BlackBerry Z10 Review

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I am a member of Crowdtap and received a BlackBerry Z10 to review and share my honest opinion of. 

If you’ve been into smart phones and it’s ever-changing and evolving technologies, you undoubtedly know the name Blackberry. Blackberry was the flagship; the best and brightest; the top of the line (no disrespect to all of you palm users out there. Those were awesome devices as well.) For years RIM’s Blackberries were the go to device for mobile internet searching, texting, mobile email, tethering, you name it! It took the PDA, combined it with a pager, smashed it into a cell phone, and then integrated business-focused features into the software to make it the go to device for many professionals. If you didn’t have one, you wanted one. And if you didn’t want one, you had completely no idea what you were missing. The world of communication was changing and Blackberries were on top of the world. That all changed, however, in 2007 when the Iphone first appeared. It changed even more when the first android phone hit the market in late 2008. Sure, there were still versions of the Blackberry on the market, but, the ease of the touchscreen, simple swipe gestures to navigate the Operating system, coupled with (what would replace “Program” in the English lexicon) “Apps”made us leave the stickiness of the roller/track ball for a more personal and new world of mobile gaming and social interaction. Fast forward to 2013, and RIM (the company that makes blackberry) is no more… well not no more, but renamed BlackBerry.  The Blackberry has been redesigned with new software and features. The latest incarnation is the New Blackberry Z10!

Below are some of the features that I believe shoppers in the market for a new device will enjoy.

1.      Gesture-based navigation.  There are few physical and no navigation buttons on this device.  The only physical buttons are the Volume up, Volume down, and power.  There’s also a smaller button in between the volume that activates the voice commands.    This does take a bit of getting used to, but it is such a cleaner experience navigating the phone.  Swipe up from the bottom to unlock the phone when in sleep mode or to exit any app.  Swipe down from the top to get to your setting shade.  Swipe down from within an app to reveal menu options (if any).  Swipe to the right to get to the message hub.  It’s extremely clean, easy and simple to use.

2.      The Interface is simple.  The BB10 OS for me exists in two sections: The Message Hub and the Apps.  It really is that simple.  No extra complications.   This makes it extremely easy to follow and navigate as well.

3.      The Keyboard is fantastic!  The predictive text suggestions that the keyboard provides is amazing.  Since this does take a little time to get used to, it will be different at first.  But give it a few texts, and you’ll be raving about it.  Text, email, whatsapp, tweet, etc. in half the time.  A simple explanation is that the keyboard will offer potential word suggestions based on your key presses.  It will offer each word of the next letter in the word.  For example, if you press “w”, over the “I” on the keyboard will be “will”, over the “h” will be “what”, over the “e” will be “we”, etc.  It will also track your frequently used phrases.  So instead of typing out “What time are you coming home?” letter by letter.  You press the letter “w”, and then from there (based on the predictive text suggestions) swipe, swipe,  swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe.  That’s it!  Like I said, it’ll take a little getting used to, but, once you do, you’ll love it!

4.      Camera Features are pretty cool.  The camera takes pretty good photos, and there are some cool lenses and effects to choose from during photo editing.  There is also a feature called time shift that allows you to take multiple photos back to back.  After the photos are taken, you can detect faces, click them and scroll through to select the best one.  It works on group shots too.  So you can time shift each individual face to create the best possible photo.  Like I said, pretty cool!

5.      The Message Hub is my favorite feature.  If you have ever owned a Blackberry previously, then you know how easy it was to sync multiple email accounts.  It’s even easier now.  All email accounts, text messages, tweets, Facebook updates, LinkedIn messages, etc. can be set up in the message hub.  Also, notifications from your apps will show up there as well.  You can choose the view you wish to have or have them all appear as an integrated group.  You will never miss an important message or update again.  From the lock screen you will see without having to unlock the phone if you have new messages from twitter, Facebook, email, or notifications from other apps like USA today, whatsapp, or Pulse.  I LOVED this feature.

All in all, this is a fantastic device for Blackberry to reintroduce themselves into the smart phone market.  If you’re a technophile and you need the latest and greatest, this phone will not blow you away.  However, if you’re like me, and need a device that is easy to use, spec’d to compete with its contemporaries, and does everything a smart phone is supposed to do without me, the user, having to do a ton of tweaks and setup, then the Blackberry Z10 is a fantastic device for you.  The more we used it over here at the Houseful, the more we fell in love with it.  The Blackberry Z10 gets two thumbs up from me!

