Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews

Geopalz

It's summer vacation here in Kansas City (yes, I know, we're early), and I've been looking for a way to keep my daughter active and outside all summer long. She gets a pretty decent workout playing outside at her summer camp, but it's never too early in my mind to get little ones in the habit of mindful exercise. 

I was recently contacted by the folks at Geopalz, who sent the little angel a sunflower Geopalz 3DTri-­‐AxisAccelerometer (fancy pedometer) so she could start logging her steps and earning prizes for doing so.

She's been using it now for about a week. So far, I've seen a lot of pros and cons, with the pros totally outweighing the cons. 

Cons:

• She wanted to wear her Geopalz on her waistband, but the clip is really, really, REALLY tight -- so tight I could barely get it on most days. This discouraged her from wanting to put it on until she put it on a ponytail holder and started wearing it around her wrist. Still not ideal, but wearing it!
• You get a point on the Geopalz site for every mile you walk, but you don't start to earn prizes until you've got 40 points. I find it's easier to motivate kids when they earn something right away, so if I were designing the program, I would've thrown them a bone at 5 points. 
• The 3DTri-­‐AxisAccelerometer is so fancy I found it too complicated. It's awesome in that it stores steps for 21 days, but even though they kindly sent me directions twice, I still thought it was pretty complicated and just started subtracting the previous days' number from the total when it somehow added everything together.

Pros:

• The site is adorable and easy to use. My girl loved it.
• The device is adorable. My girl has a sunflower, but they have a whole selection that looks to fit the style of just about any school-aged kid.
• My girl took immediately to the concept of tracking progress, which is a good skill to instill early in life. Kids who start seeing exercise as a "need to do" not a "nice to do" will have an easier time maintaining their weight later in life when they aren't burning 8,000 calories just running around being themselves.
• The family can use it together.
• Parents can add prizes from Amazon with a drag-and-drop feature that is super easy to use. I like that I can customize prizes if there's something in particular I'd like to bribe her with. (Right now there isn't, but that's clever.)

Would you use this? Do you have trouble getting your kids to exercise?

Sony Streaming Player Giveaway Winner

Congratulations to Jill L for winning the Sony Streaming Player!

Barnes & Noble Nook

My family got me a Kindle for Christmas this year (and I died of happiness). Then Barnes & Noble (a bookstore, full disclosure, that I hold near and dear because they carried my book far longer than any other bookstore -- although it should so totally still be on the shelves, AHEM -- BRING BACK SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK TO THE PHYSICAL STORES IT IS ALMOST MOTHER'S DAY)(dudes, this is my blog, I can pimp if I want)(sleepy, you are very sleepy) e-mailed me and asked if I would like to review and give away a nook e-reader, their answer to the Kindle. I was thrilled, because I've been wanting to compare the two for some time.

Let me say first that I had no problems at all using the nook from a technical perspective. I got it, I plugged it in overnight, and the next day I immediately began downloading books (well, after registering a credit card with my Barnes & Noble account, that is). On that note, I would've liked to be able to attach my Barnes & Noble account to my PayPal account. I would like to be able to attach anything online to my PayPal account. (I hate the charges, but the convenience rocks.)

Barnes & Noble has a pretty impressive section of their site dedicated to the nook -- including a product comparison -- but here's the informal comparison I did:

• The screens are the same. THE SAME. I'm pretty sure the same company makes the paperless-ink thing. Neither actual reading screen is a touchscreen. The screen is not a differentiator.

• They are almost exactly the same size and the same weight. They are both white.

• The nook has a color touchscreen menu at the bottom. The Kindle has a QWERTY keyboard and a movable joystick-like button that allows you to navigate options on the reading pane.

• The only reason you use the keyboard or touchscreen keyboard is to order books, search the  bookstore or take notes. For the casual reader, this difference probably isn't that big of a deal. If you were using this as a student or just in general are a big note-taker, you probably have a preference for buttons vs. touchscreen. I hate touchscreens and have since my waitressing days. I particularly hate small touchscreens, when the button is smaller than my finger. This is why I have a Blackberry, not an iPhone. It's a personal preference.

• The color aspect of the nook's touchscreen is nice, because it makes the book covers really pop. However, the contrast between the backlit touchscreen and the not-lit reading pane made the nook seem shinier and honestly, a little gaudier.

• The navigation is different. On the nook, you navigate around using the touchscreen and only use the buttons on the side to turn a page. On the Kindle, you use the little joystick to navigate around and two extra buttons on the side of the device. Again, I think this is personal preference. I expect a lot of people would prefer the touchscreen. I didn't necessarily find one easier to use than the other.

