Going Wild with Next

by on May 18, 2013

go wild with next at london zooA month or so ago, during the Easter holidays the geekdaughter and I were invited by Next to view their Spring/Summer 2013 collection. At London Zoo no less! This gave us the chance for a number of “firsts” for the geekdaughter – first long train ride, first trip to London and first taxi ride to name but a few.

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nook hd home screen with google playI was lent a Barnes and Noble nook HD tablet to review a couple of months ago, and subsequently given a nook HD+ to use. You can read my full thoughts on the tablet in my nook HD review, but in summary I thought it was a good tablet, excellent hardware for the price, the best profile system I’ve seen for multiple users, but let down by the limited app selection since Barnes and Noble were running their own (small) App Store.

So I must confess the nook HD+ has been languishing on the side in the kitchen whilst I’ve stuck with my iPad mini, and the the geekdaddy has been using his Nexus 7.

Well, last Friday that all changed. I think the nook HD just became the best Android tablet on the market today…

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Her stage debut

by on May 6, 2013

her stage debut - little ballet girlThe geekdaughter made her stage debut last weekend. She started attending ballet classes in September, and this was her first ever dance school show. Dance was a big part of my childhood – I had ballet and tap lessons from the age of 4 until I left home to go to University at 18 – and the annual dance show was a big part of that, so it felt like a rite of passage to take my daughter to perform in her first show.

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Future recording star?

by on April 25, 2013

future recording starIf you’re a long-term reader of my blog you’ll know I love audio as a format for communicating. I have my own personal audio blog as well as producing what I call my “enhanced audio versions” of blog posts that appear here. I don’t read books in the traditional fashion, I listen to talking books. My commute is my time to listen to audio content – books, podcasts or friends’ audioboos. But until recently I had no idea my little girl was going to show herself as a future recording star…

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Center Parcs April Challenge – let’s get growing!

April 22, 2013

Tweet They’re an optimistic bunch, the Center Parcs PR team. When I became a member of the Tots100 Center Parcs Blogger family they warned me that I’d need to participate in some of their monthly challenges. “Don’t worry!” they said. “They’ll be fun!” they said. “Nothing too taxing, just stuff you’d be doing anyway…” To be [...]

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The end of naps

April 19, 2013

Tweet It seems that the geekson has reached the stage where he no longer wants an afternoon nap. This has been coming for a while – for the last few months he’s told me he doesn’t want a sleep each time I start to put him down after lunch, although as soon as I got [...]

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Protect your WordPress blog from hackers

April 15, 2013

Tweet WordPress is a hugely popular blogging platform – according to a study undertaken last year almost half of the top 100 blogs worldwide are hosted on WordPress. Being such a widely used platform it is also a prime target for hackers. For example, right now there is a huge automated hacking attack running which [...]

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Five apps that encourage unplugged play

April 10, 2013

Tweet Kids love mobile technology don’t they? I don’t think I’ve ever met a child that didn’t want to get their hands on my iPad, and what’s more impressive is that these devices are so intuitive to use that kids get the hang of how to operate them really quickly. And that’s when the conflicts [...]

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A trip to see The Lion King on stage

April 6, 2013

Tweet When I first heard that the musical version of The Lion King was coming to Manchester, I knew I wanted to take the geekdaughter to see it. I love musical theatre and I’m a big fan of the Disney musical films, which I’ve been enjoying rediscovering with the kids. Since it opened on Broadway [...]

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Easter – geek style

March 31, 2013

Tweet Last night as I was putting the geekdaughter to bed, she looked up and me and said “Is it Easter tomorrow Mummy?” “Yes my darling” I said. “Are we having an Easter Egg Hunt?”

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Hands on with the Panasonic Combination Oven (review)

March 26, 2013

Tweet As one of Panasonic’s Intelligent Living Mums I’ve had the opportunity to visit Panasonic HQ and see their rather fabulous “ideas kitchen”. I’ve also had the chance to test out a few of their products, which is always fun. A couple of months ago a huge box was delivered to the geek residence. A [...]

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Center Parcs March Challenge – Chocolate!

March 24, 2013

Tweet This month the members of the Tots100 Center Parcs Blogger family have been asked to turn our hands to all things sweet, particularly chocolate, by getting creative in the kitchen and sharing our best recipes on our blogs. Now I must confess that whilst we in the geek family are partial to a bit [...]

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Hands on with the Acer Iconia B1 (review)

March 18, 2013

Tweet Here in the geek family we love our tablets. We’ve seen first hand the educational benefits these devices can have, and we’re on a constant mission to find good quality, cost effective family tablets. iPads are lovely, but very expensive, and Android based tablets like the Nexus 7 are starting to prove really viable [...]

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Google Reader Alternatives for iOS Users

March 15, 2013

Tweet On Wednesday Google announced on their official blog that they would be shutting down Google Reader on July 1st 2013. For those of you who have never heard of it Google Reader provides a way to read all your favourite content in one single place, and it’s frequently used by those of us who [...]

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