Combat Brain Drain w/V-Tech InnoTab 2S

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Good afternoon lovelies! I hope that you are finding our day of giveaways to your liking. Up next is my review and giveaway of the VTech InnoTab 2S. I received a complimentary VTech InnoTab 2S to test and review. No monetary compensation was given.  All thoughts are 100% mine

VTech Innotab 2S

Summer Brain Drain occurs when students are away from the structured learning environment of a classroom and lose the months of knowledge they gained during the school year because they are not regularly exercising their brains. According to research from the Center for Summer Learning at Johns Hopkins University, students typically lose one to two months of reading and math skills during the summer break. But there are many things parents can do to help keep children’s minds active during the summer months and avoid these setbacks. Continue reading →

Big Splash Adventure Indoor Water Park: Keep Cool This Summer!

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Big Splash Adventure is a 40,000 square foot indoor water park-complete with a rare retractable roof-located in French Lick Indiana, and adventure unlike any other!  Big Splash has many thrilling, twisting, and exciting water slides and a whirling turbo bowl! The interactive Buccaneer Bay thrills and excites children of all ages—especially the 1000 gallon dumping bucket! The Splish Splash pool is perfect for the youngest of adventurers, and the activity center—complete with water basketball and other fun activities—is great for older kids. For adults, there is the adults only Palm Cove hot tub, and don’t forget the Lost River! The river flows lazily throughout the park.

Try it out this summer with any of these amazing offers:

Big Splash offer #1: $4 off day pass admission.  Offer would be good for 4 people, total of $8 value.  

Big Splash offer #2: $20 off overnight stay.

Shotz Coupon offer: $1 off Lazer Tag or Miniature Golf.  Offer valid for 4 people, total of $4 value.  Only 1 offer per family

French Lick Ziplines offer: $10 off Zipline purchase.  Offer would be good for 4 people, total of $40 value.  This would be good for zipline purchase ONLY.

All offers expire March 16, 2014 and black out dates may apply.

Little Pim Review and Giveaway

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Little Pim

Ever since the cellist was a little kid, Mr. Houseful and I have always wanted him to learn another language. We weren’t sure which one we wanted since he took Spanish in high school and I took French. Either way, we really dropped the ball with him (we’re still trying to weave it in there some where though) and now we’ll be trying again with the trifecta that is the ladybug, and the twizzlers. We were offered a chance to review Little Pim and I couldn’t wait!

I was contacted by Little Pim (no, not the panda) to test out one of their language CD’s on the little ones. I received the fifth dvd in the Spanish series – Happy, Sad, and Silly, which was probably a perfect one for us, since the kids really love pretending they are experiencing every emotion under the sun – ESPECIALLY crying. Days are super fun in our houseful. SUPER. FUN.

Little Pim Happy Sad Silly

Little Pim is a language program started in 2008 by Julia Pimsleur Levine when she wanted to teach her son French, and after researching, realized that the programs offered weren’t up to par. She then went on to create her own language program – and thus Little Pim was born! Pimsleur Levine grew up in a bilingual household and understood the benefit. Little Pim was created and went on to earn 24 consumer and educational awards!

The CD cover says that it’s best for children ages 0-6 years. With the twizzlers being 2 and the ladybug being 5, I figured that they would really be able to test the product as well as any adult could. I figure in order to give you a pretty accurate review, I would have to list the pros and cons in order.

Here we go:

Pros

  • The characters are colorful and lively – a Panda (Pim) and Elephant (Lola) and a Bobcat(Bob) who I thought was a leopard the entire dvd. I’m failing with my imagination
  • In addition to the animated characters, there are plenty of children to help show the emotions and actions in a realistic manner.
  • The episodes are short (five minutes long,) to help keep the sometimes short attention spans of kids
  • The repetition is there. After a while, I was able to remember key phrases.
  • It’s now available on Leap Frog, and iTunes
  • There are 12 different languages available

Cons

  • There aren’t really any. The dvd does exactly what it promises. There are subtitles so that adults can give translations, but that kind of defeats the purpose. 
  • For the first couple of viewings the trifecta would attempt to repeat the words in Spanish and then collapse into a fit of giggles or pretend sobs mimicking the children on the screen. My non-teaching personality is still trying to grasp how to effectively help in this arena, but I may just give up, and reinforce with the dvd’s while enrolling them in an immersion program.

