Fun IPad Apps and Games for Kids

I love having an IPad and I love browsing around the AppStore to find some apps and games made specifically for the IPad.  The toughest thing is finding a fun game that the kids will I will both love.  I did find a few, but some aren’t actually games, but fun educational toys that are fun to play as well.

One thing to note, yes, many of the Apps are free, but also many contain in-game purchases.  Make sure you turn of in-app purchases (unless you don’t mind the kids maxing out your credit card)

1. BattleNations – Totally fun game to play with the kids.  What I find great about it is that you do a few plays, then come back later to see how much progress your land has made.  Yes, you do get to battle enemies with guns, but there are no actual bullets or grenades fired directly, and most of all, no blood.  Which makes it kid friendly for me.  Plus the graphics a totally crisp and incredible.  You can tell this fun game was made specifically for the IPad. Battle Nations – Z2Live, Inc
2. Doodle Buddy – Totally fun painting program for kids.  My 3 year old has a blast with it.  Comes complete with “rubber stamps” that also make noises when you draw with them.  You can even import your existing photos too!  Perfect for drawing mustaches on faces.  This is also a great app to use a stylus with (I have a RocketFish stylus).  You can save your creations and even post them to Facebook.  One of the best Free Apps out there in my opinion!  Doodle Buddy – Paint, Draw, Scribble, Sketch – It’s Addictive! – Pinger, Inc.
3. Toontastic – Hands down one of THE BEST free apps for the IPad.  This program helps teach kids the basics of cartoon story movie making.   The animations are top notch, so are the graphics and the ease of use.  This app is soo much fun.  My son and I spent hours making silly pirate cartoons.  It is amazing that the quality rivals that of anything coming out of the real cartoon shops.  Very cool and fun indeed. Toontastic – Launchpad Toys
4. Glee Karaoke – Ok, I must admit…I’ve never watched the show.  Yes, it is hard to believe, but it is true.  So I was not biased in downloading this app.  There was only one reason why I downloaded this app…Autotune.  The technology that so many horrible singers use today to keep their flat singing in check.  This games lets you sing along to tunes, but the key is to try to stay as close to the real notes as possible.  If you can’t do it, well, don’t worry, Mr Autotune will fix it.  There are limited things you can do in the free version, but it is still lots of fun with the kids. Glee Karaoke – Smule

If you have any more IPad games or apps for kids (that are also free), please send them along. I would love to update this list in the future!

Finding an XPath to capture text without tags

I was having a hard time grabbing some text using XPath. The HTML in particular looked like this:

<br /><div>I like twertles</div>
<div>Funky
   <br/></div> <p><code>This is my page: 345</code></p><p><code>
     <br />Last Downloaded: 10/13/2011</code></p>

All I wanted to snag was the date of the last download. As you can see, there is no obvious path to that value. BUT, what I do know is that there is a colon in there someplace. This looked like a job for substring-after. I was able to grab this value with this simple XPath:

substring-after(//div[2]/text()[3],':')

Funny Chats

Why Pay for inbound links? Because it works.

Inbound links play a giant role in how Google ranks your pages and sites.  Sometimes it is quite difficult to get those inbound links organically.  You could always pay an agency to buy links for you, or you could search the web and find relevant places to purchase your inbound links.

I’ve recently been reading lots about a new product that supposedly does all the grunt work for you when inbound link hunting.  The product is called Link Emperor and apparently is does some amazing things. 

My friend is using Link Emperor to increase relevant traffic to their low-level feeder sites and it is proving to be very successful.  Awesome results as he says.  Essentially he has cut down his link buying bill by over 60%.

From what I am told (these are his words, not mine), Link Emperor is like owning your own team of outsourced or in-house employees doing all of the link building dirty work. 

The Link Emperor does the following:

• Manages Thousands of Keywords
• Regularly Builds links to ALL of them
• Prioritizes Links based on multiple metrics
• Hands-free, 100% automated (once set up of course!)
• Hosted Online – which means you don’t have to screw around with getting it installed yourself on your PC.

So pretty much this product does what I do for myself and clients, manually. 

The best part about it is that they are offering a 3 day free trial, plus a 30 day money back guarantee.  I suggestion checking Link Emperor.  3 days should be enough for you to decide if this is the right tool for you.  If you are spending over $500 a month buying links, then this is a no-brainer! 

Joe Paterno’s Statue