt DisneyZZTO $4.99 (Neverland exploration, 4+)

Education

• Kid's Math Fun by NSC Partners LLC $1.99 (different versions for


• grades K-4)


• Kindle for iPhone by Reinke LLC free (reader for ebooks from Amazon, all ages)

Creative

• Comic Touch by Plasq $2.99 (funny photo manipulation, all ages)


• Karma Art by Stylem Media $.99 (cut-and-paste drawing assembly, all ages)


• Kids Finger Painter by Third Frame Mobile $.99 (painting program, 4+)


• Ocarina by Smule $.99 (turns iPhone into a flute, all ages)

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With summer on the horizon, it's time to prepare that poolside or beach reading list.

Two Web sites that can give you some suggestions are Goodreads and This One Next.

Goodreads.com has a social networking feature. It lets you know what your friends are reading, have read or would like to read. It also alerts you to what are the most popular books — at least among members of Goodreads.

Currently, President Barack Obama's "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" is being read by 2,651 members, and it's No. 10 on the reading list.

But Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" is No. 2 on the reading list, and other books in the series are Nos. 4, Number6 and Number 7. "The Host," the first book of her newest series, is No. 11.

The site also includes videos of author interviews and a database of upcoming literary events. Enter your zip code and the type of event and the results pop up in a list and on a map.

Goodreads also maintains several user groups to discuss literature by genre, geography or common interest.

The name of This One Next says it all. Type in the title and author of book and ask for suggestions. However, just a cursory check of the site found that the less popular the title, the more likely it will return an error message.

The site also will recommend CDs and videos, although its choices can seem a little odd — "The Sound of Music" draws a recommendation of "The River Wild" with Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon.

Both sites will link you to Amazon, so you can order a book, CD, DVD or an electronic download if you have a Kindle.

The Associated Press reports:

On Twitter, messages of 140 characters may seem confining. Mike Massimino is finding a different type of space even more limiting -- outer space.

The astronaut is sending messages to the social networking site from 350 miles above Earth on the space shuttle Atlantis -- and what's cramping his "tweets" is time, not the character limit.

Massimino, 46, averaged about four tweets a day before launch. Now that he's in orbit, it's down to one a day.

Still, Astro_Mike, which is Massimino's Twitter name, did make history.

He's the first person to tweet from space: "From orbit: Launch was awesome!! I am feeling great, working hard, & enjoying the magnificent views, the adventure of a lifetime has begun!"

There are 36 NASA Twitter accounts, including Massimino's. NASA also has 24 Facebook accounts, 13 YouTube channels, eight Flickr photo accounts and five MySpace sites.

More than 270,000 people have signed up to follow Massimino's tweets.

He tweeted Wednesday from orbit about chasing down Hubble: "From orbit: Getting more accustomed to living in space today and getting ready for our big rendezvous with Hubble."

And on Thursday, about grabbing Hubble the previous day: "From orbit: Rendezvous and grapple were great, getting ready for our first spacewalk."

The tweets may get more scarce. Massimino, 46, is spacewalking today and Sunday.

Astronaut Mark Polansky -- whose Twitter name is astro_127 -- also tweets, as does NASA, which also maintains a list of social media sites (such as Facebook) that it and its affiliates use.