January 23, 2003
xfdws PDA-WAY-TO-KEEP sked Emerging Markets Datafile
January 23, 2003
NEW STRAITS TIMES-MANAGEMENT TIMES
MALAYSIA
ENGLISH
PDA way to keep children occupied, NEW STRAITS TIMES-MANAGEMENT
TIMES
Hussin Khan Yusoff Khan
ASIA WorldSources, Inc. 322 MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE 2ND FLOOR, NE
WASHINGTON, DC 20002 COPYRIGHT 2003 BY WORLDSOURCES, INC., A JOINT
VENTURE OF FDCH e-Media, INC. AND WORLD TIMES, INC. NO PORTION OF
THE MATERIALS CONTAINED HEREIN MAY BE USED IN ANY MEDIA WITHOUT
ATTRIBUTION TO WORLDSOURCES, INC.
YOUR toddler is bouncing wildly in the restaurant. Your
six-year-old won't leave you alone even for six seconds while you
are trying to talk on the phone. At times like these, even the most
patient parents may need to reach for some Panadols.
Reach your personal digital assistant (PDA) instead. You may
think of it as little more than a fancy organiser, but it's also an
excellent babysitter. Whether you have toddlers, teens or a couple
in between, you'll find software that's just right for keeping the
kids occupied.
We're talking about electronic books (e-books), educational
programs, paint programs, music, games and more, all of it
affordable, effective and convenient.
Not wild about putting your precious PDA into the hands of a
youngster?
We hear you. The thought of sticky fingers touching the screen
or a dunk into a glass of milk may make you think twice. And make
no mistake-there's a bit of risk in what we propose. That's why we
have devoted some space to the subject of case, which can help keep
your hardware safe from unintentionally abusive kids.
Your PDA can be more than just a source of entertainment for the
kids-it can also be an invaluable reference tool for you. For
instance, Web sites like 123Child.com and Parents.com are home to
dozens of feature articles covering everything from entertaining a
toddler to tantrum prevention. Just copy and paste them into a note
or memo and you'll always have them in-hand.
Book smarts. A small PDA screen can't take the place of a large,
colourful, tactile book page, but it's interesting to see what it
can do.
We found a smattering of e-books designed specifically for kids.
For Palm-powered handhelds, Children Illustrated eTales
(www.ddhsoftware.com) is a collection of four illustrated,
toddler-oriented stories priced at about RM40. Pocket PC users can
visit the Children section at PDA Bookstore (www.pdabookstore.com),
home to three illustrated books-one each for different age groups
(three to six, seven to 10 and eight to 12).
Looking for freebies? You'll find them at Memoware
(www.memoware.com) which has several hundred classic titles Paint
and scribble. Though some airlines may provide crayons and paper
menus for kids to doodle, not many dentists, clinics nor
restaurants do. Fortunately, you can turn your PDA into a small but
versatile canvas for colouring, scribbling, even a little
painting-and there's not lick of clean-up required.
Many Palm and Pocket PC handhelds have basic scratchpad built
in. On the Palm m100/500 or even the Tungsten T, the application is
Note Pad. On the Pocket PC devices, simply select the New menu in
the menu bar, then tap Note. But these applets aren't much fun for
the budding artists as they lack any tools to stimulate creativity.
For instance, one of our favourites for Palm handhelds is Funny
Faces (adlsoftware.homestead.com/index.html), which supplies the
outlines of various faces, allowing kids to draw in the eyes, mouth
and so on. Best of all, it's free.
There are more paint programs such as GrayPaint
(www.palmgear.com) for monochrome PDAs, TealPaint
(www.tealpoint.com) for the Palm OS and Pocket Artist
(www.conduits.com), Pocket Sketch (www.gonna-soft.com) designed for
the Pocket PC handhelds. We recommend applying a screen-protector
to protect the PDA screen.
Music-to-go. You can load some children tunes into your handheld
PC for easy listening just about anywhere. All Pocket PC handhelds
and most Sony Clie models have support for MP3 playback. All you
need to do is ``rip'' the songs from the kids' favourite CDs and
convert them into MP3 format.
Copyright 2003 NEW STRAITS TIMES-MANAGEMENT TIMES all rights reserved as distributed by WorldSources, Inc.
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