Now that I have that all out of the way, I have an offer for you! Little Pim has graciously offered to give one of my readers a dvd in the language of their choice.

Enter through the rafflecopter below (the first entry is MANDATORY, and the comment MUST be left in the comments section of the blog) and cross your fingers! Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Chicago Sky Home Opener: As Told by Mr. Houseful

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ChicagoSkyWNBA

My first time going to a Chicago Sky game was supposed be waaay back when they played at the UIC Pavilion.  I had visions of checking the ladies out when we were trying to get our bearings from expansion to contender.  I’m a fan that way.  If given the chance, I want to start on the ground floor.  I watched, and rooted and kept up with the stats, but I never saw them in person.  I was really excited about our chances of doing something great in the WNBA when our best player was Candice Dupree. My excitement got kicked up a notch a couple years later when we drafted Sylvia Fowles.  I thought for certain I would have gone and attended at least 1 game then.  But procrastination and one thing or another always got in the way of my ability to go and watch.  I was a fan that never supported.  Don’t get me wrong, I bleed Orange and Blue (for both the BEARS and ILL INI), but I don’t go out buying their jerseys or going to games (well… maybe Illinois’ homecoming… I love my school).  I figured, this would be an opportunity to actually get to see the women I followed since they were in college.  I’m a huge women’s college basketball fan.  The ticket prices are more than reasonable, and, especially when they were playing at the Pavilion, I live extremely close.  Well, fast forward about 4 years, and throw in a few blog years for my wife, and I was presented an opportunity to see a game up close and personal.  Below is my experience. Continue reading →

Healthy, Fun, Food Options for Children #KidsLiveWell

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 I wrote this review while participating in a campaign for Mom Central Consulting on behalf of the National Restaurant Association. I attended a live event and received a gift bag and promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.”Kids Live Well In Chicago, a couple of weeks ago, McCormick Place was all abuzz about the NRA. No, not the guns and stuff, but the National Restaurant Association. This particular day, I was able to meet up with several other bloggers to see what the Kids LiveWell program had in store for us. Let me tell you, my five senses were delighted! The sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures were almost sensory overload. Continue reading →

Mrs. Houseful Learns About Corn & Soy

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Field Moms Badge

If you haven’t noticed, earlier this year, I stepped foot into the role of an Illinois Farm Families Field Mom (say that three times fast) so that I could get a chance to learn more about how the food in our state is grown and distributed to families like mine. While I’m still reeling from the Farm Mom’s field trip that I took two weeks ago, I’m learning that I am pretty secure in the choices that I make with my family. This particular field trip, we learned about how corn and soybeans are planted, harvested and what they are used for. Continue reading →

Old Navy Style Council: Active by Old Navy Review

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I am a member of the Old Navy Style Council for Crowdtap. I was offered two coupons to test out their activewear. All opinions are my own.

Old Navy Style Council Active WearHow cute am I?! (c) Samantha from The Peanuts Gang. Seriously, I think that Old Navy will forever be one of my favorite places to shop. Every time I go in there, I am always walking past their active wear and incredulously eyeing it. Basically willing it to call me over so that I can look cute while longing to work out like I should. Now I have no excuse. Functionality and fashion totally mesh in their Active by Old Navy line.   Continue reading →

My Houseful Hearts Cheerios

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This simple commercial from Cheerios has gotten a lot of attention. Most of it positive, but as with anything, idiots have come out.

People who don’t want to see bi-racial couples together.

People who don’t understand why the black guy couldn’t be married to a black woman, or why the white woman couldn’t be married to a white guy.

People who don’t understand why the black guy is seen sleeping on the couch being lazy (really?!)

People who don’t understand why the GUY couldn’t be white and the WOMAN be black.

>sigh<

People irritate me.

The complainers are literally a boil on the butt of society. THE lowest common denominator and therefore should go ahead and find the nearest island and sail to it.

I’m not sure why so many people are so uncomfortable with folks of different racial backgrounds being together. Is it really that serious?

Until then, I’m going to rewind and watch the cutie little lady make sure that her dad is heart healthy – and make sure to relish those extra Cheerios that I find in my shirt pockets.