Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Cast of Dads: Podcast #10 – “Kids Online & How To Do It Right”

by Michael Sheehan on February 23, 2010

in Family, General, Opinion, parenting, PodCast, Safety, Security, social media, social networking

In this tenth episode of the Cast of Dads podcast we discussed a very important topic that all parents should seriously be considering, that of educating your children about the various social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. This is particularly personal to me as my oldest daughter (a “tweenager” – pre-teen) is starting to ask more about various social networking sites, AND, has pointed out that many of her 5th grade friends are already on Facebook. This is even despite the fact that Facebook and other social networking sites state that users MUST be 13 years old or older to have an account. Children are introduced to other types of social networks at a very early age through virtual worlds like Webkins or Club Penguin so it is only natural that the more “adult” oriented “worlds” like Facebook or MySpace have a strong appeal. They want to “grow up” fast, but this is truly a scary concept, especially if you allow your children to do this without some sort of education or monitoring from the parents’ side.

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However, before I go into the details of the contents of this important podcast, I wanted to mention an announcement that appears at the beginning of the podcast. It’s a promo for The Boom Effect which is an auction and fundraiser for another dad and one of the founding members of the podcasting community, Tee Morris, who recently lost his wife and will be raising his little girl known as “Sonic Boom” on his own. We encourage you to donate, spread awareness and help in any way you can for this important cause. So far, over $20,000 has been raised for this cause!

In this 10th episode of Cast of Dads, we really dive into our thoughts on how to educate and protect your kids in their online adventures. This podcast isn’t just for the dads, it is for ALL parents out there who are struggling with how to work with their children and their online actions. Topics covered include:

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How Can Such a Small Speaker Boom so HUGE? Reviewing the iLive IT319B 3.1 Speaker

by Michael Sheehan on February 23, 2010

in Consumer Electronics, Gadgets, General, Hardware, iPhone, Review, video

When I first hooked up the iLive IT319B 3.1 Channel Home Music System, plugged in my iPod and turned up the volume a bit, I was literally floored at how LOUD it was! Event at 1/3 volume (does it go up to 11?) it was shaking the room with thunderous bass and crisp and clean highs. Turning it up a bit more to almost painful volumes produced barely any distortion (that I could measure with my untrained ear), yet still had more power ready to throw out into the environment. Instantly, my kitchen table (where I do many video product reviews and testing) became a disco as my kids rushed in from their rooms to find out where the party was.

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Seriously though, I have tested a variety of iPod sound systems, most of them the shelf top type, and the iLive was probably the loudest and most powerful one of them all. And it’s not just a speaker for an iPod. It has a built-in DVD play and many connectivity options to make it potentially your primary speaker system (plus DVD player) for any home entertainment system.

Highlights of Features

While I only tested the IT319B for a few hours and did not run it through all of the options under the hood, I did perform a fairly close inspection and some rudimentary iPod connectivity tests. Some highlights of its capabilities that I found important are:

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