Teacher gifts: Have a sweet summer!

To show our appreciation to the people who helped Ranger have great first year in Kindergarten, I printed some clip art on card stock so Ranger could make thank you notes.

As with our Thanks-a-latte teacher gifts, we tucked in a small value gift card. This time we chose Sonic (a modern take on the ice-cream drive-in complete with roller-skating car hops) because of its summery menu.

Ranger wanted to give thank yous to his "specials" instructors (art, music, library) as well as his classroom teacher, aide, and bus driver. When I thought about it, those people will probably be a part of his education for years to come and they probably aren't often remembered at holidays or the end of the year. He ended up writing the same simple message over a half dozen times and we ran out of time to color the all the cards.

Next year I will print the line art first, then have him write his message and color the card. Then I'll scan and print the completed card for all the recipients which he can personalize and sign individually.

I also wrote a note in the cover of each card to let the teacher know how much Jim and I appreciated his or her efforts during the year.

I hope they like ice cream.

***Baby Toolkit is a free-flowing dialogue on parenting with a couple of Midwestern geeks. We're Amazon affiliates, so if you make purchases through our Amazon links, you are contributing to our quest to build a giant baking soda volcano (or some other delinquent nonsense).

All Bottled Up: Safe Battery Disposal

With growing concern about button battery ingestion, I thought I would post this incredibly obvious simple hack for battery disposal.

While this solution doesn't address the problems of button batteries while in use in everything from greeting cards to remote controls to toys, it does keep the old batteries corralled until they can be recycled or disposed of properly (call your local solid waste district or trash service for more information).

We drop our dead batteries in a child-safe vitamin container, and put the containers out of the kids' reach. I relabel the containers solely for my own amusement (Do you do this? Maybe we should start a Pinterest board).

The filled container is deposited at our wonderful local recycling facility (which accepts a broad array of batteries in a co-mingled bin).

Not only does this hack keep our batteries away from our little kids and out of the solid waste stream, it also means that batteries outside the bottles are easily identifiable as fresh.


***Baby Toolkit is a frontrunner in observing the obvious and the ridiculous in parenting. It is written by two geek parents presently enjoying a Fall-like Spring somewhere slightly above the Mason-Dixon line. Although we make no links in this post, we are admittedly Amazon affiliates, so a portion of purchases made through our Amazon links fuel our pipe dreams of owning a bathtub with a water slide (thank you!). Our actual voices (and sordid secrets) can be heard on our board gaming podcast GreatBigTable.com.

Now in Stereo*: We Launch a Boardgames Podcast at GreatBigTable.com

Jim and I have been talking about boardgames for decades, so it's about time we start inviting others to the conversation. While we'll still post written reviews on boardgames here on Baby Toolkit, we just issued our first episode of Great Big Table- our podcast about introducing more people to the boardgaming hobby.  We'll definitely be discussing gaming with our kids and families there, but we're also talking about some community gaming we do with friends, family, coworkers, and at church.

If you have gaming group or are thinking about starting one, please join in this new conversation. If you just want to hear how goony we sound when speaking or some of the conversational torment we like to dish out, well, there's that too.

The podcasts are free and can be individually downloaded  or by subscription. We're not on iTunes yet, but that should happen shortly.

If you have better things to do with your time, we aren't surprised, but sometimes you need to egregiously waste time to really see its value.

*Actually, I think it's mono, so the listener on the left has identical mental loss to the listener seated on the right.

***Baby Toolkit remains the written meanderings of a couple geek parents. Not only are we affiliated with GreatBigTable.com, we ARE GreatBigTable.com.

Smart phone and tablet

An industry official has stated that smart phone and tablet users in the UK have been making the most of mobile broadband services through downloads.

It has been claimed that the huge demand in mobile downloads amongst users of smart phones and tablets has taken mobile broadband providers by surprise, with many stating that they were not expecting such demand for services in such as short period of time. The availability and popularity of smart phones and tablets has resulted in more and more people using mobile broadband services, and this demand has surprised the industry.

