The new hook

The kids are now hooked to "Cut the Rope"..

It is amazing how they pick up this game step by step.




It is pretty tricky and one has to have a good intuition for predicting trajectories to play this..

Currently restricted to 15 minutes maximum play time per day on weekdays and 30 minutes on weekends..


.

How does one?

Go make an electronic story book in app form for a Tamizh story?

Would like to try my hand at making an animated story which my grandmother told us, which was told to her by her grandmother..

That means this story is at least a 100+ years old, probably older

The story is about an "eee" ஈ (housefly) who forgot its name and went asking different people/things if they knew its name.

Any suggestions for software, methods etc. greatly appreciated!

Would like to make this a weekend project of sorts.

While in grad school I helped create many educational self teach programs using a software called "Authorware Pro" on a Macintosh Quadra (yep, that was ages ago.. before internet days) and it was given good reviews by many students who used it.

It was difficult even to find these on google search and some of the pages open only on Internet Explorer and don't open on firefox. Was also sad to see my name not on the credits for some stuff I really put my heart and soul into, but I digress.. It does not matter now.

Things have come a long way since those days, what with Flash and Youtube and of course the internet!

Hopefully you will see an animated story titled:

"Kozhu Kozhu Kanne, en peyar enna?"

கொழு கொழு கன்னே, என் பெயர் என்ன?

(plump plump calf, what is my name?)

and the calf says "Theriyaadhe!" தெரியாதே ! (I don't know!)

and off he goes to the next person with the same answer till he finally gets his name!

Jr. and the little one absolutely love this story when my mom narrates it to them and my nephew thinks I am the greatest story teller in the world for my embellished version of this story!

This old dog is up for some new tricks!

So, please, point me toward the right tools..



.

Waking up .. at the right moment

Today has been a great day.

No, the wife is in her usual weekend clean up mode and the kids are doing the same things they do..

But there has been a marked change in me. No grumpiness for not being able to catch up on lost sleep from the last week.

There has been a positive attitude to things.

The last week has been very tiring with 2 AM phone calls and lots of work.

Decided to download an iPhone App called "sleep cycle".

This app uses the accelerometer in the iPhone, figures out when you are in deep sleep and when you are rolling around in the bed and times it so that you wake up when you are in deep sleep. The alarm sounds are wonderful and they gradually fade in to high volume.

As an added bonus, it keeps all the statistics and allows you to send the graphs to your gmail account!




In all my life no one has ever done a wonderful job of waking me up like this!

Thank you Sleep Cycle!

Thank you iPhone 3GS !

Thank you Technology !


Now all those <6 hour sleep nights are not going to be that bad after all!


There are other reasons for the exuberance.. but that will be explained later..


.

iPhone help request

Is there a way to change the order in which the apps appear in the iPhone?

It shows up in chronological downloaded order in the phone
Shows up alphabetically on the Laptop before you sync to the phone

Can I organize my apps on the first page, jr.'s apps on 2nd page, the little one's apps on third page etc. etc.?

As you have probably figured out by now, the kids are running amok on the itunes store.. they know that daddy will only download free apps.

you should see their marketing pitch.

Daddy, download this. It says "FREE"!

LO: can you also download that one. I like that game.

Me: you just saw a small box with a picture of a monkey on it. you don't even know what that game is. how can you like it already?

LO: I just like it, that is all!

Me: It is not free. It costs money

Jr: how much money?

Me: It costs a dollar okay. We don't know if the game is any good. So we are not buying anything if we have to pay money.

Jr: you are lying. you said one dollar. It says only point ninety nine! There is no dollar

Me: !!!!!!! (noothukku oru rooba kamminnu Vivek comedy pannuvaan.. adhu real lifelaye comedy ayiduththe!!! non Tamlish folks, please excuse me.. that cannot be translated)

We now pretty much have the top 25 free toddler games, kids games all downloaded. We also have a six year old who can go to youtube directly from the iPhone and watch videos!

so, once again.. a request to those i-wizards out there.. if there is a way to rearrange the apps, please let me know...


.