If you’ve been dreaming about making a game, as a hobby or new career, the ‘GameMaker’ Humble Bundle is packed full of development riches at a near-unbelievable price. Read More
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‘GameMaker’ Humble Bundle Is a Massively Good Deal
Category Archives: Software
‘Hey Monster!’ Uses Your Child’s Creativity to Teach Early Literacy
TechSpaghetti’s latest app, ‘Hey Monster!,’ harnesses your child’s imagination in order to teach them basic English sight words. Read More
3 Ways the Internet of Things Is Changing Global Shipping (Sponsored)
American International Group, the global insurance provider with a passion for the Internet of Things (IoT), continues its work studying the impact of the IoT on companies across all industries. Here are three ways the IoT is changing the world’s shipping industry. Read More
Vellum: Making Ebook Creation Intuitive
Vellum.pub is a fast, simple way to create an ebook. But only if you own a Mac. Read More
Streamline Your Game Nights With ‘Playbook for Pathfinder’
‘Playbook for the Pathfinder Role Playing Game’ by Trapdoor Technologies is an iPad app that “integrates all of the components of running the popular RPG into a single application.” Read More
GeekDad Draws: T-Shirt Art With ‘Krita’
A while ago, I received a graphic tablet as present and immediately started playing around with it. As a big fan of Open Source software, I turned to ‘GIMP’ rather than ‘Photoshop.’ When looking around on the internet for tips and tricks about working with the graphic tablet, I soon stumbled over ‘Krita,’ another Open Source project, which has gained momentum lately. Read More
Roll20 Virtual Tabletop Licensed to Provide ‘D&D’ Content
Roll20 has signed a licensing deal with Wizards of the Coast to provide ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ content for the platform. Read More
‘Pokémon GO’ the Future of Augmented Reality?
Is ‘Pokémon GO’ an augmented reality failure? Or could it be opening the door for a whole new understanding of AR? Read More
Let’s Start Coding: The Next Step in Maker Education
Keep your older kids busy this summer by getting hands-on with making and coding an array of projects with kits from Let’s Start Coding. Read More
Kickstarter Alert: ‘Marvelous Machines’ Augmented Reality Children’s Book Comes to Life (Sponsored)
Check out this great Kickstarter project bringing the wonder of augmented reality to children’s books. Read More
Logarithm Sleuth ‘The CS Detective’ Excerpt
Our friends at No Starch Press are doing something a little different with their latest offering–‘The CS Detective.’ The first half of this novel by Jeremy Kubica will be serialized as free downloadables. Read More
Take ‘Monsters Everywhere!’ on Your Android or iOS Device
‘Monsters Everywhere!’ is more than a hotel-building simulator. It’s a detective hunt and social media travelogue now available for Android and iOS devices. Read More
‘The Adventures of Pan’ Brings Its Epic Conclusion to iPad and iPhone
There are multiple hours of enjoyment to be had with this interactive story, but some of that enjoyment is undermined at times by lack of clarity in how the young user is expected to interact with the elements in particular scenes. Read More
Can Viv Live Up to the Hype?
Soon we will meet Viv, an AI personal assistant that can write its own code, taking on new tasks based on interaction with the things connected to it. Read More
Rukkus Gets You the Best Seat Virtually Every Time
The updated Rukkus iOS app features virtual reality seat views to allow users to fully experience their seat location first-hand before final purchases are made. Read More
Is Twitter Dying?
Lately, we have been toying with the idea of doing away with Twitter for business purposes. Not that we tweet hardcore sales info; typically we tweet about community involvement, tips, and news. However, the stats on our tweets have gone to numbers in the tens. Read More
Safeguard Your Communications With SafeSend
Have you ever accidentally sent an email to the wrong person? Be honest. We’ve all done it. I’ve definitely done it, more than once. Sometimes it can be harmless, generating nothing more than a benign miscommunication. But sometimes… Read More
Gamify My Game-Based Learning!
Gamified learning and game-based learning are terms that get thrown around all the time in education, with one often being conflated with the other. Here’s a short primer on the subject. Read More
‘Story Lab’ App Teaches Early Literacy Skills Through Multimedia Creation
The latest offering from TechSpaghetti uses music and games to teach early reading skills to young users. Read More
Send Your Kids to ‘Minecraft’ Summer Camp at Home!
The Connected Camps Summer ‘Minecraft’ Camp is perfect for kids who want to get more out of their ‘Minecraft’ experience. And we have a special GeekDad offer to make it even better! Read More
'Computer Coding' — Programming for Young Coders Part II
A few weeks back I wrote about a new book from DK Publishing that introduces programming concepts and the Scratch programming language. I reached out to DK to see if they had any other books related to programming, and they just sent me a copy of ‘Computer Coding: An Introduction to Computer Programming.’ Read More
'Coding in Scratch: Games Workbook' — Programming for Young Coders
Since teaching some basic programming camps over the last two summers, I’ve had requests from parents of younger children for a similar type of camp, but it won’t be happening in 2016. That said, in order to even consider the request, I’ve been examining various apps and books to see just how I might go about introducing programming concepts to a younger audience. I’ve been looking for something to recommend to parents as a simple way to gauge the interest of a child in programming without being overly complicated or lengthy. The solution I found came from DK Publishing. Read More
A Terraria Christmas Story: Hardmode Items from the North Pole
My 7-year-old son is really into an open-ended 2D sandbox game on his iPhone called Terraria. In fact, he is so into it that this Christmas season on the top of his list to Santa was “the best items in the game”. I honestly expressed to him my doubt that Santa could deliver, since most presents are made in the elves’ workshop, and that Terraria on the iPhone has no “creative mode” to add items at will. “No, daddy,” was the reply, “Santa can hack!” Oh yes, this was going to be interesting. Read More
Kano Computing – Where Was This When I Was a Kid?
We are truly living in exciting times for people who love to learn about and play with technology. Kano’s latest products are bringing build-your-own computing (what used to only be feasible for the most tech-hardy adults) and putting it into the very capable and curious hands of children. Read More
Thinking Like a Programmer: Abstraction
Prepare your processors as we attempt to solve a classic GeekDad Puzzle of the Week and discover brute force dictionary attacks aren’t just for passwords crackers. Read More
Get Kids Programming With ‘Minecraft’ Hour of Code
‘Minecraft’ Hour of Code takes Code.org’s popular coding challenge and makes it even more enticing for kids. Read More
Teach Your Kids to Code Apps With Pocket Code
You probably know about Scratch, the graphical programming environment developed at MIT that allows kids to code interactive stories, games, and animations. Researchers at the Graz University of Technology in Austria have been working hard at creating Pocket Code, a Scratch-like environment for the Android platform. Read More
Kickstarter Alert: Learn to Program With an Adorable Little Robot Called Wink
Teach your kids–or yourself–to program with these cute little robots. Read More
Power Up Dash & Dot With ‘Wonder’
Wonder Workshop has released a new app, ‘Wonder,’ that introduces a different sort of coding and makes programming Dash and Dot even more kid-friendly. Read More
Design and 3D Print a Yo-Yo With Kids
Rapid design and 3D printing custom yo-yo with kids was a fun way to spend the afternoon. The kids learned basic basic 3D design skills, prototyping workflow, and building mechanical assemblies. In the end, they had a working yo-yo of their own making. Read More