Over the past twelve months the demand for mobile broadband is said to have soared as more people carry out downloads on their tablets and their smart phones. The major growth over the past twelve months was unexpected according to one industry official. He stated: “I think the providers have been slightly surprised by the amount of bandwidth that people are consuming and we’ve seen that change over the past year in terms of terms and conditions and the tariffs.”

The sale of smart phone and tablets is set to continue increased, with more and more people getting their hands on the latest smart phone or one of the tablets on the market. The level of streaming media will also increased in line with this, which will see the demand for mobile broadband continue to increase.

This could spell bad news for mobile broadband users who rely on these services for business, as the increase in demand means that capacity will be squeezed further, and until 4G services are rolled out this could cause a lower quality service for users. Source

Replacing paper with tablets -paperless, save money, countless resources

A month ago, Scarborough councillors voted to go the paperless route after much deliberation. As a result of their discussions, a proposal to provide fifty councillors from the east coast of Yorkshire with their own tablets for official use was drafted and subsequently submitted. Numerous studies have found that going paperless will save money and countless resources in the long run.

Now a decision has been reached, and the councillors have voted in favor of getting the tablets.

The Counservative-led council asserted that replacing paper with tablets would save £10,000 a year in printing and postage costs. Members also insisted that having these devices would be cheaper than getting laptop or desktop PCs which will cost about £12,000 per year.

However, not everyone agreed with the decision. Independent councillor Janet Jefferson, who voted against the plan, said: “I don’t think public money should be used in this way. We all have our own computers or are facilitated by the council with a laptop. I think if we do find we want them we can buy them ourselves.”

Ian Anderson, who is Scarborough Borough Council’s head of legal and support services, stated: “The council is always looking at providing efficient methods of communication. The provision of this equipment will radically cut down on the production of paper agendas, which includes printing and postage costs, and will provide a more efficient way for councillors to work.” Source

Sopan Santun Menggunakan iPad

Cobalah bersikap cuek. Anggap saja menggunakan iPad di kendaraan umum seperti busway merupakan kewajaran. Tapi tentu saja jangan berlebihan ketika menggunakan iPad.

Mengecek email di iPad tentu hal wajar. Tapi hindari teriak histeris ketika asyik bermain “Angry Birds” di dalam busway. Tentu itu akan membuat tatapan ke Anda semakin bertambah, tentu saja tatapan sinis yang berpikir Anda norak.

Jangan sombong ketika ada orang yang mencoba bertanya kepada Anda mengenai tablet yang Anda gunakan. Apalagi jika Anda menggunakan tablet selain iPad, yang tidak biasa terlihat. Tentu pertanyaan mengenai harga dan spesifikasi dari orang-orang yang penasaran akan wajar kalau terlontar dari orang di samping Anda.

Masih ingat kejadian Arifinto, anggota DPR dari Partai Keadilan Sejahtera. Kalau ingat, tentu Anda tidak ingin seperti Arifinto yang tertangkap kamera sedang melihat situs porno saat rapat paripurna DPR dari tabletnya.

Karena itu, penting juga bagi Anda untuk sekali-kali membersihkan history. Jadi, Anda akan terhindar membuka situs yang tidak layak dibuka di tempat umum, yang tentu saja akan memalukan Anda.

Layar tablet Anda yang menyala di ruangan gelap tentu akan mengganggu orang lain. Cobalah tahan kebiasaan mengecek tablet, setidaknya selama 120 menit ke depan. Belajarlah menghargai orang lain dibanding menuruti kebiasaan Anda.

Tablet seperti iPad tentu bisa membantu Anda dalam melakukan presentasi di rapat. Tapi, jika Anda asyik bermain iPad dan tidak mendengarkan orang yang sedang berbicara di hadapan Anda, tentu itu bukan sikap yang layak dan dianggap tidak sopan. Source

ASUS Sleeve Case for ASUS Eee Pad TF101 Transformer

ASUS Sleeve Case for ASUS Eee Pad TF101 Transformer (TF101 Sleeve) source