I took both the nook and the Kindle to my in-laws' house over the weekend and passed them around an extended family gathering. There was a lot of discussion about which would be better for different individuals. Someone pointed out that if you have arthritis, the toggle joystick on the Kindle is hard to use. Some people liked the tie-in between the nook and the Barnes & Noble stores (apparently if you carrry the nook into the store, the B&N wifi will recognize your nook and send you special deals -- I have not tried this yet, so I don't know if it works). B&N clearly has a brick-and-mortar presence, so I'll be watching with interest to see if they are able to integrate the nook and the stores in a real way in the next few years. I think it would be incredibly smart if they could. Bookstores aren't necessarily going away, but to ignore e-readers would be very, very dumb.

Outcome? I think any serious reader should have either a Kindle or a nook, because it's so easy to read on them, it's so easy to get the books instantly and it's so easy to screen an author at a lower price with less to store if it turns out you hate the book. And if you like the book, guess what? You can still buy it and put it on your bookshelf forever more. Which I still totally do. I don't think video killed the radio star at all. I think the e-reader and print books complement each other more than compete with each other.

I'm sure there are other differences between the two devices that I didn't notice, but I looked at the nook and Kindle from the perspective of my readers, not a technical specifications specialist. 

SO! Who wants a nook? I'm holding a giveaway through the end of March. Comment as much as you like, and I will use a randomizer to pick the winning comment number on March 31. Good luck!

UPDATED 3/17: I ran into my first problem with the nook. Although I was able to successfully download and read a book when I bought it from the device itself, when I bought a book from bn.com, it was a struggle to download it to the nook. Now every time I try to open it, the device freezes. I've e-mailed customer service and did disclose that I'm reviewing the nook and their response to this problem. I'm not necessarily upset about the glitch -- I've never met an electronic device that doesn't glitch from time to time -- but I am interested in whether or not I'm able to resolve the problem in a fair amount of time. Stay tuned and keep commenting to win!

UPDATED 3/17: I figured out how to fix the freezing issue. I think the file got corrupted during download. I used the USB cord to attach the nook to my computer, opened up the nook files, deleted the book that was freezing (I could not figure out how to delete it on the nook itself), disconnected the nook from the computer, and downloaded the book again from my digital library on BN.com. This was after several hard restarts. The book now opens. To figure this out, I had to read the instruction manual and also rely on my own technical knowledge, which is more savvy than average. Since all the other free e-books I downloaded yesterday opened just fine, it became obvious the problem was with the book file, not the nook itself. However, I think the typical user would still be waiting for customer support. I invested about an hour in figuring out the problem on my own. My assessment: The nook is not that complicated technically if you have a general knowledge of devices that sync. All's well that end's well. Also? Stuff happens.

UPDATED 3/17: It only took about five hours to get a response from Barnes & Noble customer service. A real person advised me to call the 800 number and included it. Honestly, considering my workaround, I think talking to someone would be the best solution, as well, because I had to try a few things before I hit on it. Pleased with the customer service.

Updated 3/31: We have a winner!

Care.com

My beloved and I don't get out much without the little angel and with each other.  This is because we only know one babysitter.  She rocks, the little angel loves her, but she's just a bit younger than me and a PhD student, making her $10/hour fee a little steep.  Totally worth it, but we're also looking for a younger, cheaper alternative when she's busy with adult life.

Enter Care.com.  I got a reviewer's three-month-upgraded subscription from MomCentral Consulting.  I admit I procrastinated a bit (which is why I can never find a sitter) and just got in there yesterday, right before I had to post my review. I entered a job, but nobody has begged to babysit for me yet.  We'll see.  I did, however, find five or six people in my area who looked nonthreatening and friendly, had background checks posted online and references, in some cases.  I was saddened to see most of the references were from their family and friends (I think references should be limited to those for whom they've actually worked, quite frankly - this is a job situation, after all, and whose parent is going to write, "My daughter sucks with kids!" on a babysitting site?).  However, I loved how they posted their schedules, had checkboxes for whether they'd do light housecleaning or crafts or what have you, had checkboxes for whether or not they would supervise swimming or knew CPR. I really, really liked this site.

I also liked that it was populated, as a lot of new sites that we're asked to review are not, making it hard to judge whether or not that service would be valuable.

The site also has opportunities to post jobs for tutoring, pet care and elder care.  We've needed an organized site like this for quite a while. I think it's a FABULOUS idea, and the usability of the site is good. A lot of thought has clearly gone into this site, from the private message boards to the job postings. I'm really impressed.  And I hope to find another babysitter soon, so my beloved and I can talk about something other than monsters biting toes in the very near future.

Would you like the same deal that I got?  OF COURSE YOU WOULD.  Click here to find your ultimate sitter/eldercare helper/tutor/pet lover for a free three months!